I'm two episodes shy of finishing the first season of HBO's the Wire. It's probably the best thing I've ever seen on TV, but it's also a show that requires some warnings; it's chock-full of vulgarity and violence (and a tiny bit of nudity, which seems like a requirement for HBO).

The Wire was created by David Simon, who was responsible for the book that started one of my favorite shows (Homicide: Life on the Streets). The Wire is similar: it also takes place in present-day Baltimore, focusing on the police and drug-runners. It's ultra-realistic, almost unsettlingly so. But that's one of its virtues--focusing on the people, their lives and their flaws also provide ample for grace and character development.

The thirteen episodes act almost as one giant 780-minute story, and I'm literally hooked. Anyone else like it (or hate it, for that matter)?

I haven't made it this far yet, but the fourth season has probably the highest rating for a TV on Metacritic (a whopping 98!)

I can't believe I haven't started a thread on this show already. (Maybe after the poor response to my Deadwood thread I figured my TV taste was too different from most A+Fers.) Jason, I agree, this show is amazing and disconcertingly realistic. It takes a while to adapt to a TV world that doesn't stereotype it's characters, lumping them into good guys and bad guys but instead locates that struggle firmly inside each character amidst an often ambiguous external conflict.

Just wait till you've caught up with the most recent seasons! While each season incorporates a slightly different focus (Season 1 focuses on the streets, Season 2 introduces the harbour and the higher levels of drug supply, Season 3 brings in police politics, and Season 4 looks at the schools and city/state politics) they all fit together, so far, to create an epic narrative in four acts. I can't wait till the fifth!

One thing I would say, though, is if you decide to give it a chance, don't give up after one or two episodes. Because the story has such a grand scale, it takes a while to set up and get moving. Commit to watching 5 or 6 episodes and you won't be disappointed.

PS - Omar is one of my favorite "villains" of all time
PPS - there are some good podcast interviews on itunes. Just search for The Wire. The one with director David Simon is especially insightful but I haven't listened to it for a while and there might be spoilers so I wouldn't listen to it until you're up to date with your viewing.

What an interesting, interesting character! I agree--out of all of the characters, he's the one that's hardest to lump into a stereotype. That said, he's immensely watchable.

Actually, all of the characters are rich. Watching them grow--especially Prez, Herc, Carver, Bubbles and D'Angelo--is just unbelievable. I've never seen a show like this.

This wasn't just bad grammar usage, by the way--I'm connected to my TV by a hook and fishing line.

I love it. HBO OnDemand has been running through the previous seasons so that you can "reup" on The Wire before the last season begins in January. Right now, they are showing season 3. They will show season 4 in December. I would love to have an active thread on The Wire while season 5 is airing. The institution that it will focus on is the press.

Hands down the best show on tv (imho of course). And with the possible exception of season 2, it's the rare show where every season gets better and better. As the metacritic ratings point out, season 4 is nothing short of brilliant television. But yes, viewer beware of course. That "tiny bit of nudity" makes way for some fairly graphic episodes a bit further down the line. (Though in an unusual turnabout, I believe season 4 was virtually sex/nudity free. And still somehow got great reviews...)

One of my actor friends from a previous film I did has been cast as a regular in Season 5 as well. As if I needed an additional reason to watch season 5.

My biggest frustration with the series has been that I don't know a single person that watches the show, so there's no one to share the experience with it. Other than that, it's a true diamond in the rough.

Now you know three others.

Well, crap. Just getting comfortable with lurking and someone has to bring this up.

This show is the best argument for television-as-art that I've seen. It just plain works on every level. Instead of continuing to heap praise on the series, I'll continue the recommendation to watch through. The fourth season structure broke from the series norm in a rather jarring way, but the characters and tone have been consistent and have developed realistically throughout. I guess now I'll shut back up and see where the conversation goes.

And Omar is...epic. I also grew fonder of Carcetti during season four.

Just finished the first season last night. The ending was...well, probably the most realistic ending for a season I've ever seen on TV. It's not that other shows don't leave things open-ended, but the way they handled it on the Wire felt more like real life than, well, real life.

The scene where Poot and Bodie kill Wallace was incredibly heartbreaking. I nearly wept.

Woo, hoo! Season 5 is here. Well, the season premier officially airs on Sunday, but starting today it is on HBO OnDemand. I'm planning to watch it later today or tomorrow.

Considering that the season will begin in the midst of the writer's strike, I hope The Wire gets the attention it deserves. It will help that one of the subjects is the media, which should guarantee that the media will pay attention.

My housemates and I got a free year of HBO, so--while I'm desperately trying to catch up--I plan on DVRing the fifth season and watch as soon as I'm done cramming in the other seasons. I'm excited!

Anyone watching yet?

Like the previous seasons, Season 5 starts slow. I think it suffers a bit from HBO shortening the season from 13 episodes down to 10. There is a lot more exposition that I remember from earlier seasons. Episode 3, which was on last night, really starts to pick things up. I watched episode 4 today on HBO OnDemand, and it's great! I'd say more with the spoiler tags, but if nobody else has watched any of season 5, then I'll wait for you to catch up.

I've been recording it on DVR, but because Comcast is so [strikethrough]terrible[/strikethrough] awesome, I can't actually watch any of the episodes. They're there, they just won't play.

I finished up the second season this past week. I was almost in tears by the final episode. I grew so attached to the characters, especially the stevedores -- I especially felt terrible for Frank; while he was up to no good, I really think he realized how neck-deep in trouble he was in the end. When Beady was tearing up as they found his body, I was almost doing the same. I was surprised at the amount of nudity, though. Ziggy, man...geez.

The whole mail-the-photos-to-Valchek gimmick was hilarious, I must say.

The good news for you, is that season 2 is generaly considered to be the weakest. It only gets better for you as you watch the rest of the series! And watching the entire series in a relatively short amount of time is a great way to do it. There have been several things from season 2 that have popped up again in the current season. Some are central to the narrative, and one that I caught in episode 4 is just a character from season 2 showing up in the background of a scene. There's no attention paid to it, but just his presence continues the stevedores storyline. One of them is now homeless, but rather than screaming "see what happens to the stevedores," he's just in the background. I bet a lot of fans wouldn't even recognize him. I only did because I rewatched the entire series over the last couple of months.

I have noticed that the amount of sex and nudity has decreased as the series continued. I don't know how much of that is Simon getting the freedom of being on HBO out of his system, and how much is moving away from the Barksdale crew and McNulty getting sober (for at least one season - I think that the only sex in season 5 has been from him falling off the wagon)

I've heard that too about the second season -- you know a series is good when the sophomore slump is still better than anything else on television.

Just finished season three.

Incredible.

I loved the first two seasons, but this was ... this was something else. The writing is pitch-perfect, and this is the first time I really felt connected to the characters. I can say I felt like McNulty when they found Stringer's body -- I took it hard, but I didn't even know the man. Every time I see George Pelecanos or Richard Price's names pop up for writing credits, I know I'm in for a treat.

The changing dynamics and power struggles with the various political groups is fascinating, as is Cutty's struggle to get off of the streets and do something with his life. I was shocked to find out the real story behind the actor who plays the Deacon -- he was a Baltimore drug kingpin that Ed Burns and David Simon tangled with in the '80s.

And the biggest surprise -- Rawls drinking in the gay bar!

I did feel horribly for Prez -- he's grown to become my favorite character, and the way the rest of the force thinks of him just makes me sad.

The season-end wrap-up was incredible, too; the look on Jimmy's face as he walked the beat (and, as he talked to Beady the night before) made me grin from ear to ear.

What a great show. Episodes from the four season should be arriving soon. Can't wait!

I finished season four last week. Definitely , and if I could give six stars I would. The introduction of the kids to the overall plot works immensely. I really appreciated the focus on Prez, since he's one of the show's most sympathetic characters. The bond that grows between Namond and Colvin was great, as was the rate at which Carver is maturing.

I started catching up with season five (my housemates and I have free HBO for a year). While I'm only four episodes in, this last season just doesn't ring as true as the other four. The scenes with Omar and Marlo 'abroad' felt unnecessary, and the direction McNulty's faked case is taking seems gimmicky (and his infidelity makes me want to shoot him -- I LIKED the happy Jimmy from season four!). I hope this doesn't turn into what Homicide became in its last few seasons: good but not as great as what happened before.

That said, it's starting to pick up. The newsroom stuff is great, and the political maneuvering between Carcetti and the police brass is compelling. And Marlo offing both Butchie and Prop Joe ... wow, that takes things in an interesting direction.

It does pick up mid way through the season, but hasn't that been true in the previous seasons, too? One of the two themes of the season, do more with less, certainly applies. Simon is trying to wrap up the series (and he gives cameos to a lot of favorite characters from previous seasons), and bring a number of different plot threads to a conclusion, all the while HBO cut him back from 13 episodes down to 10. That's having a big impact of the show, I think. There was more exposition in the first couple of episodes than I am used to from The Wire, and I can see how the compressed schedule forced the writers to tell more than show. Nevertheless, it is almost impossible to judge a season of The Wire in midstream. I have watched through episode 8, and have a feeling that the final two episodes will determine if the entire season is a success or not.

What I like about the fake serial killer plot, is that the best criticism of it comes from within the show in the words of Bunk. He seems to stand in for the skeptical audience.

I just finished the five episode, and I'm sold that this season is solid. It just took longer to click, I guess. The BS battle between Jimmy and Templeton was pretty amazing, and I think at that moment Simon had me perfectly within his grasp. I'm looking forward to this. It seriously is a 59-episode novel.

R.I.P. Omar.

I'm honestly still in shock, and I found out about it in a very spoiler-ish way in Entertainment Weekly.

We just finished season ONE last night. We can't wait to watch the other seasons to catch up.

What did you think of it, Alan? I started watching the first season again with some friends, and I'll now admit — the show took half a season to find its place. The acting was spotty early on, and there's flashback that HBO forced Simon to include....blah.

I didn't think it took that long to find its place. If anything, I thought the show got a bit rushed at the end. I'm not sure I know what you mean about the acting or flashbacks. Do you have a link?

The first season was rushed in the end, but I think intentionally — it sort of reflects what happens the clashing street rips / 'go for Avon' ideals.

Here's a link about the flashback (there's only ONE in the entire show, and Simon wasn't a fan of it). My comments about the acting were in reference to how over-the-top Omar initially is (a vigilante! with a code! who is gay! and doesn't cuss!), and how 'stiff' some of the acting comes off, especially some of the supporting cast.

The Wire's War on the Drug War
By Ed Burns, Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, David Simon

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1719872,00.html

I have to say that I agree with this editorial and their approach.

Awesome article, Thoreau. I think I'm on their side, too. I think their opinion has come across loud and clear on the show (Hamsterdam, anyone?).

Fans of the Wire: if you haven't had a chance to watch the two short documentaries ("The Wire: the Last Word" and "The Wire Odyssey"), they're up on HBO's website.

They're FILLED with spoilers, so avoid if you haven't caught up to the fifth season. But they are ever so worth it.

Before watching the final episode of the series tonight, Alan Sepinwall's column would be a great read. It details a few of the great scenes, with their sometimes years long setup, of The Wire. There are in the part of his column that I quote below.

I just watched the first season over the past two weeks. It is an exceptional program. I have read some that the creators are trying to show that all institutions are dysfunctional, something I firmly believe. Alas, most of my criticism of institutions is aimed at the Church.

I look forward to completing the series. Thanks to those who have recommended it.

And the series finale just aired.

I think it was a damn good cap on the series. Not one of the storyline wrap-ups felt fake, and I was satisfied with all of them, even though some were more 'real' than I would have wished. (I almost cried over the final shot of Dukie preparing the syringe.) And it never seemed too fake or cheery, with some tiny triumphs — Bubbles being allowed to come upstairs freely, Carver being promoted again — being most joy-covered than than some of the bigger ones.

Alright, I am on season three, and I must say... this show is ruining TV for me. It is too well written. I can't deal with other shows until time and love has passed for this series. It is like going out with a woman who is a 10 out of a 10. No matter what else I watch, even if it is really good, it isn't a 10, and I have experienced a 10.

Hmmmm. I'm not sure I would put it *quite* that way. (I sure hope McNolty isn't rubbing off on you...) But I know what you mean.

I feel the same way. As much as I love Lost, I sometimes find myself thinking things like, "That dialogue would've been better on the Wire."

I'm totally with you on that statement. Here is how far I go.

I am watching the episodes which have commentary, and I even love the commentary. First off, the episodes I have watched, the writers have done the commentary. Secondly, the commentary is sparse, but what he says is really something to chew on. Thirdly, the writer explains his process, but is not chatty the whole episode. You have no idea how much it unnerves me to watch a commentary and hear the director, producer, actor, writer, or whoever talk about how good a particular actor looks, or just sit and pat each other on the back the whole way through. It is like hearing a sermon and then listening to the preacher sit back and say, "I really made a good point there." Self-congratulation and nonsensical chatter are the worst things about commentaries.

Even the episode commentaries are ten times better than any other commentaries I have watched.

Ahem, I just thought about that, and Criterion's commentary of Ikiru is fantastic, and it is by far the standard bearer in my book of good DVD commentary, but The Wire is definitely in the mix.

Well... as I write, I finished episode three of the last season tonight. What amazes me about how the show is arranged, is how I react to things. For example, the scene where Burrell and Rawls come in with cooked stats and Carcetti knows it. Carcetti says that Rawls will likely call and tell him that he tried to talk Burrell out of cooking the stats. It never shows Rawls calling. I have no idea whether he calls or not, but the scene set me up to expect it, and when I think about it later and realize that they do not put a scene like that in there, it makes me smile.

Also, I was rolling in laughter at Jimmy corrupting the crime scenes. It was the nervous laugher of thinking, "I cannot believe what I am seeing." Bunk's expressions remind me very much of watching Capra films where a passive character reacts to the outrageous words or actions of an active character. For example, the guy who overhears George and Clarence talk about suicide and heaven in It's a Wonderful Life.

For anyone thinking about starting to watch the greatest television show in history, or wanting to rewatch it, you should know that TV critic Alan Sepinwall is doing a weekly commentary on Season 1 at his blog this summer. He is doing two versions, one for newbies and one for veterans. Here's his description:

He is up to week 3, and will post a new commentary each Friday. The discussion in the comments section is also enlightening. Even though I've watched all seasons but the last one several times, rewatching while reading his blog has helped me to see things that I had missed before. All the pieces matter.

Chip, thanks for the links. Just reading through some of the Veterans' Edition posts left me stunned — there's a lot of good insight here. I'm planning on watching the first season again soon, and will have this blog at my side.

Looks like a snub by the Emmys.
http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/2008/07/1...-wire-whats-up/

I just picked up the first five episodes of Season One on DVD at the library, and am in line for the next set of discs, assuming I can get through these episodes before they’re due back seven days hence. I’ll try to knock out most of the episodes this weekend.

I just watched the first four or so episodes, DVRing them from late night BET, but I can't keep up with it. I don't doubt it's worth every accolade it's getting, and some of the characters on the show are memorable and admirable. But being that I used to live in New York City, and am familiar with the surroundings of the inner city, I find a ton of the dialogue to be tv-writer-speak. And I don't think that Baltimore residents have that tv-writer-speak gene.

To a degree, yes. I feel like the show really changed a bit starting with the second season, in a good way. As the show goes on, it gets tightened. But considered WHO is doing the writing, in some cases (Ed Burns, Baltimore cop for decades, and David Simon, Baltimore crime reporter...not to mention the very 'with it' Richard Price), I'm sure some is close to home. Or at least more so than Law and Order.

Also, BET significantly edited the episodes, from what I understand. But mostly just for sexual / over-the-top language stuff, I think.

Thanks for the tip. I'll be on the lookout for season 2, then.

Yep. In the absence of "CleanFlix" or any equivalent, it's the version I prefer. That said, they still allow s-words at 2am, and the nudity is blurred. In fact, I think the commercials at 2am are worse than the actual show...

Nick, I can understand your hesitancy, but the show really stands apart from the other HBO/cable shows with regard to that sort of thing. There's none of that nudity-as-set-dressing that people came to expect from THE SOPRANOS, and somewhere in the third season the show's sporadic nude scenes pretty much go away altogether. As far as violence goes, there are way, way more violent acts, and more graphically depicted, in a typical episode of those forensic shows. Yes, there's quite a bit of profanity, but I honestly don't feel that any of it is soul-deadening. And I think people talk like that. Before I was able to get the DVDs from my local library, I tried to catch a few episodes on BET, too. While I'm grateful they tried to syndicate the show, it was absolutely awful in that format, so I'm not surprised you hated it. One of the aesthetic and narrative upsides to the show running on HBO as I see it is the ability to avoid the choppy act-structure breaks necessitated by commercials and the unnecessary establishing shot throat-clearing coming out of commercial breaks, so the show isn't built to be hacked up like that. And apart from Simon and Burns, the show has employed people to read the scripts to make sure the black characters aren't speaking middle-aged white guy.

Give it another shot on DVD.

The only season that suffers from the "Hey, we're on HBO!" syndrome is the first, and only when they're in Orlando's strip club, and maybe one other spot. ("Hey, look! Lesbians!")

In a weird way, the second season is the most shocking with nudity, but it fits into the plot without being set-dressing-ish. (I'm thinking of Ziggy's, um, wild impulses.)

Listen to Russ. You still may not like it, but it works.

But the interesting thing is, I actually LIKE the Sopranos in its format on A&E. Believe me, I hate the commercial breaks as much as anybody, but when a script is solid, it manages to be funny and shocking and touching and profound despite its use of the word "freakin'" and perhaps moreso when the nudity (almost always a distraction) is blurred. I checked my favorites with the favorites on imdb, and it is clear that most fans of the Sopranos and I are in sync.


I didn't mean to sound like "people didn't cuss" in the inner cities. I meant that colloquial double-meanings while teaching each other how to play chess is most definitely how people do NOT talk in real life. Sorry. I know. I went to a high school in the inner city, and I was a part of the chess club there. Never did the posse-members and the chess geeks meet.

Some things are just so fictitious, it strains credibility, even as the writers strive for resonance, or character depth.

BTW, I am not unnerved by violence or gore. I'm not even unnerved by language, provided that it works. But as a married man, I just don't want my eyes wandering... and I find that these cable-ready shows that have a fixed locale in one of these seedy "Gentlemen's clubs"--I simply have no time for that. Like I wrote above, it's almost as if the writers sensed they may be losing their audience, so they threw in a scene or two just to wake them up.

In fact, in this past issue of Rolling Stone magazine, (the comedy issue), Gary Schandling shared that the HBO execs were telling him that there was too LITTLE raunch on his Larry Sanders Show, and demanded that they step it up. It's stories like this that confirm the conservative viewer's worst nightmare--that story is clearly taking a back seat for exploitive detours. Rave reviews notwithstanding, no thanks.

I suspect that it won't be long for Entourage to be syndicated. I enjoyed season 1, but save for language, I noticed that the raunch factor seemed to grow exponentially as the second half of that season commenced. I wait with bated breath.

But if season 2 heads away from the seedy strip clubs of Baltimore, and I can catch up on the story from there, I will give it a try. It will only be a few more weeks until it begins...

Nick

That is a great scene, precisely because it sets up the conflict of the thinking man in the drug trade. D is not a normal "posse-member." But the game is not made up of just corner boys. Talented, intelligent men (mostly) get involved, rise to the top, and are required to think strategically about their "business." Part of the tragedy of the game is the way that those corner boys are seen as disposable, both by respectable society and by the Stringer's and the Barksdale's. Kind of like chess.

When I was working in urban Pittsburgh neighborhoods, there was a group of older black men who established a little ministry teaching gang-bangers to play chess. They didn't use the same kind of language that DeAngelo, Bodie, or Poot use in that scene, but when the teens were hanging out together, they certainly did.



They stop spending time in Orlando's after season 1. The locale that take's Orlando's place is quite a bit different! It definitely feels to me more like "Look, we're on HBO" than "we better throw some nudity on the screen to keep the audience's attention." The whole approach of The Wire is the slow build.


I'd be the first to say that The Wire is not for everyone. You might want to read some kind of recap of season 1 before jumping into season 2. If you are going to try again, committ to watching at least 5 or 6 episodes before making a judgment on the show. It might not take that many episodes to decide that watching the show would not be beneficial to you, but the only way to understand the story is to give it that much time.

Since we're talkin' about it, might as well embed it.

Nick, we're on the same page. The first time I saw that scene, I thought it was probably too purple, or too neat a summary of the subtext. It grew on me, though, and now I can't get enough of it. D'Angelo explains to Bodie and Wallace that every piece in chess plays a particular role. That role is preordanied by the piece's shape. This speech has to come from D'Angelo; if it was coming from any of the other hoppers, corner boys or middlemen, I'd readily agree that it's out of place. Without spoiling things, that scene and its larger implications end up being the summation of the series. Metaphorically, this small g game is the referent for the big g game that's talked about throughout. Bodie takes us back to this moment later on near the end of the series, and we realize that it was all laid out for us from the start.

Chip's right that the show demonstrates that surviving the upper echelons of the drug trade requires skill and intelligence and some people skills, much like any other job. It's apt that Stringer Bell studies macroeconomics. But the show is also relentlessly about the determinism that imprisons people whose limitations or circumstances doesn't permit them to be anything other than what they're expected to be. D'Angelo tells those guys about the chess pieces, and it's appropriate that he'd do so because he's built differently than most of the other bangers. He's empathetic, like Wallace, and he has the capacity to look critically at his situation. But he's the heir to an operation that doesn't have any room for those qualities. He's a round peg in a square hole, or a rook that wants to be a knight. And he's not the only one-- Prez, Wallace, Cutty, Dukie-- all of them struggle hard against those pre-established roles and the expectations that accompany them.

That's bigger than anything Wallace or Bodie can take away from that, though, because they're too sobered by the realization that in the game, they're the pawns. They're the soldiers, and they're expendable. And while we're talking about comparative locations, we've got to mention that in the first season of The Wire, apart from the dingy cop squad room (the stock setting for every crime drama ever filmed), the second most commonly-used location in the show is that orange counch in the Pit. Which is pretty great.

But here's what's really genius about the chess vs. checkers scene: it perfectly encapsulates the inescapable, crushing tragedy of The Wire. Bodie and Wallace want to play checkers with a chess board, and D'Angelo laughs at them. Sure, checkers is a simple game-- a kid's game-- while chess is for refined savants. The difference between the two games goes deeper, though. Checkers is a fundamentally egalitarian game. Each piece is worth the same as any other, has the same mission as any other and has the same chance to get kinged-- to become, as Bodie says, top dog. Chess is completely different. Every piece has its role, and is forced to play that role. Sure, D'Angelo allows, any pawn can become a Queen, but we know that's not a realistic outcome. Those pawns are there to die. Everybody serves the King.

Where The Wire breaks my heart is in the way in which it so effectively illustrates this clean and terrible divide: in your life you are either playing the game of checkers, or you are playing the game of chess. That is to say, some of us believe with reason that we are as valuable as any other piece, that we will be treated as such, and as a result can act as such, while others know that they are trapped in their role, and given one limited role to play, and are not expected to do anything other than die. Some know which game or the other they are playing, and some tortured souls know they are in one game and want to be in the other, but can't find the way out. And so Dukie says, "How do you get to the other side of the world?" And Cutty replies, "I wish I knew."

Chip, are you a Mt. Lebo native? I worked with a woman a few years ago whose son had the same name as you, so that's potentially pretty strange.

Jason, do you ever make it into Oakland? I know you're over in Beaver (where I've been spending a good bit of time lately), but if you're ever near Oakland on Sundays, we're running a film discussion group on Sunday nights through the next four weeks at church (First Trinity Lutheran at 535 N. Neville). Last night we did The Night of the Hunter, while in the forthcoming weeks we're doing Au Hasard Balthazar, My Night at Maud's, Ostrov and Stromboli. And we managed to avoid any conflicts with Steeler Holy Days.

Russ...

Thanks. That was a mouthful, but very eloquently stated. I may begrudgingly have to give the series a second shot.

Nick

Russ, that chess summation was so well put. Thank you. I know how important that scene is in so many ways, but I feel like you highlighted so many more nuances that slipped past me.

Sunday nights are rough for me (not necessarily because of Steelers, either — I'm one of the few western Pennsylvanians that remain apathetic to football! Shock, I know). I usually ended by church's evening service in addition to the morning. But, I'll see if I can make it up sometime. The Night of the Hunter is such a great movie, too! Would've been great to catch that.

If you're ever in Beaver Falls, swing by the Beaver Falls Coffee & Tea Co. I helped so friends start it a few years ago, and — while I no longer work there — am there almost every day to read or do work. The coffee/tea/beverages/food is out of this world.

Great post, Russ. I also love that scene.


Nope, I moved to Pittsburgh to go to CMU, and then stuck around for 5 years after graduating. The time that I mentioned in the above post was mostly spent in Garfield, but also in East Liberty and Larimer.