Podcast: The Art of the Wire with Prop Joe, Marlo, Poot, and George Pelecanos

Published Oct 17 2011, 07:36 AM by Carly Carioli

There he was: DONNIE ANDREWS, whom most Wire-heads know as "the real Omar." (Even bigger Wire-heads will tell you that Omar is a composite, but Andrews is the biggest contributor to the aggregate.) He was explaining the irony of how, before his prison stint and conversion into a community activist, white women would clutch their handbags when he walked by. This, he exclaimed, was ludicrous. Donnie Andrews wasn't going to take their purse. "I might stick a gun in your face," he smiled, to nervous laughter. But purse snatching? Come on.

That's a difficult joke for the REV. EUGENE RIVERS to laugh at -- but Rivers, a founder of the Ten Point Coalition who has worked for several decades to end inner city gang violence, was the one who introduced this session by saying, "We're gonna get it poppin'."

It's poppin', yall. And now -- for those of you who couldn't be at the Back Bay Events Center on Friday night for the kickoff event of the third annual BOSTON BOOK FESTIVAL -- we bring you the complete session of THE ART OF THE WIRE: A DISCUSSION WITH CAST AND CREATORS. Check it out below as ROBERT CHEW enacts what PROPOSITION JOE would think of Barack Obama, and JAMIE HECTOR explains the back-story he created for MARLO STANFIELD, and writer GEORGE PELECANOS admits they could've done a better job portraying women characters, and FRAN BOYD -- the inspiration for David Simon's The Corner -- explains love and redemption, and POOT . . . well, TRAY CHANEY will tell you that Poot is just Poot.