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I'm still humbled. I can't believe I'm here today, I'm still pinching myself. I can't believe that an empty-headed, scar-faced, uneducated man from the projects of East Flatbush, Brooklyn, could do something that would warrant the time of such beautiful people, like the room full of people like I see here today, and I'm really humbled by that.
I just want to say thank you so much for caring about what I do or being interested in anything that I have to say - I'm really humbled by that.
Um... Tonight it is my guess that we're here to talk about The Wire and the social injustice and, you know,
maybe some people want to talk about what it was like to film the TV show and things of that nature.
But what I would like to share with you tonight is my own, personal Wire.
I took a long, hard and a very dangerous road to get where I'm at today,
and [it's] important, because The Wire is not a TV show for me - I was living it, I lived it before and
I lived it while I was filming, and I want to shed you a light on that this evening.
I grew up in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, I'm the last of ten children - the six boys and four girls.
Papa was a rolling stone... there were four mothers amongst all of us,
and I grew up in a pretty much a single family home in the projects of Brooklyn and...
you know, although you may see the characters I play, they look real and you think,
you know, everybody thinks I'm a thug or I'm this... this hard rock...
... I was the most softest kid growing up. I got picked on a lot, I got bullied a lot.
If I wasn't being called Blackie, I was Bucktooth, I was...
they would call me soft, and I had no game when it came to the ladies.
Um... I wanted... I had a huge problem growing up. I had two huge problems:
I had a really, really, really low self esteem and I had a really, really, really big need to be accepted.
And as a black male growing up in the hood that's a recipe for disaster.
I did anything to fit in.
My first addiction was fantasy.
Couldn't stand me, couldn't stand Mike...
you know, which I look back... I look back at where I am today, you know, it's kinda ironic now
that I get paid to pretend to play other people because that was my escape growing up.
One of the first things I had an issue with, my mother was Caribbean, she's from the Bahamas, and my father's American from South Carolina.
In East Flatbush, Brooklyn, there was a heavy Caribbean West Indian migration,
you know, community, and it was kind of mixed in with the American community
and I was like a bi-racial kid, you know.
On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I was Caribbean,
on Tuesdays and Thursdays I was American, and my wardrobe reflected that.
You know, there were days when I would get the big tam and I would stuff it with plastic
to give you the appearance that I had dreads in it.
You know, I tried to fit in any way I can, anything but take the time to find out who Mike was. I couldn't play ball, I wasn't good at sports. I wasn't the tough guy... You know, most of my friends growing up were girls,
I did things, I hung out with the girls. I was in a house with the Easy-Bake Oven and I tried to jump Dutch, jump rope, Double Dutch and hopscotch, and I got really, really killed for that.
It just added to the pain. I said, 'Mike, you gotta find some way to fit in'. Since I wasn't a tough guy, I said well, I'm gonna be the cool kid, I'm gonna be party guy!
And, you know, I learned how to do drugs very early. By the age of thirteen I knew what it was to go and take your money and stick it... you know, you knock on the door of the projects and then they would take the lock out and there'd be a hole, and you stick your money through it and they'd always give you a miniature manilla envelope folded over with a piece of tape on it.
We called those 'trade bags' back in the day. And then I would take my allowance money and I would save up until I can have enough to buy on the weekends - the drink of the day was Apple Malt Duck.
So, by thirteen this was who I was - just the wrong rolling all day long. And that escalated to more severe,
more harder drugs and I got to the point where I had to get my life together. I said, 'You know, Mike, your mom - she's struggling, she worked hard...' No offence to anybody, but my moms, she worked hard.
She didn't believe in getting on the system, the welfare or anything. My moms worked hard.
I didn't even know we were poor until I became a dancer and started going out in venture with other kids, younger than me, and they'd be talking, like, 'Whatcha gonna do for the weekend?'
'Oh, I'm gonna get my father's car, we're gonna drive up to the [inaudible]' What? We got one of those that has a father? He lets you move a car?!' You know, it's like - wait, this kid's got a different life from me, and all.
I used to just play it off, I kind of always kept my distance with my work colleagues, 'cause I didn't want them to know the poorness that I came from. But anyway, before that I decided to get my head together and try to make my moms proud.
I went and got help. I was, like, nineteen, you know... twenty...somewhere up in there. It was like... I was completely strung out - ***, crack, all of that.
We didn't have crackheads running around looking smoked out back in my day, you know, people... it was glorified.
I grew up in the era you freebased. 'Crack is whack, we freebase!' People dressed, you know... and it was kind of out in the open.
We as kids aspired to be like that. And that was an instant love affair, it was an instant disaster. I was completely out of control, and by nineteen I was one of those kids that they would've talked about on the news as this new epidemic.
So, I went away, I got my head together... Or so I thought. I came home and I got a good job at Pfizer Pharmaceutical... I was really good at getting good jobs. I had a knack for that.
You know, even when I tried to... when I wanted to apply myself to school my whole thing was - I can just read the prefix and the last couple of... last chapter of a book and wing the paper and get an 'A'.
My brother used to be jealous of me, 'cause he would study so hard. And I was, like, [unaudible] I could do it, but school was never my thing.
I dropped out after the eighth grade due to a lot of personal issues. You know, even outside of the addiction there was a lot of things... things that happened to me that I didn't deal with well, so school was the last thing on my mind.
And so I technically dropped out of school after the eighth grade and by the time I was nineteen years old I went to [unaudible], it was a technical vocational school.
And, well, they... it was, like, a shop school, so I was... at nineteen years old I had a tenth grade shop level and I was at a ninth grade academic level - needless to say I was expelled and it was the only option for me indeed.
So, after that, after the programs of getting myself together, I said, 'I'm gonna get a good job', I got a good job at Pfizer, I went to school at Borough of Manhattan Community College, or, as we called it in New York, 'The Thirteenth Grade', and... things were looking really good.
Then I saw this music video: Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation. And boom! - a light bulb goes off in my head. Now I know what I wanna do in life, I'm gonna become a dancer!
I'm gonna go find Janet Jackson and I'm gonna get behind her. That's it.
And I quit school, I quit my job, I dressed in black all day long - Dr. Martin boots and I had the big hoop earrings...
And I would sit in the house and watch all the music videos, and I taught myself how to catch choreography and how to dance, and all that stuff.
In about a year I ended up homeless. You know, I couldn't pay my rent when I had my own place, I didn't want to go back home to my mother...
And not to say I didn't have any place to go - 'cause my mother hates when I say I was homeless - I just didn't want to hear her mouth.
So I decided to take to the street and I just would find my way the best way that I can.
So, I rocked and rolled for about two years and then finally, slowly but surely, the jobs started coming in.
I started working, I started getting plane tickets, people were asking me to go on tour with them, and that lasted for, like, seven years, you know.
But, although things were going good, there was one thing I wasn't doing - I wasn't getting to know Mike, I was dealing with those demons that I had from a child, and they snuck up on me.
You know, because my job is how I define myself, 'Oh, I'm a dancer, I'm fine! I'm working! I thought I couldn't do it and I'm doing it!' You know what I mean?
So, that was who I was and I never... I still wasn't... It was still fantasy. That wasn't... that doesn't define who I am.
So, needless to say, the demons came back at the door and I fell prey. And I started drinking and smoking weed, alcohol and all sorts of other things.
And it caught up to me, it caught up to me real bad. But, you know, even within that era when it started catching up to me again, another thing started happening.
When I was off in LA, about to go onstage, and I get a phone call from my so-called "manager" at the time. She's, like, 'Where are you?' I was, like, 'Cali'.
She goes, 'Well, get your butt back to New York on Monday - Martin Scorsese wants to meet you'. And I'm, like, 'What??'
So I caught the red-eye there Friday - boom! - and I go there and he read me for a film that he was doing with Nicolas Cage called 'Bringing Out The Dead'.
So, you know, they were like... So, what happened, at my level, they told me, there were three roles I could've read for, and they were all three different personalities, or three emotions, excuse me.
One was not caring, another was, I think, like, laughing, being sarcastic, and the other one was crying... dying, frightened and crying for his life.
So, the one who was... the character who was dying was the meatiest one, so I... everybody wanted that role.
I went into the room, I did all three parts and I hit all three emotions in the space of five minutes.
And, you know, Martin looks at me and goes, 'You're a damn good actor!' He looks at casting director, 'Give him the part everybody wants, give it to him!'
And I was, like, 'This is the process? This is what I'm going for - Scorsese thinks you're a damn good actor?' I could work with this. So, needless to say, I hung my dancing shoes up.
Now, I was one of those cocky New Yorkers, you know... 'I'm not going to LA. There was this policy everybody'd be talking about, I ain't gonna be falling for it. I'm just gonna chill right here, I want some Sinatra stuff:
If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.' And at the time there was a lot of work in New York City for up and coming actors.
You had NYPD Blue, you had Law And Order, you had... uh... uh... What was that, with a black cop and a Puerto Rican cop? ... New York Undercover, and all that stuff.
A lot of movies... Bringing Out The Dead was filmed, Sopranos was filmed in New York... So I'm, like, 'Let me get my feet wet here.
I'll build my resume, and when I go to LA, they'll send for me.' LA will send for me, you know.
So, lo and behold - that started to happen. I started getting gigs, things started to pop. I had a role on Sopranos, I got a role on... um... on Law And Order - these are all, like, guest starring roles, prominent roles.
I had Scorsese, you know, he told me to call him "Marty" before I got hip with him. So, I packed my bags, I sat by the door, like, 'LA gonna be calling about any minute now.'
This was '99. And all of a sudden the phone stopped ringing. There was nothing coming in. And I'm in the projects...
At this time my mother she retired, she opened up a daycare in our building and we've got, well, as you have it, it was doing very well, so she was very successful at it.
So, going into 2000, that Y2K thing, she said, well, she made enough money, well, she wanted to fly her family to her hometown, Nassau, to celebrate Christmas and New Year.
So we did it. So, when the whole ball dropping thing's over, me and her we're sitting down toasting, chilling, and she's, like, 'Mike, you might as well come work for me in the Daycare 2000.'
'Yeah, ma, that does wonders to my self esteem...' You know what? I said, 'What the heck, I'll do it'. And for the better part of two years I left the business.
You know, at this point I was so bitter. I was scared, I was angry and I was very bitter. And every audition I would go in with the...
'Oh god, if I look at this crack up her shoe, the world gonna be over. My life depends on this!'
I was, like, I had to wait to go into this, you wanna go into this easy, Mike, you're pressing this too hard, you need to step back, or, as we say in Brooklyn, to fall back, right?
So, I did that. I said, you know, I got my mom, she's got that business, daycare business - things could've been a lot worse. I became her administrative assistant and I worked for all 2000 and most of 2001.
Now, don't get it twisted - I was drinking and smoking like a you-know-what, you know what I'm saying? You know, all kinds of reckless behavior.
And by November I was sitting in my apartment, and I'm with a bunch of dudes, and we're passing blunts and drinking liquor, and something happened, I had this out-of-body experience.
I looked at the TV and I was on it! The repeat of Sopranos comes on. And I'm, like, '...Really?! There's something wrong with this picture. Does anybody see something wrong with this picture?'
And I talked to my mom. I said, 'You know, ma, I think I need to give this acting thing one more shot.
If it don't work, you got me, I'ma rot with you all day at this daycare, changing Pampers for life.'
Now, you gotta remember that this is November 2001, some things had happened by this time, something particularly that we refer to as 9/11.
I don't know about you all, but I didn't deal with that too well. In fact that was a very jagged pill for me.
I sat... I stood on the roof of my project building and I watched those buildings go down with my naked eye.
Depending on which way the wind would shift, you could smell burning flesh in the air, from Manhattan to Brooklyn. I forget how old I was, definitely in my thirties...
I was just lost. I was angry, I was scared... I was depressed. I didn't know what my next move was gonna be. And I was scared... what was happening to the world, all these...
I put all that weight on me. And I became clinically depressed, where I would drive around Ground Zero in my Blazer, my Chevy Blazer, and I had the windows wound down, I was freezing,
and I would smoke lots and lots of weed and I was taking Paxil like they were Skittles.
All I wanted to do was listen to Tupac, I just played Tupac and I was just, like, you know, driving around the streets smoking weed, popping Paxil and listening to Pac.
I said, 'Mom, I gotta do something...' I said, 'Lend me some money.' And she lent me 10 000 dollars and I said, 'You know what? I'm gonna go forward with this' and I said, 'I gotta re-introduce myself to the industry, 'cause I've been gone for two years, no one knows who I am or where I'm at.'
So I gotta re-invent my package, you know, new headshots, new reel... And I bought a computer and I learned how to do my resume, do all that stuff.
I sent it out for Christmas 2001, and I was, like, it's Christmas, I'ma send them out and, I say, by January, second week of January, I should get some phone calls and what have you.
And nothing happened. February - no phone calls. I spent all this money, my rent was due, I couldn't ask my mother for another dollar, I was tired of working at the daycare at this point - although I'm proud of myself, of what I accomplished in there - but I was tired of it.
And I slipped deeper into depression, to the point where I wondered whether I wanted to be here anymore.
And then, one afternoon... one evening in March I got a fax on my machine. I'm coming downstairs and reading this fax.
'We're looking for an African-American male... drug gang... gun-toting... openly gay... He robs drug dealers, non-feminine...'
And I was, like, 'I think I can work with this...'
So, I went in, in all that darkness, and I put myself on tape for one character one time,
they sent it to David Simon - next thing I know, I was being told where to report in Baltimore.
So, I tell you that, because we so often get so caught up in this character of Omar - how gangster he is, how real he is, a man with a code - and all these things.
But I wonder how many people actually really stop to put themselves in my shoes and think about how dark my state of mind must have been to portray a character of that caliber and make him so believable.
I was in a very very dark place. And that's what I took... that's what's in Omar. Omar is my alter ego in a lot of ways.
I put in a lot of pain, a lot of hurt, a lot of anger...
a lot of my frustration is in Omar,
where I took him to the point where he became my second skin, because you know I like fantasy
So, you know, people walking in the street would call me, 'Omar!' and I was, like, 'Yo-o! Wat up, dawg!'
I loved that, because Omar was everything I could not be in my real life: fearless, gangster, thug, down
That's right. And he's soft in another way, but you still ain't gonna be talking soft to his face. [inaudible] So he was my Superman suit, you know.
But then I come down to Baltimore, so now the other side [?] happens, you know. I never... I think when I booked The Wire they would pay me five grand an episode, so that is the most money I ever made in my life.
And then I came to Baltimore, I saw the city, I felt all the love... I was, like, 'I love this city! It's just crazy out here!' No, I really love Baltimore.
'Cause, see, your hood is different from my hood. [smth about graffiti]... Anyway, I remember driving down Martin Luther King Boulevard where the projects used to be,
and they tore them down built those nice houses and I was, like, 'Man, it's nice over here! I'ma move over here. I will come and get a... I gotta move over here.'
And then it's like, 'Man, shut up, stupid! They're projects, the hood. What are you talking about - they'll eat you over there...' 'That's the hood?!' I mean, that's how much I loved Baltimore.
I came to this city and all I saw was beauty, there was so much beauty in the city.
So, the first season we did that and then in the second season they made me a series regular and then they gave me a 5% bump.
So I did the math. On season one I was in ten out of twelve episodes, so season two with a 5% bump I was, like, 'That times this much episodes... I'm in the money!'
So I packed up all my stuff in my project apartment, I moved down to Baltimore and I got my first apartment on... it's called the Bolton Hill area...
on Park and North Avenue, where the owner had the first floor and the basement. Man, you couldn't tell me nothing. I had [???], two and a half bathrooms,
one was in my bedroom, and backyard, [???] downstairs. I was, like, 'Man, please. I'm... White people for neighbours... You can't tell me nothing!'
So I moved out here, and something happened. See, we got introduced to the might of David Simon in season two. Up until season two we thought it was a black show, it was about blacks...
It was like, 'Yay, we got us a hit! It's all about us!'
He came back season two with the docks story and he hired all the white actors - man, I didn't deal with it too well.
(???)And what happened was I had all this time on my hands, 'cause I wasn't working the way I did season one, so I'm sitting out in Baltimore with idle time and money...
What do you think I did? I ran the streets. I ran the streets backwards and forwards, up and down. I ran the streets and I spent all kinds of money and I was angry at David Simon.
I called him a bigot because he took the show from us and gave it to the white people.
But I was stupid, I was just that ignorant. But now, looking back, I realize that it wasn't a black story, it wasn't a Baltimore story - it was an American story.
It's a social issue that goes on in all our cities, throughout the... in every state. There are parts there... there's a ghetto in every city and a *** in every ghetto.
And '***' don't mean just 'cause I'm being black... Talk about poverty and people who hurt.
I couldn't see what season two was, 'cause I was too busy hurting my damn self. What happened was I had all this idle time and oh, boy, I gotta go play with this dude (???) Michael again.
'Michael, you again? Damn, man, I want Omar back!' What's Mike? Who wants to be Mike? Mike's corny, he's boring, soft... he's ugly. Nobody's scared of old Mike. Why love Mike? I sure didn't.
In the (???) season two, after I came off my parade throughout the streets of Baltimore, I was faced with reality. That Wire money came down to the wire.
And I had to take all my stuff out of my beautiful Baltimore apartment, put it in the storage, and thank God I never got rid of my apartment in the projects back in Brooklyn,
'cause at the end of season two, I tell you, I was sleeping on a matrass on the floor in the projects - broke, lonely, scared.
My family comes in. My mom, you know, I'm the baby, so she's, like, 'You gotta go there, I'm telling you... Listen, here's what you gotta do...' And everybody (???) in my ear.
And something just said, 'Pack it up'. [?] I always had this ticket I had for the frequent flyer mileage, and I always said, 'If ever I have to go to Cali I'ma use this one way ticket and will see what is up.'
Every time I'd be, like, 'Mike, maybe you'd better book this ticket', I would get a job from my 'second daddy', *** Wolf of Law & Order.
We called him our 'second daddy' in New York, 'cause he paid many a rent, many phone bills - when you didn't know where your next dime was coming from, you'd always receive a call from Law & Order. You know what I mean? He took care of a lot of New York City actors, or East Coast actors.
So, I never used this one ticket until this time. It was in 2004, I had lost everything. I was depleted financially and emotionally, mentally. And I took this one way ticket and I went to California.
I sat in LAX for seven hours. I called a friend of mine, I told him I needed help. I'm broke, I'm out here with nowhere to go. Seven hours later he sent his brother to me.
He puts 500 dollars cash in my hand, he gave me the key to a Toyota Corolla (it was a rental), and he gave me another key to Econo Lodge on Vermont and 3rd... Anybody knows LA? I was in da hood! But I was so grateful.
(???)
I was so happy. It was a Tuesday night. He said, 'Mike, you gotta go anywhere?' I said, 'I got one last day. Take me to this address...' I had 20 minutes to be there and we [???] there.
That was a callback for Lackawanna Blues. So, by Friday... it was Tuesday I checked into the Econo Lodge - by Friday I was at the Palazzo across the street from The Grove. Anybody watched [???]? I was across the street from The Grove - talk about rags to riches.
That pretty much was my life. On a good note, from that point on, I left... when I got evicted out of my project apartment, I never stopped working. I was blessed to keep working on a hiatus.
The downside was the work kept me... the work I was doing professionally kept me from working on myself.
I was just rocking and rolling, I was going around this country and around the world, and I was secretly hurting myself, constantly hurting myself.
I'll tell you - if you look at season three, when I come into season three, I'm buffed. By the time weak Omar kills Stringer Bell, I was big as your finger.
Not only that but, by the grace of God, I don't know how I didn't end up on TMZ or in Entertainment News, how I didn't get arrested or, more importantly, how I didn't lose my life on these streets.
And that's not just Baltimore, I'm talking about the streets, period. I know there's somebody like an angel looking over me. So, I was rocking and rolling, living out of my bag, living out of my suitcase. I went to Africa and when I came back, I said, 'Enough is enough.
Mike, you gotta grow up. You gotta get your head together.' And I went, I got some help, and my stuff I left at the storage after season two, I just got it out in September of '09.
I just got grounded again, I just landed, and I always say these are the best 19 months I've spent in my life, clean and sober. The best quality life I ever had ... [inaudible]
You know, I'm jumping over a lot of (???) - there was, like, this... there were some DUIs. I got two DUIs, I was in Pennsylvania... I caught two DUIs in the state of Pennsylvania in less than six months.
Not cool! I was facing jail time - Lord knows, I'm not built for jail, right? I got all this community service. I had 20 to 50 hours of community service. So I was, like, 'I ain't the one to be washing toilets and things... What can I do?
I'ma go and speak to kids, young kids at elementary schools and high schools, and I'ma tell them about myself, I'ma tell them what an idiot I am,
and how many times I almost killed myself or got myself killed doing dumbness in the streets. I'ma tell them about myself and, hopefully, they won't make the same mistakes that I did.'
And something started to happen. I had good feelings about that, I started enjoying that, it started making me feel good. And then something else started happening.
These kids started listening to me! They were interested in what I had to say, not because they saw some entertainer, because they saw something in me that they identified with,
because no bells, no whistles, no sugarcoating - this is who I am, let's get the celebrity thing out the window.
Because I had to come to terms with [???] Omar. I had to grieve and bury that character and wash it off of my spirit. I got lost... Y'all think you weren't into it [?] when Omar got killed? I was... I was really messed up.
Because my Superman suit didn't... I couldn't... It was like... You know, ah... man, that was one of the hardest things I had to deal with when that character died.
And not because, well, not just because the job was over, because he was my alter ego. That was my brother, Omar was my best friend. When I stepped into Omar [???] You know, sometimes I did it subconsciously, especially when I was drinking. Omar came all out of me.
I was gonna miss him, and I mourned him, and I had to put it away. I still love him and I can talk about that character, but I'll tell y'all - when I buried Omar, I buried a lot of darkness with him.
And I hope that stays there, because I don't ever ever ever wanna feel the way I did when I was filming that show. I suffered through it by the hands of myself. You know, because...
When I referenced Janet Jackson's The Rhythm Nation video, I never told you why I loved that video so much - aside from the fact she was as fine as frog's hair, apart from that...
If you look at the video, it depicts a dark-skinned young boy lost, trapped, running around, trying to find his way out of a damp, abandoned, dark warehouse.
That's what my life felt like. And I was, like, 'Mike, you gotta find the light. You gotta get out of this darkness and you gotta find the light.' It started happening when I started doing that service.
It's all about service. That's why I'm here today. I tell my story so y'all could know what my Wire was about. Because that show is more than a show to me. You know, it was a way of life for a long time.
And I've seen a lot of hurt and pain out there in the streets when I was running around, when I was hidden from y'all... hiding from you who I really am.
But today this is Mike. This is not Omar, this ain't Chalky - this is Mike. And you may have come here to see a celebrity, but I ain't really [???] like that,
'cause life is too precious and too short, and I've come too close to the fire too many times to stand up here and act like nothing's wrong with me. I'm a work in progress like a mother.
So, getting back with the kids and the service, I said, 'Well, how could I take this a step farther? I'm getting confused about this...'
And what happened was, doing the service I got to find out the best question that any human being can ask themselves. And that question is: 'What is my purpose?'
That is the best question that any human being can ask themselves, and pray God you find the answer, because I realized, for me... I said, 'Mike, you ain't gone to school, you never studied...'
Me and my mom, we'd be sitting there, like, 'Ma, how I get here? What's really good... really, what... how did I get to it?' She'd be, like, 'Child, go to bed, I don't know'
We'd been trying to figure it out, because by my hands I should've been dead. By statistics, what I've overcome, what I've survived, what I've escaped...
Man, you know what I mean, people are lost in the streets doing the same dumbness that I was doing. How I get here, how am I having it, much and even more...
How I ended up talking to the heart of the Johns Hopkins? Unless I pulled to be here, I pulled to be as a number, pulled to be a statistic.
So I must've been spared for a reason, and I decided that my reason I'd been spared for is to tell my story. One - to let the child come live behind me, let this generation come live behind me,
to let them know they're not alone, that I would do it too, now go and do it, you're not unique.
And two - that I could come to a room full of fine, young, brilliant minds like these and tell ya'll what's really going on out there.
Now, I'ma ask you a little question. I wanna see a show of hands. How many people in this room watched The Wire? Okay, keep your hands up, keep your hands up.
Asking part two of the question... How many of you right now have a young male or female from the inner city that you mentor?
That's the problem. Alright? But see, that's the problem. I'm not pointing fingers. I don't want you to think I'm pointing fingers, 'cause I went through my fair share of adding to the problem, turning away when I was in my darkness.
I was spending my money in the hood, I did what I had no business doing, so I'm no angel. But coming out of my darkness, my darkness led me to surface, and that's what it's about.
So, if you really really hear and you say you love The Wire like I believe you do, the question we wanna ask is: 'How do you prevent any more Wires?'
'Cause the dynamic of this show was, as much as we were all entertained, I don't wanna see no more Wires, because David Simon didn't make it as a figment of his imagination
- that came from cold-heart facts that he researched in his ten years as a reporter at The Baltimore Sun.
You know, this is going on across the country. I went around and I've met some of the most beautiful scarred people in pain when I was out there doing my [???] And I realized there's a Wire in every city.
Baltimore is not excluded to that, you don't [???] the market on hurt and pain. No, The Wire was based here, because that's where David was from and this was such an amazing city to tell an amazing story in. But we got Wires popping up all around this country.
So that brings us... I asked this question again... What's my purpose? Why was I spared all the death that I survived? Why was I given a platform like this?
I don't take this lightly, and I might [???] but none of that... I got nineteen months clean, but I just put the drugs and alcohol down, so don't think [???]
This is who I am and it took me a long time to be able to stand here and say that I'm finally beginning to be comfortable in my own skin.
So if I'm going to say, 'You know how many kids are going through this from these inner cities?' then I'm saying we all have our issues, we all have insecurities as human beings.
I'm not saying we, the people that come from my past, we can [???] the market on that, no. Everybody feels their pain, everybody's going through something,
but you guys are in a better situation, because you have the one thing that can't nobody take from you, and that's education. An opportunity. I don't even call it 'education', I call it 'opportunity'.
You know what I'm saying? Information... I call it 'information'... I call education 'information', 'cause if you have information, you broaden your choices, 'cause that's really what life is all about.
That's what I've been trying to give to these kids. I tried to expose them to whatever I can with what little I got. All I got is entertainment. That ain't really what the stuff is about.
They look at me, they see me on TV and wanna idolize me, but I tell them, 'Quit. You're real stars to get teachers, man.' And you guys, you're here with some of the best education in the world. You know what I'm saying?
You're getting some of the best education in the world. If someone was to ask me, 'What can I do?' I would say, 'Man, it starts really simple. Concrete baby steps...' A good friend of mine told me this.
Pick a local inner city school - elementary, high school - whatever. You go to the principal's office, you tell them who you are, what you're doing, where you're at in your life right now and that you would like to mentor your child, or your minor.
A couple of hours! An hour or two a day. Even if it's just something like just to bring them out here, you could bring them to the campus and teach them how to do homework,
(???)
I can get them in a room, but y'all gonna keep 'em, y'all gonna keep 'em. This is a collective effort to stop what's happening.
I decided what I could do to reach a bigger group of kids is I had to start my own organization. Professor [...] from Harvard has been on my case for the past three years to start an organization, and I finally started to do it.
I have two friends that I've met over the years here in Baltimore, one is with me today, Dominic Neill (?), and his partner, Jerel Wilson [?] and their other partner, Keion Carpenter, you may know him from the organization 'For My Kidz' of Baltimore.
Those three started an organization called 'For My Kidz'. FMK. FMK stands for 'For My Kids'. It was his partner, Jowel Wilson, that said, 'Yo, Mike...'
'Cause I used to do a lot of research for Omar. I didn't want him to sound like a dude from Brooklyn, ya know I'm sayin', I wanted him to [??], I wanted that Baltimore slang.
I had to hang with my peeps and they would take me around Baltimore and we would hang in the hood and I would absorb the swagger, the culture and the vibe, the vibration of what it is to be a black man in the city of Baltimore.
And during that process my man Jerel, he was, like, 'Yo, Mike, you see these kids, man, they ain't got nothing to do...' And I was, like, 'Damn, there's a lot of kids running the streets with nothing to do.
What's that got to do with something?' What's going on? He said, 'They need you, Mike.' And he planted that seed in my head from back then. I wasn't ready for it, but he said, 'Mike, you should start an organization and call it MKW.'
I said, 'Yeah, Michael Kenneth Williams foundation.' He was, like, 'Nah, dude, MKW stands for 'Making Kids Win'!' I was, like, 'I like that!'
So that's what my organization's name is today, MKW, makingkidswin.org. I went for it. It took a few years before I was ready to do it, but better late than never, as my mom always said.
My goal is to build community centers. You know, that's what I can do. And it will be based, the basic core is gonna be surrounded by - what I know - sports and entertainment.
But there will be a lot of other facets, like... The professor who drove me today, the teacher... The professor's name, who drove me?.. Doctor Beyonce?
Y'all know who I'm talking about. He spoke to me today about something called 'grass roots' that he'll be speaking about further to you guys.
It's a beautiful program that empowers you at a level where you're at, where you have to go to the school and you needs billions of dollars... [???] and stuff. It's the grass roots, that name is for a reason.
Concrete baby steps. And it's empowering you to help your community. Because we gotta do it. There's too much going on in the world.
So we start small, just little areas, one person at a time. It takes a village to raise a child. These are things I was raised on, these philosophies that I was raised on...
It sounded like slogans back then, but now they sound more like ways of life to me, they make sense today.
So, MKW, Making Kids Win. We're going to build community centers. The first one is going to be in Newark, New Jersey, because I've spent some time in one of its hoods.
That was one of the last hoods I stayed in before I got clean. Same thing as Baltimore, but right now I think Newark is a little bit more out of control, it's really really bad.
(sorry, 50 seconds of duplicate tape)
I don't know what they told you, but they're on fire right now in Newark. In the city of Irvington in the County of Essex one church buried 186 people all under the age of thirty, all murdered.
Now, these are the numbers that I see, this is what I see, because I'm in the hood. I don't let my job detach me from the hood, because if I do that, I lose.
That's where I get my vibration from, that's where my characters come from - my characters come from the people I know in the hood.
You know, they have a saying: 'It's not about being able to leave the hood, it's about being welcomed back.'
And I pride myself on being welcomed back. And when I come back, what am I gonna do? Service.
I don't wanna come in like the ray of hope, like I'm coming to save the day - it's not about that. It's about us doing it together. It's about empowering each other.
What I see in the community, whether it's Newark, whether it's Baltimore, whether it's Chicago... and I'm out there too with Fred Hampton, Jr. - I'm all over the place, you know.
And this is what I wanna do, I wanna build community centers. So I ask you tonight... What do you wanna do? What is your purpose?
No matter how big or small, what can you do with your assets, 'cause you are in position... you are the future, you are the minds that, like, change the world.
Like, might be a future president of the United States in this room. I don't mean it as no joke, I'm dead serious.
I don't know, we don't know that. I know it can't be me, that ship has sailed for me.
Okay, I'm happy, I'm grateful to be alive, I'm grateful to have my health, I'm grateful to be free...
What I had to do was tell you of my shortcomings and anything I could do to help, to give, to get y'all doing this stuff, 'cause you're the next generation.
I'm much older than you are. I know I look good but I'm much older than you are.
I'll be honest with you, I didn't value my education the way you guys are doing. I threw it away, because I had too many demons beating me down that I fell prey to.
And I know a lot of other kids that I know you guys care about are going through the same thing right now. So, lastly, I ask you one more time... What is your purpose? Thank you.
So, do you have any questions? Yes. You wanted to ask a question?
Question: Of all the episodes that you filmed here, which one's your favorite, and, any of that, like, really hits you hard home, reminds you of the personal experiences?
I'm sorry, can you repeat the question one more time?
Sure. When you were filming, was there anything that particularly hit you hard or reminded you of anything from your childhood or former experiences?
Wow... Yeah, there were a lot of things, that kicked up a lot of things from my childhood - most of them I'm not really comfortable talking about in public, but yeah, it was a lot of things. You know... Yeah. Sorry.
Question: I heard, of course, how you were forming yourself for Omar Little, but how were you forming yourself for Chalky White?
What I mean is, there's a lot of history there in terms of the white Christian Americans' violence against African-Americans right after World War I, [??]. How do you form yourself to be able to play Chalky White?
Answer: When I'm doing Chalky White I'm channeling a huge amount of ancestral energy.
My uncles and my father and a lot of men I grew up looking up to, they're all gone and they're all, like, in their 80s now, mid- to late 80s.
I take remnants from different family members that I remember, that I know lived in that era.
My father coming from the South, I know I have family who have died by the hands of the ***, and I channel that through the craft.
That's what we call the process of acting, it's called 'the craft' for a reason, and I'm channeling like that with Chalky. Thank you.
Question: I work at the Boston (?) Needle Exchange, with people that in real life were portrayed in The Wire and there are a lot of Omars around...
Do you think that a black male who had not actually lived it, say, like, a Hopkins student's, like, 'I'm not into this academic thing anymore,
I'm gonna be an actor, I'm gonna try out [...] my character to Omar...
Would a man who had not lived that actual life in the hood and around the drugs and around the whole corner aspect of urban life and the whole family dynamic - everything that you had to play there that's very intimate and very personal...
Would someone who had not actually lived that be able to channel Omar in the incredibly powerful way, which you did throughout the series?
Answer: Absolutely. When my friends, who know me growing up, and they look at me and laugh, because they know who I was growing up, and they know that I'm so opposite...
I'm everything opposite of Omar, outside of maybe having the experience of growing up very closely around that mentality [inaudible]
Question: You grew up watching Omars, so you may not be an Omar, but you grew up watching Omars...
Yes. I still think, with the craft of acting, if you research a character, if you research a story, if you research a time, I believe that anything's possible.
I would never say, 'Oh, because this person had never experienced that lifestyle they could not portray Omar as honestly and as convincingly as maybe I did.' I would never say that, 'cause you really just never know.
Question: You're working on Community right now, right? It's a very different sitcom, it's nothing like almost anything else on the air right now. I'm just sort of curious what's it like working on the set out there?
Answer: Working on Community is a whole lotta fun. I'd sit there and I'd be, like, 'Dan?' 'Yeah, Mike?' 'You wanna pay me for this?!' I can't believe I'm getting paid for that 'n all.
We sit there with Joel McHale and Chevy Chase, Kenneth Woo and Donny Glover and the whole cast, man, and we crack jokes...
Like Joel and Chevy, they constantly go at it, so we sit there and laugh like kids, and then they call us to set and, you know, these guys are like such well oiled machine.
For me to be invited to that cast... They got their rhythm already, they could've easily shunned me, or be like, you know, 'You don't really fit in',
but they cleared this space at the table for me, and they made the transition very easy to come in and just do what I do and give me appearance of looking funny.
'Cause it's really just them reacting to me doing something very similar... You know, professor Kane is an ex con, got his degree in prison - it's not very different from me.
But they react off of me and make me look funny, they work with me - it's a very nurturing environment. I'm having a ball over there. (inaudible)
Question: Hi! Thank you so much for coming, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm someone that does not watch TV but I received on Netflix and put in the first episode of The Wire and was just hooked.
I watched the whole season at least four times and I have to agree with Obama that Omar's definitely my favorite character and The Wire is just one of the top shows out there,
so it's just a fantastic performance, congratulations on that. If you had two minutes with Obama, what would you say to him, based on your experiences?
I had two minutes with Obama already. And I blew it! I met... At the time, I met the senator doing his primary election in Harrisburg. I was in Rhode Island shooting a movie and I caught the Amtrak over there.
So I get to the door, walking in, and the lady who was head of his campaign committee, she greeted me at the door and says, 'Michael, listen, I have a favor to ask you...
I'm, like, 'What?' She goes, 'Our volunteers in Harrisburg have been working really hard and we would love it if the one who made the most phone calls, we would like to reward them with a phone call from you. Would you do that?'
I'm, like, 'Sure! No problem.' She goes in a room of, like, three thousand people, in this forum, and announces that I have joined the campaign. [??] I'm, like, 'Whoa!'
So, after he spoke, they asked me whether I wanna go and meet him, so I said, 'Yeah. I got my family with me...' Part of my family has relocated to Harrisburg.
So I tell there will be six of us and we're walking down to the room and we're in this room and I got nervous, because I never doubted he was going to be the next president of the United States.
I was, like, 'I'm about to meet the future president of the United States!' And I got show-shocked, I got nervous, and my brother, he was with me - he's, like, six and change - so I was, like, cowering behind him..[inaudible] during my rock-n-rolling days
I just expected to go there and sit in a crowd, 'cause I wanted to hear him speak in person, I didn't think I would be thrust(ed) into anything. I wasn't feeling my best self.
And he walked in the room, I was feeling inadequate, I got nervous, I was hiding behind my brother trying to duck... So he walks in the room and my cousin is quick, she goes, 'Hello, senator!'
'Hi, how are you?' 'I understand it you said that The Wire's your favorite show?' He goes, 'Yes, that's correct.' And she goes, 'And you used to say that Omar's your favorite character?' He says, 'That's correct.'
She goes, 'Michael Williams is here...' 'WHERE OMAR AT??' The man with code?
He pushed my family aside, grabbed me and he gave me, as my mother calls it, the 'homeboy handshake'. And all I could say was, 'G-god bless you. G-god bless you. May G-god bless you.'
Stuttered like a damn fool! And I always said, if I meet him again I'll be clear and focused and we'll have a conversation this time. Next question.
Question: On a more serious note, I had an opportunity to work in East Baltimore all summer long. You know, in Baltimore, having seen... It's a city that has so many churches, and the churches seem to play such an important role.
I wonder if you can clarify that, or would you agree with that, that churches play a really big role in inner city communities?
I think the churches have the platform to play a really big role in the community. If they all do it, I don't know - I got an issue with that.
I'm no religious fanatic, but I have found a spiritual base that keeps me grounded. My church - I go to church in Jersey, Irvington - and I see how my reverend is now [???]. He's not a Sunday preacher. He's not, you know, 'Hey, God bless you! Hallelujah!
The basket's over there. See ya next Sunday.' He's not one of 'em dudes. He's a twenty four hours a day seven days a week pastor.
This man... Like, those 186 funerals, the *** burials that he did, nobody is paying for that, because other churches are scared, they're scared of the gang retaliation on their church.
They don't wanna touch it. Either that or pay for that, can't do, so sorry. He's in the community, the minute it goes out that there's been a shooting or a *** my pastor drops everything,
he goes there, he's in the hospital - like, he's in the community. And I've never ever seen that before.
So, I'm not trying to brag or, you know, everybody loves their church, their place of worship, but I know for a fact, to me... I remember the time when pastors didn't get paid for what they did.
Like, the reverends or the pastors they worked the job during the week [cut] and do it from the soul. I don't know when church became big business. I missed that trend, I must've been high or something, I wouldn't know what was going on.
I look at my pastor and he is an example to me of what it means to service the community.
And I think, if I dare to say this, there's a lot of black churches that can take notes on how we do at Christian Love Baptist Church over in Irvington.
I cannot tell you how involved he is in the community, there's nothing this man will not do if you ask him. If he hears something - he's there, effortlessly, tirelessly, constantly going.
And I know nobody passes [...] like that, they're scared of our young people. I can't blame them much, but... I'm not saying there ain't no reason to be scared, but if you are servicing the community, then service the community.
You gotta get outside the church, you can't just be in the church, you gotta go to the streets. And reach the people that need it. There's a sign over that church...
The big sign on top of my church, you wanna know what it's saying? 'Sinners are welcome'.
[??] it's my church. I know I'm in the right place. Sinners are welcome, because that's what it should be.
These kids, they need help, they don't need to hear, 'Young people, you need to find Jesus!' 'n all.
There's gotta be a different approach, because we're lacking a spiritual foundation in our community and that's needed. No matter what it is. So... Thank you. Next question.
Question: Great talk... I saw you in Trapped In The Closet and was just wondering how was working with R. Kelly?
Answer: R. Kelly... Man, let's see... He's incredible, he is truly a gracious host and he is an ambassador of Chicago. I'll give you two quick stories about him.
When I first got to know him and I was working with him, I was like, 'It's R. Kelly! I gotta be on my best behavior, I'm here to do the job...' I'ma slip off and we'd go get drunk in Chicago, running the streets.
So it's, like, two o'clock in the morning and they got this real big Rock-n-Roll McDonald's. So I'm in the car down, drunk, I put the driver on, 'Take me to the drive-through...
I don't want to be bothered... "Omar! Omar!"... I'm cooking right now... Go to the drive-through and get me a number one.'
So we got to the window where you pick your order and pay and I looked through rear window - you could see a beeline to the floor where everybody was heading, there was a crowd of people.
And it was, like... What's going on in there? And when I looked, who you think in the middle of all the people drunk his damn self, singing? Kelly!
I said, 'Hold on, pull this car over.' And we get... I know now why it is called "Rock-n-Roll" McDonald's.
He was there singing one of R. Kelly songs, dancing, eating burgers, like, 'Yeah! Happy people!'
And another time, after work... He's one of those people, crazy geniuses - he doesn't sleep... He would stay up all night playing basketball and writing the next day's scenes.
He would go, right before he would take a couple of hours... We'd drive around Chicago with his tour bus and his crew.
They don't use cars, there's one tour bus, everybody takes the tour bus. He'll take the tour bus to the set and sleep for a few hours, get up and come to shoot the next day's stuff.
And that's what he did, that was his regimen. And one day he took off from there and invited us all to Chocolate Factory, his mansion.
He catered this beautiful southern dinner, soulful dinner, and next thing I know I was passed out in a canoe in his indoor beach. This man has indoor beach!
All I remember I was passed out and the girl that played my wife, Rebecca (I forgot her... her real name was Rebecca, I forgot her stage name), she came to get me out of the canoe and she made a mistake and tipped the canoe over.
So I'm waking up to drowning. And next thing I know, they had to pull me out of the pool... It's a pool but it's still like a beach with sand and beach chairs - it's phenomenal...
The sky's painted on the wall, waterfalls... So I'm sitting on the side of the beach, my trousers are down to my ankles, and I'm trying just to get it together. And I look to the right and...
I [...] Big Man - you know, Big Man - I [...] Mr. Big on the coffee table dancing around the cake. [That big head... dancing around the table...
I think he was rooted in the moment, the heat of the table dancing] Next thing you know his head's doing a lot of this and he went face first into the cake. I said, 'Take me home! I've seen enough. Oh, man! I had a ball with Kelly, man, he's a good dude. Next question.
Question: Well, you know how you had you Barack Obama moment when all you said was, 'God bless, God bless'? That's what I feel, really, right now. It's like having an overwhelming feeling and just saying, 'God bless, God bless.'
I think your personal story was incredibly moving and, actually, as a fan of The Wire it did inspire me to volunteer for about a year in a Baltimore City School.
And one of the things I noticed and you brought up in your own story the children that I was with had experienced such terrible things in their young lives.
And, actually, I found for some kids, especially if they're not academically inclined, it would prevent them from focusing and learning, even kindergarteners.
And I thought, 'Boy, everyone's all about test scores and we're gonna make our schools better, teach them to read, tell them about life out there - the life they really don't get to see at all...'
And there was one four-year old, who saw a house that burned down, next to his, he had seen someone shot, and his dog had been run over in the summer before starting school.
So, my question is to you: Do you think, or how do you think our schools need to change to address those kinds of needs? For kids that are there every day...
I think community centers are great for getting them into sports and hobbies and entertainment, but to me it's not dealing with what's there.
And you said, even when you were so successful, stuff kept coming back. And so I think that, you know... What do you do about that? What do you think someone could've done about that?
Or what do you think the school has to have in place to help kids get beyond eighth grade, because their demons are not allowing them to focus on what's going on in the classroom?
Answer: That was powerful, very powerful question. What can we do to make our schools better? That's what politics start to take at play.
I think it's really not fair how they do our teachers, I think teachers should be revered with the highest respect.
You know, they're cutting their pay, as a cause for the... as an effect of money being low, the quality of teacher is dropping.
You see this constantly that the new thing is female teachers molesting little boys, and it was the other way round, but it's just the quality that's being low, because there's no financial stability for people who've trained to do this and it's a travesty.
As far as the trauma that young people experience in certain communities like mine, I wouldn't even know where to begin.
When I say mentoring, mentorship, it's more big brother/big sister, 'cause overtime these kids will start to open up and talk.
There's no communicational skills, they're bottled up inside. I know I didn't talk about what happened to me for a long time.
It's counseling, you know - it's, like, what are you gonna do with them? I don't even know how to begin to attack that, which is why I say well, let's just at least, when they get out of school, I can have some beautiful people like some of those Johns Hopkins students tutor them after school.
They'll come in, do a little homework, maybe... You know how happy they'll become for a couple of hours. You can counsel a few kids with engagement, you can pick out the ones who are going through certain things and kinda, like, big-sister them.
It's, like, all the while my things get around, sports and entertainment, 'cause that's really all I know, I'm gonna have people there in gear, who can speak to those issues -
counseling, kids who have *** abuse, drug abuse, physical abuse on different levels. I don't know how you can get all the help with us,
but I know their communication is to begin getting those kids to talk about what happened to them, getting them to go through the pain, feel it, get over it, get through it.
I don't have all the essence of how it has to be done, but I know as far as the school systems, our school system's in trouble. Who saw Waiting for Superman?
Wow, that broke my heart. That documentary broke my heart, because it speaks to what you're talking about. What do we do? I wish I had the answer... Over my pay grade... Thank you.
Question: Hi! I know you're not proud of all the answers in your Obama moment when he was senator, you didn't know what to say then.
But now that he's President and you're his favorite character, not just of The Wire but anything, he said, and secondly, The Wire was his favorite show thanks to you,
so, if you had his ear for a moment, which sounds like it's remotely possible, what would you ask him to do to fix some of the social problems that you're talking about and also some of the things that you've experienced?
Answer: I'm kinda set to have his ear through my Harvard connections. And what I'm working on now is to get him to shed light on my foundation
- it doesn't even have to be monetary, just support, if I need to call, if I need this or if I need that, he can point to the people, you know, 'Michael's MKW, make sure he gets what he needs.'
When I meet him again, this time we will talk, he will get an earful of my MKW, 'cause that's my purpose. Thank you. Next?
Question: Hi! In season three of The Wire one police officer suggested what was essentially a controlled legalization of drugs in a small part of the city. {Hamsterdam}
Based on your personal experience with inner cities, do you think that city governments, or state governments, or the United States as a whole should go through a program like this, or not?
Answer: I think that... The jig is up, man, you know, just... I think we should... You got these medical marijuana drug stores popping up like roaches, you might as well go ahead and take the veil off and let them be.
I don't smoke anymore, but with the state of the economy and the amount of money that's spent on weed, you know, I think... That's just my opinion, I think, you know...
What the heck, just tax and legalize it. I'm not talking about hard drugs, that strikes a personal cord with me where I would hope to not see hard drugs legalized, it would be wrong.
I don't think that it should be looked at as a criminal issue, it's a social health issue.
To legalize hard drugs like *** and *** and just let people legally kill themselves on drugs, because drug addiction is a disease...
When it gets to that point, people do it because they're needing that, because sober they ain't on top of their lives, at least that's what it was for me, and I don't condone that.
But at the same time, what David Simon wrote on The Wire, he spoke about the war on drugs... How can there be a war? Wars end...
So that posed a question, like, if you're not gonna stop the façade that you have a war on drugs, 'cause to me that's a smoking mirror, 'cause we don't grow poppy seeds in the hood, they don't make *** and *** in East Baltimore...
That's shipped over here. Where is it coming from? How does it get in our country? If you're gonna just keep calling it the war on drugs it's the revolving door, call it what you will...
Take the veil off, man, come out of the closet - you're pushing drugs! Just let us be honest about it. Me personally, I would really wish that the day could come when we as a country were serious, serious about stopping the flow of drugs coming into this country.