Hooker on the corner, waiting on a train
Drunk lyin’ on the sidewalk, sleepin’ in the rain
That’s the picture Randy Newman painted in his 1977 song “Baltimore,” and it hasn’t gotten much better for Charm City since then – at least, not as far as its portrayal in the popular culture is concerned. Nowadays the city is best known as the setting of The Wire, this week’s season premiere of which was greeted with the customary round of “greatest TV show ever” reviews, as well as the usual grumbling from residents that the program tends not to portray their home as a nice place to visit, live or even think about.
To add insult to injury, the wasteland that is the January movie release schedule today serves up the execrable First Sunday, a Tyler Perry knockoff starring Ice Cube and Tracy Morgan as a couple of B-more bad boys who decide to rob a church stocked with dismaying stereotypes.
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