treme

Yes, I know I'm behind. Don't judge, life before teevee, much less blogging about teevee.

Well and truly into the Second Movement here. Character development and extension as well as build-up to the end. It's clear that the storyline of Daymo isn't going to end well by now, particularly with Toni going all the way to Texas to find the ex-NOPD officer that arrested Daymo the day before the storm.

(click "read more" below - rest of post is behind split for spoilers)

In September of 2005, there were a lot of phone-cam photos going around of NOPD units cruising the streets of Planet Hooston. Like this guy in the show, a lot of cops just up and left, with their city-owned vehicle in NOPD livery. Most of them were written off as storm damaged and no doubt simply abandoned in various places. No stretch at all for Toni to find the ticket book she needed in the glovebox of one of those vehicles in the parking lot of a police station in Lake Charles. Those guys just quit. Quit and left. Forget about the property theft, the moral issue of quitting is what's important here. Toni is trying to look past that with this particular guy because he has information she needs. For someone like Toni who is busting her (quite-attractive) ass to get the city moving again, hearing from quitters comes later.

On Toni, the ADA, and sperm: Her concerns are correct that this is a small town and what she does will get back to people. If she participates in a parade featuring SeeRay jerking off, his people won't appreciate it. But there's a nit here to pick. Toni's dealings at this point are with the DA's office. That's Eddie Jordan, who decidedly NOT a Nagin man. He was set up as USA under Clinton by Jefferson and won DA election by putting Edwin Edwards in jail. I admire her caution, though, and her desire at the end to flip them all off. FYYFF, Dr. Morris would be proud--sperm wins!

Davis: Loved the campaign forum. The character is the court jester of the show. Further insight into Davis' obviously-wealthy family is interesting, as is his Aunt Mimi, clearly the black sheep of what could be a Comus family.

Antoine: Up to now, I've characterized Antoine Batiste as a "journeyman musician," but that's not quite fair to his talents. It's becoming clearer that Antoine is just as good as Shorty, but he just doesn't get the breaks. Or is it that he's self-destructive? Kermit gets him the gig at the carnival ball. The bit with Desiree washing his tux was hella funny, but then Antoine tosses out common sense. You'd think he'd want to just shrink into the background, play the gig, and get paid, but he just has to do an improv solo on "Take The A Train." Awesome teevee, but you just wanna smack the man upside the head. Just as Toni is worried about the small-town aspects of NOLA, so should Antoine.

The Carnival ball that features Antoine as part of the orchestra is patterned after an organization like the Original Illinois Club or Young Men Illinois Club. These are the Creole equivalents to Comus/Momus/Proteus-the city's white debutante organizations. Lots of money involved here, but old-school and entrenched. The bald-headed bassist probably has been playing those gigs for years. Maybe his improv got him noticed (and possibly might get him laid), but it's not good for Antoine's musical career in the long run.

Sonny/Annie: cook her! this is so going down that road.

Annie: I was amused to see all the outrage in forums on HBO.com about Annie being real-live fiddler Amanda Shaw. Honestly, I never made the connection. Amanda Shaw was 14 or so in 2005, and has a much richer career than being a street busker. Fanbois and fangirls are silly.

Creighton: Getting much more bipolar this episode. His anger over Davis' campaign is a bit out of place with the FYYFF attitude. The 2006 elections were pretty much a fucking joke to all too many people. Nagin with his "chocolate city" comments (alluded to by Morial when talking to Davis), and all the voting accomodations contributed to the surreal aspects of the race. At the same time, Creighton is good with the sperm.

Delmond: Copping the "modern jazz" attitude about NOLA.  Yes, you make more money away from here.  Yes, black musicians get more respect in some other cities.  I hope Delmond doesn't have some huge epiphany here, it would be too happy-ending.

Albert:  Workin on that new suit.  Politician knows he needs to kiss the Big Chief's ass and does so by lining up a FEMA trailer, but that's only a small drop in the bucket as far as Lambreaux's concerned.  The politician's attitude is typical, though.  It's like buying pastors.  Problem is, a lot of Indian chiefs have more principals than a lot of the revs.

Janette:  Closing a business is never pleasant.  Another "Top Chef" homage as she packs her knives and leaves.

LaDonna: not much on her this ep, because her story is carried by Toni.  Bringing her momma to the ER was a good moment to show how dysfunctional so much of the city was at the time.  No docs, no pharmacies, it was all about the ER.

KDV: The French float with the sign, "Buy us back, Chirac" and Davis' shout-out to Ashley Morris was nice.  Aunt Mimi is funny, too.  The sperm costumes looked great.  It's hard to tell if Toni is lashing out in basic anger, throwing caution to the wind, or if she actually evaluated the situation and decided that FYYFF in the form of being one of SeeRay's sperm was OK.  Given the dismal records of both SeeRay and Eddie Jordan, it certainly wouldn't hurt anybody's careers to disrespect them.

Allison photo of the Magnolia Housing Project, 1958 (NOPL)

One of the interesting story lines of the HBO series Treme deals with the issue of housing in post-storm New Orleans. The city shut down all of its housing projects in the wake of the storm, creating an uproar as thousands of New Orleanians had no home to which to return.

In the show, Albert Lambreaux (that's pronounced "Al-bear" for those of you not from NOLA) is a carpenter and skilled craftsman whose house in the Gentilly neighborhood of the city was totally submerged. He's living in a barroom in Treme owned by a friend/acquaintance, making his way through the post-storm landscape. Lambreaux (who is played by actor Clarke Peters) is also the Big Chief of the Guardians of the Flame, one of the city's Mardi Gras Indian tribes. The Guardians of the Flame are fictional, but the writers are very accurate in their depiction of the Indians. One of Albert's primary concerns is getting his people back home. He demands action from the city leaders on re-opening the projects and eventually stages a sit-in at the Calliope projects. That incident generates a number of plot complications that make Treme good television, but it also illustrates the frustration many folks feel to this day.

CJ Peete Project, June, 2006, appoximately 5 months after Lambreaux's fictional occupation of the Calliope

The Housing Authority of New Orleans administers the projects. Like all-too-many government or quasi-governmental agencies in NOLA, it was rife with corruption, corruption that was often ignored because there was so little profit in the first place. After the storm, with so many black folks literally packed up and shipped out of state, Karl Rove, the lead strategist for the Bush administration on Gulf Coast recovery, saw this as an opportunity to move Louisiana solidly in the red column. (David Vitter's likely re-election to the US Senate this year is testament to the success of Rove's work.)

Affordable housing units are being re-built at some of the project sites. Will they be enough? Experts say no, creating problems in the service-industry and skilled labor pools. People don't want to leave the metro area, but living in the suburbs while trying to work downtown is difficult on a low income.

Just ask Treme musician Antoine Batiste.

Yes, Davis McAlary says he's going to take Janette Desautel to "Feelings in the Marigny." I made the mistake of following the #treme hashtag on Da Twittah during the episode's first run last night. I say this was a mistake because it reminded me of just how misguided some of the local NOLA blogosphere are.

Perhaps I'm being too polite when I say misguided. Bloody feckin ignorant is more like it. More than one local blogger attempted what I'm sure was believed to be snarky comments about Davis saying "in the Marigny," as if he was doing so just for the viewers at home. Perhaps these people thought the "Treme" writers were pandering to the non-local audience too much, hence their attempts at inside jokes.

As usual with many folks, the joke's on them.

New Orleanians regularly add superfluous geographic references when naming people and places. "Cooter Brown's" becomes "Cooter Brown's up in Riverbend," and "Mandina's" becomes "Mandina's on Canal Street." Is there a "Mandina's on St. Charles" that you have to distinguish one from the other? No, but people still add a neighborhood or street or intersection to the name. Sometimes this is an important geographic distinction, such as "Liuzza's on Bienville," as opposed to "Liuzza's at the Track," but most of the time, it's unnecessary speech. I suspect the practice has European roots and has continued on to this day.

This is one of those things that people who really don't understand the city like to mock, when what they're really doing is demonstrating their insular upbringing, or worse yet, the fact that they're just carpetbaggers.

(image shamelessly nicked from the Feeling's Cafe and Bar website)

George W. Bush, 28-August-2005

(post on the pilot is here)

Episode 2 of "Treme" solidified my hope and desire that the show will go beyond just scoring quick points and establish itself as a series with multiple seasons of staying power.  Character development began in earnest this week, and the all-too-human strong and weak sides of the people of "Treme" started coming out.

(click "Read More" below to continue - spoilers abound!)

The setting was established firmly in the pilot, and the cast introduced.  Episode 2 begins opening up the lives of the characters to us.  A couple of things hit home:

The Bernettes:  As much as these writers are doing so very well writing for their colleagues from "The Wire," they're really not doing so well with John Goodman's family.  He's going off on a rant about how Tulane dropped so much of their engineering curricula, keeping so much arts and social sciences.  I'm not privy to a lot of the internal workings of TU, but the announcement didn't surprise me at the time.  Math/Science/Engineering professionals are in demand everywhere; if you're not a native, bailing for cities that aren't as screwed up as NOLA was in the fall of 2005 made good career sense.  Creighton Bernette's tirade in his office didn't add up, other than as an excuse to quit the university.  His wife, Toni, is developing to your basic wonder-bread, activist, do-gooder lawyer.   The daughter's character is where I had the most quibbles, since I lived through the NOLA-BR shuffle with my then-HS-senior firstborn.  The whole description of her school situation just doesn't add up, but you had to have lived the high school situation that fall to get that.  in any case, here's to hoping the white folks get fleshed out a bit more as time goes on.

Antoine Baptiste:  is Antoine a "typical" musician?  He's got no steady "day" job, is scrapping for gigs, has an ex-wife who has two kids from him and two other baby-mommas, and he stays out all night.  Yup, sounds like a lot of musicians I know.  Antoine is a great representation of the journeyman musician in NOLA.  His interaction with the masters, Kermit Ruffins, Mr. DeJean, Troy Andrews, all shows the HUGE gap between them.  In December, 2005, Shorty had a guest star spot on NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" while Antoine is bemoaning having to play a gig at a strip club on Rue Bourbon.

Lambreaux Family:  Delmond's definitely molded to be a sort-of Wynton Marsalis, right down to an allusion to Lincoln Center.  Playing for Toussaint and Elvis Costello in the studio session is another revealing look into the strata of the music business.  His brush with NOPD in this ep is significant as well, since it sets the stage to increase the profile of NOPD-as-antagonist in the future. 

Big Chief Albert Lambreaux was the star of the ep for my money.  Here's a guy who's done well, by both NOLA and national standards.  The theft of Lambreaux's tools by a Central City dirtbag fit--they called the guy a "copper miner," a thief stripped unoccupied houses of the copper plumbing inside.  When Lambreaux catches up with the guy, he beats the ever-loving crap out of him.  The thief would need hospitalization after that beating.  Lambreaux closes out the episode doing Indian chants with the only other member of his tribe to show up to practice.  Like many a South Boston Irishmen who "got out" to the 'burbs, Lambreaux can't shake his roots.  This is why the cops literally fly en masse when there's a report of a fight among Indians and themselves or others.  The Indians are glamorized by many, but there's still a very dark side to the culture.

Davis McAlary is going to be the court jester of the show.  He gets fired from WWOZ because he lets Coco Robicheaux kill a chicken as part of a voodoo ceremony in the 'OZ studio, then we meet his parents and learn that he does have a bit of means behind him.  Sending those yankees to Bullets was priceless.  Of course it got him fired from the hotel gig.  That's important, since the jester can't be tied down in one place too long.

Janette Desautel's mini-breakdown was typical of all too many of us that fall.  Her Mid City house is the typical living environment of folks who had 2-story homes in areas that got 6' or less of water. Cut out the walls downstairs, spend most of your time upstairs.  When we were re-building, some friends who have a son the same age as my kiddo offered to take him in for a few weeks.  They only got a few inches of water in their house and cut out their walls to about a foot.  Their upstairs was just fine, so they kept kiddo and I would do the drop-off and pick-up duties for school.  Kiddo's grammar school got water, but they were able to use space at another Catholic school in Metairie to re-open in October, 2005.  Janette's business problems are presented well.  I remember the signs in December-05/January-06 at Starbucks on Vets--help wanted, $8/hour and health insurance.  That's how tight the labor situation was.  Those of us in town wanted goods and services, but the pool of workers to provide those services was so tight that even Starbucks had to pay a living wage and offer benefits.  Janette's bare-bones, so she can't open every day, full hours.  That happened to restaurants from Antoine's all the way to Bud's Broiler.

NOPD/cops/courts: Cops-as-antagonists had to come up fast in the series.  Look at all the shit hitting the fan with NOPD currently.  Delmond's bust for pot possession is interesting.  Kiddo asked me this morning, isn't a simple pot bust a bit extreme when so much is going on?  I explained a lot depends on the cop's state of mind.  Did the cop pop him because he doesn't like black folks, or did he do it to kill half his shift on something trivial?  There are still a lot of NOPD cops to this day who got really messed up psychologically by the storm.  I can easily see an older cop like the one who popped Delmond wanting to waste a couple of hours of the evening slowly writing a report at Central Lockup so he didn't have to be on the dark streets.  Of course, the racial aspect shouldn't be ignored, and the previews for ep 3 indicate the cops will be back.

Toni Bernette's work to find LaDonna's brother is a good window into how dysfunctional government was at this point.  Other parishes were willing to keep New Orleanians locked up to get FEMA money.  Forget due process and habeas corpus, they were mostly all black anyway.  They've alluded to her filing brutality lawsuits against NOPD cops in the past, so no doubt she'll continue to be an active part of this plot line.

To sum up ep 2, the city is no longer the only antagonist.  Thieves, unscrupulous contractors, and cops join the city and the storm.  I want to see what happens next, and that's what a TV writer wants to hear.

HBO's Recap of Episode 2 (video)