Treme

[Cassander]

we really don't eat much unhealthy food when you're here.  maybe we should push that limit in a few weeks.  An actual Sausage Fest!

I don't get the whole Alan Richman thing.  Never heard about him before watching Treme, but since then everyone is like, "OMG can you believe what this asshole wrote six years ago?" But....the payoff is him agreeing to be filmed getting dissed, right?  Don't know if he's made any written "apology" or not, but getting a sazerac thrown in your face for fictional catharsis has to go a long ways towards redemption, right?  Plus, the fact that Anthony Bourdain is writing the chef parts throws me off a little.  No Reservations is often beautiful, but give him an inch to get catty and he will take the yard. 

[nacho]

I remember Richman's article. It was all part of the "Is New Orleans worth saving?" movement post-Katrina. You know, all the waterheads at work jabbering on about how they should just shutter the entire city and let it return to the swamp. I heard that alot.

It was better portrayed in the pilot with the British film crew. This is, yes, Bourdain taking that yard. He and Richman have had an unrelated feud going on for years (Richman also hates celebrity chefs).

The fact that Richman agreed to do that scene, though, makes everyone but him look bad, doesn't it? He's being a good sport and Bourdain (and, so, Treme) is being pissy and overly dramatic.

The only gracious thing to have done would have been to allow him to apologize. But having Janette slip into a fantasy world there and do something that, generally, is out of character is almost embarrassing now that I think about it the day after watching the scene.

[Cassander]

that's what bugs me about Treme...the fantasy world they slip into that no one outside could distinguish from the real thing, unlike the Wire where it's obvious that McNulty could never really fool an entire city and half the FBI into thinking he was tracking a serial killer....right?

[nacho]

that's what bugs me about Treme...the fantasy world they slip into that no one outside could distinguish from the real thing, unlike the Wire where it's obvious that McNulty could never really fool an entire city and half the FBI into thinking he was tracking a serial killer....right?

Next time you come up here we'll take a Baltimore tour where you'll see exactly how McNulty could, indeed, orchestrate that. And so could you! Talk about a city of death. Take a train ride north and you pass over the Hamsterdam parts of Baltimore and it's, like, hooooly shit. There are people down there! Somebody help them!

[nacho]

Okay! I get it! Sazarac is a New Orleans drink! Shut the fuck up!

So HBO and David Simon are really just making a show specifically for New Orleans as a way of saying, "Look, we know you're there", right?

This last episode especially (I felt) demanded a knowledge of local history and custom, eh? Stuff like the lonely second line in New York, and the Helen Hill murder... Did they even mention Hill by name? I didn't catch it if they did.

[Cassander]

They did...once.  But I'd completely forgotten about it until I heard the name, and I'm sure 50% of the city don't know shit about it.  Hell, I don't know if they ever caught anyone.  One white murder out of 270 that year.  No one can keep up with this stuff.

It really is something different than the Wire, different than Generation Kill.  You are being given the Official Version according to the Seers and Knowers.  Anything that doesn't rate, by definition, is not part of New Orleans, and anything that super-validates the pre-existing point of view gets 15 takes. 

I'm really having a hard time figuring out my feelings about this show.  But I do know this: if I'd never moved down here, I'd have given up on this show already.  Really it was the lonely second line.  The show seems to demand that anyone worth anything in New Orleans attends second line parades when there's a huge contingent of people out there who don't even know the protocol.  So for an Alabama Native to drop in to a NY trad jazz club and feel spontaneously inspired by a Jelly Roll Morton cover to wave an impromptu hanky is, of course, ridiculous.  But so is Delmond's girlfriend's absolute hatred for early Jazz, and so is Davis' whitebread aunt's newfound love of rap.  All the stuff that was cute kismet in the Wire has become par for the course hyper-serendipity in Treme. 

Still, I did tear up at the funeral at the beginning for Shavers, but even that wasn't explained clearly enough.  It still had that "if you don't know, go look it up" approach. 

Bleah.  Maybe when you're here we should do some deep Treme investigations!  Talk to any and all strangers about how they like the show.  I guarantee we'll get a wealth of points of view.

[nacho]

Now I'm wondering if Treme is directed to people like me -- passive liberals from comfortable zones who harbor a long-distance tourist fetish for New Orleans.

Certainly, the "New Orleans style" is something of a minor fad. We have three "New Orleans themed" restaurants opening in the DC area over the next two months, to add to our current three. "New Orleans Style" is Mardi Gras all day every day. Beads and masks and music. Food always a pale imitation. Designer yuppie po'boys and nothing offensive or truly unhealthy.

The big one about to open is on the revitalized H St corridor. They've actually created this bizarre building that's DC on the bottom and French Quarter on the top... It's startling to walk past. It's also one of the most anticipated new restaurants in NE. The name? "Truorleans." Seriously.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/TruOrleans/161705893851345

So, you know, you go to these "New Orleans restaurants," like Louisiana Kitchen in Bethesda, and you can also attend Treme parties... Attended by Washingtonians who all have "Treme Explained" loaded up on their smart phones so they can cheer one minute later whenever Nola.com tells them they should.

The bartender is standing by with a tray of $10 Sazarac's and you can get Beignets which look like they were made by Dunkin Doughnuts.

[Cassander]

That kind of stuff doesn't bother me, but, yes maybe that is the target audience.  I don't know.  Had some final thoughts before I went to bed last night and wondered if i was being a little harsh.  Still not sure.  I think you may be right, though.  You either are in the know about the majority of the stuff they portray and love the show or you don't understand shit and you pretend to like it.  There's no middle ground.  You can't just passively enjoy this show, and god forbid you miss one episode!  You'd be totally lost.

I know i keep going back to the Wire again and again, but that's inevitable.  Even though the Wire is heavy handed, if you are oblivious to half of the social commentary you can still enjoy the show, and that's why everyone and their brother goes on and on about it.  They were able to watch five years of smart TV without cringing.  With Treme that's impossible. 

Then again, they are attempting to do the impossible, which is portray an entire city's reaction to a traumatic event. 

[Disco Dust]

I'm another huge fan of The Wire and the rest of Simon's prior work who remains on the fence about Treme.

Unlike his last show, some characters in this one still seem to serve no palpable purpose well into a second season. The most obvious to me is the Dutch druggie  .

[nacho]

And it got renewed for another season. If they want to get to a season-long condemnation of BP, then I strongly suggest that they go ahead and skip a few years.

[Cassander]

Ahaha....and now I remember another point that bothers me....that absolutely nothing is mentioned about Nagin hopelessly and constantly fucking things up.  His re-election happens in between seasons 1 and 2 and ever since then its been kicking up dust about Riley and, of course, Oliver Thomas, who was, for the most part, just playing it old school.  But Nagin gets a pass week in and week out.  Reading this the other day really pointed it out to me....the culmination of the anti-crime protests that ended the last episode that, for whatever reason, didn't get included in the show:

For about an hour at Thursday's extraordinary anticrime rally, Mayor Ray Nagin stood awkwardly behind a stage on the steps of City Hall, waiting for his chance to talk, listening to speakers castigate him and call for his ouster.
One by one, a diverse and agitated series of orators shouted down the mayor, as well as Police Chief Warren Riley and District Attorney Eddie Jordan, with most of the vitriol directed at Nagin. Then came the moment of silence, with heads bowed, camera shutters snapping.
"Where the hell is Nagin?" one man screamed, piercing the prayerful moment with rage at the city's leadership.
"What do you have to say Ray?" came a voice from a crowd of thousands.
"Impeach Nagin," an angry woman intoned. "Where's Nagin?" the chorus continued.
Nagin stood patiently, already belittled by speakers who towered over him on the stage, here on his home turf of City Hall. In a rare moment, the mayor found himself without a voice.

Now, I'm usually against the simple move of yelling at a figurehead for complicated social problems, but, Jesus.  What a scene! 

[nacho]

Was it American Zombie or Back of Town where they posted an open thread and all the commenters were cheering about the anti-Nagin comment at the very end of the last episode. Somebody said something to the TV just before we cut to credits. I didn;t even hear it.

So I guess that's all we need! An open mic accidental whisper-quality comment that Nagin might not be Superman!

Nagin even got some DC backlash when he stole "Chocolate City" from us.

[Disco Dust]

Didn't they show one of the MG floats which was Nagin spanking his monkey?

[nacho]

"I think I'm starting to understand this town... It's a village...on an island..."

I think I'm starting to understand Treme -- it's a show about white guilt. We're watching it because we think we should watch it. At least, from the DC-based Treme fan perspective, the demographic is definitely a cousin of the armchair liberal category. Katrina was horrible, as was the response, and maybe it had something to do with racism and/or classism or...Where is New Orleans again? Anyway, it's sad.

I guess we've kind of covered that in the posts above, but those posts also have me asking trap questions of people I meet up here who are all about Treme. Nobody's following any of the sub-plots. Jeanette's the blonde cook, right? And, gosh, I love Melissa Leo. And wasn't Morse a great George Washington? And the chief is funny, and his son. And that zany music guy with the gay neighbors! Yeah, yeah. Everyone's just blankly watching in some sort of long-distance communal (and non-contributive) support.

The show plays to this, of course, with frequent marches, parades, second lines, etc. We've had something of that ilk every episode this season, haven't we? Obvious touchstone images of an otherwise unfamiliar town (to those of us on the outside peering in through HBO). Which, okay, yes, well, gosh, that's Nawlin's! But, you know, it kind of feels like pandering after awhile. Especially when we have a character basically turn to the audience and say, "This is a village" as disparate characters come together and share events shoulder to shoulder, whether or not their paths intersect in the normal course of storytelling.

[Cassander]

Actually, the Hidalgo thing is interesting because that's all you read in the paper day in and day out, schemers who have gotten caught and unravel the giant system of how things get done.  But, of course, the storyline is being handled crappily, the actor sucks, and the evil characters also have to improbably enjoy street culture.  So what everyone should be clamoring more for (a storyline similar to something in the Wire! Yes!) just confuses and bores everyone.  Whatever.  This last episode was a real clunker.