Treme and Me

 In a world in which it seems normal to go through life thinking that all is forever lost and that it would be so easy to give up and move on to something better somewhere else - somewhere ostensibly safer and nurturing, to a certain moment in time and space in which the soul was nourished, the scars wiped clean, and the ruminations numbed permanently... Anywhere but here in this discarded, decrepit, wasteland that is now forever altered and emptied of humanity with only the ghosts of good times past to inhabit the detritus of a reality that has betrayed us.

Treme (2010-2013) begins in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and examines through the lives of New Orleans' musicians, chefs, publicans, wanderers, and assorted dreamers what it means to try to resurrect a community in the face of every possible (natural and structural) hurdle imaginable.

Until recently it seemed impossible to view the world as moving backwards through our time of; technological advancement, steady dissemination of a human rights framework to eventually encompass every human being who lives today, growing awareness of the critical importance of universal education and income equality, and the tireless work towards equity and justice outcomes for our historically disadvantaged communities across the world.

Everything in the above seems to have reset in a very short time these days, so imagine my mental state that it so happened that I clicked on Treme on HBO exactly when I was the most pessimistic about the state of our world, and was delivered head first into a universe so completely unfamiliar and, at the same time, incredibly enticing - that any semblance of natural resistance to being enveloped in its warm, musical, colourful, magical embrace was altogether rendered futile immediately.

I certainly have to say that it brought me out of a dark place, personally, to see the effects and the aftermath of John Goodman's character's suicide in Season 1 on his fictional family, and I had to switch off from the show for a few weeks after Khandi Alexander's character's brutal gang rape and Steve Earle's character's death - to a pointless mugging gone wrong - in Season 2.

The music, though, is what did it for me. The hyper-real presence of the horn sections, the street musicians, the rappers, the country and westerns, the jazz ensembles, the 'Indian' chants (and constumes), the wannabe musicians who are forever striving, and the classicists who are always pushing beyond their comfort zones, the hustler musicians peddling their wares to whoever has a buck (or a barbecue rib) to spare... Can you imagine a show where the music is not just a narrative arc enabler but the central character among almost every other tangible and visual metaphor for culture that could exist; the food, the carnival sights, the beauty of the French Quarter and the lakefront/bayous/Gulf Coast... the music completely envelopes the city in its musty haze, in its dimly lit storefronts and bars and clubs, in its period housing and shanty towns laid waste to by Katrina... in its deeply felt struggle of city natives returning to a devastated land to recover something of themselves in the face of predatory shark-like corrupt public officials and police... determined to once again change the course of this mercurial city.

I suspect that I will never again love a show as much as this one, and that makes me look forward to Season 3 ever the more.