Views & Vibes

Now, it is a well documented fact that I am a Netflix junkie. And seeing how it serves as my lifeline to All-Things-Television-A-Season-Later, I took the opportunity to watch the first season of a show for which I’d been hearing great things, Treme. Created by David Simon, who, like David E. Kelley and Aaron Sorkin, I’d follow anywhere, Treme takes place in post-Katrina New Orleans, picking up three months after the storm.

David Simon has a proven record of creating compelling dramas filled with richly developed characters and fantastic storytelling…but mostly using Baltimore as the backdrop. I know Baltimore…well, as much as anyone in the Maryland suburbs of the District of Columbia would want to know Baltimore. Mr. Simon did an unparalleled job of capturing the grittiness, the energy, and the heart of parts of the city through some of my all-time favorite television programs: Homicide: Life on the Streets, The Corner, and The Wire.

Treme is no different.

Watching Treme is like sitting on your grandma’s porch, sipping on a glass of iced tea on a hot summer evening, while the entire population of the town drives by, waving to you as they pass. You feel like you know everyone, and everyone knows you. Every time some of that New Orleans-style jazz starts playing, you feel like the band is on the sidewalk, playing specifically for you…not just to entertain you, but to awaken your spirit! Every riff from Antoine Batiste’s trombone or Kermit’s trumpet is like feeling that iced tea sliding down your throat. You want to savor every, single moment!

Treme takes your emotions, balls them up, unravels them, and then balls them up again…and again. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll dance (or at least shimmy in your seat a bit), and most of all, you’ll be enraptured!

Regrettably, I have never visited New Orleans. Because of the way David Simon uses his lensed-paint brush, depicting the broken soul of a city trying to mend itself, I am at least compelled to make that trip.