OK. If you haven’t seen the HBO original series, Treme (pronounced Trem-ay), order HBO. If you don’t already have it, and watch it On Demand, right now! Or you know … find some other way to watch it. :)

The finale to the “season” was so awesome! I say season in quotes because it only consists of some 8 odd episodes. (Didn’t Cosby have to do 20 episodes to constitute a season? We live in a different TV time, but that’s another blog).

Anyway, the show takes place 3 months or so after Hurricane Katrina, in the diverse Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. It follows the lives of so many different classes and types of people. Here are a few:


- A woman bar owner, ex-wife, wife and mother, looking for her missing brother who they haven’t heard from since the storm.
- A woman chef barely keeping her struggling restaurant alive because she can’t meet payments to vendors and the gas keeps getting turned off by the city.
- An affluent couple, a lawyer and professor with a daughter, who are angry and frustrated about the state of affairs that their city is in.
- A hippie, witty, really smart, crazy-ass DJ who loves N’awlins more than life itself.
- And finally musicians, musicians and more musicians! They’re all trying to come back and bring the music and make a living anyway they can.

How cool is it for a TV show to celebrate music the way it should be celebrated and appreciated?!

David Simon, the executive director (who created another GREAT HBO series, The Wire!), has really found a way to tell honest, beautiful, well-written stories about everyday people,black and white, who have clearly lived through a horrific experience. But never do you get a feeling of downtrodden-ness or self pity. In fact you always see hope and resilience and even humor.

It’s such a great show. Check it out!

And if you’re into vampires, True Blood is pretty-crazy-good too!

P.S. The title of this blog refers to some of the words in the shows opening song, which in and of itself is a hit!

[Monica]