Edward Copeland's Tangents

Monday, November 07, 2011

A fabulous disaster

By Edward Copeland
For people around my age, one of the biggest laughs in (500) Days of Summer comes when Zooey Deschanel's Summer tells Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Tom that lately they've been acting like Sid and Nancy. Tom takes offense, thinking she's comparing him to the late Sex Pistols bass guitarist who stabbed girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death, but Summer corrects him, "No, I'm Sid Vicious." For anyone such as myself for whom Alex Cox's Sid & Nancy served as a seminal film during high school years, it is a hysterical moment. Today marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S. release of Cox's film. There's always a danger when revisiting treasured films of your youth, that the experience won't be the same decades down the road but I'm pleased to report that a quarter-century later, Sid & Nancy works better as a movie than I remember it doing when I originally saw it.

When the movie begins, we gaze upon a young Gary Oldman's version of Sid Vicious staring blankly, without expression, at a TV in a dark hotel room as detectives ask if he is the one who called 911. He says nothing, but we glimpse his bloody hand for a moment. What struck me isn't the context of the scene — no matter how long it's been since you've seen Sid & Nancy, you know that she's dead — no, what struck me is how amazingly young Gary Oldman looks. The actor in this 1986 film bears so little resemblance to the actor working under that name today. Can this possibly be the same man? This remarkably talented actor, still a couple of years shy of his 30th birthday then, who transformed himself so memorably into the drugged-out punk rock legend couldn't possibly be the same man now is in his early 50s and seen most often as Commissioner Gordon in Christopher Nolan's Batman movies or Sirius Black in Harry Potter films? It just seems impossible, doesn't it? It's great to hear the buzz that Oldman is receiving for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy because embarrassments dominate his credits more than winners since at least 1995. Some examples: Lots of voice work for video games, The Scarlet Letter, Lost in Space, Hannibal, the TV show Friends and voices in Disney's 3-D Christmas Carol and Kung Fu Panda 2. Thankfully, we still have his Sid Vicious to be amazed by.

An even larger, more existential query loomed over me while I watched Sid & Nancy again, for the first time in I don't know how many years and began to think about what I would write in this tribute. First, came relief that I didn't find myself disappointed as has happened before when returning to a sacred relic from an earlier archaeological phase of my life. Then, I was struck by a question that had never occurred to me before about the movie — what appeal did it hold for me and many of my friends back in high school? We weren't punk rock enthusiasts — that day had largely passed though many of us owned the album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols (and I mean album — on wax), but we tended to be eclectic musically. We weren't lurking around shooting heroin in our veins (though I can't make that statement with 100% certainty concerning one of our informal group). Why did Sid & Nancy speak to us in such a profound way that we not only fell for the film but went multiple times? The theater which showed this movie (and we often went to midnight showings — it wasn't always The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Pink Floyd — The Wall) would be the site for both the beginnings and ends of teen hookups. I guess watching a love story about two drug-addicted people, one of whom stabs the other to death, just brings out the romance

in people. As I pondered the possibilities of why this cinematic portrait of punk had such pull over us, I looked over my notes and discovered one word that seemed to recur from different characters in the movie: Bored. There lies the link between the punk rockers in the movie and the suburban teens in a Bible Belt multiplex watching them: Both groups felt stifled to the point of losing their minds. Sid Vicious found his escape in drugs and his music; we had to make do with watching movies about him until we were old enough to get the hell out of town. In one scene in the movie, someone says, (you can't really tell who because there's a jumble of bodies crowded in sleeping bags and blankets on an apartment floor) "You know I was so bored once I fucked a dog passionately." Thankfully, it never got that bad here (that I know about). Sid & Nancy shows that even the punk fans grew tired of punk, as in a scene at a club where several sit behind a wall, not even paying attention to the Pistols. One has even brought her baby adorned with a green Mohawk haircut. One of the group, Clive (Mark Monero) announces, "Ain't gonna be a punk no more. Gonna be a rude boy just like my dad." When you consume so many drugs that you can't tell what day or country you're in, a state of ennui comes easy as later when Nancy (Chloe Webb, who's as great as Oldman) lies in bed with Sid and complains that she's so bored that she hates her life. "This is just a rough patch. Things'll be much better when we get to America, I promise," Sid reassures her. "We're in America. We've been here a week. New York is in America, you fuck," she yells at him, prompting him to look out the balcony at the Hotel Chelsea sign.

Watching Sid & Nancy now makes it easier to appreciate what Alex Cox accomplishes on a filmmaking level. He tosses out the idea of a conventional narrative (and shouldn't that be required when telling the story of punk pioneers?) while at the same time employing many standard cinematic techniques to great effect. When they get to the infamous concert on the ship on the Thames and the London police make them pull ashore, Cox throws in a short but effective tracking shot of Sid and Nancy, arm in arm and in love, oblivious to the chaos around them, as they simply walk away from the ship and the melee on the docks just to be with one another. Cox also frequently likes suddenly to distance us from characters, usually

the title ones, but not always, so they appear as specks against a background that gives the scene a different connotation such as a message about abortion. He's not above some wacky film use either. When Sid, Nancy and her friend Gretchen (played by none other than Courtney Love) cross a vacant lot and see some kids picking on another one, Sid tells them to stop. The bullies ask him who he thinks he is. "I'm Sid Vicious," he answers and then the kids run away in fast-motion speed like something out of an Our Gang short. A moment such as that reminds me of what really goes unappreciated about Sid & Nancy — its nearly continuous strain of humor, albeit mostly dark humor. Truth be told, that aspect led to my friends and I returning to the film as much as any empathy for the bored. If you just lay out the basic plot of the film — The true story of heroin-addicted musician and his heroin-addicted girlfriend who he stabs to death but doesn't face justice for his crime because he overdoses first — well, it doesn't exactly sound like a rollicking night out. The first response to that description probably would be something like, "Sounds bleak." The word that begins the IMDb plot summary is "morbid." I'm not trying to convince you that Sid & Nancy produces a laugh riot, but I've sat through many bleak films in my time (Wendy and Lucy leaps to mind) and Sid & Nancy isn't one of them because Cox and his collaborators approached the subject matter with such verve, creativity and vitality.

Speaking of the painful Wendy and Lucy, two scenes in Sid & Nancy reminded me of that pretentious piece of misery (but in a good way). One emphasizes the careful balancing act Alex Cox and Abbe Wool's screenplay took with scenes that show these characters' desperation (and that one gets hit out of the park by Chloe Webb's superb work. She and Oldman both were robbed in not receiving Oscar

recognition). The second one plays as sort of a twisted homage to another filmmakers' work. Both keep humor behind the anger and tears. In the first, the infamous telephone booth scene, anxious for drugs and out of cash, Nancy calls her mom in America in the middle of the night London time telling her that she and Sid just got married. She assures her mother that Vicious isn't at all as they describe him in the newspapers and no, she's not pregnant either. Not known for her subtlety, Nancy suggests that her mom would want to send them a wedding gift for their honeymoon. Nancy explains that they don't have a place yet, so money would be better and since it's a different time there, why doesn't she head over to Western Union and wire some to them and they can pick it up in the morning. We never hear the mother's side, but it's very reminiscent of that call Wendy (Michelle Williams) makes to her sister) who has heard all her crap before and doesn't want to deal with it. (Lucky her — I immediately wanted to watch a movie called Wendy's Sister and Lucy.) Nancy loses it. "I am so married!" Nancy yells into the phone. "YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ME! IF YOU DON'T SEND US MONEY, WE'RE BOTH GONNA DIE! FUCK YOU!" Nancy screams before she hangs up and throws such a fit she breaks the glass in the phone booth. Sid gets her to rest down on the curb. "I fucking hate them! I fucking hate them! Fucking motherfuckers! They wouldn't send us any money! They said we'd spend it on DRUGS!" she tells Sid. Then Oldman gets the scene's deadpan punchline: "We would."

The other sequence proves truly hysterical (unless you were living it I imagine). While in America, Nancy takes Sid to visit her grandparents in a dinner scene that plays as if it's a twisted homage to Alvy's visit to Annie's parents in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. There are other scenes

that obviously influenced later films or seem to predict other filmmakers' recurring trademarks. Recognizable character actors Gloria LeRoy (who still works today, which is her 80th birthday) and Milton Seltzer (who passed in 2006) play Granma and Granpa whose table gets filled out by many other men and women, mostly younger, whose relationship never is explained. What's so funny about the scene is that Nancy doesn't change herself in the presence of her grandparents and the young people, sprinkling her speech with F-bombs as always even though her demeanor is generally friendly. Sid comes off as downright polite — except for not wearing a shirt to the dinner table. The highlight comes when Granpa starts questioning Sid as he would any suitor. "So are you gonna make an honest woman of our Nancy, Sid?" he asks Vicious, who obviously misses the gist of the

question. "She's always been an honest woman to me, grandpa, sir. She never lied to me," Sid tells him. Granpa tries again, "What are your intentions?" Nancy steps in to outline the couple's plans for this: Monday they'd go to the methadone clinic, then she'd get Sid a few gigs (this takes place after The Pistols have broken up, but I'll get back to that), then they'd move to Paris "and go out in a blaze of glory," Nancy says. "Don't worry, you'll be proud of us," Sid reassures the grandparents who look anything but reassured. As the family retires to the living room, Sid promptly passing out in a chair from a bit too much

vodka, Nancy in his lap. Nancy assumes that they'll be staying there but Granma comes in and, being as polite as she can, tells her she thought it would be better if they stayed at a motel so they booked them a room there. Nancy admits she was hoping they'd drive them to the methadone clinic, but Granma says it's impossible because they are going on a trip the next day. One of the never-define teenage boys blurts, "Since when?" Granpa also gives Nancy money for transportation. She's wise enough to know what's up and storms out, but Vicious remains in the chair like a statue. The grandparents argue about how they can get him out. Eventually they do, and we see Sid and Nancy in the hotel lying in the dark watching TV. While much of the sequence has been played for laughs, it might be the film's most touching moment. "These people. Really lovely. Best fuckin' food I ever ate," Sid tells Nancy about her grandparents with a wisp of sadness in his voice. "Why'd they throw us out?" Just as he didn't understand what the meaning of Granpa's questions were, Vicious can't fathom how these people that seemed to be friendly and treating him like a human being would suddenly throw him out for some unknown reason. Nancy knows, and she gives the scene its clincher. "Because they know me." Oldman and Webb created such a magnificent acting partnership in Sid & Nancy that I wonder why no one has devised a project in 25 years that paired these two again.

Granted, the movie focuses on the couple, but it also looks at The Sex Pistols and the music industry in England at the time as well and that's where we find a lot of the humor as well. Though Sid & Nancy really only takes time to develop John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon (well played by Andrew Schofield unless you are John Lydon or are friends with John Lydon) with the other band members being more or less ciphers. While the movie portrays him as a prick at times, it also shows him as someone who aspires to some degree of professionalism, something difficult to reach when your bass guitarist tends to be wasted or not there at all. They'll be on stage at a club, ready to go and Sid will be roughhousing elsewhere in the crowd. "Sid, we'll go on when you're ready," John ("He hates being called Johnny") will shout. The movie also has much fun

with its take on the band's manipulative manager Malcolm McLaren (acted with a perpetually bemused grin by David Hayman), who at times seems less concerned that Sid might be destroying himself as long as he gets press out of it. The first time we see Malcolm, he's standing outside a club trying to lure people into a performance. "Is it fucking worth it? Yes it is," he tells anyone who passes by. When Lydon and the other members come to him to complain, explaining that sometimes they have to turn off Vicious' amp because he isn't even playing the same song that the rest of the band is and they need a new bass guitarist, Malcolm doesn't seem upset. Instead, he replies, "Sidney's more than a mere bass player. He's a fabulous disaster. He's a symbol, a metaphor. He embodies the dementia of a

nihilistic generation." Eventually, even McLaren sees the need for intervention. At first, he tries to talk his assistant Phoebe (Debby Bishop) to be Sid's handler for a couple of months, but she wants no part of it. He asks why. "Infectious hepatitis, loony girlfriend, drugs?" she lists off. "Boys will be boys," Malcolm counters. Everyone agrees when the discussion of an American tour comes up, that it's a good chance to separate Sid from Nancy for awhile, since both band and management see her as the bad influence. At a meeting at a small restaurant, they make it clear: no wives or girlfriends can go. When Nancy puts up a fit — Sid appears catatonic the whole time — Phoebe makes it clear that if they can't separate for a few weeks, Sid will be replaced. So Sid goes alone and that tour ends up being the band's end as they get booked in inappropriate venues by people not even clear who they are. (As in Atlanta, as you can see in the sign below.) The final straw comes when Sid heads to a party and walks through a hotel's glass door. When he reunites with Nancy and she decides to manage him, things go from bad to worse and everyone pretty much knows where this story ends.

As I mentioned before, the influences — intentional and otherwise — on other films and filmmakers become more apparent 25 years later. For example, it's even more obvious why Martin Scorsese thought of using Sid Vicious' take on "My Way" as the ending song for Goodfellas when you see the re-creation of the video for it in Sid & Nancy (and that is Gary Oldman doing the singing by the way), especially following the quick take of Joe Pesci as Tommy aping the famous shot from Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery. (Pardon the Portuguese subtitles.) Embedding is disabled for the Goodfellas ending, but click here.

While they stay at the Hotel Chelsea, Sid and Nancy manage to start a fire in their room and they just stare at it, fire fighters eventually coming in around them to extinguish the flames. The hotel manager (Sandy Baron), always bragging to potential tenants about the high-class clientele that have lived there, does berate them slightly but moves them to a room on the first floor accompanied by a slow-moving man who appears to be a decrepit bellhop, but doesn't appear to be that old. The only item he carries is Sid's guitar, which he hands back to him as he says something slow and cryptic along the lines of "Bob Dylan was born here" and

then extends his hand for a trip. It's the type of character we'd see frequent many a work by David Lynch, but I don't recall one making an appearance yet. They didn't really kick in until Twin Peaks and Wild at Heart a few years later. It could be pure coincidence, but when I saw him again, Lynch came to my mind immediately. Musicians and fires aren't that unusual, but it did in a way remind me of Oliver Stone's awful movie The Doors, which also only bothered to define two members of the band. As for the fire, I'm still waiting to find out how the hell Meg Ryan got out of that closet. Imagery may be what I took away most from this return visit because I'd forgotten, if I'd ever known, that the director of photography for Sid & Nancy was the ultra-talented and, of late, Coen brothers' favorite Roger Deakins. For those of you keeping score at home, Deakins has received nine Oscar nominations for cinematography and won zero. His nominations have come for The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, Kundun, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, No Country for Old Men, The Reader (shared with Chris Menges) and True Grit. Look at it this way: Deakins has received more nominations for best cinematography without winning than Peter O'Toole went winless for best actor — and they at least gave O'Toole an honorary Oscar.

What boggled my mind then and still does now are people who think that somehow Sid & Nancy comes off as an endorsement for heroin use. Being broke, unaware of your surroundings, killing a loved one and accidentally yourself — tell me where I sign up. As the methadone case worker (Sy Richardson) tells the duo, who dismiss it as "political bullshit" when he paints it as a government conspiracy he claims to have seen first-hand in Vietnam, "(S)mack is the great controller. Keeps people stupid when they could be smart." Yes, the fantastical ending paints the idea that perhaps Sid and Nancy reunite on another plane, but that doesn't mean it's endorsing smack addiction as the path. Still, those closing sequences seem more spellbinding today than before, Of course, no knew in 1986, the symbolic power of including this image of Sid Vicious' path to a pizza joint after making bail in Nancy's slaying.

I almost could have created a 25th anniversary tribute to Sid & Nancy composed entirely of photos. As it is, I've left out many line and anecdotes that I wanted to write about, but I keep cutting them to squeeze in more art — and I'm not even getting all the art in that I wanted. I didn't begin to get into discussing what the hell has happened to Alex Cox or Chloe Webb. Still, there are so many shots I didn't get in — Sid and Nancy having a mock shoot-out on the roof of a hotel, Nancy hanging upside down from a hotel window, Malcolm scaring off men beating up Sid simply by pointing his finger like a gun, Sid spontaneously dancing with some kids after the pizza, Nancy's friend Brenda and her S&M business — but I do want to use one shot from the closing reunion sequence because I think it's the most beautiful.

Finally, just in case anyone might still believe that the movie serves as an ad for heroin, the final card that appears on the screen.

Labels: 80s, Animation, Christopher Nolan, Coens, Disney, Dylan, Gordon-Levitt, Lynch, Michelle Williams, Movie Tributes, Music, O'Toole, Oldman, Oliver Stone, Oscars, Pesci, Scorsese, Twin Peaks, Woody, Zemeckis

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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Close Friends Get to Call Him T.C.

By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
In 1957, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer closed its animation department and informed loyal employees William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (the creative team behind MGM’s Oscar-winning cat-and-mouse duo, Tom & Jerry) of their decision with a single phone call, Bill and Joe found themselves at a literal crossroads. They could go back to honest work (Barbera, for example, had been in banking before landing a job in show biz) or they could soldier on in the burgeoning field of television animation — which, because of the medium’s restricted budgets, used fewer drawings than its theatrical brethren (even though this stylized method of cartooning had actually been put in practice earlier by U.P.A.). Hanna and Barbera decided that they loved creating, directing and producing cartoons too much to give it up, so ignoring naysayers who decried the “abomination” of limited animation, launched a successful cartoon conglomerate devoted to entertaining TV audiences…that, to its credit, also engaged many of their former and now unemployed colleagues when the other motion picture studios ceased their animation operations as well.

With Hanna-Barbera’s first success in The Ruff & Reddy Show in 1957, the two men began to create characters recognized as animation icons today: Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw…I could name them all day long. Their most audacious endeavor came in the fall of 1960, when television’s first prime time animated situation comedy, The Flintstones, premiered on ABC and became a monster hit. Of course, in show business you’re only as good as your last success — so to prove that the modern Stone Age family’s series was no flash in the pan, the company premiered its second prime time cartoon project 50 years ago on this date on a Wednesday evening following The Steve Allen Show: the indisputable leader of the gang, Top Cat.

In discussing the history of their famous animated employees, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera eventually became known for…well, hiding a few facts about the inspiration behind their creations — and Top Cat is no exception. Barbera once recalled in an interview that a single drawing of the titular character that was taking up space on his office desk provided the spark of genius. While I’m certainly not going to dispute Joe’s version of Top Cat's genesis, I think he’s holding back a little. Their previous foray into prime time, The Flintstones, was pretty much an animated version of The Honeymooners (and the only reason why Bill and Joe didn’t get a subpoena from Jackie Gleason challenging them on this is because Gleason didn’t want to become known as “the man who killed Fred Flintstone”). Top Cat followed the formula established by Flintstones by taking the main character and premise of The Phil Silvers Show (aka You’ll Never Get Rich and Sgt. Bilko) and transferring them to a fictional area of Manhattan (known as “Hoagy’s Alley”), staffed with a roster of supporting characters who might have answered a casting call for one of the Bowery Boys films had Monogram-Allied Artists still been cranking them out in 1961. T.C., as his chums called him (provided it was with dignity), was the major domo of a group of misfit feline denizens residing in the less tonier section of the Big Apple, and was constantly concocting various ways to earn a fast buck.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a needlepoint framing of “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” hung in a prominent place in the offices of Hanna-Barbera, because so many of their creations featured voices (usually supplied by veteran voice artist Daws Butler) based on famous celebrities: Yogi Bear imitated Art Carney, Snagglepuss channeled Bert Lahr, Wally Gator was Ed Wynn incarnate. In fact, Bill and Joe had previously gone to the Phil Silvers Show well when they added conniving Hokey Wolf to The Huckleberry Hound Show cast (Hokey replaced the departing Yogi Bear, who left for the studio’s first spin-off series). Hanna-Barbera could just as easily prevailed upon Butler to recycle Hokey for Top Cat but instead they went with second banana and character actor Arnold Stang, who was no stranger to voice work (Stang had started out on radio, and was known for “sidekicking” the likes of Henry Morgan and Milton Berle) and whose Phil Silvers-like intonations were right on the money. To add a little authenticity to their Bilko rip-off…er, I mean homage, they also hired Maurice Gosfield to voice Top Cat’s “conscience,” Benny the Ball — Gosfield had been a cast member on Bilko, playing the part of Private Duane Doberman (both Doberman and Benny shared the same rotundity and good-natured, wide-eyed naiveté).

The choices of Stang and Gosfield to provide the voices for the program’s main characters were inspired ones and set Top Cat apart from the usual Hanna-Barbera fare in that more often than not, the studio would usually fall back on the services (talented though they were) on artists like Butler, Don Messick, Paul Frees, Hal Smith, Jean Vander Pyl, etc. These actors did contribute to the series in various guest star capacities, but Top Cat made offbeat and interesting casting decisions for its supporting cast such as tabbing veteran Warner Bros. character thesp Allen Jenkins to voice T.C.’s nemesis, cop-on-the-beat Charlie Dibble (Top Cat liked to avail himself of “Dribble’s” call-in box as his own personal telephone) and Marvin Kaplan (a film, TV and radio veteran best known as “Alfred Printzmetal” on the sitcom Meet Millie and later as the constantly complaining phone repairman Henry Beesmeyer on Alice) as Choo-Choo, the tall pink feline clad in a turtleneck sweater. Actor Leo DeLyon did double duty on the show, providing the speaking tones of the beatnik cat Spook and the stupefyingly dense Brain (whose nickname was most assuredly a misnomer). Stang, Gosfield, Jenkins, Kaplan and DeLyon no doubt landed their respective gigs because the feline characters needed Noo Yawk accents; only John Stephenson, who voiced the feline lothario known as Fancy Fancy (who sounded a great deal like Cary Grant), was a H-B veteran (best known for voicing Fred Flintstone’s boss, Mr. Slate).

The majority of the episode plots on Top Cat all dealt with a similar theme: T.C. and company hitting upon shady (and slightly illegal) ploys to make a little money and Officer Dibble’s attempting to foil Top Cat’s plans before he succeeded. Dibble, whose single-minded pursuit of a promotion often exceeded his grasp (he was a bit inept when it came to policing), would also look for a surefire method to evict Top Cat and his crew from the alley…and if he was stymied in that goal, he could at least insist that the rowdy ragtag bunch clean up their surroundings a little. Top Cat was formulaic, to be sure…but it also differed from some of the other Hanna-Barbera series in that it possessed a certain level of sophistication (no doubt influenced by its urban setting); it didn’t skimp on the sight gags but much more attention was given to characterization and witty dialogue. (The target audience for the show was both kids and adults, or as actor DeLyon humorously joshed in a featurette on the show’s DVD set, “kadults.”) Like The Flintstones, Top Cat often used then-current pop culture trends as fodder for episodes — one of my favorite outings spoofs the TV series Naked City (T.C., Dibble and the gang are duped by a crook into thinking his warehouse robbery is on-location shooting for the cop show “Naked Town”) and another one features the Hoagy’s Alley coterie as a mob known as “The Unscratchables.” (The show wasn’t immune to in-jokes, either: in “Rafeefleas,” Top Cat and his pals are walking through a museum and come across an exhibit entitled “Prehistoric Man” — statues of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. “I seen those two before on television,” observes Choo-Choo.)

Sponsored by Kellogg’s and Bristol-Myers, Top Cat — despite tepid competition from CBS (Checkmate) and NBC (The Joey Bishop Show) — failed to duplicate the longevity of the more popular Flintstones, and so its 30 episodes were exiled to Saturday mornings to be rerun from 1962 to 1969. (Interestingly, Top Cat lasted longer in comic books than on the tube, his adventures being published by Dell, Gold Key and Charlton until 1973.) But despite getting a pink slip from the American Broadcasting Company, Top Cat and his associates would manage to find work in later Hanna-Barbera productions; they were featured among the cast of the 1972 cartoon special Yogi’s Ark Lark (but didn’t make the cut for the subsequent series, Yogi’s Gang) and T.C. himself was in charge (still the leader of the gang!) of handing out the titular assignments on the 1985 series Yogi’s Treasure Hunt. Two years later, the Hanna-Barbera folks produced a feature-length TV movie entitled Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats, and in the 1990s characters from the show would turn up in featured bits on Wake, Rattle and Roll and Yo Yogi! and cameos in such series as Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law and The Powerpuff Girls.

Despite its limited success in the United States, the show later was sold to countries all over the world — in the United Kingdom, however, the series has to be rechristened “Boss Cat” so that the BBC wouldn’t inadvertently endorse a brand of cat food with the same name as the U.S. program. Top Cat was a major phenomenon in Mexico, Peru and Argentina…where Don Gato y su pandilla (translated: Mr. Cat and His Gang) enjoy celebrity fame equal to that of the Flintstones and who was just recently the subject of an animated feature film — released in 3-D, even, as another famous H-B feline might say.

Top Cat might very well be the least-remembered of Hanna-Barbera’s prime time animated series — it didn’t last as long as The Flintstones, and though its one season stint was later duplicated by The Jetsons and The Adventures of Jonny Quest, both of those series were later revisited with new episodes (between 1985 and 1987…with a revival series, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest produced in the 1990s). It’s currently enjoying retirement on the cable channel Boomerang, however, and the program’s entire run was released to DVD in 2004. Personally, it’s my favorite of Bill and Joe’s “kadult” creations: the characterizations are timeless, the dialogue often hilarious and its theme song is one of those ditties that’s almost impossible to get out of your head once it’s in there (hey…Bob Dylan uses it on his radio show…you can’t get much cooler than that). As far as I’m concerned, he’s the boss, he’s the pip, he’s the championship. He’s the most tip top…Top Cat.

Labels: 60s, Animation, Cary, Dylan, Hanna-Barbera, Phil Silvers, TV Tribute

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Sunday, July 03, 2011

Treme No. 21: Do Whatcha Wanna Part III

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This recap contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, move along.

By Edward Copeland
My deepest apologies for my tardiness with the conclusion of the season finale's recap/second season in review. The past couple of weeks I had just overscheduled myself without realizing it and while I got the first two parts out Sunday, I finally collapsed before I could finish Part III. Then I had anothe project that I had to have done for Tuesday so I couldn't get back to this until it was done. Unfortunately, fatigue is one of the biggest factors when you have multiple sclerosis and my mind still wants to think I can write as fast as I use to though my body begs to differ. Same things apply as in Parts I and II: recap is in plain type, commentary in italics. This serves as commentary for Sunday's finale (what I haven't covered yet) as well as the second season as a whole. Again, I apologize for any and all spelling, grammar or other types of errors of any kind. If somehow you got here without reading the first two parts, click for Part I and Part II.

After running into one of her rapists on the street, LaDonna and Larry pay a visit to ADA Baron and she probably feels lucky she's not on the ground like he was or LaDonna would kick the shit out of her as well, but she's gonna do the verbal equivalent. "For me to walk into a goddam bar five blocks from my own and see this motherfucker sittin' there drinkin' a Heineken like any other person," LaDonna says fiercely, staying on her feet while Larry stays seated in the background not saying a word. "It was a clerical mistake, Mrs. Williams. When we dropped the charges in the other case, the jail failed to note to detain him for your charges as well," Baron explains. If LaDonna weren't already pissed… "What the fuck is wrong with you people? You lose my brother in the damn jail for months and then you let this vicious little motherfucker go first chance you get." Khandi Alexander is a marvel to watch here. Not only does she modulate LaDonna's growing rage, her body movements become wildcat-like, as if she's stalking an antelope for supper and ADA Baron is that antelope. "We tryin' to live in this city. We tryin' to come back here but what little shit we got back

together and live and all you manage to bring to that is nothin'." Alexander starts the beginning of that sentence sounding as if she's gonna break again, but she doesn't — she even bares her teeth at the end. Is that a chunk of Ms. Baron's ass hanging from LaDonna's mouth? If not, it should be. "Rebuild the house? Hell no — fill out these forms and wait. Get your child back in school. Which one? You've got three different school systems. Two of them ain't teachin' shit and the third one can only open so many." Larry is doing his best to stay serious, but you can tell he wants to grin at his wife's tirade. "Open the hospital back up? Hell no — let's tear down some more neighborhoods instead. Solve a crime or two? Oh hell the fuck no." Baron dares to speak, saying, "I don't blame you for being upset." LaDonna turns around and gets closer to her than she's been and Larry can't hold the grin back any longer. "Upset? Bitch, I'm past upset. I'm all the way to lost my fuckin' mind." When LaDonna swings open the door to the outer office, you'd swear it was going to come off its hinges. As they wait for the elevator Larry says, "Tell ya one thing — we ain't selling that damn bar. Look at you — this is who I married. You went away, no you back." "What are you talking about Larry? You hate the bar. You always did," she says. "Hate it to death, but we ain't sellin' it and we ain't stayin' in Baton Rouge neither. We comin' home. All of us. You ain't gonna be who you are otherwise. I see it now" he tells her. The elevator arrives and the spouses embrace as the doors close. Two quick minor criticisms of an otherwise glorious scene. 1: If they accidentally released one rapist, is the other one out on the streets? 2: Granted, it's an awfully quick turnaround by Larry, but I would think it isn't the easiest thing in the world for a dentist to dump all his patients in one city and start a practice over from scratch in another city. Presumably his former New Orleans patients got new dentists and can't all be expected to come back, if they are still there. Not to mention poor Mrs. Brooks who just leased that new apartment. Now, for LaDonna's season in general. Thank goodness that in the last few episodes, they made amends to Khandi Alexander for what should have been a powerful storyline for her all season long. I mentioned earlier how they screwed up the initial rape episode, but then they pretty much swept her aside for most episodes, giving her nothing more to do than sit somewhere drinking and watching TV. Then they blow the big reveal when Larry finds out she was raped by not showing us what happened when he found out and delaying any reaction until much later in that same episode and when they did, giving it less screen time than they devoted to Janette's roommate Nick describing David Chang's fictional restaurant. At least though they did finally make up for it, letting Alexander be the powerhouse she is — even giving us a knockout scene between her and Wendell Pierce. It also was great to see Lance Nichols be more than a glorified extra as Larry, showing he can deliver the goods as well. Perhaps next season if they're all coming back, he'll get a bump to regular.

Davis meets Aunt Mimi for martinis at the French 75 Bar at Arnaud's Restaurant in the French Quarter. McAlary remains glum from all the recent encroachments on what should have been his glory. "Davis, you yourself said he was a better guitarist," his aunt tells him. "He is, definitely," a defeated Davis admits. "But you're still singin' or rappin' or whatever it is that you do," Mimi reminds him. "Well, I can see there is nothin' I can say to crash your pity party but" — Mimi lets out a little chuckle as she opens a checkbook, tears out a check and hands it to her nephew. — "this is for you." Davis takes it and asks, "What's this?" Mimi says, "It's just half the proceeds from sellin' Lil Calliope's contract to this

other local label called Cash something." She can't quite recall the label's actual name, but Davis knows. "You sold Calliope's contract to Cash Money for eight thousand four, five," Davis stumbles on the math, but Mimi interrupts anyhow. "Of course not. I sold it for thirty thousand dollars which means I am already in the black from this wonderful little adventure and we haven't even released the sampler yet. Woo! I love the music business," Mimi proclaims as she takes good swill of her martini. "OK. If you sold that for thirty thousand, why is mine four thousand?" Davis asks. "Davis, you are aware that you've been charging a variety of expenses to my credit card for the last several months. Honey it goes without saying —" Davis stops her before she can finish. "Never mind. I got it," he says. Sazerac strikes again. "Calliope. My band," he sighs Mimi corrects him. "Not the band. They just wanted Calliope." She can tell her nephew still looks beaten. "Don't look so glum. You just make yourself a new band. That's easy for you. Listen — you do what I do and I'll do what I do and everything will be peaches and cream, won't it?" Mimi tells him as she taps on her empty martini glass and asks for another. Elizabeth Ashley is just a hoot. I worried that too much Mimi might kill her charm, but it really hasn't. As for Davis, I've never understood dating back to the first season why there seemed to be such an anti-Davis/anti-Steve Zahn faction out there, because I've always enjoyed him. I thought he had some of his best moments this season, especially when he came to Sofia's rescue at Tipitina's and spoke to Toni afterward. I think his relationship with Annie has matured him to some extent, though it's an ongoing process that sometimes feels like one step forward, two steps back. With these series of blows here at the end and the way it plays out, perhaps he's finally recognized that he isn't what he thinks he is and he won't ever be. If Mimi stays the business side and Annie really starts writing songs, perhaps their label will release her first record and Davis will find that he belongs behind the scenes, not in front of the mic.

In a scene that's the closest that Treme has come to anything resembling a scene from The Wire, two cars pull alongside each other in the dead of night for a clandestine meeting. FBI Special Agent James Collington (Colin Walker) asks Terry, "So what's so secret you won't even come to the field office?" Terry replies, "They still make you sign in at the front desk, right? Or is the FBI doing away with formalities?" "That bad?" Collington says. Terry hands him a file. "That's everything we have on the Danziger shoot. You might as well start saving string when Eddie screws up the state case." He hands the agent two more files. "Also this kid Abreu from First District and another one, Seals." He passes some more across the cars. "A couple more as well." With this pile of files in his lap, Collington asks, "And?" Terry responds, "All of it's been dumped. Every case. Witnesses blocked. Evidence missing. No followup. No real investigative response. And all of 'em, I'm beginnin' to believe are police involved." The agent says that's in Terry's opinion. "Let me tell you what I just did. I fuckin' lied to my captain. I told him I had spent casings that could link two of those cases — Abreu and Seals. I told him I had a witness saying the shooters were police and you know what happened — they lost one of the casings. They lost it on the way over to Jeff Parish ballistics lab," Terry tells him. "What do you mean?" the agent asks. "It didn't get there. They disappeared the motherfucker. And the funny thing is it wasn't from Abreu. I lied. Both casings were from Seals. But they thought I was going somewhere with it so they disappeared the shit like they've been doin' all along, the motherfuckers. Jimmy, you guys have to come in and clean house," Terry tells the agent. "I'll do what I can," Collington says.

Nelson and Arnie have met for drinks at Irvin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse located inside The Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. Currently performing are Aurora Nealand & The Royal Roses, but while Nelson usually grooves to about anything he's not musically inclined tonight. "I'm fucked," he tells his cousin. "I come to town, make friends, got a kind word for everybody, doin' what I do, makin' what I can, get it done. Now, cuz, I could go to fuckin' jail," Nelson rants before taking a big drink. "What? Why?" Arnie asks. "Don't you get it? The Feds rolled somebody up on Oliver Thomas, the councilman I was working with. Now Thomas, he could roll me up," Nelson explains. "With what?" a confused Arnie presses. "With bullshit. I gave the guy a little cash for the cable thing, remember? I did right by him," Nelson insists as he sucks down more liquor. Arnie asks his cousin if that's the way his business works in Dallas. "Everywhere, cuz. Everywhere," Hidalgo semi-belches in response. "Nelson, let me ask you somethin'. What do you do?" The inebriated Nelson looks puzzled, either that he's been asked or that he can't really give a good answer. "I do deals. I make money," he finally comes up with as a response, but that doesn't satisfy Arnie who asks again, "But what do you make? What is it that you do?" Arnie goes on to say that when he's working as a bouncer, he knows what his responsibilities are that come with the job and when he's working on a house, he's putting on a roof. "I do a deal. Something gets done," Nelson says. "This real estate thing, I'll let you in on a secret. They're gonna build a hospital. That's why we're buying up houses." That's the first specific mention we've heard of the hospital that's been speculated on ever since C.J. drew on that map. Arnie asks him about the hospital everyone tells him about that they won't re-open. Nelson snickers. "OK. Well this will be a new hospital, better hospital maybe." After Arnie makes a suggestion and compares what he thinks Nelson should do to what Arnie does as a roofer and Nelson gives him that sarcastic applause and Arnie takes off. Nelson raises a glass to his mouth.# Back at the Jazz Playhouse, Nelson continues to drink alone while Aurora Nealand and her band have switched from the instrumental tune they played before to a song she's singing. Nelson puts his coat on and tries to leave, but it's not an easy walk and he almost falls on another table. We could tell Nelson was blotto before and the scene is so short that Arnie could have left and Nelson could have stayed a little longer if we needed to see him stumble. The band could have been doing that number earlier. Again, it's a short scene that I'm not objecting to because of its length but because it's needless.

At The Lucky Peach, David Chang lowers a drink from his mouth and covers his eyes. Janette approaches. "I can't believe I've got to ask this, but I have to go back to New Orleans for a couple of days," she says. I don't know why. I thought that was part of any job she had in a New York kitchen — she's allowed to have time off to return to New Orleans at a moment's notice whenever she wants. "Back to New Orleans," Chang repeats, rubbing his hands together. "I know — I'm an asshole," Janette declares. Hovering in the air over her left shoulder, Chef Ripert unfurls his glorious wings and emits a blinding white light in Chang's direction. "Doin' this to help out your sous chef, you're doin' what you have to do," Chang tells her. "On the other hand, if you're going back home because there's some dudes who are trying to poach you from my kitchen and help

you set up your own shop, then yes, you're an asshole." "Maird! The cynicism is too strong in this one," St. Ripert exclaims before vanishing in the bright light. "You heard," she says. "It's a small world, chef," Chang tells her. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, a stranger enters the office of C.J. Liguori. "Hello sir. My name is Enrico Brulard. I heard there are some properties up for auction in your Central Business District and I'm thinking of relocating my famous New York restaurant here. It seems we lost a lot of business when Alan Richman gave us a scathing review because a native of your city through a Sazerac in his face while he was there to review us and I hear she's coming back here to try launch her own eatery." "I don't know if I'm gonna jump — I really don't. I'm happy here. In your kitchen, I am, I'm happy," Janette tells him. "But homesick," Chang says. "That too. Look, this guy wants to show me a couple of locations…but I don't know what I want to do, I really don't," she admits. Chang pours himself another drink and Janette one as well. "Well, if you go home, go with God. I'm sure you'll not be back, but if you stay here," he says as he flips her off with both hands, "be happy with your work. By the way, I'm holdin' on to that chicken dish. Cheers." He raises his glass to Janette and she returns the gesture and they clink glasses. I've spent so much time complaining about this storyline that I forgot my biggest one: What a waste of Kim Dickens' talents. In those first four episodes with Brulard, she had something to do, but since then, nothing. Hopefully, next season she'll get Grade A material again as she did in Season 1. I sensed something sinister about her new restaurant's backer, so perhaps there will be conflict there. Hopefully, he'll have a name before next season begins other than Backer.

Jazz Fest has officially arrived and Annie and Davis are trying to plot out their day on the schedule. Davis wants to make sure he catches Deacon John and then he's curious about this show Donald Harrison is doing with the Guardians because he's heard rumors they're working on an album together. Annie wants to make sure she sees the subdudes, who she toured with at the beginning of the season. Davis has a panic attack when he realizes that he forgot to bring any weed.

At another part of the various venues, Antoine, Desiree and little Honoré wait in line for a show when Antoine greets Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews. Andrews looks at how the baby hits at everything and comments, "Looks like we got a little drummer here. Look at her go — hittin' everything on the one like a little Willie Green. Antoine says he was hoping for piano. He asks Troy if he's playing Jazz Fest, but Andrews is just catching some shows before he rolls out to Japan. Seems he's touring with Henry Butler like Antoine had the chance to but didn't take.

Toni brings what she knows about the Abreu and Seals cases and possible coverups to the Feds including the same FBI Special Agent Collington that Colson gave the files to as well as a first deputy U.S. attorney (Trey Burvant). "Needless to say with the open investigations and exclusion of public records, I can't go any further, but you all can," she tells them. The deputy U.S. attorney says they certainly will review her allegations. Collington asks if the witness she's identified would be willing to testify before a grand jury, "If it's clear you guys are bringing a real investigation and can ensure his safety, I think he will come forward," Toni tells them. "At this point, anything we say further would be premature," the deputy U.S. attorney says. "You know, this office has a lot on its plate and this is the first we're hearing of any civil rights issues involving the NOPD." Toni gets up to leave. "Maybe after the next election," she comments, passing photos of Dubya of Cheney on the wall as she exits.

Albert gets his big moment in the spotlight, taking the stage at Jazz Fest with Del, Donald Harrison, Harrison's musicians and the Congo Square Nation. Albert has been smiling so much the past couple of episodes, he doesn't even resemble the man at the beginning of this season. In the audience, we see James Woodrow, Dana Lyndsey and her cameraman shooting more footage, Annie and Davis, who seems to be enjoying it

despite lacking any marijuana intake. The whole crowd seems to get it, despite any worries with one enthusiastic audience member doing a spirited dance in the front row. Albert Lambreaux's storyline doesn't need to have a straight-line, season-long story arc because he's fortunate enough to be played by Clarke Peters and watching him do anything usually proves to be more than enough. Whether he's being kicked out of Hoke's, doing odd jobs, denying that he's depressed, getting screwed by the bureaucracy again and again, losing faith in the only thing that matters to him or finding renewed life in a musical project that brings him closer to his son. Getting laid with a much younger woman probably isn't hurting anything either. Sure, he's a stubborn son of a bitch at times, but with a wink he'll let you know that part of that demeanor is just for show. Peters can be just as great with silence as he is with words and, much like his fellow Wire alumnus Wendell Pierce, you don't see any Lester Freamon in Albert Lambreaux (except maybe when Albert concentrates on sewing you can picture Lester with his models) as you don't spot signs of Bunk Moreland in Antoine Batiste. Peters' talent can be so subtle, sometime you just take them for granted because he isn't showy and unfortunately too often that's where the bias falls in acting awards falls. I never remember who said it about the Oscars, but it applies to all awards: The prize usually goes not to who acted the best but who acted the most.

Sofia greets her mom — and sounds friendly doing it for a change — as she sits on the porch. "Oh, first day of Jazz Fest, eh," Toni says since they can hear the music from their house. "Shame you're grounded," she adds as she sits next to her daughter. "I did what I did," Sofia says nonchalantly. Toni asks where the blue streaks in Sofia's hair went, admitting that she was sort of getting used to it. Sofia admits that Oliver Thomas' situation saddens her. "He would have been a good mayor. Then again, he did take the money," the teen says. "Seems

so," her mom sighs. There's a moment of awkward silence between the two, then Toni restarts the conversation. "Folks just doubt ourselves. Sometimes we're better than ourselves, sometimes we're worse. Sometimes we please. Sometimes we disappoint. I don't know. I guess we're not really talking about Oliver Thomas anymore," Toni declares. "I still love him." Sofia says. "I always will. But I can't forgive him." Toni nods slightly, almost like a shake. "I know. Yet anyway," she manages a smile. Sofia closes her eyes and nods. Melissa Leo illustrates what I was just saying about Clarke Peters. She's nothing short of magnificent on Treme, as she was on Homicide: Life on the Street, the recent HBO miniseries of Mildred Pierce and her Oscar-nominated performance in Frozen River. While she also was good in The Fighter, the film that won her the Oscar last year for best supporting actress, it differed from those other roles in that it was a chew-the-scenery, over-the-top turn. Awards voters usually want to see proof that you are acting before they hand you a prize. Subtlety and humanity of the type Leo displays so beautifully and remarkably on every episode of Treme usually escapes their notice. Idiots. As Toni, she can crack you up or break your heart, often in a short span of time. I've praised her so much all season long, I almost feel as if there isn't anything to add. As for India Ennenga, I have to admit that my jury hasn't returned a verdict. I don't think she's bad in any way, I just can't decide if she's exceptional. She can play bratty and not bratty, but often to me it seems as if those are the only two keys she has. I'm reserving judgment for now.

Wanda has hit a stage at Jazz Fest with her own band, A Taste of New Orleans. Antoine watches from the crowd with discouragement and Wanda blows him a kiss.

The Capt. John returns to dock in Chalmette. Linh's father invites Sonny to get a beer.

Davis has a new look when he shows up for a gig with The Brassy Knoll. He looks quite preppy and sports a green sweater wrapped around his neck and holds a martini in his right hand. I wonder who he picked up that affectation from? The band asks what's up with the outfit and he ignores that question, instead ordering a big change in set, calling for James Brown's "Sex Machine" in G. Davis addresses the audience. "It has come to my attention that someone of my disposition cannot in fact bring the funk. There are those that say, 'Davis, are you not aware that you are from uptown? Well then, in my final performance with The Brassy Knoll, which will no doubt go on to great things in my absence, please allow me to offer the following in my defense." He sets down the martini and begins a nerdy rendition of "Sex Machine."# After that brief layover, we're back and Davis has gone into full Godfather of Soul mode now, spinning wildly on stage. He drops the sweater to the ground and then aping Brown, Calliope picks it up and wraps it around him like Brown's cape, only he doesn't lead him off stage because Davis isn't done yet. In the audience, Mimi and Annie laugh. Davis sings some more lyrics and then says, "Good luck to Calliope and The Brassy Knoll…I'm DJ Davis and I am out." He jumps off stage and hugs Annie and Mimi. Don B. leaps on stage and he and Lil Calliope begin "The True."

At Cafe Trinh Quyen, while other members of New Orleans East's Vietnamese community eat, talk and enjoy karaoke, Sonny and Linh's father look as if they are having a serious discussion over beers. How many episodes has Linh's father been on now. If they knew he would figure this prominently into the story, why not give the poor man a first name? Sonny spots Linh walking in first, then her dad turns and notices. He crosses his arms and looks stern, but nods. Sonny goes and joins Linh while her father points two fingers to his eyes and then aims them at Sonny.

Antoine picks up Robert at his house and his mother (Shirley Pugh) insists that he be home by 11 p.m. Batiste assures her that won't be a problem. As they walk off, Antoine tells Robert they'll have to rehearse all day first.

On the second day of Jazz Fest, Jacques wraps his arms around Janette as they dance to The Iguanas playing "Oye Isabel" on the Fais Do Do (English translation: Cajun dance party) Stage.# Jacques and Janette keep dancing to The Iguanas for a few more seconds of screentime, though they've miraculously had times to switch songs to what might be Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" but I can't be certain since the only line you hear is "How does it feel?"

On the Acura Stage, Lucinda Williams sings her far mellower song "Crescent City" which Davis and Annie swoon to appropriately.# The Iguanas had time in that short span to finish one song and get well through another, but Lucinda Williams still is singing "Crescent City," a song that runs three minutes. In contrast, "Oye Isabel" runs 4:32 and if it is Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," that whopper goes past the six-minute mark. Davis tells Annie that it's amazing that Williams wrote "Crescent City" before the storm. Harley taught Annie well as she tells him, "It's universal. That's what makes it great."

As Jacques and Janette walk along a line of vendors, she tells him it's not really Jazz Fest without a bowl of Crawfish Monica, which she's currently consuming. "Janette," Davis yells as he runs up and hugs her. She and Annie finally are formally introduced. Davis asks why she's back and she tells him she's looking at restaurant properties. "You're punchin' a little bit out of your weight class, aren't you Davis?" Janette says. "I always did," he responds. I believe she's referring to Annie, but I also thought she might be making a reference to him gaining weight. Was it just me or in the "Sex Machine" scene in this episode did Steve Zahn look as if he had a noticeable paunch that he didn't have in any of the other epiaodes this year? I know from my interview with Kim Dickens that they stay in New Orleans to shoot a season for seven months and I wonder if they had breaks to wait to get the Jazz Fest scenes Zahn may have gained some weight for another role during the hiatus.

Antoine assembles Robert and other students from the class band on a spot on the street with their instruments. They start to play, but he stops them, saying they forgot something. Robert opens his instrument case. "There ya go," Antoine says. "You gotta seed that shit some." Batiste tosses some bills and coins into the case. The kids start playing and immediately earn tips and spectators. Denard comes running to join them, showing up late in sunglasses. "Denard, I'm gonna fine ya, son," Antoine tells him. Then Antoine joins the kids and plays himself as well.

Davis and Annie are in bed and she starts mumbling as if she's having a bad dream again, but she doesn't wake up this time, only Davis does. He kisses her on the cheek.

Even though she's grounded, Toni takes Sofia to The Maple Leaf to hear the Rebirth Brass Brand. The woman at the door questions Sofia's age, but Toni promises she won't be drinking. Mother and daughter are holding hands, almost skipping. Sofia tells her mom that she's going up front to be closer to the band and Toni nods OK and they hug, Joining the band on stage is trumpeter James Andrews.

Davis wanders into the booth at WWOZ where DJ Jeffy Jeff is barely awake while working the late shift. Davis tells him he can't sleep, but Jeff says he's dying for a nap. "How's the band?" Jeff asks. By Davis' look, he gets his answer. "You think Darnell takes me back on?" Davis wonders. "When has he not?" Jeff replies. Davis tells Jeff that if he wants to lie down on the lobby's couch, he'll spin a set for him and the disc jockey takes him up on it. Davis takes to the air. "That was — actually, I'm not sure." He looks around the desk and sees a CD case. "Kidd Jordan, I think. But this is DJ Davis workin' relief for Jeffy Jeff. Anyway New Orleans, we're all still here. A few more alone every day." He removes a CD from its case and prepares to load it. "And even if it isn't as it

should be, even if they make it hard, where else would we go? Who else would have us? Yeah, you right. Let Pops tell it." As "Wrap Your Trouble in Dreams Begins," so does the season finale montage. It looks as if Desiree finally got Antoine to get her that house and they are moving in. Annie is writing a song, not certain if it's completing one of Harley's, but it's titled "Dauphine Street." GiGi's is back in business and LaDonna, with a cute, short haircut, serves Larry a hot dog at the bar. This requires more explanation: Terry is back in uniform. This doesn't: He bumps into Toni coming out of a coffee shop and she gives him a dirty look and ignores him. The Backer Without a Name takes Janette on a tour of one of the potential sites for her restaurant. Nelson stares through the barbed wire fence surrounding the vacant Mid-City site where the hospital will rise; Sonny shares beers and laughs with Don

and the other oystermen. At her job, Sofia reads The Times-Picayune story on Oliver's guilty plea and resignation. (This montage must cover some span of time since the story was ending in late April but Thomas didn't plead guilty until August.) Del helps Albert with some of his home repairs. Harley's memorial on the Washington Square fence is there, but has deteriorated with lots of litter on the ground below it. Crime tape cordons off another murder victim and Prioleau and another detective already are having a good chuckle before they even get to the body. We see various scenes of desolation that still remain this long after Katrina. A guitar stands for sale at the musician's union for $60 or best offer. I wonder if it's Sonny's or could it be Davis'? A hand grabs a tip. What looks like Mardi Gras beads hang from a tree. The song ends and we're back to Davis, who doesn't seem to notice it stopped playing."Sorry for the dead air, but that one got me," he tells the listeners as he plays another track and the Rebirth Brass Band's "Do Whatcha Wanna" runs over the credits.

SECOND SEASON SUMMATION
I'll cease with the italics now, since all of this is commentary and there won't be much since the majority of it has been sprinkled throughout this post and all the recaps this season. If you'd like to consult any of the old ones, go to my handy Treme index which can be found in the Television index in the left-hand column of the front page. Earlier this year, I addressed a lot of my criticisms in Time for an intervention. It's hard to deny that by most measures, the second season was weaker than the first. Last year, nearly every episode as a whole was superb. This year, with the exceptions of "Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky," "Santa Claus, Do You Ever Get the Blues?" "Feels Like Rain," "Carnival Time" and "What Is New Orleans?" (and honestly, I'm being generous with all but the first two and "Carnival Time"), most episodes were great moments surrounded by filler and missed opportunities.

While I've concentrated most of my criticism on the microscenes and scenes we leave only to come right back to after an interim, that problem boils down to this season having severe structural problems. Some episodes really did play as if that week's scenes were thrown up in the air and then edited into a random order. I know that David Simon likes to speak of a philosophy where each character is of an equal importance, but that hasn't even been true this year. David Morse was absent from an entire episode and in the season's most misdirected, poorly arranged installment, "On Your Way Down," when LaDonna's rape occurred, Annie appeared for 70 seconds total and for a seven-minute stretch, it alternated between LaDonna (whose story we cared about) and Sonny (whose story we didn't). No other character appeared in this time. It's also possible to have a large cast drama and get everybody in without resorting to tiny scenes. Hell, Hill Street Blues did that 30 years ago and they had to work in commercials. Treme doesn't.

When writing season three, everyone who works on Treme needs to remember that the best moments of this season, the ones we remember best, are the ones where their talented cast was allowed to flourish. "Let Bourbon Street Be Bourbon Street"; the Thanksgiving montage; Toni and Sofia talking openly about Creighton's suicide; "Listen to your fish"; Dinerral's funeral; Antoine's regret while lying in bed; LaDonna tearing into the ADA; Albert at Christmas dinner, etc. I will remember those a year from now. I won't recall Sofia gets on an elevator; Toni wakes up on a couch; Colson slits open the bottom of an evidence bag or many other scenes that ran less than 45 seconds, sometimes as short as 15. There is one short scene all season I will remember: When Antoine gets out of the cab for the job interview at the school, sees the throng of kids and retreats back inside the taxi and drives off. That's good use of a short scene. It's funny and accomplishes what it needs to do. It needs no more, no less. So many of the other scenes were either expendable or needed to be fleshed out.

I still love the show, I just find myself yelling, wishing that somehow I had access to their post-production facilities so I could stop them before they mistakes. Treme has a great cast, great writers, employs great directors — there's nothing stopping it from getting better and better except for these bad structural decisions. You've got the third season — these problems are very fixable.

Labels: Awards, Clarke Peters, D. Morse, David Simon, Dylan, E. Ashley, HBO, Kim Dickens, Melissa Leo, Oscars, The Wire, Treme, TV Recap, Wendell Pierce, Zahn

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Sunday, May 29, 2011

Treme No. 16: Feels Like Rain

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This recap contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, move along.

By Edward Copeland
Some of the commentary in my Treme recaps this season may make me sound like a broken record, criticizing the same thing: Namely episodes that consist entirely of tiny scenes that appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. I especially beat up on them when they cut away from scenes in particularly odd spots, inserting short scenes in the middle of others only to go back to the first scene or when they truncate musical performances. Of course, that's only been the case in two out of the season's five episodes so far ("On Your Way Down" and "Slip Away"). The other three installments I've liked and — in the cases of "Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky" and "Santa Claus, Do You Ever Get the Blues?" — two of those were among the best episodes the still young series has produced. So in reality, I've been more positive this season than I've been negative. That's why it may come as a shock to faithful readers when I tell them that the second season's sixth episode, "Feels Like Rain," directed by Roxann Dawson from a teleplay by Tom Piazza and a story by Piazza and Eric Overmyer, follows this clip show structure again but, aside from a single instance of a bad cut where a 15 second scene interrupts a musical number for no apparent reason, it actually worked for me this time, finding a more natural flow between the short scenes and a pacing for the episode that worked. Now, this week's scenes aren't all teeny-tiny: they are back in the 40s, scene count-wise, unlike the 90+ count of last week, and they allow some scenes to linger longer than two minutes. I still have a preference for episodes that mix up the lengths of scenes, but "Feels Like Rain" manages to produce a quality episode of Treme within this constricting structure. I don't want the show to be this way every week, even if this episode shows they're capable of doing that type of episode well. What also helps this episode may not be as obvious: It has a subtle underlying theme that runs through almost every scene and storyline. This week, is all about passing on what you know and learning new things. A lot of this relates to culture, particularly music, though not exclusively, but nearly all the characters are either providing or getting an education. Also, a quick note about this week's recap. I didn't get to see "Feels Like Rain" until much later than usual, which gave me less time to work on it than I usually do. As a result, this week is a more no-frills recap than usual.

Since this episode's underlying theme is education, who better for the show to lead off with than everyone's favorite former Tulane professor of literature? Viewers will know it's a dream immediately, but people who have been fans of Treme since season one will welcome the brief visit anyway. As the episode opens, Toni fixes her morning coffee and scrambles about the

kitchen when a familiar voice fills the air, sort of humming, sort of singing, just basically making musical sounds with his mouth. Toni starts heading toward the room where the sound's coming from. When she can see into the dining room, there sits Creighton (John Goodman) merrily making those noises, decked out in a Hawaiian shirt with a lei around his neck and a white hat atop his head. "Aloha," he greets his wife while tipping and removing the hat. "Creigh, I didn't know you were here," Toni tells him. "I love the new place," Creighton says. Toni comments that he looks great and asks if he cut his hair, but the former Tulane professor's response is to note that she took down his Les Blank poster. "We've been meaning to come see you, but Sofia has been so busy with the new school," Toni insists. "Believe me, I get it," Creighton says. "You haven't told her about the thingamahoojie." Toni crinkles her nose. "I thought I'd wait for the right moment," she tells him. "Hawaii must be beautiful." Creighton looks at his wife puzzled and tells her he hasn't been in Hawaii and asks if she got his letter. From

the hallway Sofia, dressed as a mermaid, shouts, "Daddy!" She shuffles in her fins and hugs her father, telling him how much she missed him. "I miss you too, sweet," he says. If anyone wasn't sure this was a dream yet, they would be now when Sofia rushes over to show her costume to Toni, putting both her hands in hers so her mom can spin her around and look it over. Suddenly, with Creighton standing, he orders, "Hey, let's go!" Toni asks where, but Sofia takes her mom's hand and leads her as Creighton waves them back toward the front door as if he were guiding an airplane into its gate. When the family is at the front door, Toni worries that she doesn't have a costume. Creighton takes a jester's hat from the wall and places it on his wife's head. "Fantastic," he proclaims as music plays. The three place their hands over their hearts as Creighton again says, "Let's go!" Toni opens the door and she and Sofia exit first into a blinding white light followed by Creighton who lets out a cackle and dances a wacky little jig out the door, tipping his hat and doing a kick as he vanishes again. We then see Toni, sound asleep in her bed, a big grin on her face — until the morning sun awakens her and she realizes that Creighton hasn't come back and that smile disappears.

Albert followed through on his plan and his car, U-Haul attached, sits parked in front of daughter Davina's Houston home. Inside, Albert continues to work on his Indian suit, saying, "I'm gonna finish what I started but I'm done with all that. Done and done." Delmond is there, but he's getting ready to return to New York. They both doubt their father's word, with Del noting Albert hasn't missed a Mardi Gras since he learned to walk. Albert reminds him that he missed last year. "Jail don't count," Delmond says. "It's just another Tuesday," Albert declares. "I can live without it." The elder Lambreaux mentions that his children all seem to do fine without it. "We aren't the Big Chief," Davina responds. "Neither am I. Not no more. I'm retired," Albert announces. "As soon as I finish this here." Del asks his dad what happens to the suit then. Albert supposes he'll give it to Memphis Ronnie, but Del asks why, since Ronnie's sewing his own. "I'll give it to you then cause I know you ain't sewin'," Albert tells his son. Delmond informs his father that he has been sewing, but Albert just laughs. Delmond tosses a plane ticket to New York on the table and tells his father he can come up for a short visit and help him finish his suit. Albert stays noncommittal. As Davina and Del head to her car for the trip to the airport, she promises to work on dad about New York.

While a band director tells his sousaphone line that they won't be marching in any Mardi Gras parades if they can't do better than what they are showing him right now, Desiree approaches with a military step of her own, only she's set her sights on a different individual watching the practice — Dr. Jason Frasor (Marcus Lyle Brown). Apparently, he's familiar with Desiree, because he knows her by name and tries to stop her before she speaks, but you don't stop Desiree. It seems her cousin called her upset because her son is a ninth-grader at Mid-City's John McDonogh High School, and the security situation has become so frightening that the student fears going and his mom is afraid to send him to John Mac (the school's nickname) as well. According to IMDb, Brown also played Frasor in the second episode, where they had the parents' night meeting at Desiree's school, Homer A. Plessy Charter School, only at the time his character was identified merely as "principal." So I'm guessing this scene takes place at the school where Desiree works and that this practicing marching band belongs to (though based on the closing credits, I suspect this actually is the O Perry Walker High School Marching Band). Frasor tells Desiree that the school is overcapacity when she says her cousin's kid has to get into a better situation. Frasor tells her that he can't make an exception and Desiree tells him that her cousin may be forced to return to Houston, where I assume they relocated after the storm. Frasor says he hates to admit it, but that may be her best option. Part of the Recovery School District, John McDonogh High School had a bad reputation long before Katrina thanks to the 2003 on-campus murder of a 15-year-old student that led to a string of other murders. It also was part of a very expensive private security contract the district employed, in theory to prevent these problems, but the firm which had secured Olympics couldn't handle storm-shocked, relocated teenagers and later in 2007, part of the multimillion contract was cut. Ironically, the school was named for a controversial shipping magnate of the 17th and 18th century who in his will left his fortune to endow the public education systems of New Orleans and Baltimore. How about that for a double hit of favored cities for David Simon?

One of the things I liked most about this episode is that we get several scenes that almost come across as music appreciation classes camouflaged as drama so no one will notice. As I mentioned in my intro, teaching and learning of all types seem to underscore most of the stories and scenes of "Feels Like Rain." Since I started doing these more involved recaps of Treme, it's certainly been an education for me. I've learned so many culinary terms I didn't know before, not to mention musicians who were new to me and, even though my situation prevents me from ever actually visiting New Orleans, I'm starting to get a sense of its geography — where Mid-City ends and Uptown begins, where the Garden District lies. Then there's the history — lots of history — that I've come to learn, about people, places and things. In a way, each week, these recaps have become somewhat like a puzzle for me, looking at the visual clues on the screens and listening to verbal ones in the dialogue to figure out where a scene takes place or who character might be making a reference to at some point.

As for this particular episode, when I mentioned how much better the flow worked between the miniscenes this time, the segue between Desiree's scene and the one that follows provides an excellent example of the improvement. For all of Desiree's scene, that marching band practices in the background (to the point that some dialogue was difficult to make out) but when she leaves, that scene ends with the band marching to the left and out of the frame. The entire scene ran 54 seconds but that band marches us musically straight into

the silence of Antoine and Mr. LeCouer's instrument-deprived band class. That's a good way to move from one scene to the next and keep it flowing when you're dealing with something that short. In the class, the students discuss numbers they could play in a Mardi Gras parade, or at least those who already have instruments could play. LeCouer tells the class that it isn't about the music. Even if they had the instruments and uniforms, they just aren't ready. "Shit. I was born ready," one student, Denard (Terry Johnson Jr.), says. "Hey, watch your language son," Antoine says sternly with his arms crossed. He may be deadly serious, but it's pretty funny to hear a poet of profanity such as Antoine Batiste chastising someone else about foul language. Another student asks what's the point of coming to band class if they can't be a band. LeCouer assures him that they are a band, but they aren't a band that's ready for Mardi Gras this year. "Y'all come to class to learn music, right?" Antoine asks rhetorically. "Well, part of learnin' to play is listenin' to it played." Antoine holds a CD box up before inserting the disc into the boom box. Some good old-fashioned jazz comes blaring out of the speakers. Some of the students seem to listen while others yawn. Antoine lets out a little, "Woo" before going on to say. "See, now that is jazz music being invented right there." The kid Antoine got on for cussing speaks up and says that he could play those notes. "Maybe not like he plays 'em but you write that down on paper, let me take it home, I come back" and have it all down, the student insists. "Oh yeah, but would ya? I mean would you play 'em if they weren't written down in front of you?" Antoine asks as he approaches the kid. "If you couldn't take it home and practice all night long? The man is playing with his heart right here. He's not readin' notes off a piece of paper, he's writin' it — as he plays with a feel. In the moment! Now that's jazz. That's improvisation. That's genius. And we invented that — New Orleans. Right here." Antoine tells the students to close their eyes and listen. There's another reason I like that scene so much. Even though this is mostly an episode of shorties, albeit one I think works for a change, that great scene for Wendell Pierce runs a little more than two minutes.

Outside the gates of Lusher, Sofia talks with her friend Jocelyn (Shelby Farrell) about the fact that her father killed himself. Sofia admits to feeling stupid when Jocelyn tells her that pretty much everyone knew and assumed she did as well, but just chose not to talk about it. If I hadn't been in a time crunch, I would have looked back at the first season's last episode and see how that newspaper headline played Creighton's death, to get a better feel for how his suicide became common knowledge when Colson let Toni remove the note from his truck. Toni honks as she drives up to pick Sofia up after school. "There she is — Mama Liar," Sofia snarls.

Harley and Annie have coffee outside The Sound Cafe as Annie struggles trying to write a new song on a guitar, admitting it would be so much easier if she were doing this on violin. She again laments how good her first effort was. "Yeah, if only little Bobby Z. hadn't gotten there first," Harley says while reading a paper. Annie decides to give up and settle for being a player. "You have to keep at it until you bleed," Harley tells her. Annie insists she is bleeding, but Harley laughs at her, saying she hasn't come close to bleeding yet, then offers her the use of "It's Alright Mama, I'm Hardly Bleeding" as a title for free.

Again, another example of good segues that help the flow with the structure of these truncated scenes. We end with Annie trying out notes on the guitar and it leads directly into a performance of Antoine Batiste & His Soul Apostles playing with special guest Henry Butler at Donna's Bar & Grill in the French Quarter, but we only get 50 seconds of their set before we cut away again. While I think "Feels Like Rain" works overall, this is the kind of stuff that drives me crazy." On a sadder note, Donna's Bar & Grill no longer exists, as a weekly venue anyway. Located across from Armstrong Park, it was the last live music club on N. Rampart Street, but it closed in August 2010. Though it's not open on a regular basis, it did re-open as a site for some events for this year's JazzFest.

What we interrupt the music for is Davis discussing with Lil Calliope, the rapper at Club Paradise he watched last week, about coming up with socially relevant material about the issues and problems facing New Orleans. The young man (who is played by Altonio Jackson as we wrote last week, is listed in the credits as Ace B., his rhyming name) isn't so sure, saying he just writes what he knows, but Davis plays tutor, giving him CDs of Public Enemy, London Calling and Sandanista! by The Clash and "the mother lode," Woody Guthrie. "Don't let the first couple verses of 'This Land Is Your Land' fool ya," Davis tells him. "That is one angry white boy there." After Calliope leaves, Annie comes up and asks Davis if he's serious. "New Orleans has enough dance music. With times being what they are in this sad fractured town, it's the hour to fight the power," Davis says.

We return to Donna's where, unfortunately, the set has finished. It might have been nice to have heard more of it. Antoine passes the pay around to the band members, including George Porter, who was subbing for Cornell. Antoine asks if Porter has heard when Cornell plans his return, but he has no idea. Porter tells Henry Butler it's great to see him and Butler responds, "Alright Porter, see ya on Friday, man." Curious, Antoine asks Butler what's happening Friday. Butler tells Antoine that they have a gig at The Howlin' Wolf. Butler asks if Antoine would be interested in sitting in, but you can see the conflict brewing in Batiste between Antoine, the newly minted bandleader with a Friday gig of his own, and the Antoine of old, who didn't have the headaches of keeping track of members and paying them but who could simply show up and make money for doing what he loves on high-profile stages with the likes of a Henry Butler. "Too bad," Butler responds when Antoine mentions his own gig. "We could really use a bone." While Antoine suggest some names and keeps talking to Henry as if part of him is reconsidering, they are interrupted by Sonny, who tells Butler what an honor it was playing with him. Antoine pays Sonny while he's there, but Sonny's puzzled because it's not his full rate. "I docked you half 'cause you was late," Antoine tells him. Sonny argues that it was only 10 minutes, but Antoine says it was half an hour and next time, "I'll dock the whole thing and you're done." As Sonny slinks off, Butler tosses more lures at Antoine, telling him that he's planning a summer tour with a horn section that will cover the East Coast, Europe and Japan. The sound of Japan excites Antoine, who has never been there. Butler tells him that Friday night's show is sort of a dress rehearsal.

Colson gets out of his squad car and 6th District Capt. John Guidry makes a beeline for him. "John, what did you hear?" Colson asks. "I thought you might like to see my new asshole," Guidry says. "Terry, what the fuck?" Colson reminds Guidry that he tried to talk to him, but Guidry stands by his defense that his men and homicide were working on legit leads in the Helen Hill murder. "Oh, the husband, come on?" Colson says dismissively. Guidry insists they had to clear him first. "Did anyone ever talk to the detective working the attempted push-in down the block?" Terry asks him. Guidry says they sent a team over there, but Colson reminds him they didn't do that until a week and a half after the murder. "You're not 6th District, you're not homicide and you go to a chief," Guidry responds with some hostility. "This is not about turf, John. The city's on its knees. Do your job and I wouldn't have to fuckin' do it for you," Colson tells him.

In Baton Rouge, Mrs. Brooks tells her daughter that she's found an apartment. LaDonna tries to talk her mom out of it, saying that both she and Larry like having her there and the boys adore having their grandmother around. Mrs. Brooks says it's on the bus line and only 20 minutes away and she'll be there whenever anybody wants her. "Puttin' the house up for sale too," she informs her daughter with a smile on her face. "It's time and I need the money." She tells LaDonna she didn't move up there to be a burden on them. From LaDonna's tone, you can see she suspects a coup d’état is in the works and she accuses her mother of agreeing with Larry now about selling GiGi's. "Y'all gonna have to decide sooner or later which it's gonna be," Mrs. Brooks responds, referring to LaDonna's two-city life.

Annie finds herself back in her comfort zone, playing her violin. She's doing it in impressive company as well, alongside pianist Tom McDermott and clarinetist Evan Christopher, who have recorded and performed together frequently in recent years, at Chickie Wah Wah, a Mid-City restaurant and bar that specializes in live

Southeast Louisiana roots music. Annie really gets into playing with the pros and when the number finishes, she says, "That's a really cool beat, Tom." McDermott says that he wrote it for Henry Butler. "I heard Henry playing 'Tipitina' on the radio and I took a little fragment of what he was playing, put a little two-three clave underneath it," McDermott explains, adding some clapping and sounds with his mouth to get his point across, "and took that idea and stretched it into a whole tune." Annie shares her experience when she, "kinda did that with a Dylan song, only I didn't mean to." McDermott compliments her for at least being able to sing because he never learned how, but Annie's just as envious of his ability to write. While Tom and Annie continue to go back and forth over who is luckier for having which talent, Evan Christopher finally speaks up and suggests they practice another number.

We see a closeup of Davis lighting some kind of smoke amidst a circle of musician friends who endure his speech as he passes the lit stick around. "And with this sacred stick, we consecrate the bonds of musicianhood. Let he who has partook know that he is on a savage and unyielding quest for the very frontiers of funk and righteousness," Davis piously intones to those gathered. One of the circle asks, "What the fuck we gonna be playin'?" "Bounce funk rap and brass band twist," McAlary replies. "Our message will be angry and political. We will speak of the affront and injustices of our times and we will not be moved." Another guest asks a more pertinent question. "Do we have gigs?" Davis promises that they'll be playing three or four clubs a week once he gets a demo out. Another potential member inquires about the material and Davis claims he's been holed up for months writing. They all groan when the question of a frontman comes up and Davis tells them that he will front some, but Davis says most of the front work will be by Lil Calliope, who is a stranger to most of the others. I'm not in the circle at Davis' apartment, but this sudden idea has me scratching my head with questions as well. This turn in Davis' story confuses me slightly, almost as if we're watching his movie and an inexperienced teen working at the multiplex at the mall was assigned to build the movie when the film cans arrived, but somehow he left out some reels. Last week, Davis' focus remained on the sampler and it looked as if Don B. and Aunt Mimi had saved his ass by securing Mannie Fresh's participation. In this episode, that idea isn't even mentioned and Mimi and Don are M.I.A. while Davis appears to have moved on to something else. It makes me think that my objection to cutting from The Blue Note scenes to the Club Paradise ones were not only right for the reasons I spelled out in my criticisms of "Slip Away," but they also were out of place because they launched this new story thread for Davis without finishing the one he'd been involved in just a few scenes earlier or at least hitting the pause on it. It's not a flaw of this episode, it just seems as if something got started sooner than it was meant to or that the previous storyline didn't have an ending. If Mannie Fresh had said no and Don B. had declared his intention to drop out and they'd inserted a short scene — and Lord knows they love short scenes — where Davis tells Mimi he has a different idea to start the label with or she gets mad over him charging Janette's gift on her card and pulls up stakes, the transition would make more sense.

Nelson meets up with C.J. that night at Chickie Wah Wah where Tom McDermott, Evan Christopher and Annie have already started their set. C.J. asks Hidalgo if he knows much about ragtime music. Nelson admits he does not. C.J. tells him they are playing Scott Joplin, one of ragtime's greatest practitioners, though it's often played too fast. "How are they doing?" Nelson asks, pointing to Tom, Evan and Annie. "A little brisk," Liguori assesses, "but the Latin tinge is a nice touch though. Evan Christopher, the clarinet player — reminds me of Tony Parenti." The music lesson may be fine for me, but Nelson has business on his mind. "So North White Street, that big shipwreck," Nelson says, referring to a large building he was looking at earlier in this episode. C.J. laughingly calls the rundown building a "fixer-upper." Nelson tells C.J. that at the planning meeting on Friday, "A friendly fella came up to me and congratulated me on my successful bid." Liguori gives a curious nod and comments, "That was friendly." "But the auction hasn't happened yet?" While Nelson may have been mystified, C.J. shows no surprise and instead just tells the Texan that he thinks he's making a wise purchase adding, "Assuming you win the auction, of course." Liguori then leans in close to Nelson and advises him not to pay more than $1.1 million for the property. "But that's just me," C.J. says.

Is a chance meeting between two people from the same Southern city at an East Coast bar going to lead to something else? It's too soon to say. but after Janette saw Delmond's show at The Blue Note and visited

with him and his girlfriend Jill over drinks afterward, now the two New Orleans exiles are sharing a late meal at Chinatown's Big Wong, a staple on Mott Street for more than 30 years that offers reasonably priced meals that include what you'd find at any Chinese restaurant as well as more exotic fare such as the types Janette has talked Del into trying (roast pork) and failed to talk Del into trying (such as salt-and-pepper squid, though she insists

it's delicious). Delmond can't believe how much food he's watching Janette consume. "Damn girl, where you put it all? You eat like you just got out of jail. They don't feed you where you work?" Del asks. "We don't eat food, we just cook it — there's no time. If there is time, just lookin' at it all day, you don't want it," Janette tells him. "About an hour after work, then you eat the box the Big Mac comes in." Del wonders how she picked being a chef as the thing she wanted to do with her life then, but she figures it's the same as it is with him and music. "People like us, we just do a thing," she says. "I don't have a choice really. Could you do anything else?" Del just sort of shakes his head in a doubtful way. "Probably not. Your parents cool with it?" Janette looks up wistfully, then down. "It's not exactly what they wanted for me, let's put it that way." Del nods. "I hear that." Janette doesn't quite believe him and says his father must be proud of him. "It's hard to tell sometimes. Actually, he's comin' to town tomorrow."

John Goodman's Creighton isn't the only season one character who makes a return in "Feels Like Rain," only these two aren't in a dream. Davis pays a visit to his gay neighbors downstairs that he once feuded with, but later made peace with after they rescued him following a beating. Davis comes bearing wine which Donald (Carl Walker), the bald gentleman, suggests they open right away but Davis explains they should save it because the next day he will be having musicians over to rehearse. The other man (played by Daniel Ladmirault who, like so many characters, the writers never got around to giving a first name) wails, "Oh God" when Donald asks what kind of music and Davis answers, "Brass funk hip-hop with a bounce twist." The other neighbor (who shall now be christened Daniel for my recap purposes) tries to be assured that it's just for the next day, but Davis adds it's also twice a week thereafter until further notice. "Forgive me my trespasses," McAlary begs as he exits and says through the door it's only until they get a couple sets together, then they'll move into the clubs. "Now's when you call the cops," you can hear Donald tell Daniel.

Albert can't believe how small Delmond's apartment is when he gets to New York, but Del says he's staying with Jill while Albert's there. Albert does say it proves Delmond isn't really sewing because there's not a bead or feather in sight. Delmond tells his father that he's set up over at Jill's because she has a lot more space than he does. Del tells his father he needs to hit the bead shop because he still has some things to pick up, but Albert has a more pressing need to take care of first. He heads to the bathroom, telling Del that's another reason for him to quit being chief. "It takes a young man's bladder to march around all day in an Indian suit."

The auction begins for that Mid-City "shipwreck" at 426 N. White Street in the 2nd Municipal District and Nelson is on the scene, ready to buy. The auctioneer we've seen before. He's Orleans Parish Civil Sheriff's Capt. Richard Lafouchette (James DuMont). Lafouchette places the property's root amount at $500,000. The auctioneer also announces the property has past due taxes owed to the city in the amount of $1,215.23. Nelson starts the bidding at the root amount, then someone bumps it to $600K. Hidalgo ups it to $700,000 and the scene ends.

Janette wakes up and bids good morning to Chas, who corrects her that it's more like afternoon. She sees a message with a New Orleans area code, but it doesn't explain what it's about and Chas can't help because Nick is the one who wrote it down. Janette deciphers that the number belongs to Susan Spicer. Chas suggests she's got a job for Janette back there but she says, "No thanks." Chas says to ask if she has one for him then as Janette returns her call.

Terry and Toni are having a meal together again, but it looks as if it's just an excuse for Colson to vent his frustrations about his police department. "It'd be bad enough if we had our act together," Terry tells her, "but homicide is a fuckin' trainwreck. You know why they don't have a viable suspect in the Helen Hill murder? They're only looking at the husband." That dumbfounds Toni. "He was shot three times holding a baby." Colson says they finally backed off that when even they realized how stupid that was. Majeeda Snead, the woman from The Loyola Law Clinic, greets Toni and tells her she's glad she ran into her. Toni makes the introductions and informs Colson that she had turned the Breau case over to the clinic. "I should update you on that some time," Majeeda says to Toni. Toni tells her to drop by the office some time. Terry seems surprised that she "kicked it to the law clinic" but Toni admits she couldn't afford to keep it. She asks him if he's working Sunday. He's not, so he invites him to the Pigeon Town Steppers' second line, assuming they get their fees together. He says he'll think about it and asks what happens if they don't get the money. "Then you can come to the protest march," Toni says. "Then I'll be working."

Del tells Albert that where they are going isn't like the old-style bead and feather stores. As always, his father is skeptical, saying anything he can't find in New Orleans, he orders from Koreans in New York anyway. Once they enter the store, Albert has to agree: It's not like those old stores. Albert starts testing, asking if they have certain items, but Delmond insists they have everything. One of the store's clerks, Dave Wilkins (Rock Kohli), knows Del so well he greets him on sight and asks if he's making progress. Delmond introduces his father to Dave who tells him he's heard a lot about him. Del says he's almost done beading that patch and asks Dave about a few items and he goes to see if they have them in stock. When Dave returns, he tells them that he'll have to order them and it should take about three days. Del says that it's cool while Albert tries to hide his wide, shit-eating grin.

Le Bernardin certainly exists in a completely different universe than Brulard's. Janette goes in to see Chef Ripert and tells him she has a problem back home. Her former sous chef is in trouble. He's been jailed and may be deported. "Friends, lovers, marriage — they come and go, but your sous chef — that's a lifelong relationship. Go," Ripert tells her.

"I'm goin' back to work — soon — after Carnival, when things calm down," LaDonna informs her husband. "We'll see," Larry replies. The old fiery LaDonna has begun to shine again and she asks Larry why he asked her mother to put that house up for sale. "Who am I to tell your mama anything? She's just as stubborn as you are," Larry responds. "Where do you think I get it?" LaDonna says with a grin that manages to make Larry laugh as well. LaDonna keeps laughing, but she's still has a drink in her hand most of the time. While I think they found a way for the short scene format to work in this episode (For example, the next scene will flow directly into GiGi's where Antoine is asking about LaDonna), Khandi Alexander may be the performer these less-than-a-minute scenes ill serves the most. She's so talented and may have given the best performance in season one, but she's been handed a heavy story to play this year so these quick bites come off more like sketches of what LaDonna is going through because there aren't scenes long enough to allow her to really explore her trauma or her growing substance abuse. It's a shame. Alexander deserves better all the time, but especially with this storyline.

"So she doesn't work nights at all, huh?" Antoine asks John, who tells him that LaDonna doesn't come in much during the days either. "That'll get old — quick," Antoine says. Apparently, Antoine's band had just completed a gig at GiGi's and he's handing out the night's pay to everyone including Cornell, who has reappeared. However, when he gets to Sonny, no full payment is forthcoming. "What the fuck?" Sonny asks.

"For being late." Sonny insists that he didn't miss a note. "This last minute shit ain't gonna cut it. You weren't here on time for sound check and you were too fuckin' loud for the entire first set," Antoine tells him. "Shit. It won't happen again," Sonny promises. "You're damn straight because you're gone," Antoine announces. "What the fuck?" Sonny says again. Antoine reminds him that he gave him fair warning. Sonny guzzles down the rest of his beer, mutters something under his breath, grabs his equipment and leaves. "Say bro," Cornell says, "He just called you a motherfucker in Dutch." "Back at him," Antoine responds. He walks over to Thaddeus Richard, his keyboard player, who's taking down his equipment, and complains about how everyone is fucking up. "That's just regular band shit," Thaddeus says. Antoine asks Thaddeus since he's such an "organized motherfucker" if he'd run things if Antoine gave him a bigger cut. "But that's your job. You the leader," Thaddeus replies. Antoine explains he'd book the gigs, selects the songs, hire and fire, basically handle the artistic decisions. He wants Thaddeus to take care of logistics. "Make sure the cats are on time, fine them when they're late, lining up last-minute subs if we need them, handle payroll," Antoine defines the role he has in mind. "Oh, you want me to be the straw boss," Thaddeus replies. They negotiate the fee and settle on $50 plus Thaddeus will get to keep half of any fines. Cornell says he's off and he'll see them tomorrow night, but Antoine tells them that they'll have to carry him because he's sitting in with Henry Butler. Thaddeus takes to his job immediately and fines Antoine for missing a gig and giving less than 24 hours notice.

Davis' assembled band, with Lil Calliope fronting, certainly are living up to their promise — of being a noise nuisance that is, at least for a residential apartment. The number they are rehearsing takes on The Road Home program (with such insightful lyrics as "The Road Home ain't no road home" and wrapping "Home on the Range" into the mix for good measure). Annie sits, smiles and tries to play the supportive girlfriend, but it's all a bit much for her, so she takes her leave, seeking refuge with Donald and Daniel downstairs, who have indeed broken out the Bordeaux that Davis gave them. Daniel covers his glass as if to protect it from impending tremors from a stampede of dinosaur escapees from Jurassic Park. They welcome Annie and immediately pour her a glass as she joins them at their table.

Sofia is performing her internship duties in Oliver Thomas' office when Nelson arrives and gets permission to go in and see him. Thomas asks what brings Hidalgo to see him and Nelson regrets that it's not playoff tickets, but he doesn't have pull in Chicago and Thomas revels in the wonder of the Saints making it to the NFC Championship in his lifetime. Nelson tells him he is bearing a gift of some kind and informs the city council president of his interest in buying some real estate in Mid-City. "No offense, but if folks from Dallas, Texas, are already getting wind of plans for lower Mid-City, don't you think it's a little late to be telling the city council president?" Thomas says, asking Hidalgo what else he has in that bag of tricks. "I've got a million of 'em," Nelson responds. Oliver gets up and grabs his coat, "Buy me a cappuccino."

Majeeda Snead and Robert Turner (Dean West), one of the Loyola law students who works at its law clinic, drop in on Toni to fill her in on what they've discovered while looking into the case of Joey Breau. Turner informs Toni that in October 2005, they got a call from one of the residents of the Iberville projects about a possible police shooting a few days after the storm of a 29-year-old man named Leon Seals. His body was found in one of the projects' apartments. He had a gunshot wound to the head, close range, he tells her. Toni flips through the file, noting Seals' extensive criminal history. Majeeda adds that Seals grew up in Iberville and his family evacuated during Katrina, but he stayed behind. Toni asks how this relates to Breau. Turner tells Toni that his witness saw the cops chase Fields into his apartment and then heard the shots. "Can she identify them?" Toni asks. "She can, but she won't," he tells her, but he did get her to show where they chased Fields to and found two bullet casings, which he dumps on the table — the exact kind the officer retrieved at Robideaux's. Turner filed a Freedom of Information Act request for any police report, but has received nothing.

While Nelson and Oliver stroll and sip their cappuccinos, Nelson tries to sell Thomas on giving his firm the city's contract for computer cables, which he says would save New Orleans $250,000 a year. "Right off the bat, before I even get on the phone and start checkin' you out on this shit," Thomas tells him, "there's something I need to ask you to do — today. A show of good faith." "Name it," Nelson says.

Having arrived back in New Orleans, Janette arrives at the jail's visiting area to see Jacques. "Susan said it was a traffic stop," Janette says to him when she picks up the phone. "I had a bad taillight and bad papers," Jacques replies on the phone on his side of the glass partition. "Actually, no papers." This surprises Janette. "No papers? Well, how did you get in the country in the first place without papers?" Jacques says he will tell her some other time, when he gets out of the jail, that is if he doesn't get deported first. Janette tries to ease his fears about that. "That's not gonna happen. We'll get the bail money raised. What we really need is an immigration lawyer and Susan's got contacts," Janette tells him. "Just don't throw Sazerac at the chief," Jacques suggests. "Oh, you heard about that," she sighs. "Now you are officially a living legend of Louisiana," Jacques anoints Janette. "Great. Me and Edwin Edwards, Janette says.

Nelson walks into an unfamiliar part of the city, though there are a lot of those for him, as he steps into the Pigeon Town Steppers Social Aid & Pleasure Club. "Mister Henry?" Nelson tentatively addresses the man sitting at the counter. "You must be Nelson. Oliver told me you was comin', but he didn't say why," Joseph "Rollin' Joe" Henry says. "So this is Pigeon Town," Hidalgo proclaims. "Part of it," Henry responds. Nelson, still not up on his New Orleans terminology, says, "So you guys having a kind of parade, right?" Henry corrects him. "Second line. Do it every year. Pigeon Town Steppers. I'm the president." Nelson gets to his point. "You're short on cash is what I understand." Henry tells him people have been donating, but they still lack $2,000 with the event set for Sunday, which is just two days away. Nelson pulls out a wad of cash and starts counting. When he gets to $2,000, he hands it to Henry and says, "Compliments of Hidalgo and Hidalgo of Dallas, Texas. Vaya con Dios." It looks like Oliver Thomas has kept the promise he made to Sofia last week.

This next section of the show contains the one bad cut to a short scene that I referenced in the opening. We're back at the House of Blues again, only this time the musical star on stage is John Hiatt and though Annie watches from backstage again, she does so with Harley, not Davis, and she won't be joining Hiatt for a number. As we enter his performance, Hiatt is finishing his song "Memphis in the Meantime." "He wrote all these?" Annie asks Harley in a whisper shouted above the cheers and applause. "One right after another," Watt answers. Hiatt returns to the microphone to address the crowd. "Thanks so much. Now, I'm no weatherman, but it feels like rain." Hiatt then begins to sing his song, which gives this episode its title, "Feels Like Rain." "Down here the river meets the sea/And in the sticky heat I feel ya’ open up to me/Love comes out of nowhere baby, just like a hurricane/Kinda feels like rain/I said it feels like rain…" Then comes the only truly bad and pointless cut in this entire episode. They cut after barely starting the song that gives the episode its name (the second week in a row that they've done that) to show us Toni waking up on her couch, seeing it's late and that Sofia isn't home again, mirroring a scene from

a previous episode, and dialing her cell phone, which she should know would be a fruitless exercise since her daughter never picks up for her. This scene lasts an entire 15 seconds. I'm not exaggerating. Fifteen seconds to interrupt John Hiatt's guest appearance for no good reason. The flow between scenes has been so excellent in this episode up until this point that it's jarring. I expected, since things had been going so well and after the 15 seconds it goes immediately back to Hiatt still singing "Feels Like Rain" at the House of Blues that perhaps we'd get a shot showing that Sofia was in the audience watching the show, so there would be at least a tenuous tie-in, but no such luck. It's just this episode's sole example of what happens a lot when they embrace this torturous structure for an episode and a reminder of how lucky they were that they managed to make the vast majority of it work this time out. Anyway, we're back on stage with Hiatt, who is finishing "Feels Like Rain," which never should have been interrupted in the first place, while Annie nods along as she listens intently. When Hiatt's done, she tells Harley, "Good song." He counters with "Great song, but what's great about it?"

Continuing both this episode's great flow and its theme of teaching and learning, we go directly from Harley's question to Annie to a walking conversation between the pair outside following Hiatt's show. "For starters…the melody is cool. It's simple, like the blues, but he's not locked into those chord changes," Annie comments about "Feels Like Rain." "Yeah, the music gives you what it can. Keep goin'," Harley encourages. "The lyrics — not so simple. I mean, he's so soft when he's singing about the weather, the river, the sea, you know. Then you

realize it's New Orleans, but he isn't singing about New Orleans. It's really love he's got on his mind," Annie theorizes. Harley responds to that with merely an "OK." Annie goes on, "And love is not simple." Her body language (and faithful viewers of her love life over these past 16 episodes) indicates she's learned that from experience. "It's a little dark sometimes, a little dangerous — like New Orleans." Harley's entire body seems to be laughing when she says that, but Annie hasn't finished her analysis of Hiatt's song yet. "He's just riding it out no matter how rough it gets. He's like us — now — past the storm," Annie concludes, looking as if she's proud of her conclusion, that's she's solved the mystery. Harley shakes his head. "Hiatt wrote that song 20 years ago, darlin'. You still had training wheels on your bike and nobody had ever heard the name Katrina," he tells her. "Really?" Annie responds, looking quite puzzled. "That's what makes it a great song," Harley says. What other drama series ever has worked into its narrative time to analyze a song or teach about the origins of jazz or ragtime, or explain how someone puts their own spin on someone else's interpretation of a musical work, let alone do it all within the same episode.

Friday night has arrived and Antoine has gone back to being just a simple trombone player instead of a bandleader as he sits in on the stage of The Howlin' Wolf with Henry Butler. The legendary venue originally opened in a cotton warehouse in 1988, but outgrew its space and eventually relocated to its current site in The Warehouse District in the property that once housed The New Orleans Music Hall. As Butler burns up his keyboards and sings his number, backed by a band that includes George Porter's bass, a guitarist, drums, a trumpet player, a saxophonist and Antoine's trombone, Antoine looks positively giddy. Batiste always seems to be enjoying himself with his Soul Apostles, but with the weight of being the leader lifted from his shoulders for one night, Antoine seems happier on stage than we've seen him in a while. Seeing Butler in his blue suit also reminds me: What happened to Antoine's idea that his band would be outfitted in powder blue tuxedos?

In a further mirror of that scene from a previous episode, Toni's on her couch when she hears a car in front of the house. She opens the front door as Sofia comes up the path, only this time she goes straight to her bedroom and mother and daughter don't have a confrontation this time. Again though, no reason those 15 seconds of Toni waking up on the couch couldn't have been tacked on to the start of this scene so John Hiatt's performance was played in full.

Nelson tells his date of the evening as they have drinks wearing his hotel's robes and look out from his room's balcony, "I think I'm starting to figure this place out. It's a village — a village on an island. Everyone's connected. They may love each other, they may hate each other, but they're all related. This week, I bought an empty building for a million-one and laid out a couple grand on a little bar in the back of town. Both of them on a handshake because somebody told me to. It's all connected somehow." He then asks her if she's ever been to a second line. "Of course," she answers.

Despite her earlier whines that it's too hard, Annie gets out the guitar and starts work on another song.

Larry shakes hand with a real estate agent and they stick a for sale sign in front of Mrs. Brooks' house in New Orleans.

Delmond brings out what he's sewn so far on his patch. Albert says it's not bad, but he'd need a suit to go with it. Maybe next year. "It's for you, Daddy," Del tells his father. "I made it for you." Delmond points out the symbols on the patch representing Albert's house and the blue tarp covering it. "I was hoping you'd wear it this year," Delmond says. "I'm hopin' you make it out Mardi Gras day." Albert seems more stoic than usual. "You gonna be there?" he asks his son. "I told you I would be." Albert turns, "You told me you were sewin' too." "I have been — I'm just slow," Del responds.

LaDonna's having a smoke, exhaling out the window, when the doorbell rings. It's Detective Leroy. She asks if it's a good time and LaDonna tells her Larry is in New Orleans and the boys are at Sunday School. The detective wants her to look at some photos. It seems they arrested two men in a similar incident in the same neighborhood as GiGi's. LaDonna takes a seat and looks at the first array of mug shots, but none of the faces are familiar. The detective hands her a second sheet with six different faces and LaDonna says, "Oh dear God." She points at one and gives the picture back to the detective and out of her hands as quickly as she can. "Goddammit. Goddammit!" LaDonna shouts. Detective Leroy asks if she's positive and LaDonna sticks her finger into his photo as if she's stabbing him. "Good. That's who we arrested," the detective tells her. "Shit," LaDonna says, shaking her head. This scene gives Khandi Alexander slightly more to do but it's so quick that the actress gets short-changed again. She gets to do her best work when she's able to display her slow burn, but it's difficult to burn slowly when your scene runs less than a minute.

The ribs are grillin', the brass bands are playin' and, most importantly, The Pigeon Town Steppers are steppin' as their annual second line gets under way. Nelson has shown with his date. City Council President Oliver Thomas is dancing. Sofia seems to be enjoying herself. There is a police presence, not only for security, but in

the form of Terry Colson who has taken Toni up on her offer and come. Sgt. Alonzo Wilson (Anthony Michael Frederick), riding in a squad car, accuses Colson of "going native" on them. "It looks different from out here," Terry tells him. "What are you gonna do now? Quit and join the public defenders office?" Wilson asks. "You should try it," Terry insists as he awkwardly tries some second-line dancing himself. Toni catches up with Thomas and says she doesn't know if she approves of the city council president somewhat endorsing the higher fees by making sure they get paid somehow. "We'll prevail in court eventually," Toni tells him. "That's what I love about you Toni. Your faith in the system despite all your experience to the contrary," Thomas says. Also joining in the second line and making it a more tuneful event is the Rebirth Brass Band. "Sofia seems to be having a good time," Terry notes. "It's a temporary reprieve. She is so grounded. I'm not letting her out for anything else." Toni tells him. Colson asks Toni what she did. "Broke the rules." "And people think you're a bleeding heart liberal," Terry says. "Punishment first, then forgiveness," Toni declares. "Wouldn't that be nice?" The second line continues on its route, police leading the way.

Labels: David Simon, Dylan, HBO, John Goodman, Overmyer, Treme, TV Recap, Wendell Pierce

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# posted by Edward Copeland @ 11:00 PM 3 comments

Edward Copeland's Tangents

Monday, November 07, 2011

A fabulous disaster

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Close Friends Get to Call Him T.C.

Sunday, July 03, 2011

Treme No. 21: Do Whatcha Wanna Part III

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Treme No. 16: Feels Like Rain

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