As events unfold in Libya it is difficult to concentrate on the everyday, or matters of enjoyment and pleasure. I watched the Sky Atlantic first showing of the 80 minute pilot episode of Treme which deals with the impact of Cyclone Katrina on the City of New Orleans.
Of all the cities in the USA New Orleans has always been the one which interested me since becoming a devotee of New Orleans Jazz and I became familiar with many of the streets from numbers such as Basin Street Blues, Canal Street Blues, North Rampart Street, St Louis and Bourbon Street .
Then I quickly learned of the prostitution, drug taking and criminality perhaps no different from other cities, but made more colourful by the participating Jazz musicians who came to international attention and openly referred to their experiences of playing in the “cat” houses and getting “high” to do so. It was later that I also learned that the America system of crime bosses originated in the town, leading to the participation in the assassination of President John F Kennedy. Amazingly inquiries said there was no evidence that the crime boss at the time was a mafia lord or with having the Mayor, politicians and police in his pocket as was the custom for decades.
The reputation of the city from crime and vice may have been one factor in the failures of the city to deal effectively with Cyclone despite having been given adequate and appropriate warning. Their legitimate defence was that they were to know that the badly rebuilt flood defence system would fail in the way it did.
The show Treme concentrates on one of the working class neighbourhood immediately off the French Quarter, called Treme bordering Canal, St Louis and Rampart Streets and containing the Armstrong Park centre, although he had no direct connections with the area, His music, especially the Blues can be said to have been borne out of the slavery of the deep South and where musicians such as Alphonese Picou from the early days of the music through to Louis Prima and Alex Chilton once lived through until last year. The area produced a succession of street marching and playing brass bands around which the pilot film is based.
The production also brings out that the cyclone was not the primary caused of the destruction but the failure of the levees. This is brought out vividly by John Goodman who plays a university English professor together with his Civil Rights Lawyer wife. His character is based on a real life Blogger. His wife takes up the investigation of what happened to the younger brother of a woman who owns and runs a tavern in the community. Another young woman runs a restaurant which is struggling to keep going especially as her casual boyfriend tries to drink and eat any profits. He appears a self centred part time disc jockey and musician but who also campaigns against injustices, mainly directed at himself or so was my impression from the first episode. He comes across as more of angry young man that John Osborne’s character although a Rebel with a cause!
Significantly more appealing is Albert, a Mardi Graz chief who returns to find his home uninhabitable but insists or staying in the bar of an absent friend, a decision opposed by his daughter who brings him down and then his son who has made a home for himself in the New York Jazz scene. Albert wants to reassemble his group one of whom is earning a fortunate trucking out debris for the Federal Emergency Agency. Another musician is the estranged Trombonist husband of the Tavern owner who returns destitute, having lost his car, borrows money for taxis and pleads for paid jobs. Many contemporary musicians and bands feature in the first episode and series. What interested me and made the programme an essential future viewing was the issues being raised.
1800 people lost their lives in the Hurricane with just under 1500 of these in New Orleans. Responsibility for the failure of the flood protection system has been laid squarely at the door of the Army Corps of Engineers as the designers and builders of the system but despite the commencement of a law suit the problems was that the Federal Agency could not be held financially liable because of immunity granted under a 90 year old piece of national legislation.
The way the catastrophe was handled has also been the subject of formal criticism including of the Federal Agency Management Committee, State and Local government officials and the New Orleans Police Department leading to the effective sacking of principals. There are vivid pictures of the police preventing some trapped citizens from moving to safe areas from the Gretna and Crescent City and of the over crowding and lack of measures to pass on ten of thousands of refugees who congregated at the Superdome and which required an expenditure of $140 million to bring back into use. There were similar problems about provide sleeping, food and water and adequate sanitation at the Convention centre. A major problem was to find locations for the refugees to be rehoused. The overriding impression was the lack of appropriate action was due to those involved being predominantly black and poor. It will be interesting to see how the first season of ten shows handles these issues. A second season is already in hand.
Talking of the role of the Mafia in American city society, The Boardwalk Empire continues to confirm my impression of a long term linking of crime, politics and the trade unions, the police and judicial system, and the inability of the Federal government to bring about fundamental and long term change. The programme while centred on Atlantic City also connects with the rise of Al Capone and the fictional character of Jimmy.
In Atlantic City Nucky is busy planning his surprise birthday party. He is becoming more and more aware that his concubine is ignorant and self centred. Margaret the woman whose husband he has murdered by his brother as the patsy for the murder of the New York Mobsters and who he has got a job in the classy dress shop, is asked to deliver a dress to the party for the concubine to wear after her surprise, jumping out of a large fake birthday cake. Margaret appears not put out to find much drinking and celebrating going on but is evidently jealous of the position and lifestyle of the concubine. She has a dance with Nucky while she waits for the surprise to take place and is introduced to some of his friends and he is impressed by her ability to converse compared to that of the concubine. She steals clothes from her employer.
In the next episode she wakes to find barrels of beer being delivered to a nearby property. She reports the development to the Temperance League and goes with the leader of the group to see Nucky to report the development. He promises to sort it out. When nothing happens and a further quantity is delivered she confronts those involved and finds the organiser is James Neary, City Alderman and local party executive who she was introduced to at the Party. She dresses up in the clothing stolen from the dress shop and goes to Nucky. She is ignored and then sees the Alderman go into Nucky’s suite. Feeling jilted she destroy stolen underwear when she returns home and then turns to the government Prohibition enforcer who initially shows no interest overwhelmed by the extent to which prohibition is being ignore in the city and which has also become a distribution centre for imported and local manufacturing. However she gets his attention when she is able to identify the location and the involvement of the Alderman.
The focus of the episode in Atlantic city is preparations for St Patrick’s day. and in particular the evening celebration of civic worthies, Masonic style in which local midgets are employed to perform as leprechauns dancing and bringing baskets of goodies, bottle of whisky but no beer because of an earlier raid. Nucky’s police chef brother insists on making a speech in which he attacks the British and appeals to the nationalism of those in the room. This however leads to a rowdy argument between those who were born in Ireland and came to the USA after the revolution and Independence, and creation of the six counties of Northern Ireland, and those who were born in the USA of Irish parents/grandparents who came over previously. The speech has to be cut short by Nucky who makes jokes to calm things down. Previously Nucky has pressed for Federal funds to improve the road structure north and is told by a senator that he cannot expect to have everything. The Federal Enforcer then arrives to arrest Alderman Neary. Nucky then goes to see Margaret to find out what she is up to and wants. We know that she wants him and the life style he can provide her and her children.
In contrast Jimmy’s former partner appears to be remaining loyal to him and refuses the offer her mother to give up her son to her and lead a new life as a single woman. In the previous episode Nucky has pressed his brother for action in relation to the hanging of a black employee of his partner running the local distillery. A Ku Klux Klan meeting is raided and the leader taken into custody and tortured. As a consequence the police are satisfied that the Klan was not responsible for the lynching.
In Chicago Al Capone plays a prank on Jimmy while in bed with a whore at the brothel which Capone’s boss has a financial interest. Jimmy is damaged in one ear after Capone shoots a blank cartridge. Capone and Jimmy visit a bar in the territory of the rival Mafia group and beat up the owner after he refuses to switch to them. There is a meeting between Capone Jimmy and the rivals in which they appear to agree on a 50 50 split of interests in the contested area. However the rivals were only playing for time and one of the gang visits the brothel and sleeps with Jimmy’s favourite and slashes her face from the forehead destroys an eye and cut her mouth to chin. Jimmy remains loyal to her but is under pressure to make up the loss of earning power at $100 a day. Pressure is also exerted on her by the other girl’s for putting off the customers. The girl then takes her own life.
Of all the cities in the USA New Orleans has always been the one which interested me since becoming a devotee of New Orleans Jazz and I became familiar with many of the streets from numbers such as Basin Street Blues, Canal Street Blues, North Rampart Street, St Louis and Bourbon Street .
Then I quickly learned of the prostitution, drug taking and criminality perhaps no different from other cities, but made more colourful by the participating Jazz musicians who came to international attention and openly referred to their experiences of playing in the “cat” houses and getting “high” to do so. It was later that I also learned that the America system of crime bosses originated in the town, leading to the participation in the assassination of President John F Kennedy. Amazingly inquiries said there was no evidence that the crime boss at the time was a mafia lord or with having the Mayor, politicians and police in his pocket as was the custom for decades.
The reputation of the city from crime and vice may have been one factor in the failures of the city to deal effectively with Cyclone despite having been given adequate and appropriate warning. Their legitimate defence was that they were to know that the badly rebuilt flood defence system would fail in the way it did.
The show Treme concentrates on one of the working class neighbourhood immediately off the French Quarter, called Treme bordering Canal, St Louis and Rampart Streets and containing the Armstrong Park centre, although he had no direct connections with the area, His music, especially the Blues can be said to have been borne out of the slavery of the deep South and where musicians such as Alphonese Picou from the early days of the music through to Louis Prima and Alex Chilton once lived through until last year. The area produced a succession of street marching and playing brass bands around which the pilot film is based.
The production also brings out that the cyclone was not the primary caused of the destruction but the failure of the levees. This is brought out vividly by John Goodman who plays a university English professor together with his Civil Rights Lawyer wife. His character is based on a real life Blogger. His wife takes up the investigation of what happened to the younger brother of a woman who owns and runs a tavern in the community. Another young woman runs a restaurant which is struggling to keep going especially as her casual boyfriend tries to drink and eat any profits. He appears a self centred part time disc jockey and musician but who also campaigns against injustices, mainly directed at himself or so was my impression from the first episode. He comes across as more of angry young man that John Osborne’s character although a Rebel with a cause!
Significantly more appealing is Albert, a Mardi Graz chief who returns to find his home uninhabitable but insists or staying in the bar of an absent friend, a decision opposed by his daughter who brings him down and then his son who has made a home for himself in the New York Jazz scene. Albert wants to reassemble his group one of whom is earning a fortunate trucking out debris for the Federal Emergency Agency. Another musician is the estranged Trombonist husband of the Tavern owner who returns destitute, having lost his car, borrows money for taxis and pleads for paid jobs. Many contemporary musicians and bands feature in the first episode and series. What interested me and made the programme an essential future viewing was the issues being raised.
1800 people lost their lives in the Hurricane with just under 1500 of these in New Orleans. Responsibility for the failure of the flood protection system has been laid squarely at the door of the Army Corps of Engineers as the designers and builders of the system but despite the commencement of a law suit the problems was that the Federal Agency could not be held financially liable because of immunity granted under a 90 year old piece of national legislation.
The way the catastrophe was handled has also been the subject of formal criticism including of the Federal Agency Management Committee, State and Local government officials and the New Orleans Police Department leading to the effective sacking of principals. There are vivid pictures of the police preventing some trapped citizens from moving to safe areas from the Gretna and Crescent City and of the over crowding and lack of measures to pass on ten of thousands of refugees who congregated at the Superdome and which required an expenditure of $140 million to bring back into use. There were similar problems about provide sleeping, food and water and adequate sanitation at the Convention centre. A major problem was to find locations for the refugees to be rehoused. The overriding impression was the lack of appropriate action was due to those involved being predominantly black and poor. It will be interesting to see how the first season of ten shows handles these issues. A second season is already in hand.
Talking of the role of the Mafia in American city society, The Boardwalk Empire continues to confirm my impression of a long term linking of crime, politics and the trade unions, the police and judicial system, and the inability of the Federal government to bring about fundamental and long term change. The programme while centred on Atlantic City also connects with the rise of Al Capone and the fictional character of Jimmy.
In Atlantic City Nucky is busy planning his surprise birthday party. He is becoming more and more aware that his concubine is ignorant and self centred. Margaret the woman whose husband he has murdered by his brother as the patsy for the murder of the New York Mobsters and who he has got a job in the classy dress shop, is asked to deliver a dress to the party for the concubine to wear after her surprise, jumping out of a large fake birthday cake. Margaret appears not put out to find much drinking and celebrating going on but is evidently jealous of the position and lifestyle of the concubine. She has a dance with Nucky while she waits for the surprise to take place and is introduced to some of his friends and he is impressed by her ability to converse compared to that of the concubine. She steals clothes from her employer.
In the next episode she wakes to find barrels of beer being delivered to a nearby property. She reports the development to the Temperance League and goes with the leader of the group to see Nucky to report the development. He promises to sort it out. When nothing happens and a further quantity is delivered she confronts those involved and finds the organiser is James Neary, City Alderman and local party executive who she was introduced to at the Party. She dresses up in the clothing stolen from the dress shop and goes to Nucky. She is ignored and then sees the Alderman go into Nucky’s suite. Feeling jilted she destroy stolen underwear when she returns home and then turns to the government Prohibition enforcer who initially shows no interest overwhelmed by the extent to which prohibition is being ignore in the city and which has also become a distribution centre for imported and local manufacturing. However she gets his attention when she is able to identify the location and the involvement of the Alderman.
The focus of the episode in Atlantic city is preparations for St Patrick’s day. and in particular the evening celebration of civic worthies, Masonic style in which local midgets are employed to perform as leprechauns dancing and bringing baskets of goodies, bottle of whisky but no beer because of an earlier raid. Nucky’s police chef brother insists on making a speech in which he attacks the British and appeals to the nationalism of those in the room. This however leads to a rowdy argument between those who were born in Ireland and came to the USA after the revolution and Independence, and creation of the six counties of Northern Ireland, and those who were born in the USA of Irish parents/grandparents who came over previously. The speech has to be cut short by Nucky who makes jokes to calm things down. Previously Nucky has pressed for Federal funds to improve the road structure north and is told by a senator that he cannot expect to have everything. The Federal Enforcer then arrives to arrest Alderman Neary. Nucky then goes to see Margaret to find out what she is up to and wants. We know that she wants him and the life style he can provide her and her children.
In contrast Jimmy’s former partner appears to be remaining loyal to him and refuses the offer her mother to give up her son to her and lead a new life as a single woman. In the previous episode Nucky has pressed his brother for action in relation to the hanging of a black employee of his partner running the local distillery. A Ku Klux Klan meeting is raided and the leader taken into custody and tortured. As a consequence the police are satisfied that the Klan was not responsible for the lynching.
In Chicago Al Capone plays a prank on Jimmy while in bed with a whore at the brothel which Capone’s boss has a financial interest. Jimmy is damaged in one ear after Capone shoots a blank cartridge. Capone and Jimmy visit a bar in the territory of the rival Mafia group and beat up the owner after he refuses to switch to them. There is a meeting between Capone Jimmy and the rivals in which they appear to agree on a 50 50 split of interests in the contested area. However the rivals were only playing for time and one of the gang visits the brothel and sleeps with Jimmy’s favourite and slashes her face from the forehead destroys an eye and cut her mouth to chin. Jimmy remains loyal to her but is under pressure to make up the loss of earning power at $100 a day. Pressure is also exerted on her by the other girl’s for putting off the customers. The girl then takes her own life.
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