Treme – for what it’s worth
I remember when I was living in San Rafael, California, in Marin County, and someone at the gym was going to New Orleans on a girl’s trip and she showed me the B&B someone had recommended. I said, “Well it’s in Treme, and right by Louis Armstrong Park, and fair warning, that area can be a little dicey.”
The woman relayed what I said back to the person who had recommended it to her and I was beset by a deluge of “WTF!” Her friend was so incensed at how small minded and perhaps prejudice and one sided, and unworldly, and more importantly, how ignorant I truly was that he as much as told her to make sure to never speak to me again about any matters in the world.
And I thought about it. Far away from New Orleans, my home, a city I loved in all of its colors, and I was going on my having lived for a time at the Vieux Carre Motor Lodge on Rampart, and then in an apartment on Burgundy and Governor Nichols and I had been held up many times, and had my car ransacked and one stolen many times, and so I was going by what I know. It wasn’t that Treme was a black neighborhood and oh so scary, it was that that particular part of town was rife for petty crimes because it was heavily touristed.
But there was no way to bounce back from that exchange, I was convicted, tried and sentenced without even being able to offer up any reasonable excuse for having discouraged her and her three girlfriends, all in their late 50s, to stay at the B&B right beside the park, and right beside North Rampart, and right in Treme.
And tonight, I’m headed to my neighbors to watch Treme as the new series debuts on HBO. Treme, the story about New Orleans, or maybe the partial story about New Orleans, or one of the stories. Treme that has gotten so many advance write ups and has so many people talking about New Orleans, its music, its magic, and the series takes its name from this historic black neighborhood that has been the cradle of so much of the culture in New Orleans.
I bet you that guy is still cursing my name.