Friday Open Thread #9: a defective work ethic
June 18, 2010
Breakage goes on your bar tab.
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Back Of Town 
So, as the street bands continue to play to large supportive crowds in protest of the city’s recent decision to start enforcing an 1956 ordinate against street music after 8 p.m. and it builds toward a likely confrontation, my anticipation of St. Joseph’s Day in the final episode is approaching an anxiety attack. It’s not just the intersection of memory with the show, its the increasing tie-in to what is happening on the streets today.
That plus Daymo’s funeral (I presume this was the late cemetery shoot reported earlier) plus Creighton aftermath. Yikes. I better check the liquor cabinet.
We are all familiar with product placement, but the gimmick of only Budweiser being shown one week and then only Miller Genuine Draft the next week…too much. Ha. This is the only criticism I have of the entire Treme series. Well…Jamison’s and Coke? No wonder Tatsuo Ichikawa only took a little sip.
I really have enjoyed the situations with Koichi Toyama and Antoine Batiste, though, especially the all-is-OK attitude Koichi took when Antoine explained the fate of the new ‘bone—“very Japanese!” said Koichi.
I miss Ashley..er, Creigh.
Are those actual members of Skeleton Krewe (all rights reserved, registered trademark, phthang phthang) behind Sonny or cheap papier mache facsimiles thereof?
Also,
FIRSTTHIRDso, locals, is Dexter right about product placement? I saw Simon somewhere talking about Bud really being the drink of choice of most of the NOLA musicians he’d met.
maitri: Those are indeed official members of Skeleton Krewe. Not only that, but as far as I’ve heard they’re using their 2006 Mardi Gras costumes as well – so historically accurate Skeleton Krewe.
http://www.spinner.com/2010/06/04/treme-david-simon-music/
Is there a reason they all drink Budweiser?
Um, no, but they do. White folk tend to drink a variety of beers, but Budweiser is the drink of choice in the black community in New Orleans. People always assume that there’s product placement on HBO and we’re getting money for this car or that beer. We don’t ask for money for anything. If somebody tries to place a product, we tell them to go f— themselves. But you walk into the Candlelight Lounge and three out of four cans of beer you see on the table will be Budweiser. It just is.
Budweiser, sure, he’s right about that, but how about Heineken? 2 bottles for $5 at second-lines …
Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!!!
Oh, wait, wrong David.
And Maitri, here’s a Skeleton Krewe flickr shot of Sonny at the bar on Mardi Gras day. Makes Sonny look even creepier, actually.
Let’s see, we make sure to keep our Krewe du Vieux band, the Paulin Bros., and our King Arthur float band (Panorama) in Budweiser for the entirety of the parade. Fahy’s is pretty well-stocked with Budweiser, MGD, Abita and Heineken which is a lot of what everyone drinks. I don’t know about other NOLA bars.
Wonder if it has to do with WGN programming down in NOLA. Cubs fan, Bud man, that sorta thing? I’m a Cubs fan, but not a Bud gal.
My ex-boss, a near-lifelong New Orleanian, was a Bud woman.
I drink O’Doul’s exclusively, if it is available. There you go.
I just read about Glen David Andrew’s second line around Jackson Square and his statement about protesting the ordinance. Like mf and others, I am experience a strong sense of crossover during this week, not so much life imitating art as life becoming art. I felt as if we were watching an episode from Treme, Season 5, or something.
And JazzFest is a Miller festival, which had my ex-boss sneaking her Buds in if she could when we’d work the Fest…
It’s a crying shame that Delmond’s assertions are playing out right here, right now, for sure.
The fiction’s a tad too factual right now in that respect.
My first second line was within about 4 days of moving to New Orleans.
Bud was what was sold on that line in August. Damned good COLD Bud outta the mobile you bet.
I loved it. It helped me heal.
Take that as you will.
Ahhh crap. Just realized the pic for the thread is from LAST week’s episode. I was tested and found lacking
I interviewed a young musician Tuesday night — in his teens, or just out of them — who said “I was playing at Jackson Square six weeks ago, and Mitch Landrieu came out of the church with some people and walked up to me and shook my hand!” He wasn’t angry or scornful, just in disbelief at the whole turn of events.
A slightly older guy had a more cynical take on it: “Man, they sure don’t mind getting their picture taken with us, or getting their picture taken in a second line, when they running for something.”
We certainly have been enriched with quotable lines, haven’t we!
This is interesting. I assumed they chose Bud because it’s such an iconic design, and so recognizable, that it just said BEER even at a distance or out of focus, etc.
Thanks for the feedback; after seeing Tony Soprano hawking Nissan SUVs (for AJ), seeing him eating Froot Loops, and seeing Chris Moltisani pimping Barney’s underwear, I would have sworn HBO utilizes product placement.
Rockers and pop divas (Lady Gaga for one) can’t make videos anymore without product cash , record companies don’t make money …surely not the 2 million bucks it takes to produce a lavish pop video these days.
The Bud deal…so obvious to me in our Treme show, didn’t bother me until for one episode all they showed was MGD. Of course we see Abita neon signs, too. Ah, what the hell, I drank my share of beer , my life-ration, and quit 17 years ago, whaddoo I know?
So…do Treme bars sell bottle water? What brand? Just curious….been a long time since I have been to Louisiana.
Jameson, errr I mean Kentwood Springs.
Bud, Miller and Heineken have always seemed to be the choices from the second line coolers I’ve bought from.
I knew that Dixie Brewing took a horrible hit from Katrina, and Wikipedia says they have been off-line for a long time, so my question is this: is there any hope that Dixie Brewing will be restored? Back when I as travelling around , in the late 1960s, Falstaff and Dixie seemed to be huge in Louisiana.
Oh…one more thing…it seemed everyone called the Hubig’s style pies “fried pies”. Moon Pies, Co-Cola and fried pies, the snacks my buddies from Louisiana loved the most.
Do you folks really say “Hubig’s” or just order or ask for a “fried pie?” Cuz, man…it’s been a LONG time since I was down there.
Watching again. Is “Post Mardem Depression” a saying or Treme coinage? I’ve never heard it before, but it’s clever.
Dexter,
I could be wrong but in my experience fried pies are called Hubig’s here in Nola cuz they seem to be the only ones that market them here. Originally, I’m from Mississippi (been in Nola for 32 yrs) where they’re called fried pies. My mawmaw made the best – yes, even better than Hubig’s. And that’s saying a alot.
ive said hubies my whole life.
ive also said the k and b
and the vcrah for vcr
i think its just where you live and who you haang out with.
new orleans has a million dialects for such a small town.
In the last episode, I saw Miller Lite and Budweiser. So I’m not so sure about product placement.
So, there are several folks I have talked to who think Creigh isn’t dead.
Dixie is now contracted brewed by, if memory serves, a brewery in Wisconsin. For a short time after the storm, Heiner Brau on the Northshore brewed Dixie, but they didn’t have enough capacity to keep it up.
Don’t look for the Dixie brewery on Tulane to ever come back. In fact, Dixie was on its last leg before Katrina. I’ve been told by several former employers that most of the staff was laid off months before the levees failed.
Before the storm, Hubig’s made both fried pies and baked pies (the baked ones looked like miniature round pies). How were they referred to before the storm? My memory is that if you asked for Hubig’s, you meant a fried pie. That was the default.
Hubig’s was actually a regional chain that started in Ft. Worth, TX. The New Orleans franchise was the only one that survived.
Great info and insight, frolic. Thanks a bunch. So many defunct breweries , so many local brew pubs springing up everywhere the past couple decades.
It looks like the old Falstaff brewery took major water during Katrina, too. I see Nola’s Falstaff Brewery was formerly the National Brewery. I used to live near Fort Wayne, Indiana —Falstaff was there from the 1930s to the 1980s too, after buying the Berghoff Brewery.
I had never heard of Abita until the show started. It was Creigh’s last drink; he washed down his Po’Boy with an Abita Amber.
Even though I don’t drink anymore, the history of breweries still fascinates me, probably because I knew so many brewery workers in my life—beer truck drivers too, of course.
A good friend ran an AB distributorship. He’d collect from his taverns and come back to the office with a roll big enough to choke a damn horse. I said , John, why you do bizness like that? — John said “…cuz I never know when I might want to make a run for the border.” What the hell?
I quit drinking, you quit drinking, defunct breweries all over the place now.
Come on, y’all, you’re supposed to be taking up our slack. Don’t tell me Dexter and I were doing all the heavy lifting. Buncha lightweights.
I’ve seen and heard some Abitas.
“Cold, cold Heineken, two for five…”