Dennis Leary Rescue Me

Rooted in real life, 'Treme' helps illuminate it

No television drama exists in a vacuum. Many of the best draw freely from unscripted, unruly real life.

That's certainly the case with "Treme," HBO's glorious series set in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Right now, especially, it would be hard for the creators of "Treme" to shut their eyes to the real-life drama bearing down on the city. It's just outside the window of their production office in the Lower Garden District and, what is more alarming, upriver, where the Army Corps of Engineers has opened the Morganza spillway, flooding rural areas in an attempt to protect Baton Rouge and New Orleans from the swollen Mississippi.

A flood and its aftermath is what "Treme" is about, though no one would call it a disaster drama. Instead, it focuses on a wide swath of locals and their stubborn insistence on returning to normal life, which is to say, to the distinctive, sassy good life of New Orleans that has always outlived one disaster after another.

"It has always been a city where calamity and death are intertwined with the city's vibrancy in a very strange way," said "Treme" co-creator David Simon a few days ago. In the hands of Simon and co-creator Eric Overmyer, this raw truth has nourished a piquantly authentic tale as "Treme" unfolds in its second season (airing Sundays at 10 p.m. EDT).

Of course, "Treme" is far from alone at coining real life into fiction.

For two decades, "Law & Order" and its offshoots mastered ripped-from-the-headlines weekly topicality.

In a remarkable, even unprecedented feat, NBC's "The West Wing" wrote, produced and aired an episode that confronted questions and fears raised by the events of 9/11 a mere three weeks after those tragic events.

And for seven seasons (concluding this summer), Denis Leary's haunted New York City firefighter has tried to make sense of 9/11 on the FX drama "Rescue Me."

Mexico's bloody narcotics trafficking culture seeped into TV drama a couple of years ago on AMC's "Breaking Bad." Its cancer-stricken New Mexico chemistry teacher, who cooked crystal meth to leave his family financially secure, was risking the wrath of the Mexican drug cartels by invading their turf.

Meanwhile, Showtime's dark comedy "Weeds" shifted from homegrown American drug stories when it transplanted its marijuana-dealing mom closer to the California-Mexican border. She became involved in cross-border drug deals and in a relationship with the corrupt mayor of Tijuana, Mexico.

Arrested cabbie to Denis Leary: Rescue me! | Universal Hub

CABBIE CHARGED WITH DRUNK DRIVING IN MIDST OF STORM

In Belligerent Rant, Predicts Local Comedians Will Help Him

Massachusetts State Police this morning arrested a drunken Somerville cab driver - who was extremely belligerent and claimed two prominent local comedians would get him out of trouble - after finding him stuck in a snow bank, the taxi's engine running, on Soldiers Field Road in the height of the storm.

Trooper Paul Conneely responded to the 5:20 a.m. report of a stuck car on Soldiers Field Road near Leo Birmingham Parkway, in the midst of the Nor'easter, to find the driver behind the wheel of the Green Cab taxi, his head bobbing up and down, his eyes drooping shut and then opening up suddenly when he snapped his head up. The trooper observed that the driver had bloodshot, glassy eyes. The cab driver refused to speak or answer questions, let alone identify himself. Troopers would later identify the driver as TYLER A. BRYAN, 25, of East Somerville after checking with the cab company.

Trooper Conneely smelled alcohol on the driver, and along with a Boston police officer who also responded, had to hold BRYAN up once they got him out of the cab. The trooper told him he was under arrest, and then had to slide the defendant along the side of his cruiser to get him into the car's open back door.

Once inside the State Police cruiser BRYAN began to curse and make belligerent and nonsensical statements. He swore at the trooper, and said, initially, that he had been walking, not driving, and then claimed falsely that he had been in the passenger seat of the cab, not the driver's seat.

BRYAN cursed during the entire ride to the Brighton State Police Barracks, and once inside became more belligerent. Told again that he was under arrest, he said he was not and was going home. He then said several times that he had been driving a snowmobile or that he had crashed into a snowmobile.

BRYAN refused to cooperate with the booking process. He insisted that he was not under arrest, and then said repeatedly that Lenny Clark and Denis Leary were going to get him out of trouble and take care of him. BRYAN also slurred the word “LLLLEEEEENNNNNYYYYY” - taking about 15 seconds to drag the name out each time - over and over.

Troopers had to hold BRYAN up at points during the booking process, as he insisted, all the while, that he was not under arrest. At one point, BRYAN put his fingers in his ears and stated, in a sing-song voice, that he could not hear the trooper who was booking him.

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