TRUE BLOOD MEETS THE MARY-N-NEELY SHOW

Dr. A and I watched tevee last night: back to back, the john Neely kennedy and Mary Landrieu debate and then Alan Ball's new vampire opus True Blood on HBO. At first blush these two shows have bupkis to do with one another but I found myself thinking of one of the Louisiana Senatorial candidates during True Blood. Strange but true. Welcome to my world.

First, the debate: john Neely kennedy has got to be one of the worst candidates I've ever seen. He's obsessed with trivia, consumed with picky details and has the warmth of a cadaver. He was petty, peevish and snappy throughout the debate. He may well be the only candidate in the US and A who is embracing John McCain right now. That led to Landrieu's best line of the night: "Senator McCain's coattails aren't long enough for you to  ride to victory." It's a death dance, Neely. Walnuts may well carry Louisiana but there's going to be a lot of ticket splitting much to Neely's detriment.  

I thought Landrieu did a good job positioning herself as a raging moderate. She was warm and pleasant and when she knifed kennedy, she did so with a smile. In contrast, Neely came off as a cold fish and sounded like a tax lawyer the whole time. Details, details, details. The camera also hates kennedy: it accentuates his pointy nose and weak chin. I also wonder who did his makeup. His cheeks looked as if they had been rouged, which made him look like the clown guy from the one confused politician ads.

Neely's worst moment came when he hicked up his accent and claimed that "if we leave Iraq, Iran will take it." Remarkable. Iran had ZERO influence in Iraq until Bush and company bumbled in. Iraq doesn't have to "take" Iraq, the Prime Minister is a pro-Iranian Shia. Neely was playing to the war-loving so called super patriots in the sticks. Presumably he was just pandering: Neely isn't a yokel, he just plays one on tevee.

Perhaps the best thing about the Mary-n-Neely show is that it was produced by WLPB in Baton Rouge. It's a much better public teevee station than WPSL here in New Orleans. Yeah, I know it's WYES but the face of the station is Peggy Scott LaBorde (PSL) who is the doyenne of NOLA nostalgia. I've got nothing against PSL's documentaries BUT WYES has a way of pre-empting stuff to present a 44th rerun of a PSL show; hence my nickname for the station. WYES seems reluctant to do anything to offend the Momus-Comus, Lakeview, Garden District and Old Metry fat cats who give them buckets of bucks. A good example of that is the way WYES has buried Bill Moyers in fluctuating and bad time slots. 

Back to WLPB. The debate's moderator was station big cheese, Beth Courtney, who did a typically professional job. It was also smashing to see former WWL-TV anchor and reporter Shauna Sanford on camera presenting audience questions. In 2004, Dr. A and I had a close encounter of the reportorial kind with Shauna in the Sav-A-Center parking lot. She was asking people what they thought about gay marriage and thrust a mike at us. We were in favor and also told Shauna how much we enjoyed her work, which is probably why WWL aired our comments. End of yet another digression. Of course, this blog is one long digression so you should be used to it by now.

Back to the debate. I thought raging moderate Mary bested the anal retentive and bloodless challenger. I think bloodless is the best word to describe kennedy who is one of those lawyers who looks as if he just stepped out of a coffin. It made me wonder if he's ever been to the vampire bar in Shreveport that's featured prominently in True Blood.

How was that for a segue? Not bad if I say so myself. True Blood is set in the fictional town of Bon Temps somewhere in Central Louisiana and is indeed filmed in the Gret Stet. I'm a  bit confused on that score because it has a French name but there's only one Cajun in town, the rest are Southern Gothic rednecks and black folks with really twangy accents. Now that I've carped about the accents I must admit that I'm hooked on True Blood. How realistic can a vampire show be in any event? Chomp.

I am a lifelong fan of the vampire genre, why I don't know but I do a helluva impression of Dwight Frye as Mr. Renfield in the Todd Browning/Lugosi 1931 version of Dracula.

I only do Renfield when extremely intoxicated so rest assured that you'll be spared. I was skeptical when I heard about True Blood. What else is there to say about vampires? I was wrong; writer-producer Alan (Six Feet Under) Ball came up with a clever hook: Vampires have come out of the shadows and are clamoring for their rights, which makes the show a skewed parable of both the civil and gay rights movements. I'm not sure what my position on the VRA is but the show is weirdly entertaining; sort of like Twin Peaks with fangbangers.

Now that I've made this tenuous connection I give you the bloodless-john Neely kennedy in what appears to be a school picture-and the bloodsucker, Stephen Moyer as Bill the Vampire: 

tags: politics  louisiana  neely  landrieu  pbs  tevee  vampires  hbo  

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