John from Cincinnati ~ Where there was no happiness?
A friend’s email signature includes the following quote from Overheard in New York:
“Imagine living in the Midwest where there is no happiness.”
-from a guy on the Metro-North train
I have often heard people from the coasts admit to feeling trapped when they travel inland. They see the ocean as an outlet for escape, even though their actual movement when on the coasts is limited to, say, 180 degrees, whereas travel from Topeka can take you in almost 360 degrees.
Midwesterners usually love where they come from. For example, pick Cincinnatians (if that’s what they’re called). There is no prouder group of people. But those not from there have a difficult time understanding why. [They have some sort of special brand of home-grown ice cream that nobody else likes as much as Häagen-Dazs® or Ben and Jerry’s®.] In fact, the coastals often view Ohio as a distant planet.
This is probably why the HBO series that premiered on June 10th after the death of The Sopranos is called John from Cincinnati and not something like John from Albuquerque. The show (official website) has been called a “surf noir” by, like, everyone, and now it has faded to black after just one season.
How could anyone be surprised that the show got zapped? First off, you should never ever ever replace the most important show in the history of HBO, which is based in New York and New Jersey, with California-based surfing. Yes, you may have been pinched into believing that because you see images of the beach everywhere that everyone will instantly buy into the storyline without the need for you to spend any time developing a real plot, but there’s a timing issue.
Nobody who has just suffered the loss of a close friend, Tony Soprano, in a bit of utter confusion from a screen gone black as if the cable box got hit by lightning, has enough energy left in them to even contemplate what your “surf noir” is supposed to mean.
In fact, people have been so brainwashed into believe that there is nothing “noir” about paradise that we can’t even imagine that bad things might happen on the beach. It’s too depressing. Go back to “surf azul” and call it a night.
Now HBO and David Milch, let’s go back to the original set of success equations:
#1 ~ Lots of violence equals lots of success ~ The Sopranos
#2 ~ Lots of sex equals lots of success ~ Big Love
#3 ~ Lots of violent sex equals limited success and some confusion due to the sustained tension ~ Deadwood
Not part of the equation: drugs that bring people down, teenagers who are way more talented than most adults, and asexual beings supposedly from Cincinnati. These equate to not much success.
Now that the show is being canceled, we can go back to spending that time block watching Sopranos left overs or reading Overhead in New York’s sister site Overheard at the Beach.
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Posted on August 20, 2007
Filed Under Beaches, Surfing, Television | 2 Comments
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