Strummin The Best Part of John from Cincinnati One Year Out

Hey, remember John from Cincinnati, that wispy, maddening enigma of a series that was on HBO last summer? A year later, and I still can't quite figure what the show was about, but I don't mind it, and I think that's mostly because of the song under the opening credits - "Johnny Appleseed" by Joe Strummer (1952-2002) and The Mescaleros (once of The Clash, "London Calling," and one of my all-time favorites, "Rock the Casbah" ... Shareef don't like it...)

So here's the best of John from Cincinnati, that opening song, in Joe Strummer's original video ... and, hey, just for good measure, I'd put on Rock the Casbah, too ... the immortal soul of punk ... but embedding has been disabled (he thinks it's not kosher...)



My reviews of John from Cincinnati: Some Thoughts on John (from Cincinnati) ... Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode Four ... Episode 5 ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9 ... Episode 10

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two and John from Cincinnati is ... Neo in the Matrix!

John from Cincinnati is ... Neo in the Matrix!

All right, as a final post (I think) about John from Cincinnati, I thought I'd offer a little more than how beautifully incomprehensible the series is/was...

Here's my best guess about what is going (I just thought of this about 10 minutes ago, and for all I know, it's been realized by other viewers, already) ... but -

I think all of John from Cincinnati - everything that we're seeing in Imperial Beach - is taking place in a virtual, Matrix-like world.

That's why John (and in the last episode, John and Shaun) have nothing to say about where they were when they were gone from IB.

That's how John was able to bring Shaun back from the dead or near-dead - the player outside the virtual world made that happen. Same with the levitation, etc - all the things that seem unreal to us are games the game-player is playing in his/her control of the virtual world.

Possibly the Howard Hesseman character - the chemist - is the creator, designer, or just player of this game - and that's why Mitch went to him. Or maybe it's Linc. Or - hey - could be Dwayne with his computers.

In any case, it would explain why so much of John's powers are on screens, why Linc gave the rant about the Internet, etc... (It might also explain the dead-guy in the motel.)

I give this theory about a two-percent chance of being right (I read yesterday in the New York Times that some philosophy dudes think there's a 20-percent chance that all of us are in a virtual reality sim - I have no idea how one could come up with any percentage of probability for this.)

So, there you have it - have at it...

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

John from Cincinnati - In A Sentence Or Two

I've come up with a concise analogy to describe John from Cincinnati, and the impact it has had upon me, and its combination of attractiveness and incomprehensibility:

John from Cincinnati is a beautiful poem we hear recited, in a language which we do not understand. We are attracted to, and swayed by, the meter, without really understanding any of the words, the components, or the content.

In McLuhanesque terms, John from Cincinnati is all medium and no message.

Consider this an elaboration of the point I made on Sunday - in John from Cincinatti Concludes - about the series being a murky jewel, which, however much we may hold up to the light, however much we may squint at, we can still see any more clearly...

But see also: John from Cincinnati is ... Neo in the Matrix!

See also reviews of episodes: Episode One ... Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode Four ... Episode 5 ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9 ... Episode 10

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

John from Cincinnati Concludes

Well, one thing about John from Cincinnati, which concluded tonight on HBO, was unambiguous: the music was great throughout. And tonight was no different - beginning with Dylan's "Series of Dreams" and concluding with Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally".

And the story ... well, Shawn is ok, as I was sure he would be.

But where did Shawn and John go? Your guess is as good as mine.

The family healing continued. And Stinkweed's doing ok. And we got lots of sage lines about the Internet.

I don't know. Not every narrative has to be immediately or fully comprehensible on first ingestion.

So I'll say this about John from Cincinnati: I have a feeling we'll be talking about it for a long time. Parts of it, favorite phrases, may even become minor anchors in our culture.

Word is that HBO will not be renewing it. If true, that will only increase the show's mystique.

I won't lie to you and say it's been my favorite or even near favorite show, or even in the upper echelon. But I would've looked forward to another season.

In the end, John from Cincinnati was as it has been all season: some kind of murky jewel, which, however much you hold it up to the light, however much you may squint to make it more clear, it still remains murky. Maybe like looking at a spec of light in the sky.

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two and John from Cincinnati is ... Neo in the Matrix!

See also reviews of other episodes ... Some Thoughts on John (from Cincinnati) ... Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode Four ... Episode 5 ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9

And see also John from Cincinnati Closes without Closure...

And here's Dylan's "Series of Dreams"...

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Penultimate John from Cincinnati: Episode 9: Mitch Carries the Weight

Tonight's next-to-last episode of John from Cincinnati - of this or who knows how many seasons (hmmm, I said the same thing about the finale tonight of Meadowlands) - showed the injured family gradually healing, coming together - all because Shaun has now indeed vanished, as John has been saying for several days.

Is this all part of John's plan - to do what it is needed to bring Mitch, Cissy, Butch et al at least a little closer together? I think so, and still say that Shaun will be ok in next week's finale.

As to the family, it's working. Mitch is the best he's been all season - stepping up and taking some charge with the media, letting them know Shawn is missing. Cissy is of course still cursing like a trooper, but we manage to get a smile out of her - or, at least, the "Chemist" does, when he tells her he remembers when she was the "hottest piece of ass" on the beach, and he still sees that on her. (This, of course, is why Cissy is so jealous of Tina.) (The drug-guru "Chemist," by the way, is played by Howard Hesseman - a good touch, since Hesseman also played Dr. Johnny Fever of "WKRP in Cincinnati" in the last millennium. A confluence of Cincinnatis.)

And the assorted miscreants at the motel are almost, sort of, human tonight. I'm finally pretty much getting the ex-cop with the bird (which came back after vanishing - another good sign for Shawn), and the two mugs from Hawaii. I'm still not completely getting the motel owner, but that's ok. And I do get the guy at the computer completely - in fact, what he says makes the most amount of sense.

Next week promises to reveal all. If I can believe the song under the closing credits - "Hold On, I'm Coming" (another gem) - maybe it just might...

See also reviews of other episodes ... Some Thoughts on John (from Cincinnati) ... Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode Four ... Episode 5 ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 8 ... Episode 10

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two

John from Cincinnati: Episode Eight: Shaun, John, and bin Laden

A taut, tension-filled eighth episode of HBO's John for Cincinnati this evening, with some great dabs of humor - but everyone understandably worried sick about Shaun, given John's pronouncements that "Shaun will soon be gone," and his making a terrorist-style video message to make his point.

Best line of the show, apropos the terrorist angle, comes from the "ball busting" Cissy - referring to the video message, before she sees it, "like that fuck bin Laden"? Not only the best line of the show but Rebecca De Mornay's best line so far.

Also in the best line department, in the runner-up return engagement category, we get Butchie saying "dumping out" and "boning" as he describes John's peculiar speech pattern.

But Shaun's not yet gone - he's just off to Sea World with Tina (who again has the honor being referred to as "whore" by Cissy).

In the end, he also signs a contract with Linc, with Cissy signing, too.

But not to worry, we have two episodes left, and we're nowhere near a happy ending.

In fact, quite to the contrary, John is not letting up on Shaun soon being gone, and in the coming attractions everyone seems to be saying that he is ...

But I'm stubbornly holding on to the prediction that Shaun being "gone" may not be bad.

Great song as usual under the closing credits of this weird-ass but compelling enigma of a series ... "When Love Came to Town"... U2 and B. B. King's rendition of the B. B. King classic.

See also reviews of other episodes ... Some Thoughts on John (from Cincinnati) ... Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode Four ... Episode 5 ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 9 ... Episode 10

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two

John from Cincinnati: Episode Seven: The Halo Effect

Last night's John from Cincinnati on HBO - Episode Seven and the next to last - was the most upbeat (until the very end) and my favorite so far.

I also think I'm finally beginning to get at least a little of what this is all about: the frothiness and invigoration and power and pitfalls of surfing - whether the ocean or the Web.

Butchie is back in the water and beginning to regain his prowess. Kai has saved his gear, rather than sell them for the cash that Butchie needed for his drugs. All of that is great.

Also good is what Dwayne tells Butchie - the web hits on Butchie's page have jumped to 1244 in 24 hours (hey, Infinite Regress gets twice that on good days, thanks to all of you John from Cincinnati readers, which I truly appreciate), and Dwayne suggests that Shaun should get a site of his own. It's all part of the halo effect, Dwayne explains - not John's sort of halo, but all the publicity about Shaun's miraculous recovery drawing people online to Butchie's site (actually, that does have to do with John's recuperative halo, doesn't it)... Butchie, as usual, gets in some good lines, including a comment that Shaun's already on "MyTube" (good synchrony, I just posted a rave review of the first YouTube/CNN Presidential debate).

Meanwhile, back on John from Cincinnati, Linc's Stinkweed media-surfing company is trying to get him to see the merits of the Web. Linc resists, with apt comments about what the Web's most popular commodity (porn). But by the end of this thread, Linc may be a millionaire, and have Tina (Shaun's mother) along with him, too.

See, I told you it was an upbeat show. Even Palaka recovers after getting a raging infection from a tattoo.

But near the very end of the episode, John remarks, "Shaun will soon be gone..."

This means, what? John's powers of healing are only temporary? Shaun will have another fatal accident? Or maybe - if the series can end with at least a little hope - Shaun will be going on to have some great career that will take him away from Imperial Beach....

You know, I'm really beginning to warm up to this insane show and its pace and characters, and will miss it after the next weeks.

Including its fine music. The show ended tonight with a great rendition of John Lennon's "Watching the Wheels" by Matis Yahu - one of my all-time favorite Lennon songs.

See also reviews of other episodes ... Episode One ... Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode Four ... Episode Five ... Episode Six ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9 ... Episode 10

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two

John from Cincinnati: Episode Six: Time Well Spent on Honey?

"Time well spent" - that was the last line of last night's John from Cincinnati (Episode 6, Day 5 - please, don't ask me why). A part of me was hoping maybe I had misunderstood the count of episodes and "Days" of John's visit on the show even more than I have, and maybe that was the last line of the last episode of the series, which I had somehow just seen On Demand tonight, but ... no such luck ... no, no, I'm only kidding ... well, maybe not completely but at least partially, I think...

Tonight's episode featured: no Mitch (Bruce Greenwood had the Day off), Cissy a little less shrill, Cass looking better than ever in those blue jeans, Tina looking good, too, and everyone else in fine form (though I have to say, Shaun's deadpan character is beginning to wear thin ... though I don't know Greyson Fletcher's acting well enough to say whether it's his fault or the writing and direction ... hmmm... didn't this come up with Hayden Christensen and George Lucas about Star Wars?)

The plot, as usual, can be summarized in two minutes: Cissy feels bad that Shaun hears her badmouthing his mother Tina, and puts Butchie up to getting her back to see Shaunie after all. There are some profound family reveals (but not really surprising for this family) and deep currents of guilt. John also saves another soul - Cissy - in her case, from possibly committing suicide. John tells her to "baptize the pistol," a good line.

And the dialog, as usual, was excellent in parts, and this episode features a brilliant riff-sermon from John, who is finally speaking and not the "human parrot" that Bill says he is (correctly, until last night).

You can read it somewhere over on hbo.com - it's one fine piece of writing. It even has John saying stuff about the Internet - and the "zeroes and ones" in Cass's (digital) camera ...

Gratifying ... I've been saying for years that immortality would be digital code somewhere out there in the cosmos that describes our DNA and our lives.

Actually, there are a bunch of better lines on the show - not in John's riff - but in Butchie talking about Tina sucking ... but I'm trying to take the high, or at least, academic road here, folks ... so good for John for recognizing the digital revolution.

There was also some dead guy that John pulled out of the motel - I'm not sure who he is ... John's father? Maybe it's a good thing this wasn't the finale, so we can find out who this guy is ... Dead, but he delivered a stronger performance than one or two of the others ...

I'm still liking that intro theme song a lot. If you want the honey, don't kill the series....

Wait - maybe the whole Day Six - Episode Seven - next week will be just 60 minutes of silence and black ... and then-


See also reviews of other episodes ... Episode One ... Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode Four ... Episode Five ... Episode Seven ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9 ... Episode 10

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two

John from Cincinnati: Episode Five: Not the Night

Well, tonight's John from Cincinnati - Episode Five, Day Four of John's visit - did have a scene in the diner with Butchie and Tina (mother of Shaun). But the Shirelles' "Tonight's the Night" was playing, nothing by Journey, and I didn't see any guy in a Members Only jacket....

Now I like the Shirelles and "Tonight's the Night" well enough... in fact, it's one of my favorite girl doo-wap songs.

But Rebecca De Mornay's one-note shrill performance as Grandma Cissy is beginning to grate on me, there hasn't been any surfing in the show in I forget how many episodes, and there are far too many conversations to follow.

I thought I saw some prelude to maybe something who knows between John and Cass tonight, and that was nice, but, all in all, tonight was not the night.

Which is too bad, because the last two episodes had begun to show some real power.

I can't even think of a word like "dumping" or "boning" which caught my attention, or anything I learned about the characters and the overall story that I didn't know before.

Well, there's always next week...

See also reviews of other episodes ... Episode One ... Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode Four ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9 ... Episode 10

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two

John From Cincinnati: Episode Four ... Bringing Down the Hammer

Last night's John from Cincinnati on HBO - Episode 4, technically, Day 3 (Day 2 spanned two episodes) - was a fine, breakthrough show. By which I mean, for the first time, I really enjoyed the show a lot more than just because I enjoy writing about it. At this point, even if I wasn't writing about it, I'd keep watching it. You might say that John from Cincinnati brought down the hammer, and really got our attention - but more on that, later.

The key story last night was that John gets stabbed, is badly wounded, and left on the side of the road, maybe dead. He's discovered by Vietnam Joe. Now we know that John will survive - if he can bring others back from near death, surely he can do it for himself - but the way he does it is especially interesting and likely important. He has Joe put Joe's hand over John's heart, and this somehow draws some cosmic energy from Cass (who was recently boned by Mitch - I don't know if that's important, but I wanted to mention it), and John's on the road to recovery in Joe's jeep.

Meanwhile, Cass is suddenly much more than a pretty face - she's somehow part of John's world, even to the point that when John later tells her to "see God," she takes it much more in stride than did Kai, last week.

Speaking of which - Kai's in great form in this episode, too, explaining just what happened to her when John said "see God" to her last week. Rings and "hardware" in crucial parts of her body heated up - same as the implants in Butchie's head last week - so now we know of at least three amazing consequences of John's presence: (a) levitation (Mitch), healing (Shaun, Butchie's drug problem, John), and heating of metallic things in the body (I hope no one has fillings in their teeth)...

Word of the show: Well, "dumping out" was mentioned once again, and "boning" lots of times, but the new one was "hammer" - as in "bringing down the hammer" (in this context, see boning).

This has got to be one of the strangest, odd but oddly powerfully shows on television, with a pace and a story arc all its own...

And I'm really loving Joe Strummer's Johnny Appleseed under the opening credits - in fact that song, and the whole opening montage, may be the best TV opener since The Sopranos...

See also reviews of other episodes ... Episode One ... Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode 5 ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9 ... Episode 10

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two

John from Cincinnati: Episode Three ... boning

Well, I saw the third episode of HBO's John from Cincinnati last night - technically, Day Two, Continued - and I'm beginning to grasp a few things about this series ...

Word of the Episode: Each episode seems to have a word that John - and someone else, Butchie, Kai, whoever - say over and over again. Last week, it was "dump" (also "dump out"). Last night, it was "bone". John wants to "bone" Kai - or tells her he wants to - and she responds by trying make sure that that's what he really wants to do. She finds him attractive, but doesn't want to take advantage of a mentally "slow hot guy". John does make her "see God," but this is pretty much just briefly passing out and seeing some strangeness. As with "dump" the previous week, it's pretty clear that nothing really happens, boning wise. John is just repeating a word that he heard.

Lesson of the Episode: In the first episode, it was Mitch's realization at the end that he wasn't hallucinating due to a brain tumor - he was really levitating. Last night, the doctor makes clear to everyone who might have been dozing off or "seeing God" in the first two episodes that John - or someone - really has magically recuperative powers. Shaunie really was clinically dead. And someone, presumably John, brought him back to full health. This power also brought the ex-cop's bird back from the dead, is allowing Butchie to kick drugs without too much pain, made Kai "see God" (not really a recuperative power, but, unlike the other effects, we do see John making that happen), and who knows what else ...

I'm sure there are other transcending threads in this show, but, once again, I'm finding the thing I'm enjoying most is not seeing the show, but writing about it ...

So I'll be back here next week with some further gems...

See also reviews of other episodes ... Episode One ... Episode Two ... Episode 4 ... Episode 5 ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9 ... Episode 10

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two

John from Cincinnati: Day Two

So, I saw the second episode of John from Cincinnati on HBO On-Demand the other night ... and I did like it a little more than I liked the first ...

There was some real tension as Shaun, the grandson, gets his neck broken in the surf ... though it was also pretty obvious that this was just a set-up for John to be able to further demonstrate his magical powers (which also seem to be helping Butchie kick his drugs)...

There was some humor, of sorts, with John pretending to "dump," and being praised by Butchie for great "fume control"...

I don't know what to say about this series - it has to be one of the most peculiar things I've seen in a while, maybe ever, on television.

But amidst the inscrutable and bizarre characters, there are some side people I'm beginning to recognize and like - Luke Perry as a promoter, Emily Rose as a film maker, Luis Guzmán as motel manager is always welcome on the screen - and that's always a good sign.

And come to think of it, I'm also enjoying writing about this series, and that should count for something, too - at least, for me...

So, yeah, at least for now, I'm still watching...

See also reviews of other episodes Episode One ... Episode Three ... Episode 4 ... Episode 5 ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9 ... Episode 10

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two

Some Thoughts on John (from Cincinnati)

Maybe it was the wrong time ... I saw the first episode just a few hours after that sudden cut to black at the end of The Sopranos, and my mind was still reeling from shock (in a good way, and it still is)...

So maybe that wasn't the best time to see the premiere of a brand new series, which promised to be highly original and edgy....

Everything in the package seemed to be right. I love Rebecca De Mornay. Bruce Greenwood never disappoints. I'm also a big Beach Boys fan - they're easily in my top 5 favorite groups - and of course I'm not only an avid watcher and reader of the fantastic in fantasy and science fiction, but I write the stuff.

Indeed, I've never met a science fiction story I wasn't prepared to be crazy about, and though I don't feel quite the same about fantasy and supernatural themes, I'm pretty easy to please on those scores, too.

And the premiere of John from Cincinnati did not.

It seemed a lot of talk about almost nothing. The payoff at the end - that Greenwood's character knows he is really levitating - was way too little to support an entire episode.

Now, I'm actually very modest (a rarity for me) in my initial judgments about greatness in popular culture. I remember when I heard the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper for the very first time in June 1967 - I was hoping for more Rubber Soul and Revolver, and thought that the Beatles had gone off the deep end. But I stepped back and said, look, if I'm not liking an album by the Beatles, maybe it's me and not the Beatles who are off-key. I gave the Beatles the presumption of genius, listened a few more times, started to love "A Little Help from my Friends," and then "Lucy in the Sky," and pretty soon I thought Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the masterpiece it is. (I wrote an essay called "Sgt. Pepper and the Presumption of Genius" about this back in the 1980s ... it's on another computer ... I'll see if I can post it here in the next few days.)

Well, much as I admire David Milch and his great work in television - beginning with Hill Street Blues - I'm not quite willing to give him and John from Cincinnati the presumption of genius I gave to Sgt. Pepper.

But I will at least watch the next episode, and report back here soon...

See also reviews of other episodes Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode Four ... Episode 5 ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9 ... Episode 10

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two