Best Face Forward
Why John From Cincinnati" makes me nervous.


There’s a trick to having your photo taken. It’s a technique extolled in everything from international photo glossys all the way down to those free parenting magazines you find in the waiting room of your doctor’s office. It’s called “putting your best face forward.”

The theory – and it’s a good one – is that there is one particular angle that makes you look best, an angle that straightens out your nose, makes your chin look better, takes ten pounds off, and generally gives you the appearance of being far more attractive than you really are. The trick, they write, is to find this “best face” and practice presenting it to the camera.

Okay, I’ll be the vanity piñata today. I know what my best face is and I’ve found myself making sure that’s the angle presented to the camera. After a while it has become second nature. I have a crooked nose, so sue me.

The strange thing is what happens when I see a photo of myself caught from another angle, a less flattering angle, an angle that shows the flaws I try to hide from even myself. “That’s not me,” I insist, accustomed as I am to putting my best face forward. “That couldn’t be me.”

But it is.

Which brings me to the new HBO series “John From Cincinnati.” If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a dysfunctional surfer family from Imperial Beach who becomes involved with a mysterious “Rainman” like character (John) who just might be an alien, an angel, or the second coming itself.

The series makes me nervous. Of course, in some ways it’s supposed to. How would we treat a modern day miracle worker if he suddenly appeared at our doorstep? Would we offer joy and wonder or the swift tip of the boot?

But there are other reasons “John From Cincinnati” makes me cringe. Having worked in the “action sports industry” pretty much my whole adult life, I’m unaccustomed to seeing it cast as the villain.

Linc Stark, played by Luke Perry, is a nefarious surf-industry executive who would throw his first born beneath the bus if it helped sales. The patriarch of the central Yost family views surf contests as soul-stripping dens of inequity. When young Shaun Yost – played pitch perfect by Grayson Fletcher – signs his sponsorship contract, the scene could not be any more Faustian.

The whole surf culture in “John From Cincinnati” appears grimy and worn as the screwed up main characters squawk obscenities at each other. None of them are particularly likeable, and none of them are more than vaguely familiar to me. “That’s not the industry,” I insist, accustomed as I am to putting the best face on it as possible. “It couldn’t be.”

But maybe it is.

Maybe the show does portray a portion of the market from the worst possible angle, crooked nose and buck teeth and all. Consulting Producers Dibi and Herbie Fletcher certainly understand the market – and probably have seen both sides of its business aspect over the years.

What worries and fascinates me is that each week millions of viewers are tuning in and they’re seeing a completely different view of beach culture, a portrayal that’s a million miles from surfing penguins or Xgames gloss. What is their takeaway from the show? How does it change their perception of surfing?

“Who cares?” was my older brother’s response when I asked him about it.

I wanted to tell him, “Well, I do.” But just then he was joined by his own fourteen year old son and they headed off for another surf.

Yep, I do. But here’s the thing: I don’t fully understand why I care. Am I protecting an industry that’s put a roof over my head for 20 years? Or, more likely, am I protecting my own sheltered view of what parts of it may be like?

Dunno. What I do know is that I’m fascinated to see how it all turns out -- both on the TV screen and off it.