TV Interview with David Milch

09 August 2007, Travis Smiley, PBS.org

… Milch: That is a question that anyone of faith asks himself in this version every day. Is the thing that I believe in most fundamentally absolutely useless in the society in which I am given to live? And the answer is, not if you act in faith. And so I must believe that I am God’s surrogate in the sense that any of us, I believe, is put here to do his will as we understand it.

Whether we choose to or not is up to us, and so why surfers? Surfers are because my show – “Deadwood” was canceled, inexplicably to me. The suggestion –

Tavis: Six Emmy nominations, though.

Milch: The suggestion was made to me, why don’t you do a show about surfers? Young, masculine, that’s the demographic. Can you do that and have it engage your own spirit? “John From Cincinnati.”

Tavis: “John From Cincinnati.” And the title comes from?

Milch: The German mathematician Leibniz spoke of monads – indissoluble pieces of matter which God used to create the universe. And this guy’s name on a credit card which appears in his hand is John Monad. And butchy surfer junky (unintelligible) member Monad, he says, “You look like the kind of guy that would come from Cincinnati.” And John, who purifies the intention of anything that anyone says to him, says, “I am from Cincinnati.”

Tavis: Yep. (Laughs) So, hence “John From Cincinnati.”… [more]