My Day with David Lynch

My Day with David Lynch by Alex Anico, from the upcoming novel Magical Maydaze.

I never met David Lynch. I was a fan as was my roommate who at the time was probably a bigger fan. He was big into Twin Peaks. My first Lynch experience was watching Dune as a kid. I never really liked Dune (I adore it now) but I knew what it was, knew it was polarizing and had been captivated by the box cover and poster in my family video store in Kendall called Killian Video. My family were readers and Dune was a favorite of my older sister and father. The word from my dad, a film colorist and cinematographer at the time working nights at Continental Film and days at the video store, was Lynch was the “out there” director. When Twin Peaks started airing at that time I was too young to embrace it. I was 9 and it aired on CBS which wasn’t the Fox at the time. For me television was cartoons and animation. The family video store had molded me into a lover of film and I wasn’t as driven to watch every show. Around the same time Wild at Heart came out and when I saw that I had found my Lynch film. This was mine. Willem Dafoe’s brains floating carelessly through the air stayed with me forever. I looked more into Twin Peaks but I never could keep up with the show. Life as a kid got in the way and it wasn’t until my teens after meeting my best friend and roommate where I started discovering more of Lynch. I remember Blue Velvet on the shelves of the video store next to the other Lynch films but it wasn’t until I did the watch later in life that I connected with it. As well with Eraserhead which began a competition of sorts amongst me and my roommate to keep bringing films to watch that topped the last. Eventually more life found me growing up moving out on my own and eventually getting a job in a convention center that scored me tickets to events around the city. Everything from sporting events to live shows. One event happened to be taking place in a theatre owned by the convention center and Jackie Gleason Theatre called The Colony Theatre and it would be an exclusive screening of David Lynch’s new film, Inland Empire as well as a live intro by Lynch himself via satellite. I got tickets for me, my roommate and his girlfriend.

We got to the theatre with about an hour to spare. Or seats turned out the most furthest ones in the second to last row in the back in the upper balcony. I couldn’t complain cause it was free and it was David Lynch. At this time I had already graduated from college with studies in filmmaking and screenwriting. My desire to be a filmmaker was still dormant as I had moved back to Miami to follow a career in Electronic Dance Music as the Miami Drum and Bass scene had become the epicenter for a decades worth of underground music evolution in South Florida.

My roommate at the time was, a drinker. Dare I say a fiend. He was a good person but alcohol had the common effect on him that it has on most people: It turned him into a dick. Borderline alcoholic he had insisted we go hit the bar since we had an hour to kill. I knew this would lead to disaster as did his girlfriend at the time whose face I still clearly remember. An hour later we are scrambling to make it back into our seats as my roommate stumbled up the steps slobbering and slurring his words.

To be honest I already had tuned him out. A perpetual third wheel I had two best friends who both had girlfriends. It was a position I was all too familiar with since high school. I just never had the luck. The relationships I had were few in between and typically one night stands or girlfriends cheating on their boyfriends. I couldn’t tell you why I attracted the type but I did and I had developed the ability to live in my own bubble when I was around my best friends and their girls. I hated feeling like a relationship leech but my love for my homies made me accept the role cause on one hand I was making killer music with one best friend and on the other I was discovering new films and concepts with another. Their girlfriends would come and go and it was frustrating to become friends with them knowing at some point my best friends would cheat or find someone else and Id be stuck dealing with the now ex who I had grown to become friends with as well.

We sat there for a few moments as the auditorium finished filling. I noticed a group of teens who could only be described as “Slack Hipster” walking up the stairs toward our direction. Hipsters were the new style and it was something of a Modern Hippy. The Upper Middle Class Hippy. Educated, liberated and expressive. There was a fashion sense that ultimately took over the night scene. But this particular group were slack meaning they were dirty. They didn’t give a shit about what people thought to the point they didn’t give a shit about their appearance anymore. They had begun to let go of their connection to society in an attempt to be accepted as cool. This is not a knock on them as doing so can and does often lead to revelations and exposure to new concepts but it also has many detriments, one being you become a stank ass.

A Stank Ass is a person who does not shower and their BO [body odor] is so strong it singes your nasal hair and waters your eyes. Similar to cutting onions the sharp sting presses into your cornea and even grabs a hold of your optic nerves. It is a smell that gives you a sore throat. A stench that makes you gag and turn your head as you close your eyes in disgust, raising a hand to block the smell. But you cannot and the stench goes through you like uranium 235 leaving you radioactive. A bio threat to anyone who comes near you. There is a comic made by an illustrator that appeared in a newspaper long ago that introduced the idea of the lingering fart, or a fart that lingers. It is so bad and soiled that the smell follows you around. Instead of a fart clouding that dissipates in an area, the farters asshole is like a leaking gas system on the verge of eruption. No matter where you go the smell follows and even clings to others. It is not a light fart. It is a humid fog. A zombie virus of peste de mielda that is mixed up with three day old sweat and bacalao. These fucking kids brought death and it smelled like hell was coming with them. They sat in the last row behind us and the lights went down as the screen lit up in preparation for the show to begin.

It took like ten minutes for David Lynch to connect. There was a moment when he was asking if we could see him and then it went out in a glitch. The house lights came back on and they started playing music from his films. I remember my roommate starting to yell as did I. Not obscenities or anything rash we were were civil hecklers. Just hollering and hooting. Stuff like that to get the crowd up. Me and my roommate talked as well as his girlfriend but I cant remember what they said. I just remember his blood shot eyes. His girlfriend was in between us so we talked over her. I motioned him over closer to hear what he had to say not because I missed it or was interested but because the smell of alcohol was so strong on his breath the it blocked out the smell of the kids behind us.

Then the lights went back down and the screen came back and once again David Lynch was looking at us like the Wizard of Oz. Again he asked if we could hear him and the entire auditorium yelled “Yes!”. There was a laugh and chuckle among everyone and after the crowd settled, Lynch began to introduce his new film.

“A women in trouble.” He wanted to us to know that’s what this film was about. It was a blur to be honest because I was so enthralled by being that close to a true master of art. I had lunch with an up and coming Hollywood director named Doug Liman as part of my college screenwriting class and shook Jackie Chan’s hand once but I really didn’t have many chances to connect like this. I mean he wasn’t talking to me but there he was, live. Focused on Miami. The same guy whose VHS covers were on my family video store shelves. Same guy who directed and gave me and my roomie a slew of films and shows that entertained us night after stoned night. I was so star struck that I actually forgot about the smell of caca coming from the pestilence behind us. Just as I was getting into having Lynch right there he was biding his farewells and hoping that we would enjoy his film. And then, he was gone.

Soon after the auditorium got darker and the film began as did the horror. Not the movie, the movie was fine. I mean it was a little hard to follow and long but it was Lynch and you knew what you were getting into. I liked it. Inland is so weird and stressful yet so beautiful. It was one of the first films shot all digital which Lynch was emphasizing and supporting. I could relate as a producer and DJ using CDs at a transitional period where many where still trying to hold on to vinyl as the only accepted format to play music on for an audience. The digital film revolution kicked off by Lucas opened so many doors and options for people including myself as I had filmed my first short film on digital. The film was the furthest thing from the horror. The true horror was the smell that blobbed over us and had now encased us in its arms. We were cradled in sour baby shit and dug deep into the taint of these fucks after a three mile run on Biscayne in a Miami summer. It must’ve been at least three weeks of no bathing to reach this level of Super Saiyan swamp ass and I was fighting it off as best as I can. I am a good man, a polite man. I dare not want to embarrass someone or even see them be embarrassed. While others freaked out at my tax client who had severe burns over 85% of his body and was missing fingers from an accident in which he was pulled out of a burning car I made sure to to look him the eyes and treat him as normal as I would anyone else. Our tax office was a haven for him as me and my father just did the work and helped him out. Embarrassing someone in public was something that shamed me from the time I did it once in middle school to someone who would eventually become a dear friend. Ever since then I never did it again.

But this time was the closest I had ever come to going ape shit. How the fuck are you gonna come to this con una nalga that nauseates someone who prolly works with cadavers? The sweat these people emitted was Alien acid blood that would evaporate directly into my eyes. I was so glad that I had sprayed cologne in my hands before rubbing on my body because I was able to use my hands as a gas mask of sorts. All I had to do was take calculated breathes so I wouldn’t take in their smell while getting enough air to not pass out. Unlike my roommate who was already snoring. Loudly. It was the one drawback of living with the dickhead. Loved him to death but damn bro when he would drink that motherfucker would snore like an animal. I imagined what it would be like to be one of his conquests eventually realizing this is prolly what drives all his girlfriends into his same alcoholic path because they needed to be smashed to fall asleep sleeping next to a freight train. Like I was in a room on the other side separated by a bathroom and staircase. They were in the danger zone building tinnitus.

You only imagine the disappointment I had we I saw he had passed out. I got these tickets for him as part bday gift and I remember looking forward to this. Even so it didn’t surprise me. His girlfriend and me were left dealing with the BO battle while he got to sleep through the whole thing. I began to wonder if we were the real idiots not being boarder alchies. At that point, me and his girlfriend locked eyes. We were just starting to become friends and this was a chance for me and her to get to know each other better. We were thinking the same thing and both leaned in close so we could speak into each other’s ears ensuring no one could hear. She spoke first surprising me at her assertiveness.

“Holy fucking shit those people smell!” She spouted as loud as she could as soft as she had to.

“OMG, I fucking know right?! Jesus I’m gonna die!” I said relieved to hear someone else was suffering as me.

“What do we do we can’t just leave! I don’t want to miss the movie!”

“I know! Just try not to breathe.”

“Try not breathing? Through the whole movie are you crazy?!” She spat at me.

“It can’t be too long. I think this is a like a short or something. It’s already been like 45 minutes. I’m sure it’ll be over soon.”

“Ok. What are you doing?”

“I smelling my hands cause I sprayed cologne on them. It helps!”

“Omg, let me get some.”

She began smelling my hand while rubbing her hand against mine. I realized she was trying to take my cologne so I backed her the fuck off.

“Yo, that’s enough! I need this!” I ripped my hand away from her grip.

“Please!” She pleaded. “It is so fucking bad!!”

“No! You’re gonna take it all!” I softly shouted.

I left her with the little bit of cologne she could rub off and we both sat there with our noses and mouths breathing into prayer hands. This particular David Lynch film was an experimental psychological thriller written, directed, and produced by David Lynch himself. It had a running time of three hours.

It was about two and half hours in when the film reel caught fire. As cliché as it may sound it was exactly how you see it in movies. The film burns up all weird like and melts before snapping into a while light similar to death welcoming you to everlasting peace. My roommate was still snoring and deep into an alcohol coma while me and his girlfriend had shifted into covering our heads with our t-shirts and smelling our own scent to block off the invading stink particles. I was determined to beat these filthy fucking hippies. They knew they stunk. They knew their road rash had gone airborne. It was an assault on the nostrils of everyone in that section and nobody had stood up to them to say anything. As bad as I wanted to fight them I decided to battle in other ways like no longer hiding my disgust or attempts to block the smell. My roommates girlfriend had also decided to rebel eventually yelling out for everyone to hear,

“What the fuck is that smell?!”

It was a little too much for me but I could no longer blame her. We were funktified. Stained with their linger, much like being sprayed by a skunk. It would stay with us forever, an odorous core memory of sulfur and sardines left out in the Miami Beach sun. I was crying by now not because the movie was impactful or that it had abruptly went to shit on a crap projector bringing the event to a halt. Tears flowed from the mustard gas attack these people launched from their pits. They announced it would be a few minutes before the film came back on and we decided to use this moment to get air. My roommates girlfriend went to wake him up but he was already awake smacking his dry lips wondering when breakfast was being served. He looked at me and smiled as I gave him a “Fuck you” smile in return and he chuckled before scrunching his nose and saying,

“Bro, what the fuck is that smell?”