“I miss him."
David Keith Lynch (January 20, 1946-January 16, 2025)
Film director, auteur, painter, musician, producer, writer, woodworker, cartoonist, amateur weatherman, and actor David Lynch died today.
He was one of my favorite artists of all time. I have been a fan of his work since I first saw The Elephant Man and Dune as a tween in the early 80s. While I did not immediately latch onto Twin Peaks in its first few episodes, I eventually became a hardcore Tweaker. The fandom of Twin Peaks is the one that I went the deepest into. I have all of the officially branded books, the audiobook cassette tape, and DVDs of the series.
At one time I owned the VHS box set that was practically unwatchable because of how poor the transfer was and how cheap the tapes were. My VCR hated those tapes and I was constantly adjusting the tracking wheel to get any kind of image or sound to come out. I paid over one hundred dollars for that piece of crap—mind you that is in early 90s dollars when I was making around six or seven-dollars-an-hour. I never had the money to own the coveted Japanese LaserDiscs of the series, so I made do with what I could (barely) afford.
Before that, I remember waking up at four in the morning to watch and tape Twin Peaks on Bravo with introductions by the late, great Catherine Coulson as The Log Lady.
I owned many copies of the fanzine Wrapped in Plastic that was published in Arlington, Texas—one town over from my hometown of Euless. In December 2012, Jennifer and I celebrated Twin Peaksmas. We watched the DVDs of the original series (she had only seen bits and pieces prior to my foisting it upon her) and drank lots of coffee, ate donuts, and a homemade cherry pie. It is still one of my favorite Christmases. For years I ran a Facebook page dedicated to the main villain of Twin Peaks, Killer BOB. I am still a member of several meme groups dedicated to Twin Peaks and the 2017 revival Twin Peaks: The Return. In 2019 I made a pilgrimage to the towns in Washington state where Twin Peaks was filmed. I was and remain a Twin Peaks super-fan.
There have been rivers of ink spilled over David Lynch and his importance to cinema and television but I would like to show y’all a bit of his acting work. Specifically, in John Carroll Lynch’s (no relation) 2017 film Lucky starring Lynch favorite Harry Dean Stanton in his final role. In this scene, Lynch’s character Howard mourns the absence of his pet tortoise President Roosevelt. It is a beautiful and poignant scene and I wish that David Lynch had done more acting. He is just great in this movie. I watched this scene again today and cried real tears. Please enjoy. I will see y’all soon.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
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