I have been a David Lynch fan since 1990 when on a date, with an older guy in college who took me to me to an Indie theater to see the David Lynch film, Wild At Heart. I scored the date because I was a blossoming cinephile.
Anyway, if you haven’t seen Wild At Heart, I encourage you to open another tab on your browser and search Wild At Heart Opening Scene. I had to pretend not to be shocked. Not that I hadn’t seen violence like that. But it was the opening scene! The movie was too mature for me. Much of it went over my head. It was overwhelming. I couldn’t take it all in. I left the theatre speechless and completely in love, (Nicholas Cages’ character’s name in the film is Sailor) not with my date, with David Lynch. My date asked if I wanted to grab some beers after I declined.
I raced home and called one of my guy friends who had a zine and knew everything about movies and music. I told him about my experience and cursed him for not turning me on to Lynch sooner. He laughed and laughed and said it’s the same guy that made Twin Peaks! I was completely astonished. The next day I went back to the theatre by myself and watched Wild At Heart again and then spent the afternoon at my buddy’s house watching a bootleg VHS of Blue Velvet. Oh damn! I would need another decade to comprehend that movie.
Twin Peaks, if you were there, you know. Similar to X-Files, it was an event because the show played out over time in, for lack of a better term, real life. You had to wait a week for the next episode. There were no spoilers, no one else had seen it yet. Then we all heard about this Usenet thing, people were talking about it and maybe knew things we didn’t know. (they didn’t) on Usenet (early chat rooms). The phenomenon of Twin Peaks forever changed how I expect a mystery to unfold, or maybe how I hope a mystery will unfold. Twin Peaks set the bar very high.
When I lived in Spokane, Washington, many years later, I was washing dishes in my kitchen one day, alone in the house, and remember out of nowhere that David Lynch lived in Spokane in and I yelled out, OMG, one degree closer!
When you experience someone who creates things that are bizarre or bizarre to the outside world but makes total sense to you, it’s comforting. I have written about this in the past when we lost Paul Reubens, Pee-wee Herman, the weirdos. They helped me understand myself.
There have been many times in my life where I have felt that my career has stalled or I have not achieved enough, and I would think about the movie Dune being considered a flop and a failure, or Twin Peaks being canceled. The madness! I am doing okay.
I am sad that David Lynch is no longer with us. I am sad that he will create nothing new for us. But I am thankful for the gifts that he gave us. His unique brand of surrealism was unmatched and leaves a legacy that I hope he was proud of. Although, as a creator and writer, I know we are our own worst critics.
So, to the man who loved his cigarettes, coffee and wine. What to do you put in your glass when you raise a toast to David Lynch? An Espresso Martini would be appropriate, so that is one option. Tonight, I chose a NY Sour cocktail. The presentation seems fitting for a man with so many layers.
A note about the photo. I wrote this piece on a day when I needed distraction. It became one of those days. As I made the cocktail, the doorbell rang, then the not so small kitten knocked my Hawthorne strainer off of the counter as I was shaking my cocktail. The same kitten crept up behind me while I was about to strain the cocktail into the glass and knocked several things off of my bar counter. I finished pouring the cocktail as I heard the crash. When I came back to the cocktail it I surveyed my mess. The splashes, mismatched cocktail tools and, after abandoning the cocktail, the wine float had sunk. It was a beautiful disaster, and I decided it was the perfect authentic moment to capture. It’s not pretty, but it tastes great.
Classic NY Sour
2 ounces rye whiskey
1 ounce lemon juice
1 ounce simple syrup
¼ ounce fruit forward red wine
Add whiskey, lemon juice and simple syrup to a cocktail shaker with cubed ice. Shake well until the shaker is cold. Strain into a rocks glass over ice. Pour the red wine over the back of a spoon on top of the cocktail slowly to create the floating effect.
Cheers!
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