Episode 18: Oh! You are sick!

Cambridge. I'm Shawn is a weird Way media podcast. We are Shick, Hello and Welcome to Cambridge and Was Shan a podcast by two weird guys about the weird things we like. Today's episode is definitely weird, weird about something weird, about something that's deeply weird, but also deeply meaningful for both of us, and I know we're really excited. My name is Ronnie, otherwise known as e Sclevator on the on the YouTube's and Take It Away Mark, and I'm Mark Bigley, host of Wake Up Heavy and the Chasing Chevy Chase podcast.

Yeah, and yeah, we're getting into it. We're getting into something you've been pushing for a while and I'm finally ready. I kept yeah, you know about once every other month. I've been like, this has got to be talked about at some point. This is a multifaceted subject.

We've actually decided to turn this into a sort of sub series of the Cambridge and With Shawn podcast. So we're going to be focusing on David Lynch over the next few months. Well, we'll go back and forth. Let's say that. Yeah, we'll go back and forth.

So over the next year, you'll hear intermittently episodes focusing on David Lynch, because and I have a huge, deep seated relationship to David Lynch and his work and his work, Yeah, his work, and who he is, his voice, his voice, and his weather reports. We could do a whole episode on his weather oh man, do a whole episode on his website from the early two thousands today in Los Angeles again, do it. It's September seventeen, twenty twenty one, and if you can believe it, it's a Friday once again. Yeah, it's funny that you do that, though, because I'll never forget. Well, it's pretty recent, but I think it was on Twitter.

Someone had posted something about Lynch, a link to an interview or something, and mentioned how they loved his deep voice. What I was like. His voice can be described in many ways. Deep is not one of them. Deep is not one of them.

I have a deeper voice than David Lynch, and I do not have a deep voice measured yes, yeah, no, I don't know what their definition of deep was, but yeah, let's play a clip here to illustrate my point. I can't remember when I got the idea, when the word eraserhead or any part of the idea came to me first. I can't remember whether it was in Philadelphia or when I first came to California completely don't remember. Yeah, so we're going to you suggested, and it's been on my list David Lynch, and I was like, okay. So I started thinking about David Lynch, starting with the two movies I saw first, and then I got to the movie that we're going to be talking about today in detail, and I'm like, there's too much here.

We can't do like his whole thing for one episode. It's just going to be too long. I have with this movie in particular, or just these interesting to me connections throughout the years, from the first time I saw it to three or four years later seeing it on another continent. And then there's books involved in this, and I know you have a book that kind of shaped your viewing of eraser Head. I don't know if we've mentioned it yet.

We have not. I'm like, ah, this is too much stuff. This has to be an episode by itself. So I pitched that to you and you agreed. So yeah, wholeheartedly agreed because this movie, so we're talking about Eraserhead, this film is I could use the word integral to who you and I are, and I know it is for other people, and I know it has had significant has held a significant place of meaning for others as well.

So it was just a matter of time before we dug deep with Eraserhead and got into the Lynchian esthetics that has definitely become a deep part of my life as well as yours. Yeah, before we do that, Yeah, let's I wrote down a couple notes after I was editing and putting together the last episode on the Dark Side of Collecting, and so I have to listen to this thing, folks, at least three times. Yeah, So that's when we're recording, which is active listening to Ronnie at least and then I edit the thing. Then I generally, when I quote unquote mix it basically listen to the whole thing again and I end up catching a few things I missed in the first edit, and I put all the clips in and blah blah blah. And I don't know if you realized how many times you mentioned Masters of the Universe on the Law.

Yeah, I was. When I was listening to it again, I was like, you know what, Masters of the Universe must really mean something to me. He's another example, for example, grizzly or for example, Yeah, I mean it's definitely at the forefront of my geeky brain and it rears its ugly head quite often. Yeah, I noticed that too, And not to say that I didn't mention a couple things numerous times, in particular the baby Garfield that was arriving that day. And it did arrive, So just an update on that.

And I was crowing about the price, the ten dollar price and how low that is, and so I got it and I was like, oh, yeah, this makes sense because it's kind of chintzy. It's adorable as heck, but it's it's going to fall apart pretty soon. Not pretty soon, but it'll fall apart, probably before my ernie for my childhood does. Oh, that'll never fall apart. Yeah, it's a little chintzy.

But it's been hanging out with us. My wife is home after a exploratory hip surgery last week, and oh wow, so we've all been hanging out on the couch because Cleo just got done with school and it's sitting right up above us and hanging out and watching the movies and watching stuff. So as long as we don't touch it too much, it should be okay. Yeah, that's the That's how it is for many things. I did was that Target yesterday and I saw that there's some adorable sesame street kid robots stuffies, and I was very tempted by.

Yeah, I was very tempted by. They're they're a little stylized, so you know, they look kind of like how Baby Garfield is Garfield for sure, but it's stylized and similarly big bird and bird. They're tempting me. But I did resist. Even the count was which which was really cute.

I resisted because it just didn't have the were they cutified? Were they like cutified? I kind of like that stuff. I kind of like that. You might like it.

I should have sent you a picture, but and may picture what size where they were going off on a tangent already, there's gonna be a lot of tangents on this because there what erase your head is about. For me, it's right, the movie is a tangent. It's about the size. So it's kind of the same size as your Garfield, your Baby Garfield. I'm gonna have to look them up.

Yeah, I think it's kid Robot because it's in the Kid Robot beIN over there in the collect the collector's spot at Target. Kid Robot Ben. Yeah, they've had some They've been putting a bunch of little stuffies made. I think they're kid Robot. It's either Neca or kid Robot.

Maybe they're the same company now, but I don't think so. But yeah, they've they've got some adorable sesame street little Stuffi's over there. I'm thinking about it now because I looked at the stitching and I was like, I don't know if this is gonna last. Yeah. And then one last thing about last episode.

I missed an obvious joke when we were talking about plastic in our balls, and I didn't play a clip for the one plastic rock ball. That's exactly what I was thinking when I was listening back to it. I was like, wait a minute, why didn't Mark This is another opportunity to bring up the rock ball. Missed opportunity. Oh, well, missed opportunity catching the big Fish.

I didn't have anything to add to the last episode, although I did get a lengthy message from a regular listener, Sean Skavarna, who's a co host of Legends of Gray Skull podcast. I know that he had been thinking a lot about he'd recently been thinking a lot about his relationship to collecting, and he just left a very wonderful and thoughtful voice message through Facebook for me, talking about his experiences recently and how so much of what we said resonated. So Sean, if you're listening, we appreciate you and thank you for listening. And I'm glad it was meaningful to you. Yes, always, that is my immediate response is thanks for listening.

Yes, you're taking the time. There's lots of other stuff people can be doing. I know that what we talked about last time was for people who collect plastic. It probably resonated with whoever was able to tune in or angered them, whichever we're angered them, which is fine too. Yeah, all right, shall we get into this.

Let's jump into a raserhead, just like into a puddle at an industrial park. That's one of the interesting things about it I didn't even make a note about, but sort of comes up a little bit, is where is this world? Yeah? I think it's Fresno, but some other people might have other ideas well. It's funny because, as I mentioned earlier, and you mentioned as well that you've brought this up a number of times, and I just wasn't ready, and I didn't really part of what was just wasn't ready to think about it because it involves so much stuff.

It being David Lynch in general, eraser Head in particular brings up a lot of stuff and I couldn't sort of wrap my brain around it. But also it had to do with the time of year, and I always associate the movie with summer. Interesting, although I rarely watch it anymore during the summer, I almost always watch it when it's gloomy or rainy. Yeah, But the reason I associated with summer is because of when I first saw it, and a couple other important times after that. So that's where I'm going to start, is when I first saw it.

I had seen, which we talked about on one of the earliest or maybe the first episode, the Elephant Man in the Theater, because I was interested in the Elephant Man. Really had nothing to do with David Lynch. But anytime a movie comes out, you hear about, especially back then since it was a second film the director of cult classic midnight movie Eraserhead. Yeah, so that phrase sticks with you. It's one of those things.

Eraserhead, what a weird title? What does it mean exactly? And then if you see a picture of Jack Nance, asked Henry Spencer in the film, you go, what you know? It kind of makes sense because his head looks like the tip of an eraser. Yeah.

I also saw Dune when it came out, probably on the strength of Elephant Man more than anything else. Love Dune. We'll talk about Dune in great length at some point in this sub series. Loved it, then, still love it. It is my Dune again.

When that comes out, we're talking about third movie, They're going to bring up Elephant Man and eraser Head. Yeah, by that time I had more, probably heard it more, I want to say. And I think you and I have talked about this. I feel like the Tower Theater played it on Friday or Saturday nights in the early to mid eighties as a midnight movie. I feel like I saw ads in the Fresno b for it.

Yeah, I feel like the I know that's not the first time I saw an image of Jack Nance as the eraserhead as Henry, because I know when I first saw that image. I do feel like I had seen it in the Fresno b I mean, seeing the image of the cover, the poster art of Eraserhead in newspaper print definitely feels like a familiar experience to me. But that's how I feel. And I don't know if I'm making it up or not, but over the years, I've kind of thought, Yeah, it had to have played there. I mean, that was what the Tower Theater was known for.

They were one of the few arthouse slash repertory cinemas we had in town. Yep. I never saw it there. Of course. My next experience with it, other than just hearing whispers of it, is when we started renting movies at the video store.

And I can't remember the name. I'll never remember the name. It's not Sunnyside Video because that was the one across the street, but we went to the other one that was on the My directions figured out here in my brain on the north east corner of King's Canyon and Clovis, where there used to be a Vaughn's big shopping center. There was McDonald's in there, long John Silver's, all these shops so as in that I wouldn't even call it a strip mall. It was such a big shopping center.

That's where we would go rent movies and almost exclusively rented horror films. And that would have been even before we got a VCR, because we watched them at a at family friend's house. That would have been at least eighty three. And that horror section was the box for the Eraserhead. And I would look at it every time we'd go, having heard the title, knowing it was directed by David Lynch, even though I really didn't know what a director did at that point, and going this just looks so weird, and I'd look at the back of it, see those there were like three or four images on the back of it from the film.

None of it it made any sense to me. Just kind of look at it and go, this is beyond me. I don't think I'm ready. The first time I watched it, and I can never get the time frame straight. I was a teenager.

I always kind of lowball my age when I think back on stuff like this and then realize, oh, it was probably older. Yeah, me too. I don't know if it's to be like think I'm cool or something. And there's a reason why I kind of situated this at a certain time had to have been sixteen or seventeen, because by the time I was seventeen, Blue Velvet came out and that was his return. So Elephant Man and Dune are basically the work for hire films he did after Eraserhead, and then Blue Velvet was his return to form, his return to personal stuff, his return to a wholly created Lynch project.

I'm pretty sure I saw it before Blue Velvet came out, but it may have been the year it did. Anyway, my parents when we my sister and I were old enough she's two years older than me, when we were old enough to be on our own on a weekend, that's when my parents would start taking trips, and when they would do that, our weekends or whatever, if it was during the summer, our week would consist of renting movies and going to viers, which was, oh yeah, right over there, across the street. It's in a different spot now, but it was across the street near where that Sunnyside video was that we didn't go to to confuse people even more, get hobbyers, maybe one night TV dinners the rest of the time, and we'd rent movies and so on.

At one point somewhere in my mid teen mid to lateeens, we finally took the plunge and rent an eraserhead, you know, probably some other horror movies, maybe a comedy, and so I just remember we made it to about the halfway point, I believe, right after the Lady and the Radiator does her little squishy sperm dance to the Fats Waller music, and we just kind of looked at each other and we're like, should we stop? And we did. I don't know if it was with the thought that we would maybe finish it the next day, because we were watching it at night, and it didn't scare us, but it definitely unnerved us. Most of that was because, at least for me, I can't speak for my sister. I couldn't put my finger on anything in the movie.

I didn't know where it was taking place, when it was taking place, when it was made. I knew it had come out in seventy seven or something, or whatever it says on the box. I wasn't familiar with any of the actors, even though learning later on I actually kind of was familiar with them, and it created this time and place that was familiar yet unfamiliar. Absolutely that was disquieting to us. Yes, So it was nighttime and it was like, Okay, I'm uncomfortable, I'm uneasy, I'm unnerved and discomfited by this film.

We need to stop. Didn't get back to it the next day or that during that time when my parents were gone, took it back to the video store, hopefully rewound it first, and then took it back. Something stuck though. I got back to it at some point, which you know, we'll get into later. We'll go back and forth here.

Yeah, definitely. So I just want to end on that first unsuccessful attempt to watch it, making it about halfway through and just going, I don't know, I don't know what I'm watching. That's interesting, it's uncomfortable. It's the feeling. To me.

The best way I can describe that initial attempt is it's like driving through an unfamiliar town in the middle of the night and getting kind kind of lost. You're like, ooh, this could be danger, you know, trying to find your way back to the freeway or something, and everything's just a little different. Maybe there's maybe there street lights are horizontal instead of vertical, right, It's those strange differences that and you know, I liken it to being in another country too, which I'll sort of get into later, and how things can be very similar yet completely different. That's exactly it. It's that it was my first experience with what has been the term has been tossed around a lot lately, the liminal space, the space between what you perceive as familiar and what you can't quite identify.

It's the uncanny valley. It's that that doesn't look quite right. Yeah, So when something especially related to a person like that person doesn't look quite right, there's something there. It disquiets you and makes you uncomfortable. And that's the whole movie exactly.

And you're absolutely when you were talking about driving through a town in the middle of the night, that town has all the elements of a town. It has street lights, it has trees, it has roads, it has street signs, stop signs, but everything, because it's new to you, because it's the middle of the night, everything is askew and amplified. It's amplified. It's different, and it can be terrifying. But if you look at it, you're like, well, what was so scary about it?

Well, the trees look different, Well, they're just trees. Right, you know what I mean. They have circle K instead of seven to eleven on you know whatever, or some weird convenience story you've never heard of. Yeah, yeah, Well your experience watching it for the first time is a little bit different than mine, and that I mean similar but different. So you and I both had experiences preparing for this film.

You see the video on the shelf, you're curious about it. You knew at that stage in your life that it was a David Lynch movie. I knew at my stage and when I first saw that it was a David Lynch movie. I believe my first David Lynch film was Doune. I would see Eraserhead on the shelf at the movies in the Tower District because that's where my dad and I went to rent movies when I would be visiting him, and he had that, as you mentioned before before, he had the Midnight Movies book by Hoberman and Rosenbaum, which is like a fantastic book, and I was just looking at it on eBay.

Actually, I'm pretty sure my dad still has his copy, but i'd, yeah, just swipe it from him, man, I know, I know, And I would leave through that all the time. I mean, that's how I first saw images of John Waters movies, images of David Lynch movies, and all kinds of cool stuff. Roger Corman, how I was introduced to a whole exciting world. Probably saw images of things I probably shouldn't be seeing at the young age that I was, but what a cool book. And I have very fond memories of midnight movies for some reason, and I think it was because of Doom.

Even at a young age, I was interested in who was directing movies. I would ask my dad, you know, when can we see it? When can we see it? Was the same thing with Rocky Horror Picture Show? When can we see it?

When can we see it? And finally, like you just gave in, you know Rocky. I saw a Rocky Horror Picture Show when I was ten or something like that, which is I didn't understand half of what was going on. And I remember my stepmom saying, oh you're watching this, like Steve, are you okay? What are you doing to your son?

Hear that, yes my head, yes, absolutely, yes, I know your stepmom, So that's right, I've got the intonation and everything, absolutely, Hi, Sally. Finally he gave in and we rented erase her head and I did not pause it. I sat there entranced, and it was terrifying, and it was the best way to describe this as terrifying and delicious at the same time is like realizing that there's a new exotic food you've never had before that's like super one. I mean, this is going to be weird, but like my first experience with kim chi, for example, it blew my socks off because I didn't like it, but I also loved it at the same time. Right, Yeah, that's a good example, actually, yeah, because it's like shocking and you're like, what is this?

And then then it's but you're like, you can't stop eating it because it's amazing. So my senses were exploded, and I watch the whole thing from the beginning to the end. My dad silently sat there and watched it with me. He had seen it before because he was he had the book Midnight Movies, obviously has an interest. He probably saw it at UCLA when he was going there.

Oh no, because that was after it came out after so he must have just he must have seen it. He probably he probably went to see it at the Tower theater, but watching it on VHS and indulging in that film, and it definitely struck a chord with me aesthetically, and as we were, you were already mentioning it was familiar. So previous to watching that movie, I had already gone on many like little excursions with my dad because he's a photographer. He would take me out into the fields because he'd seen a carcass of a cow, and he'd go out there and he wanted to take pictures. He's like, come on, let's just plug your nose.

We're gonna go take pictures of this weird thing. And I would go and I'd like watch him take photographs of dead cows. You'd get permission to go to abandoned industrial parks in the Fresno area, which, by the way, folks, if you've never been here, there are a lot of them. There are a lot of areas that just seem unpopulated by the companies that used to run them, and they are full of industrial equipment that's just sort of rotting away. The baby took me back to seeing those cow carcasses.

Henry walking through this industrial wasteland took me back to those experiences wandering through these abandoned areas which are probably extremely dangerous, and also the home where Henry goes to meet what was her name his love interests parents married. That home reminded me of my dad and my stepmother's home. It was small, It reminded me of a homey atmosphere, and yet it was haunting. Their home was always mis sterious to me because I would only see it every two weeks, and as a child, you exaggerate, your imagination, exaggerates things. There were mysterious corners.

I remember it. In my dad and my stepmother's home. They had this little door, this little tiny door down that was that came up to about my knees my waist. As a child, you could open it up and inside where the pipes for the bathtub on the other side of the wall. Like what a weird thing, And it smelled like it smelled like mildew.

You open it up. It smelled like the basement because it led down to the basement and there was a basement. Everything about erase your head, even though it was shockingly different, was familiar. The lady and the radiator. My dad and my stepmom had a radiator because their home was built in nineteen twenty or something.

In the sounds of the radiator, the little crevices of darkness in those little areas of the house, and everything that I knew about the Central Valley urban landscape was familiar to me as I was watching Eraserhead. To me, Eraserhead will always be associated with Fresno, like Fresno at night essentially. Yeah, And even when we you and I were living in the Cambridge and was sewn apartment building, walking up that back stairwell going in through that door in the middle of the night, Agnes used to just have like a couple of lights in the hallway. It was always very dim. And even that apartment building later on, like when you and I were watching Eraserhead in that apartment building, it felt like we were in the apartment in Henry's apartment building.

To me, I could see a relationship. Yeah, that's why I always liked my studio apartments because that's what I imagine. Yes, I was living exactly, because that's what they live in. Oh yeah, one bedroom with the bathroom, that's right. And boy, on those hot kiten on those hot nights and you're like, you can't get helple it's just like that scene he's like moving around in the sheets and it's like uncomfortable.

So yeah, there's some massive, massive familiarity for me in the movie eraser Head. That it clicked. It just clicked. It became my favorite movie automatically, without hesitation, did not have to process it at all, and I was I'm going to do the same thing. Probably low ball my age.

I think I was thirteen, but I was probably fifteen or something. Well, you had more fortitude than I did to make it through all the way the first time. I don't know how I did. It was it was like hypnotism, and in fact I think that there is there are definitely I mean you know this, and people who are familiar with David Lynch's work, there are hypnotic elements in his scenes. Some for some reason just grab me, grab my full attention, and I don't even realize, I don't even I no longer think that I'm watching a movie.

I enter the dream state with his movie, and that was my first experience having that with him. The sound is a big part of that, oh, which we'll be playing underneath this whole episode, the scape of the eraser Head. What's so funny is that the soundscape that I created for all of our previous episodes is inspired by David Lynch and Vangelis. Like Evangelis and David Lynch had a baby, it would be the It would be like an electronic version of the baby an eraser Head. I started floating.

Yeah, the familiarity is something that I didn't really connect with until much later when I realized what the story was actually about, because it took me a good while, probably I would say in my I don't even know in the nineties, at some point going oh, I get it, huh, even though I read about it in like Cult Movies series of books by Danny Peery and my Midnight Movies book, which I'll get into in a little bit. We've had this discussion before, you and I. There's another example I have of that familiar yet unfamiliar thing that I always connect with the eraser Head, and it happened during my sophomore year, No no, no, no, no, eighth grade. I had a friend who I think was new to the school, and we became friends pretty quickly, and at some point he invited me to stay over at his house.

He lived in Madera, which is a town just north of US. We went to a Madera High school football game, I think, and then I went to his house and it was the strangest experience that I've ever had. That's the other thing that I think about with the eraserhead is like when you would go to a friend's house and you'd eat dinner there and it could be something as mundane as spaghetti, but they make it so differently from what you'd normally have and it's like kind of not great, but you're you know, polite, and you eat it and you're like, oh, why isn't spaghetti universal? Yeah, So this was amplified like a million times at this kid's house. Apparently, his mom, I think it had some significant surgery, like back surgery or something.

She was bedridden and there was a hospital bed in their house and I don't remember if she was in it or not. This was a family, though, whose mom did everything, so since she was incapacitated, nothing was getting done at their house. Wow. Yeah, no laundry was being done and no dishes were being done because that's ladies work, right, folks. Wink wink.

So we walk into his house and no exaggeration, every inch of the house was covered in clothes, and every inch of the kitchen was covered in dirty dishes. Wow, it was so unsettling to me to like, I'm like, I don't that would never. I didn't understand it until years later. That's why it was the way it was. And when I think back about it, and I'm like, my dad wouldn't My sister and I and my dad would have been doing everything.

If my mom was laid up right right, we would have been doing the dishes, we would have been doing the laundry, we would have been cleaning the house. And then the other really weird thing was he had a younger brother and an older sister, and the older sister went to our school. The younger brother, I don't think did, but they had the weirdest collection of porno maags, oh dear like lowest rent. I don't even know where you buy this stuff, did you, boy? And so, of course, you know, I was thirteen or fourteen or something.

So we looked through them and it was just, I hate to say this, but the most unattractive women in the world, providing you the opposite feeling that you should be getting from looking at something like so unappealing not. It was just weird. I'm like, where for the five of these that you have, you probably could have bought one Playboy, you know. I mean, if it was a money thing, just get one of the regular or even a hustler. They weren't even hustler.

They were like down the list. From that, I was so anxious to get out of there. The next morning, I had that guy take me I think, before we even ate breakfast. I'm like, well, I just I don't know what I said, but I'm like, take me home. Yeah.

Yeah, I remember that drive home, going down forty one and just being like, I'm never fucking going there again. Yeah. Life, It's amazing those memories of going to a new place. It's still a home. It belongs to somebody else, so everything's handled differently.

The meals are different, the cleanliness might be different, the layout of the home is different and mysterious. There's always a person there that you don't know very well, and that experience can be remarkable. And when I say remarkable, I'm saying that in a kind of it could be negative remarkable or positive remarkable. Watching the eraser Head gave me that sense, you know, that's part of the what makes that movie wonderful is that that newness and familiarity combined creating a kind of unsettling mystery. When you see those chickens right at Mary's home, to cut them up like regular chickens, Sure, just cut them up like regular chickens.

And the way the parents are acting, it's almost like you've had that experience at somebody's house as a child. It's what I just described, or what he's relating to. A perfect example is that first dinner with your girlfriend's family. Yeah, I mean that's what that scene is. Everything is uncomfortable about it, and you might get served something that's very different from what you're used to.

It's usually not man made chickens that our bleed load grew all over the table. Oh man, it's that feeling amplified to the nth degree. Yeah, I mean, that's all that scene is. And that's the thing that I'm saying to me forever to realize, Oh, I've had this experience going to a new girlfriend's house for the first time. Yeah, it's innately uncomfortable to do that, you know, unless you've known the family for years and all of a sudden you're dating their daughter or something, Yeah, these are all new people in your life.

This is an all new house, all new meals, et cetera. That's what that scene is. And that was going back to that first watch when he goes to her house and the second he walks in that door, you're assaulted with this so noise and you don't know what it is until you get the reveal shot of the puppies suckling on the mom and you're like, oh, if you do it the reverse where you show the dog and the puppies first, it doesn't have any effect. He walks in and the noise is obvious. You're hearing that suckling noise and you're like, what what am I hearing?

And then you get the answer and it's mundane. That's another thing that I always do when speaking about this as a black comedy and how I compare it to something like Parents. This is the comparison I make in my brain and to other people. I probably did it on that episode about Parents, and probably on the episode I did on Eraserhead, where black comedy usually is turning the grotesque into the mundane. So that's the Parents example, where cannibalism is turned into something mundane.

This fifties happy family that are eating other people, and it's shown as like normal and everyday life. In Eraserheads case and in Lynch's case, in a lot of ways, he's taking the mundane and making it grotesque. A mundane dinner is full of grotesqueries. Having a baby and getting married is grotesque. Is the ultimate grotesque rie, which we'll get into with him.

I mean, that's him. I know he denies that this is him. Henry is him, but it's him. Oh, it totally and we can get into that later. Yeah.

Yeah, that dinner scene, I think is the perfect example. And when you don't get it, like I didn't that first viewing, it's unsettling. I mean it's still unsettling now that I get it. It's a very basic idea. It's just told and this goes for the whole movie in such a specific and personal way.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons, Like you, I can, without any hesitation called this my favorite movie of all time. Yeah. Yeah. If I had to live on a desert island with only one movie, it would be this one. I would choose it.

There's and there are are variety of reasons that it's an adventure through the grotesque, and then also it's familiar. So if I wanted to go to a desert island and make sure I'm bringing something that I could that almost takes brings with me a sense of being home. That sounds weird because this is Eraserhead, but it would do that for me. It would be like, Oh, this is this is what it feels like to be back in Presno, the fear of normalcy is rife in this movie, similar to you. I didn't understand the plot until much later on.

I was just like entranced by the sound and the visuals and how weird it was, and then what it was. I think when I saw it again for like the third or fourth time when I was an high school it clicked. I was like, Oh, crap, this is about a man afraid to become a father. Yeah, that's all it is. That's all this movie is.

That's all it is. Yeah. I needed to have those experiences of like, oh, I'm going to take this girl on a date, I'm going to go to their house and meet their parents. I had to have that experience the fear of sex and what might happen if if you had sex and a baby was made like a somebody pregnant those terrors, Yeah, all those terrors maybe was made. Yeah, you like how I said that Once that clicked for me, I liked it.

I loved it even more. Yeah, I thought, what what a what? You know? And maybe that's because we're guys and maybe that really resonates with us, but maybe not. I mean, I feel kind of dumb when I think back as to how long it took me to get that.

Me too. He often gets accused of and we'll get into this in further episodes in this sub series, he often gets accused of being weird for weird sake. There are a couple things you could pluck out of this movie to say this is just weird with no explanation, which is fine too. I mean a mail order worm that's one of the lines of the film. I still don't quite understand, and that's fine.

Don't have to understand everything. Things can be abstract. As Lynch says, life is abstract. Why can't we accept that in films? I love that part, though for a different reason, because I understand being obsessed with getting things in the mail.

Yeah, and you know, the lady in the Radiator is definitely one of the strangest things. I kind of think, I know understand it a little better now. The man in the planet, Oh thank you. I was just going to say the man in the planet, the pulling of the lever and the Yeah, I mean that seems like a pretty obvious metaphor, but again, you know, debatable, and yeah, someone might see it in a different way. I did finally, because it stuck with me as I said, make it through, and I think on that second viewing it probably wasn't.

I wouldn't have considered it back then my favorite film, but at that point the obsession with it began. I don't know how many times I rented it from that little video store in Sunnyside. Anytime I was alone, I'd grab it along with you know, the Thing or Poltergeist or what other phanfasm or. I would rent it a lot because that was the only way to see it. We didn't have cable.

I know it played on cable quite a lot. I've heard many people say they discovered it late at night on cable. Oh yeah, yeah. I don't think we had cable until I was like a senior in high school. But those rentals, man, they happened quite frequently, and I would say that during most of those I still didn't quite get the full story, you know, the actual story of the film.

I was just watching it because I was getting into what directors did at that point, and the framing of the shots, the editing, the composition, which is just mind blowing. In the movie, simply shot film where the camera is static for most of the scenes. There are like maybe two or three examples of movement. There's one weird scene at the house at the beginning where the camera kind of is handheld and goes into the blinds. Yeah, but most of the rest of the film is a static camera.

Yeah, that's true. In fact, David Lynch uses that sparingly, and when he does use it, there's usually a reason for it, right right, It's particularly in that movie, and you know, just based on the way it was filmed and all this stuff you find out about later of where it was made and how it was made. And one thing that I mentioned early on about kind of not understanding when or where this takes place still stuck with me for a while. So I read about it in the Cult Movies book and then in my Midnight Movies book, which is different than the one that you have. Mine is by Stuart Samuels.

It covers those first maybe ten movies that were considered like the original midnight movies or cult movies, and there is kind of a differential there, but Night of the Living Dead, the Harder they come, Rocky Horror, El Topo, Oh, a couple other films, and they would mention in there or quote Lynch just saying, you know, this is my Philadelphia story. This was the thoughts, and it's on that extra on the Blu ray or the DVD, whichever version you have of the eraser Head stories where this was born from his time in Philadelphia working in a printing press, getting his girlfriend pregnant, and then getting married, living in a very dangerous part of Philadelphia. And I thought for the longest time that that's where it was filmed, you know, before I learned the whole history of it, the whole connection with AFI, where they filmed it, all that stuff, and so I just assumed reading that, oh, it was filmed in Philadelphia, That's why this seems so unfamiliar to me.

Yeah, And then to learn years later on that DVD that I have that it was basically shot all on the grounds of the AFI that mansion in the Beverly Hills of California. Yeah, that's crazy. All the sets were created there. The exteriors were shot in a basin in LA where the Beverly Center, which I have been to. It blows my mind still that this huge, glorious, decadent mall replaced that oil refinery or whatever it was down in that basin.

To learn that that was actually shot in La it still blows my mind. It's unbelievable. I mean, that doesn't exist anymore, but that it existed at all in LA is shocking to me. Yeah, none of that film. You can't tell at all that there is any Los Angeles in that movie.

Right, that's masterful in itself. Yeah, it's out of time and place. I couldn't figure out when it was supposed to take place. Not that it matters for me at that time, especially the first couple of viewings, like where is this? That's part of the reason for its longevity, I think too, and its success for fans of the film is it could be anywhere.

It could be in your subconscious and it could be in a new town that you're visiting, and it could be from any period of time. That's amazing. It's wholly created out of his mind. I just think of when he walks up to Mary's house and you've got that fence chainling fence, Yeah, with a factory right next to it. Yes, you hear the machinations of the factory.

You see the same. You don't see the actual factory because it's it's not there, but you know it's there. And then the winey plants in her yard with all the massive pipes. I mean, her dad's a plumber, So they've got all these pipes everywhere in weird places. You know, not to get too much into the movie specifically, but it creates a specific place that really exists just in his mind.

And the fact that they created that as sets in a mansion somewhere. The lady in the Radiator's little dancing theater stage was outside the laundry area of that estate. It's all in the lighting. It's in the lighting. It's the lighting, set decoration.

I mean, we did a Jack Fisk helped I believe with that stuff. A lot of it. It's lynch. Of course. It creates a world into itself.

Here's something that has really stuck with me over the years. I didn't realize it until the last ten years or so that part of what made me want to take my urgency to be a creative seriously as a young person was this film in that even though it's a surreal film, I don't really like the word surreal in reference to David Lynch, but it's the best word I can use. Even though it's surreal, it still feels like it's doable, Like this is a movie that a person can make, and it's remarkable what you can do with lighting and sound design and minimal set design and choice of locations. It all feels like and I remember having this feeling as a high schooler, like I want to make movies like this. I want to make things like this.

I want to use what's around me and make something interesting from that material. Erase ther Head feels like it's if you look at how it's made, if you just watch the movie, it feels like it's something that you could make. You could build a super weird latex baby. You could wrap it up and swaddling cloth and build a table that can you can put your hand and make it a puppet, and you could paint your room black and you could. You could take the camera down to the industrial park and you could.

Everything about this film feels like feels doable. It feels possible. It doesn't feel impossible. I couldn't make a Jurassic Park movie. If I watched Jurassic Park as a at the same age that I watched Eraserhead, I may have thought, Oh, there's no way I could get into film.

But Eraserhead made me feel like I could do something like this. And in fact, I did, like start to make experimental films with a Super eight camera starting in eighth grade, because I felt like I could do this. Like I couldn't make a movie like Elephant Man, I couldn't make a movie like Dune, but I could certainly make a movie like Eraserhead. That was welcoming to me. It's possible to make an impact with very little.

And then I saw the making of the movie and I was like, well, there's a lot more going on going into this than I thought. Right, there was a lot of luck involved. That's very true too. Yeah, I think that elevates the look of the film. Yeah.

If people don't have it or don't know the current Criterion collection release of it and the previous DVD that Lynch remastered himself, which is what I own, comes with a wouldn't necessarily call it a documentary. It's called eraser Head Stories, and it's basically just Lynch sitting in front of a microphone like you and I are doing right now, talking to some behind the scenes stuff, and he's on the phone occasionally with Catherine Colson, who was instrumental in the film. They lucked out on some the lights, like getting to go onto a studio lot and just take all these old lights that were getting tossed out. So they got all of the lighting for the film. They got all of the soundstock for the film in a similar situation, a lot of the wiring, the sets they made themselves.

The China eraser Head Babyhead, they made them stuff like that. But they did get lucky in a certain respect. You know. I wanted to go back a little too personal connections, and so I did eventually make it through the film, all the way through, as I said. And this is where my timeline gets screwy, because I worked one summer, and I believe it was the summer after my junior year.

I worked at a family friend's wicker factory, here in town south of Jensen over in those industrial areas he owned, I guess, and I never realized this until I was this agent worked for him for the summer. So they I can't remember if they made the wicker baskets or if they got them and just painted them. So I helped with the painting and then cleaning the paint booth. So it's giant air spray paint thing. Put this wicker basket up there, the guy would paint it, so all this paint glue loop would get in that thing, which had to be cleaned out every day.

They would be assembled and then they would be packaged. So I helped the paint and then I also stacked wicker baskets like fifty feet high in the warehouse, and then also helped load the trucks when they pulled up to the warehouse. I have no idea where these things ended up, wicker baskets, wicker almost at hammocks, the hampers hampers. Yeah, finally you've got something that I do all the time. The foreman, I believe in the warehouse was a tower hipster dude.

I wish I could remember his name, but I remember having a conversation with him about Eraserhead, and I don't know what the context was. I feel like maybe he had something up in his office, clipping from the PA. That's this maybe why I think that it played at the Tower, and he may have mentioned that he was going to see it. And I feel like at that time I hadn't watched it all the way through yet, but I may have attempted the first watch, and this may have been the instigation to give it another shot. The one thing that I do remember is that he was like, yeah, you know by David Lynch who directed this and Pink Flamingos and so for a long time.

Wah. So this was obviously before I had my Midnight Movies book and really knew anything about Pink Flamingos. I knew that Pink Flamingos was another cult movie and or midnight movie, so he got that wrong. But that was another kind of like, Oh, I need to do this. I need to either watch it for the first time or watch it all the way through because I gave it a shot.

So that timeframe suggests to me that like, I may not have been seventeen until I watched it all the way through, right right. That's why I say Philadelphia is my greatest influence because a lot of things started in Philadelphia, and there is a certain mood to some of these interiors, and they carry way more than what you see. A thing is indicated from these interiors. Something about the light and the molding and the proportions a thing is indicated and the mood outside. This is one of those movies where when I see a prompt like what movie do you wish you could watch again for the first time?

Or this is top of the list because that feeling both feelings the unfinished watch or the first full watch elicited such specific feelings that there's no way to get now, especially understanding the story a little more, having way much more background, having way more examples of Lynch's work to compare it to but clean Slate watch this all the way through for the first time. If I had that opportunity to have this like a sunshine out of my brain to do over, I would take that chance. Yeah, I'm not sure. I wouldn't want to watch it again at this stage in my life. I feel like as I've gotten older, my tolerance is less flexible for things, and you don't think you would like it.

I get worried about what I would like about it and what I would be taken aback by or what I might be critical of. I mean, I trust me enough to know that I would probably like it I thought at a young age. And I feel like because of that, my relationship to the film is deeper than my relationship to films that I watched today. It could be because the movie's just fucking good, you know, but it also might be attached to memory and nostalgia and all kinds of other things. I think it would hit so much harder for me if I watched it now without having any connection to any of his other work or anything else.

I also worry about. It's something I'm not I haven't mentioned yet, is I always? I also also worry that my artistic development wouldn't have been good if I hadn't watched this movie as a young person. This is hypothetical where it's specifically just your memories of this. Yeah, that would disappear in your wife, you know, I talk about other life experiences.

I would understand the baby stuff much more. Oh, yeah, true, because I think one of the greatest little scenes in this is when he takes eraser head baby's temperature and it's normal, and then a split second later, yes it's covered in sores and sick. Yeah, when you have a kid, that shit happens for real. Yes, they're fine one second and then they're puke and all over your couch next, and it's like, what the fuck just happened? And it's unsettling and unnerving and disquieting and hits you on a different level as a parent, like, oh, this thing that I take care of is actually not doing well?

Do I have the capability to deal with this right? Right? And to fix it? That is much more poignant for me now when I watch it, and I see so comical because it's true to life. Yet it seems so odd in the film that happens all the time with kids, especially little kids who can't express I don't feel well.

Yes, that is so true. I agree. I agree as seeing it as a parent today, and if I saw for the first time Heckett might might definitely resonate in a different way and might even be more meaningful with the perspective of a forty seven year old parent. I guess I get scared. I get scared of what my life would be like without eraser Head in it that I mean, you know, it's just don't take it too it's the hypothetical, Ronnie, I'm crying.

I'm crying right now. Here's something interesting, and you and I have shared this experience even though we weren't hanging out on a regular basis. When I was living in Los Angeles, one of my significant life chapters was that I lived in South Pasadena, just a few blocks away from the donut shop where Jack Nance had gotten into an altercation which caused him to pass away. Jack Nance the Star You and I, And actually you and I already knew each other and were hanging out in ninety seven when he passed away, and we did sort of share the sadness of his passing, like the shock of his passing and the sadness of his passing. I remember sharing that with you.

And then when I lived briefly in South Pasadena, it took me a while to realize that the donut shop that I drove by every single day was the donut shop. Did you and I drive by that when you came to visit me? I don't know, it's possible. I used to visit Andy Davey in South Pasadena all the time. Yeah, we would go to a great diner there, and I think you and I went to the diner.

Yeah, we went to that same diner. Yeah, and which I believe has been in numerous movies over the years, or at least something very similar to it has. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of Jack Nance, I mentioned earlier that I felt like all of these actors were unfamiliar to me.

They were just people that were part of AFI when I understood what that was, or people in his life or whatever. It so wasn't the case. I don't think I realized it when I saw well, I know I didn't realize it when I saw Dune that Jack Nance was in that, that he was in Barfly. I don't know if I made that connection when I saw Barfly. I believe i'd already seen a racer head, But I don't know that I made that connection, or that I even made that connection when he was when I saw him in a blue velvet, I made the connection between Barfly and blue Velvet because he looks almost exactly the same I had, and all that stuff.

At some point I saw the name and was like, oh wait, Jack Nance, that's Henry. Oh my god, you know he's still acting, He's still an actor. And Mary played by Charlotte Stewart. I grew up with her. I watched Little House on the Prairie, which she was on weekly for those first I don't know how many she left after a certain point, but you know with the eraser Head stories, you hear all about that her coming from shooting Little House during the day, all gussied up in old tiny clothes with her hair all done up, and then getting de dressed, de gussied, de gussied for Eraserhead.

And I'm like, oh my god, that's the same person her dad. He's in Marathon Man. I just saw him on an episode of six Million Dollar Man I was watching. I watched Marathon Man when I was a kid on TV, but I would have never made the connection her mom. She was an old, old actress who I have since seen in old movies, fifties and sixties movies, and like, oh my god, it's her.

She's in Mulholland Drive. Oh yeah, the woman across the hall is lacting. I've seen her in different things over the years, and a bunch of things actually, yeah, the pencil, Eraser factory guy that you know runs the little machine. He's either Bill or Ted's dad in the Bill and Ted movies. Oh, I didn't realize that he's in all kinds of stuff.

So these were working actors, that character actors. And I think maybe and Paul, you know that gets yelled at by the boss of the pencil factory. He's in assault on Precinct thirteen. Wow, you know all this other stuff. So these were working actors.

The lady and the radiator was a singer, although she doesn't sing the song on the movie, which is kind of strange. Yeah, through the years and it's like making these connections that lead to a eraser head are realizing, Oh, these were actual actors and they've been in stuff. That's what I mean by like seeing it for the first time, because since they were unfamiliar to me, it made it that complete world. It made it that insular, singular place that doesn't exist here but might exist in another timeline. Yeah, their borderline familiarity or distinct familiarity is part of what gets us to that liminal space.

The actors in the film look familiar to me, but I wouldn't have been able to connect who they were and where i'd seen them from. Oh, they didn't look familiar to me. Yeah, and that's part of why that works so well. That Lady in the Radiator song became another connection that you and I shared too, because you introduced me to the Pixies, and the Pixies do an amazing cover of that song. Yes, and actually that song also showed taught me at a fairly young age that songwriting doesn't have to be complicated to carry resonance and to be impactful.

It's a very simple song, but a very memorable song. The Pixies version of the song is fantastic. And I may have been at the same time you were living in the Flaming June House that Dan Davis and I and Luke Giffen and I think Jeff Martin took part in this, but we recorded our own cover of the Lady and the Radiator song. I hadn't thought about that in years, and I wonder if I have a copy of that somewhere. I remember that you introduced me to the Pixies, and then I think it was probably a few years after that you introduced me to their cover of the Lady in the Radiator song, and then I found one of my memorable experiences of trying to locate a copy of that.

Oh well, let's get into that, because I hadn't even written that down. But this is important, yes, searching for these things. Yes, once I became obsessed with the movie, so at least by eighty seven, because I had seen or attempted to see and we'll get into this in a later episode Blue Velvet as well. Mm hmm, and had a similar experience actually where I didn't make it all the way through the first time. Oh.

Interesting. Yeah, so my obsession with eras your Head is in full gear. You mentioned the Lady and the Radiator song, which I mean goes hand in hand with it. It was the Fats Waller music, yes, that I had never ever heard before, never heard anything like it before my life, right, and I was so taken with it. So I found at Tower Records the soundtrack.

It's been available, yeah, more readily available than the movie ever had been up to that point, and I bought the tape. I thought it would have the songs in it, but it's really just the whole soundtrack of the movie. It's the background noise, it's the snippets of the songs. That you hear in the film and then it's the Lady and the Radiator song, et cetera. So I was a little disappointed, but that's fine.

So I would utilize their big book of stuff. You could order tapes, records whatever with the titles of those songs, because they're listed in the credits, the Fats Waller tunes, and I would look through there. You know, they had Tower Records, had a good classical section, they had a good jazz section, blues sections, and so I would have looked through Fats Waller's albums like constantly, just trying to find these and they're not his normal music. No, it was a thing, and they weren't available anywhere. They weren't available on any of his stuff.

And Mark Schmidt, who you know, had bought a box set of Fats Waller, but they weren't even on that much. Later on, when I got into kind of mildly obsessed with Peter Ivers, who is the person that sings the Lady and the Radiator song. Very interesting guy who I knew nothing about other than seeing his name in the credits of the film. He actually sourced the music for them because he and Alan Spledder like this is what we want, and he's like, oh, hey, walked over in his apartment picked up an album of fatz Waller songs that had those three or four songs on it, which is just a great again happenstance. Another lucky thing for them, because they probably would have had as much luck as I did later on trying to track these things down.

He happened to have them. Man, oh man, it took forty something years before, with the glory of modern technology, I find those songs on YouTube. I can make a rip of them on Audacity, and I've uploaded them onto my iTunes. It's a good driving music I have. Yeah, when it comes on, I let it play.

Man, Oh yeah, fucking songs. I'm glad you brought that up because I didn't even write fat Swaller down. But Eraserhead is how I became obsessed with Fat Swaller as well. I have a ton of records of his stuff, and as you mentioned, none of those organ songs are on those records. I did the same thing.

I spent years trying to find the organ songs. Yeah, you know, while looking for those Eraserhead tunes, I discovered the absolute brilliance of Fat Swaller I love. I love Fat Swaller music because of Eraserhead. Yeah, me too. I kind of wish I had that huge compilation box set that Mark Schmidt had, although now I could look at Fat Swaller on iTunes and throw whatever I want on there.

Yeah, I've got a bunch of records over here, a Fat Swaller songs. But yeah, like I said, none of those organ songs are on there. The other thing that I did was try to find the vhs, which at time late eighties, it was already out of print. So anytime I would and you know, it would show up in those books remember those you know what I'm talking about, the big You could look something up, have Tile Records or the warehouse or whoever, or a video store order it. So when I worked at Video Zone, we had one of those books and I'm like, oh, finally my chance.

Yes, you know, by then I was like looking for all kinds of other stuff too to get in the store so that I could take it home. Yeah, Darry Argento movies and all these horror movies and stuff. So always would look for a raser Head. It would show up in the book for ninety bucks. Remember back then, folks, when VHS they were eighty nine to ninety five for most tapes.

Absolutely. I remember trying to find Killer Clowns from Outer Space on VHS. This is before DVD. It was ninety bucks. Yep, it was ninety bucks.

Even used it was ninety bucks. They weren't selling to people, they were selling to video stores and to collectors. You get your money back with so many rentals. We've mentioned the midnight Movies books and this always brings back a really distinct memory for me, and I mentioned mine is different. Mine is by Stuart Samuels.

Oh Yeah, Rocker or Picture Show, Heart of the can Reef for Madness, Harold Oh, Harold and Mott Yeah, yep, Pink Flamingo's Eraser at King of Heart's All Topo, and I a Living Dead. So the original night movies, these movies that garnered a cult following, would play it at midnight on Friday and Saturday night in towns all across the country. I remember asking my dad what Reefer was. Yeah, let me tell you, son. We would go pretty much every summer to Carmel coastal town here in California that people from all over the country or all over the world go to.

Every time I'm there, you see people from Japan, you see people from the Netherlands, you see people, Oh, yeah, France. I'm always kind of surprised by people from France being there because I'm like, don't you have this there? You have this kind of town there, you know, world famous Carmel, And we had family friends. Actually, the same people that owned the wicker factory that I worked at, had a little tiny place there, pretty close to Ocean Avenue on one of the I think one of the parallel streets to that Ocean Avenue is the main drag of Carmel, where all the shops are and stuff, and so we would go all the time. When they sold their place, we would go and stay at the Green Lantern Inn, which is pretty close to the beach in between I don't know if you call it downtown.

Yeah, I was a seaside village downtown, but where all the shops are right in between that and the beach. I have to say that when I was a teen, tween and mid teens, the appeal was a little bit lost on me because there's not a whole heck of a lot to do it. Basically, shuts down at nine o'clock. Ye. Gorgeous place, gorgeous area.

But there were two or three places that I've glombed onto whenever we would go. One was the mall because of the cheese shop that's in there. Get samples of cheese. I love cheese. There was a great deli on Ocean Avenue, just across the street from the little park that's there and basically caddy corner to that mall.

Nice. And then a couple doors down from that was a bookstore that was amazing. I have no idea what it was called. It's gone, long gone. Yeah, I think I remember that too.

We were there recently and I was looking. I felt like I was I was like looking for a bookstore. It had been a long time since I'd been there, and we couldn't find it. Now it's been gone for quite a long time. Bought ham on Rye there Nice during my Pokowski phase.

One of the first places I found Pakowski. Bought my gigantic Encyclopedia of Horror Movies book there, and maybe on the same trip, I don't know, bought my version of Midnight Movies booked there, and that's kind of where I discovered the whole idea of this is his Philadelphia story. It cleared up some of the confusion of the film in regard to the credits, which don't make any sense unless you know the history of the movie, because there are characters listed in the credits that do not exist in the film, because those scenes were cut. And I remember going, who who is the guy with cigar? I don't remember, is that the guy?

But it's what the lady across the hall? No, that's not him. So there's all the you know, there's like three or four characters in there that once he cut the film, the credits are already done. You know, he cut it after the premiere and felt it was too long. That perplexed me.

And then it was like, oh, he described some of those cut scenes, right, and I would read about them later in more detail and you get the eraser stories about them and all that stuff. But you know, it was kind of like the perfect little anecdote at the end of the movie to just be utterly flummixed by the credits because they don't make any sense in relation to what exists now. Right. But yeah, I just every time I look at this book, I just think about those trips to Carmel, going to that great bookstore. You know, they would have those sale bins or tables like they do when you first walk into a Barnes and Noble these days.

And I want to say that everything I bought there was in that sale, except maybe for the Bcowski stuff. They probably didn't put the on discount. Always checks the sales bins people, But yeah, I mean that was one of the like, oh, oh, this writes about this movie, maybe I can learn something more. I didn't really learn a whole lot from the Cult Movies book, because that's more of their review. Yes, the Midnight Movies went a little bit deeper.

And then at some point on the Internet years later, I found a really great article that I printed out that was much more in depth, had interview snippets from Lynch, explained in more detail those deleted scenes and why they were deleted in what they entailed. It was a great resource for a long time because there wasn't a lot to or look up when I got to Fresno State, I remember, and this would have been right around the time in eighty seven that I was fully hooked on the movie. Going to the Well. The Reader's Guide to Periodicals for one thing, So I would look up Eraserhead from seventy seven on, yeah, and or David Lynch from seventy seven on and see if they had any of the periodicals in either microfilm or in the back the what did they call that where they actually had physical copies of newer things, and try to find stuff about Eraserhead.

And that was elusive too. Yeah, It's always remained kind of a slippery object for me. Yeah, I and I similar for me too. I remember trying to look up information when the Internet first started to blossom, finding very little except for reviews of the film. And David Lynch, you know, notorious for not giving too much away about his projects, and so I kind of just stopped and learned that's one of the one of the films that I've i'll just say, one of the artworks that I over the years have just accepted for what it is.

There are certain things that people have made that are intangible or live in a space that is slightly unexplainable. And it wasn't until later on you shared with me the David Lynch released version of Eraserhead that included all the behind the scenes talk that I became knowledgeable of what really made that movie what it is, and I just accepted it as this beautiful work of art that might forever be unexplained to me. I like that feeling too of it. That's sort of what I was getting at when I said I would like to experience it new again. Ah.

Yeah, you're kind of describing what I was saying there. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Daddy eraser Head stories. Sometimes I'll just watch that. I won't even watch the movie.

For one thing, I like to hear him talk. I like me too the way he tells the stories. There is something in me that wants more information about it, not to explain it necessarily. I don't need again, the basic story is there. You know, the worm may forever elude me, the lady and the Radiator may forever elude me.

But kind of like information about the deleted scenes. For sure. I appreciate that they're not in there. And I know that when he had his website, there was a snippet of the scene with the guy with the battery cords shocking women on the bed, and I don't remember if I ever saw it because he had all these little Easter eggs on the site that you could get to by dialing a phone, and I knew how to do that, and I was a member of his website for a while, and I'm like, did I actually end up doing that? But anyway, I like to read more about that stuff.

I'm glad it's out of there because it makes sense. I fully agree with his idea of not talking about films, so not doing commentaries for his movies. Although you could kind of say the eras read Stories is a commentary for Oh yeah, you could play probably play him simultaneously somehow, Finaglen, and it would make sense. They're about the same length. I think maybe not.

I also like that he doesn't do director's cuts of movies that is based on the philosophy of everything that happened, even if it was studio interference or the MPAA's interference, came together to make what this is now. He may think differently about Doune in regards to this, but as far as like Wild at Heart or Blue Velvet or Lost Highway or any other ones that suffered cuts either from himself or from outside sources, He's not going to ever do a director's cut. I think the closest thing you get is the stuff for Twin Peaks, Walk with Me, the what is it called the untold Bits or bits and Pieces or something like that, where there's but it's all extras. Still there's you finally released the cut scenes or the deleted scenes for Blue Velvet on a release recently wasn't available for the longest time.

And when I watch those deleted scenes, it makes sense to me why they were deleted. Yes, they change things about the movie, and I think in eraser Heads case in particular, it takes the focus away from Henry too much. A lot of these extra scenes when you read about them, and that's all you can really do is read them, it's like, Okay, this takes place outside of this world in a way and dilutes the main stories. So it makes sense. Definitely.

I'm glad it exists the way it does. I really wish I could watch those deleted scenes once in my life. Yeah, you know, most of them don't exist. That time may come, you know, you well, no, they don't exist anymore except for the one little snippet that he had on his website. I mean he said that over and over again.

They are lost to Yeah, interesting, and I believe David Lynch too, because he's pretty transparent about things about what exists and what doesn't exist. You may not explain something right, he'll talk about what exists and what doesn't exist. I mean there's that famous exchange. Yeah, the eraser Head is my most spiritual film. Believe it or not, Eraserhead is my most spiritual film.

Or no, or his take on watching movies on your phone, which I also love. Yeah, me too. Now, if you're playing the movie on a telephone, you will never in a trillion years experience the film. You'll think you have experienced it, but you will be cheated. It's just such a sadness that you think you've seen a film on your fucking telephone.

Get real. We've just run about ten clips of David Lynch talking right now, might as well. The last thing that I have on my list to talk about is my discovery of the film Barton Fink in relation to razer Head. Funny because I wrote that down earlier on my Yeah, I added that to my notes. Barton Fink is one of my favorite films of all time and my introduction to Cohen Brothers.

I didn't see Blood sympol until later on. So Barton Fink was my first Cohen Brothers movie. It came to the theater, the UA Cinema over there on Blackstone or I saw it and I maybe we saw it together. I don't know, but now I didn't know you yet. Okay, Yeah, So that was like ninety two or something like that, right, or maybe ninety one ninety one.

I think I talked my dad into going with me. I saw the poster for that and immediately wanted to see it because it shared some similarities to Eraserhead. Then happily realized that the film itself shared similarities to Eraserhead and being stylistically similar in some ways. It's definitely a more linear plot line, but for me it's always eraser Head by way of Roman Polanski. Oh yeah, I think of the Tenant and Repulse.

So yeah, when I think of Fink for sure. And this is prior to me understanding the impact that Roman Polanski had. I hadn't seen The Tenant or Repulsion. It was such a relief through Barton Fink to see that there was hope for filmmakers still to be making what I considered high art in cinema. Because this is right at the time where early nineties when blockbusters are huge draw computer animation starts to arrive, and the artistry of filmmaking seems to be either get more eccentric or getting more blockbustery.

You know, you see Tim Burton's focuses shift. It was nice to see that there was hope for surreal cinema the early nineties. That whole indie and foreign film craze which that Ua was born from, yeah, was big. You know, you've got Reservoir Dogs coming out, You've got parton Fink, You've got Train Spotting, all these foreign movies that they brought in the Red, White, and Blue trilogy Lars von Trier, but my own Private Idaho, all this Indian American stuff and these foreign films, and like you say, it's kind of right before Dress Park comes out, yep, and the world changes. I mean, you still have a living together for a while there in the mid nineties, but then it really changes at the end of the decade.

That was a glorious time, and especially coming off the heels of me coming back from London, which was an eye opener, which is my next story. It took a little while to get there, but within a year or two that UA was playing all these great movies weekly changing. Every Tuesday night was a new film. We went constantly and saw all kinds of great stuff which I had never experienced, at least in Fresno. Prior to that.

We would get the odd you know. I saw Barfly here. That was an oddity. These artier films playing in Fresno didn't happen like a dozen La or San Francisco or New York. So when I went to London for London Semester, the spring semester of nineteen ninety, I had no idea this was on my horizon.

So we get there. We bus from Heathrow to where we're staying, and we passed by a cinema and I see that it's got drugstore Cowboy Plane, which is a movie I had read about in Film Comment and really wanted to see and had no chance in Fresno to see it. Right, So this was three or four months after it had played in the States. I'm like, oh, oh, I get to see movies here. And then I discovered their whole repertory cinema world, all these half dozen dozen repertory cinemas that showed old movies on purpose to londoners.

I had no idea that was on my horizon, and I couldn't have been more excited to discover that eraser had played. I think, basically, well, what happened is that the print would make the rounds of all the repertory cinemas. I don't think they all had their own print. So I missed it at one of the cinemas and then caught it on February tenth, nineteen ninety at the Skala, which was my favorite cinema to go to. You had to become a member, paid like fifty p for an annual membership, and then pound fifty or something for a movie or for a festival or marathon of movies, which they would have quite frequently.

So on February tenth, nineteen ninety, they had a David Lynch Fest oh Man, which included things that I had only read about before in midnight movies. In anything that would write about Eraserhead, they would bring up The Alphabet and the Grandmother, and I had seen pictures of both, never thought I'd ever see them, let alone on the big screen. So I go to this and watch The Alphabet. I'm blown away. Short film, absolutely horrifying.

With his then wife Peggy Lynch disturbing, as I'll get out The Grandmother, which was funded by the AFI. That was pre Eraserhead, pre going to the AFI, but he'd want a grant to make a film. That's what he made again, very disturbing. You've got the Allan split sound effects in there, and you're seeing a lot of what you're going to see later on animation mind within it and then erase her head on a big screen. But more importantly, I was able to actually see a bunch of stuff that I could not make out on that crappy VHS version of the movie that had been probably watched hundreds of times by people you know, had tracking issues, had and it just wasn't mastered very well even for VHS.

It's a dark movie, right, Yeah, when do you watch it now on your Blu ray or when I watch my DVD, you can see things. So this was like the first time that I realized the opening to get to the man and the planet, they're actually zooming down onto a little cabin that he lives in that has a whole. I could never make that out on the VHS. I would love to see this on the big screen. I've been waiting for an opportunity, and I'm surprised that that opportunity hasn't happened.

I'm waiting for big anniversary fiftieth coming up in a couple of years. I'm hoping they do something. I'm hoping that Lynch's still around and that they do something. Yeah, and this, you know, I don't know where this print was from or how long it had been around, but it was much clearer than the VHS, so I can make that out. I can make out.

There's a scene where, you know, he's spying on the lady across the hall, and he closes his door and she's going in with that weird, red faced man. He looks through his keyhole and sees her door close and her doorknob in his key I never never knew what that was. I never could make out what was scattered around his radiator all the Yeah, me neither tritis the debris, not until the Criterion release. Yeah, I thought it was because he puts his sock up there after he steps in the puddle. I thought they were like hundreds of millions of dried up socks, Like I thought this happened in all the time, and then that just constantly was part of his life, which it's not.

It's organic material. He's got these unpotted plants, dead plants in his room and he's got this organic material floating around. So all that stuff became clear, so Eraserhead plays. It was a singular experience to see it on the big screen. I'm lucky to have been able to do it.

Then Blue Velvet was next, and so it was four hours of just pure Lynch. That's awesome, amazing. I've always been jealous of that experience that you got to have. I'm kind of jealous of it because again I wish I could do it again, but I will never be able to. So years later, when I have this podcast called Wake Up Heavy, thinking about episodes to do, and I'm like, oh, I'm going to talk about the movies that I saw at the Scala.

So I did a little bit of research. I knew it was no longer there. It is there, but not in that incarnation. Stumbled on this article about it because there was a book that was coming out or had come out, and there's a documentary about it that's available now that I need to see. There was a quote from Peter Strickland, who was a filmmaker I admire and whose movies I really enjoy.

Talked about this on Wake Up Heavy. So he mentions his first experience at the Scala, and it was on February tenth, nineteen ninety to go see Eraserhead. And I was just like, well, what in the world. Just so weird to have found that out. It's not even weird to me that I saw this the same day that this you know, young he was like sixteen or seventeen at the time, rode the train into London to see this movie he was fascinated with.

But the fact that I discovered that information thirty something years later, to me is just mind blowing. And it's always been kind of a hope of mine to relay that information to him somehow. He joined Twitter recently. Yeah, that's so awesome, I believe. On February tenth, you know mentioned because this was a seminal moment for him and mentioned it, and I tweeted, I'm like, hey, man, I saw it the same day at the Scala, and he's like, oh, I probably saw you, and I for some reason, I had it in my head that I saw the evening showtime, but I went back and read my diary and I'm like, no, this was a Saturday.

I went in the afternoon. So I have confirmed in my head that I saw it in the theater with Peter Strickland. You totally did. It'll always be a connection that you two will share. That's so cool.

It's just funny. Again, it's funnier to me that I found that out, more so than it actually happening. That's the Internet for you. And I said, I want to study this Kent. He at first pegged me for a total nutcake.

There I discovered this Dutch apple pie. Then I got the bill for the piece of Dutch apple pie and I had to stop, you know, doing that. And then I was in the grocery store and I saw Dutch apple pie the same almost exactly the same price for a whole pie as it was for one slice at Hamburger Hamlet, probably, I would say. After that, we moved in ninety one from the Sunnyside area to Bullard and Palm So, northwest Fresno, and I was renting more from Tower Records, and I don't know if they had a copy of eraser Head to rent. After I moved from Fresno to New York.

Not too long after that the movies got rid of all their vhs and then they swiftly went out of business. When I was living there, I didn't rent movies at all. There was one video store, and so that I walked through and enjoyed looking at what was there. Saw that they had to erase their head cool, but of course I'm not going to rent something from that part of town. I was living far away from there.

It wasn't until I moved to the Los Angeles area and got a job working at Video Tech that I then had all of these art house films at hand. And I think I rent an eraser Head like twenty times for free because I worked there, right, Yeah, it was. I went for a long period of time the nineties, no early two thousands through about two thousand and eight that I didn't watch Eraserhead. Always carried it with me in my heart. That sounds cheesy, but like I can just close my eyes and see the movie, and that's so many times I've seen it after we moved, so I'm sure when I got back from London, I know I rented it as long as we lived there, because I was, like, you know, so excited to have seen it on the big screen.

And once we moved though, I didn't travel from there to that video store anymore. I went to Tower Records or Tower Video Sorry when it was separate, and I want to say they didn't have it I had. May be wrong though, and I may have still rented it a few times, but there was a significant gap there where these old video stores closed down. Tower may have still been there, but blockbustered. They're not going to have a copy of it unless they've bought it from a closing mom and pop store.

And so there was a great period of time where I mean at least five years maybe not a great period of time, but at least five years where I didn't have access to it. That's when the website comes up and comes into my life. So for quite a few months, this was probably early two thousands, Carly and I were living together over on Andrews. I had internet because she wanted it, so we had internet for the first time for me personally having the internet. Stumbled upon his website and just sort of played around with it for a while.

Some of the stuff was available for free, but you get so much more if you join, and it was ten bucks a month, So eventually I joined because I wanted to see all these other hidden things. That's where the weather Report originated, rabbits originated. There he had animated shorts that he would put up Dumbest Man in the World or some dumbest dog in the world or something like that. Oh yeah, wasn't it just dumb or something like that. I can't remember.

The animated series was called DumbLand. And then he did something with his son that was hysterical. So there was all this stuff to watch, and then he had a message board go and discuss all things Lynch. He would pop on every once in a while, and he always typed this is sort of perfect. He typed in all caps, and if you think about his role as Gordon Cole on Toy Yeeks, it makes perfect sense because all caps means you're yelling, right.

Had a few exchanges with him about things, nothing made nothing that I could even really remember. The only thing I remember about the message board, and I love telling this story, is there was this guy on there who kept talking about David Lynch is helping with my film that's coming out, blah blah blahla constantly all the time. David Lynch is producing my movie. Blah blah blah blah blah. I made the connection when Carleida and I rented Kevin Fever and saw the name Eli Roth was like, oh my god, this is that dickhead that was constantly talking sucking up to Lynch on his message board.

And I don't know Lynch removed his name or didn't end up producing the film or something, but you won't find it on that. I enjoyed Kevin Fever and have enjoyed many of that Goofball's movies. He was his assistant for a while. That's the connection there, which I found out a while later. The boy we talk about writing coattails, Man, he just could not shut up about that on that message board.

It was hysterical. That makes a lot of sense. Then he transitioned from writing those coattails to writing Quentin Tarantino's Yeah exactly. It seemed to really work out well for him. Yeah.

I enjoy his movies for what they are. Can't stand him as a person. But anyway, the point of this story is that he announces that he is finally re releasing Eraserhead. He has gotten the rights back they were being held by Barenholtz that Librafilms deal. He wanted too much for DVD rights or whatever.

This is before Blu rays mm hmm were popular or even a thing I think yet. And so he had gotten the rights back, the sole exclusive rights back, and he was remastering it himself. So he remastered the picture and the sound. Also at the same time had compiled his short films, a couple of which I had seen in London, and then all these other ones that I had never even heard about. So both those come out in these large, squautiful, beautiful packaging with booklets.

Yeah, and I got to say, because we have watched your Blu ray together at your place, we have watched my DBD and I think my DVD is just as clear as the new Criterion Blu ray. I will argue that to my death. I have no intention of ever replacing it. And you know it contains those eraser Head stories, so it filled in a lot of these gaps of like what is this about? What is that about?

I just loved that I was in town and visited you over on Andrews and you had just gotten those and we went through and watched a bunch of that stuff and what an epic epic journey the eraser Head on Criterion Blu Ray. We talked about this too. They even had missed there was a missing scene on those first run. It was like a ten second lanth spot. But how would you know?

How would you know? And really, I don't think I would have noticed. That's sad. I had read about it and I told you, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, they'll replace your discs, So yeah's to do that, because I think because he probably with his remaster, which is I believe all they use for the Criterion for the Blu ray is his remaster of it. I think he took such great care and even though it's DVD, I think it's at the highest bit rate that it could possibly be for DVD.

That's like for me, there's really no noticeable difference between the two, So you know, I may be fooling myself. But it further illuminated some of that stuff that even though I had seen it on the big screen, still there are some details that I didn't pick up on until I had that DVD again, that stuff around the radiator and some of the other things. I don't think it was until after I did the episode for wickup Heavy that I kind of finally realized what the Lady and the Radiator was all about, my interpretation of her, What is your interpretation? Well, in my reading on a Raiserhead, you know that it's a post apocalyptic world, which I'm always kind of poop pooed. Even though he has a framed picture of an atom bomb explosion in his apartment, you know, which, again feature doesn't a really big one.

In Twin Peaks the Return, there's a giant framed picture of it in Gordon Cole's office, plus the whole eighth episode m revolving around an atomic explosion. Maybe it was because of the Return and seeing an image of a mushroom cloud and I'm like, oh, she looks like a mushroom cloud. Oh yeah, if you made a silhouette of her face, blue font hair and those cheeks, her visits true is of a mushroom cloud. And so I now buy into that this is a post apocalyptic world. It explains the baby, It explains the desolate landscape, It explains even the chickens because the man made Why would they need to be man made?

Right? It works so well for me because it's so mundane in that the world is destroyed and life goes on. And I think partly the whole experience with COVID hit that even further for me. If the world fell apart, we would still go on like idiots like we are now. It wouldn't be mad Max, it would be eraser Head.

I agree. Wow, we're trying to still live our normal lives. That's revelatory and that's kind of how it feels to me now we are living eraser Head today. I mean basically, basically, Wow, you've seen the art life right that again documentary of David Lunch, if you want to call it that, and to me that when I watch that, I'm like, oh, yeah, erase her Head is you. This is you.

It's definitely him. He disputes it in there, but also in one of the scenes of the movie, he was like, being an artist was the end all be all for him. The thought of having a family was his biggest nightmare. And I'm summarizing and maybe not getting a fine point on it, but he basically says that in this documentary, and it happened this much the same way, which I didn't realize until I was seeing it. They weren't married at the time he got her pregnant, Peggy Lynch or whatever her maiden name was.

He got her pregnant, then got married, then had a child that had a disfigurement, probably felt like the death of his art life. If that isn't what a racer head is about, I don't know what I mean. Yeah, he can say it's not based on his life all he wants and I'm going to dis Yeah, I'm I'm with you one on that. It makes so much sense in looking at the trajectory of his life and also articulating the fears that would soon be dismantled because his career would blossom from there. And what you said about it being post apocalyptic post apocalyptic world making so much sense now makes sense now for me too.

Yeah, and it's one man's theory. I'm with you on that because your defense makes a lot of sense to me, and looking at looking around us now post COVID really kind of clicks to further illustrate that it's based on his life. He worked at Lapel's factory and Henry Spencer works at Lapel's factory. Yeah. Yeah, which, by the way, goes almost the name of this podcast.

Yeah, that's right, that's so true. We tossed that around. Well, I work at Lapel's factory. I'm a pridget. I'm excited to keep talking about Lynch and we're gonna get back to some of the other things that he's done later on.

Don't know if it's going to be the next episode or not. No, no, it won't be. I'm glad we talked about eraser Head today because it's it's deeply important to us and anybody that enjoys that film, or maybe someone that doesn't enjoy that film, will listen to this and be like, oh, yeah that works. Hey, it's on HBO Max, it's on the Criterion Channel. It might be on Canopy because they have a lot of Criterion movies.

And let me just plug Canopy real quick, because yeah, it's free. I'm not going to say most, but a lot of libraries have access to their catalog and so you just need to sign on with your library card. That's how I access It's how we access that. It's a great resource. They have the reallys of movies ad free.

You check them out like you would at a library. Try it out. It's great, it is, it's great, all right, So what do we want to do. We're not doing the Where can people find you anymore? Right?

We need to? I don't think we need to. I'm kind about that. Tired of doing it. Of this, folks, you know where to find us.

Go listen to Wake Up Heavy, Go check out the Sclevator channel. Remember until we meet again, have fun, stay weird and keep collecting and keep watching weird movies. That's right, watch you raise your head again. Yeah, thanks for listening, post covid. Thanks for listening post covid.

Awesome, Oh you are ship. It is a personal film and no reviewer or critic or viewer has ever given an interpretation that is my interpretation since the twenty five years or more that it has been out. Buess fine and have everything, Gus bar you got your good things? Nobot mine in here? Everything is fine?

And he everything is fine. We had he Everything is fine if you got your good things and you got mine. Anything and Hal and Cambrid jacka Sean is a weirdly Way media podcast