Was David Lynch the Original Libertarian Democrat?

Nick Gillespie | December 11, 2006

Reader David Erdman sends along a link to a Nerve interview with film legend (is that too strong?) David Lynch, the man almost singlehandedly responsible for the rebirth of Pabst Blue Ribbon as something other than a synonym for piss-poor beer. A snippet:

You were a defender of Ronald Reagan in the '80s —
No, no, no. You know, we live in a time where everything that anyone has ever said, or that someone else has said that they said, goes on some site. It's kind of cool in some ways, but then you need to explain certain things.

Well, let's get this one correct for all time.
Reagan cleared brush. That's what I liked about him. My father grew up on a ranch in Montana, and I grew up in Western American thinking, sort of like cowboys in the past on my father's side. So I liked him for that, and I liked this one speech he read early on, at some convention. But at that time, I thought of myself as a libertarian. I believed in next to zero government. And I still would lean toward no government and not so many rules, except for traffic lights and things like this. I really believe in traffic regulations [pause]. Some stop signs are really absurd. Like at night, at two a.m., I come to a stop sign, obviously, no cars are coming. And when I stop at that stop sign, I feel like a fool. It's so ridiculous. And other times, when it's heavy traffic, and the light turns yellow, I really have a strong desire to stop, and to keep the car stopped until the light turns, and then to look both ways before going forward. A lot of situations are a matter of life and death. So I believe in traffic rules.

Uh-huh.
But now, I don't know if there even is a Libertarian party. They wouldn't have a prayer of getting anywhere. So I'm a Democrat now. And I've always been a Democrat, really. But I don't like the Democrats a lot, either, because I'm a smoker, and I think a lot of the Democrats have come up with these rules for non-smoking. And I don't think that that's necessarily so bad, but they have to give the smokers a place. You're just like an animal now. Not a clean animal, but a mangy, soiled, urine-soaked animal with remnants, and you're sent outdoors....Now, house pets are treated way better than smokers.

Whole thing here.

Comments

|12.11.06 @ 10:36AM|#

Interesting... I seem to recall the beautiful Isabella Rosselinni saying on TV that Lynch admired Reagan, she responding to people's claims that Blue Velvet was some kind of attack on Reaganism.

Anyway, I think Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Elephant Man are three of the best films I have ever seen, so I think "legend" surely applies.

|12.11.06 @ 11:01AM|#

"Not a clean animal, but a mangy, soiled, urine-soaked animal with remnants, and you're sent outdoors..."

Man, he still is the master of disturbing imagery.

My air-sacs have never felt better!

|12.11.06 @ 11:19AM|#

Wait, somebody actually liked Eraserhead?

Juanita|12.11.06 @ 11:28AM|#

We cannot allow this. It is fucked up. Yo gots a right to free speach but not if politically incorrect.

Wuzupp is Juanita man!!!

Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course Stay the course

|12.11.06 @ 11:35AM|#

Wait, somebody actually liked Eraserhead?

Admit it, the monster-baby was cool.

|12.11.06 @ 11:37AM|#

Come on thoreau, the lighting and compositions of the shots, the weird music and bizarre sets, and the two or three laugh lines... watching Eraserhead is like, say, reading Proust; there are some rough spots you have to grind your way through, but there are other parts that are so perfect that your labor is well-rewarded.

|12.11.06 @ 11:58AM|#

I think Lynch is on the verge of coming my way and realizing all traffic signals should be melted for scrap.

|12.11.06 @ 12:04PM|#

I knew Lynch had really gone off the deep end when I saw his G-rated The Straight Story. Great movie, but very un-Lynchian.

|12.11.06 @ 12:04PM|#

I think Lynch is on the verge of coming my way and realizing all traffic signals should be melted for scrap.

Yes, but they'll make a car out of that scrap metal. And the guy who drives it will have visions of somebody who looks very similar but works for a Mafia boss. Then the driver will switch bodies with the Mafia boss and discover that his deformed son is feasting on rotting worms in the back seat of this car. Then they'll swap bodies again and he'll kill the guy whose body he took. And then the car will come to life and form itself into a giant stop sign that blocks his escape from the cops.

And then a strange woman will shout "Silencio!" and it will end.

|12.11.06 @ 12:34PM|#

Oh, right, I forgot about The Straight Story, another good one from Lynch. For me, it is about as surreal as the other Lynch movies; it depicts a bizarre world I have never seen before, one in which people are basically pretty nice.

|12.11.06 @ 12:54PM|#

If Lynch wanted to project a "dirty, grubby, unhealthy, xenophobic association" on Frank Booth, he would've had him drinking Red White & Blue.

|12.11.06 @ 1:02PM|#

I always thought the scene in Fire Walk With Me, where Cooper is handcuffing the bawling school girls next to the bus, was Lynch's own dig at the drug war.

|12.11.06 @ 1:08PM|#

"So you ARE sick!"
"Little things, big as your fist, but they're new."
"Mother they're still not sure it is a baby!"

Eraserhead rocks. I just wore my Henry t-shirt this past weekend.

|12.11.06 @ 1:23PM|#

I must now go listen to Miranda Sex Garden's traumatic cover of In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)

Jeremy Mahler|12.11.06 @ 1:40PM|#

I have studiously avoided reading interviews with David Lynch, as I had this feeling that this guy, this iconoclastic genius... he couldn't live up to what I see in his creation...

strangely, reading this interview FEELS like it's the Lynch I've known since the pilot for Twin Peaks.

wow.

|12.11.06 @ 1:42PM|#

I think Lynch is a genius. I think it is easy to read a conservative, if not libertarian, message into his films. Many are about innocent, almost 50's small town types threatened by an evil that is almost always tied to what would be considered 'morals evil' (promiscous sex, drug use, etc) i.e., Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Mullholland Drive...But I think making one's artistic views dependent on political agreement with the artist is for tools. As another brilliant film-maker, Woody Allen said, "The presonal should always trump the political."

|12.11.06 @ 1:44PM|#

when i saw the pixies on their reunion tour, they came out and did "lady in the radiator" which i believe is on their b-sides collection before they launched into their set. pretty cool.

|12.11.06 @ 2:33PM|#

Ken,
Lynch is a genius if for no other reason, than he managed to get Isabella Rosselini nekkid in his movie!

thoreau,
I can't imagine why I had not thought of that.

|12.11.06 @ 4:04PM|#

I still won't forgive Lynch for what he did to "Dune."

|12.11.06 @ 5:06PM|#

Akira,

I must not Toto.
Toto is the mind-killer.
Toto is the little-death that brings total To-bliteration.
I will face my Toto.
I will permit Toto to pass over me and through me.
And when Toto has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see Toto's path.
Where Toto has gone there will be "Africa."
Only I will remain.

Kevin B. O\'Reilly|12.11.06 @ 6:42PM|#

FYI, David Lynch is a 9/11 conspiracy nut:
http://www.infowars.net/articles/december2006/061206Lynch.htm

Paul|12.11.06 @ 8:05PM|#

You're just like an animal now. Not a clean animal, but a mangy, soiled, urine-soaked animal with remnants, and you're sent outdoors....Now, house pets are treated way better than smokers.

He's wrong. Democrats don't think this highly of smokers.

Paul|12.11.06 @ 8:06PM|#

FYI, David Lynch is a 9/11 conspiracy nut:

Kevin, didn't a recent report somewhere (too lazy to look it up) suggest that around 60% of Americans believe in one of several major conspiracy theories surrounding the twin towers on 9/11?

Sam Franklin|12.12.06 @ 4:55AM|#

Kevin, didn't a recent report somewhere (too lazy to look it up) suggest that around 60% of Americans believe in one of several major conspiracy theories surrounding the twin towers on 9/11?

Based on Lynch's comments at the link, he seems to find all the plane crashes suspicious, not just the Towers. Couple criticisms of Lynch's "conspiracy theorism" (what an awful phrase from a descriptive perspective):

- He says wtc7 went down like the other towers. It did not. Wtc7 crumbled at the base, while the others ones crumpled at the impact zones high up from the base.

- He finds it suspicious that there is a lack of skid marks from Flight 93. I think if the plane comes straight down enough there would not be skid marks.