David Lynch, RIP, by Steve Sailer

David Lynch, RIP

Steve Sailer • January 17, 2025

• 317 Comments

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Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 17, 2025 at 6:16 am GMT
And yet, we hear a band.

https://www.unz.com/isteve/snoopy-really-was-a-beagle/#comment-6112488 (#4)
Mr. Anon says:
January 17, 2025 at 8:19 am GMT
Bob Ueker passed away yesterday. He may not have been a great baseball player, but for a baseball player, he was a great comedian. A master of deadpan humor. R.I.P.
clifford brown says:
January 17, 2025 at 8:35 am GMT
Fitting that David Lynch dies the same week LA did. RIP. Llorando.

No hay banda.

Video Link
Nicholas Stix says: • Website
January 17, 2025 at 9:06 am GMT • 100 Words
That scene where he played Jack Ford, in the story Steven Spielberg loved to tell, was the high point of his life.

And the beauty part of David Lynch’s overrated career, is that his casting of Sheryl Lee as the plastic-wrapped corpse in Twin Peaks led to her playing a stunning double-role in Mother Night (1996).

A diminished thing (The Holocaust)

https://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-diminished-thing-holocaust.html

When a didactic scene (“exposition dump”) doesn’t seem like one at all (videos): Mother Night (1996): “Blue Fairy Godmother”; John Goodman and Nick Nolte; and the official trailer

https://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/2024/08/when-didactic-scene-exposition-dump.html

• Thanks: Matthew Kelly
• Replies: @Corpse Tooth
, @TrumpWon
ScarletNumber says:
January 17, 2025 at 9:44 am GMT
Lynch also had a memorable turn on Louie where he played a washed-up television producer hired to turn Louis CK into a plausible replacement for David Letterman.

The two were unrelated but losing him and Uecker on the same day was tough.

• Replies: @anonymous
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 17, 2025 at 9:53 am GMT
Ironically, Lynch died on the same day as former beloved MLB broadcaster Bob Uecker. In his own way, Bob was every bit as beloved as LA’s Vin Scully, and for nearly as long a time.
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 17, 2025 at 9:58 am GMT • 500 Words
Well, may God speed His good and faithful servant David Lynch on his way, and bless him and keep him in the Light of the Holy Spirit. He practiced his art truly, and gave a lot of fine things to many people. He was given much, and he husbanded it well; and much did he return.

I feel like I’ve lost an old friend, or maybe more accurately, your favorite crazy old uncle who would take you aside at the boring Confirmation party and teach you all about single-malt Scotch, while winking at your dad who knew he was giving a teenager hard liquor and looked the other way.

My two David Lynch stories, for which I owe him….

1) Back in the late 70s there was a standing midnight show at the Waverly Place Cinema in the West Village, of Lynch’s great “Eraserhead” plus the kooky animated short “Asparagus”. I used to coax my drunken Brooklyn goofball friends to go with me and sit through Eraserhead over and over, which they did out of fondness for me, not out of respect for whack-job cinema.

I got a bottle of that old “Liquid Paper” stuff and with it wrote “ERASERHEAD” in very large capital letters on the school steps of the local Brooklyn schoolyard; that chemical was so indestructible that my little graffito remained in place for decades, and I was known in the local bars, with a sort of grudging respect, as “Eraserhead Guy”.

Whatever else you want to say about David Lynch, he remained loyal and helpful all his life to the brilliant but troubled actor and collaborator Jack Nance; even if you think Lynch was a goof, you can’t deny he was a decent human being.

2) I went to see “Blue Velvet” on its opening premiere night, without reading any reviews beforehand. On the night before, I had gotten the ever-living fucking *SHIT* beat out of me by a gang of Brooklyn drug dealers, courtesy of my suicidal kid brother (who is now clean and sober, God bless him). I had gotten my ass kicked many times streetwise style before, but usually in a rather cursory light-weight manner: this was the first time I ever got my ass kicked in front to back, blood everywhere, no punches pulled, old school style. I survived, and went to see Blue Velvet the very next day, and the bit where Kyle gets his ass kicked by Dennis Hopper and friends suddenly took on a whole new light.

Well David Lynch had a good run, and capped it splendidly with his crazy John Ford cameo at the end of that Spielberg movie.

In Heaven, everything is fine.
You got your good things, and I got mine.
— The Lady in the Radiator Song, Eraserhead

• Thanks: Jenner Ickham Errican
• Replies: @Linus
, @Renard
, @Reg Cæsar
, @vinteuil
Loyalty is The First Law of Morality says:
January 17, 2025 at 11:17 am GMT • 100 Words
Not sure if Boomers are dying younger than their parents. But given we spend $5 trillion a year on healthcare, something is wrong. We’ve spent $40 trillion over the last decade.

The results suck.

Yeah yeah, we be fat, we be blah blah blah. None of that is the answer. In fact, saying we could better just avoiding sugar means our healthcare system really is lame.

• Agree: Mark G., TWS, fish
• Replies: @prosa123
, @AnotherDad
theMann says:
January 17, 2025 at 12:10 pm GMT • 100 Words
Lynch’s work was worse than bad, it combined sharply irrational with boring……which I guess is an achievement of sorts.
Film had its century as an Art Form ( maybe lower case) but for a variety of reasons, that seems to be coming to an end. At least its body of work remains; same as Opera or Live theater, The New sucks, but the Classics endure.

• Agree: Old Prude, obwandiyag
• Replies: @pyrrhus
, @Corpse Tooth
, @Old Prude
, @TorontoTraveller
, @Jim Don Bob
, @Reg Cæsar
JMcG says:
January 17, 2025 at 12:15 pm GMT
I’m not a TV guy by any means; haven’t even had one hooked up to the outside world in twenty years or so. But I remember watching the first episode of Twin Peaks. I was absolutely stunned.
RIP.
MGB says:
January 17, 2025 at 12:25 pm GMT
Mulholland Drive is brilliant with its 2 stories of Hollywood ‘management’, the first with the goofy cowboy and eye-talian stereotypes threatening the plucky, ethnic director, and the second story of control played with greater realism and the grotesquery of the Jewish mob.

• Agree: Peter Akuleyev
Buzz Mohawk says:
January 17, 2025 at 12:53 pm GMT

Video Link

• Replies: @Joe Stalin
Hapalong Cassidy says:
January 17, 2025 at 2:09 pm GMT • 100 Words
The 3rd season of Twin Peaks, his last work, was…something to say the least. I couldn’t really make it past the first episode. Later, I did watch a later episode – the one with the Trinity bomb, just because I had read that it was incredible. And it was definitely that. Season 3 has been described by one of the producers as the “pure heroin” version of David Lynch, and I don’t think I could have come up with a better description.
Linus says:
January 17, 2025 at 2:36 pm GMT
@The Germ Theory of Disease
Very nicely written, thanks. I always felt that his Straight Story was terribly overlooked. Very sweet movie, though with Lynch’s unique moodiness. The only G-rated Lynch movie. Not sure your earlier self would have liked it, but probably.
Bugg says:
January 17, 2025 at 3:08 pm GMT
“Blue Velvet” was so different from anything else.

There was always an undercurrent of humor to everything he did. And he was a funny guy. RIP

Video Link
Currahee says:
January 17, 2025 at 3:41 pm GMT
Mel Brooks on Lynch: “Jimmy Stewart from Mars.”

• Replies: @Anonymous
Achmed E. Newman says: • Website
January 17, 2025 at 4:55 pm GMT • 100 Words
O/T, introducing RaDaSS, the concept. (Rapid Detection and Small-scale Supression), for future anxious Los Angelenos. Who knows, but you read it here first.

Sorry that I don’t really care about some movie director, dead or alive.

I used to like the old Los Angelenos, though… all come from somewhere…

Video Link

• Replies: @kaganovitch
prosa123 says:
January 17, 2025 at 5:11 pm GMT
@Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
Not sure if Boomers are dying younger than their parents. But given we spend $5 trillion a year on healthcare, something is wrong. We’ve spent $40 trillion over the last decade.
The results suck.

Lynch smoked himself to death.

• Replies: @clifford brown
, @Corpse Tooth
, @J.Ross
, @Mark G.
Joe Stalin says:
January 17, 2025 at 5:36 pm GMT
@Buzz Mohawk
Ms. Rossellini starred in this wonderful Guy Maddin flick:

Video Link

It’s been posted in three parts on Daily Motion.

• Replies: @Anonymous
clifford brown says:
January 17, 2025 at 5:39 pm GMT
@prosa123
Eating at Bob’s Big Boy everyday for seven years probably did not help things.

https://bobs.net/pages/hall-of-fame-david-lynch
pyrrhus says:
January 17, 2025 at 5:42 pm GMT
@theMann
With David Lynch, there’s no in between…Either you love him, like our kids, or you hate him…He may be incomprehensible, but he’s never bland…
Anonymous[718] • Disclaimer says:
January 17, 2025 at 5:46 pm GMT
anonymous[953] • Disclaimer says:
January 17, 2025 at 6:14 pm GMT
Corpse Tooth says:
January 17, 2025 at 6:38 pm GMT
@Nicholas Stix
A bit part in a Spielberg movie is the highlight of his creative life and not MULHOLLAND DRIVE? Remind me to never read your film cricketism.

• LOL: Renard
• Replies: @Nicholas Stix
anonymous[795] • Disclaimer says:
January 17, 2025 at 6:47 pm GMT • 100 Words
Tucker Carlson interview with Ned Ryun. Example of a long pointless conversation on a blueprint for winning against “The Left”. If you don’t identify The Left as Jewish power, then it is not possible to devise strategy.

• Replies: @For what it's worth
Corpse Tooth says:
January 17, 2025 at 6:48 pm GMT • 100 Words
@prosa123
Deaths are up in the 30s and 40s age groups. When people should not be dying. I wonder why that is. Sure, Lynch smoked himself to death at 78. When you can see 80 that’s the dying time. He enjoyed every cigarette. Nicotine and caffeine* are the best drugs for truly creative people like Lynch. Now, back to the reason why prime-of-life people are dying in deranged statistical numbers.
*The N&C combo however contributes to wicked breath fumes.

• Replies: @prosa123
, @Bardon Kaldian
Ralph L says:
January 17, 2025 at 7:03 pm GMT
NYT reports the inaugural will be moved indoors due to the expected freezing weather, as Reagan’s second one was. Trump should have a parade in Palm Beach. His 2017 one was so late starting, it was nearly dark when he arrived at the WH.
J.Ross says:
January 17, 2025 at 7:03 pm GMT
@prosa123
… at 78. This is like Chuck Berry or BB King dying an old man after inventing rock stardom.
Corpse Tooth says:
January 17, 2025 at 7:10 pm GMT
@theMann
“irrational”

Lynch was a surrealist. His best films were dark beauties wherein sexy womens were menaced by interdimensional intelligences that occasionally swirled into the demonic.
YetAnotherAnon says:
January 17, 2025 at 7:35 pm GMT • 100 Words
Not a TV or film person at all, but where did Lynch get his whole “dark underbelly of small town America” schtick from? He seems to have had an idyllic if somewhat mobile childhood.

Has he just transplanted the reality of Fairmount, Philadelphia in 1968 onto an imagined Missoula, Sandpoint, Spokane, Boise, Durham?

We lived cheap, but the city was full of fear. A kid was shot to death down the street … We were robbed twice, had windows shot out and a car stolen. The house was first broken into only three days after we moved in … The feeling was so close to extreme danger, and the fear was so intense. There was violence and hate and filth. But the biggest influence in my whole life was that city.

• Replies: @J.Ross
, @clifford brown
, @Peter Akuleyev
J.Ross says:
January 17, 2025 at 9:26 pm GMT
@YetAnotherAnon
What about juvenile delinquency? The 50s and 60s do seem to have had a dark underbelly which co-existed with all that they got right. I remember being shocked learning about Brooklyn’s “Mad Bomber,” a disgruntled power company worker who built and hid actual time bombs that killed people.
Dr. Rock says:
January 17, 2025 at 9:29 pm GMT • 300 Words
I’m not one of those sycophants that believes that everything Lynch did was some kind of cinematic triumph, but it was all pretty interesting, and I do regard myself as a big fan of cinema.

Was his shit weird? Yes, but I’m okay with having some weird film makers. Quite often, I love weird. In this regard, movies are art, and in the case of Lynch, more art than most.

I still consider the last season of Twin Peaks, to be some of the craziest shit I’ve ever seen, and I was fascinated with it too.

That said, I loved it sooo much, that I went back to watch the first, original Twin Peaks, which I had never seen, and I couldn’t even finish it. Hey man, it’s strikes and spares… But it’s still cool that he was bold enough to try the stuff he did, and frankly, that such a stuck-up, uptight industry, allowed a guy like him to exist at all.

If the next David Lynch popped up tomorrow, I doubt he’d be able to make anything beyond a couple episodes of Black Mirror or something.

Full Disclosure- I also really like the movies of Wes Anderson, or really odd stuff like “The Lobster”. We have countless sources for boilerplate film-garbage, M-She-U shit, ruined franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek and Dr. Who. Tons of message driven, race swapped Disney dogshit.

That world needs the occasional David Lynch or Wes Anderson, just to keep them from turning into 100% coffee table dogshit.
prosa123 says:
January 17, 2025 at 9:31 pm GMT
@Corpse Tooth
Deaths are up in the 30s and 40s age groups. When people should not be dying. I wonder why that is.

Fentanyl?

• Replies: @AnotherDad
clifford brown says:
January 17, 2025 at 9:46 pm GMT • 200 Words
@YetAnotherAnon
I think Lynch discovered the Dark Side in the decaying ruins of late 1960s Philadelphia. His films exhibit less the whole “dark underbelly of small town America” than the inherent duality of reality itself. Through meditation, Lynch came to believe that their are inter-dimensional forces that influence this plane of existence. This is a dynamic that runs throughout his films.

Critics tend to focus on the “dark underbelly of small town America” because that is how people informed on art are supposed to think. That all of idyllic small town America is actually a false facade for sinister truths. Lynch, by contrast, sincerely loved small town Americana especially when exhibiting a 1950’s aesthetic. There is a dark side to his depictions of small town America because in Lynch’s view there is a darkness to all things. There is a duality where you cannot have the light without the dark. I interrupt Lynch as someone who loved the light, but recognized that the darkness, or at least the possibility of darkness, is immutably paired with the light.

• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
, @Liza
R.G. Camara says:
January 17, 2025 at 10:18 pm GMT • 100 Words
Like Kubrick, meanings and symbolism in Lynch films will be endlessly debated on YouTube.

I’m surprised Rob Ager, who has become a celebrity from his YouTube Kubrick analysis, hasn’t delved deeply into Lynch’s materials. Seems both directors’ work are quite similar, although Kubrick at least made sure the top-line plots of his movie made sense and people’s words seem to be logical in context (even the weird slang in A Clockwork Orange made sense after a while), although much was off-putting on first watch. Its only later thinking about it and on re-view you realize how really weird everything was in that Kubrick film you just watched.

Lynch, in contrast, preferred non sequitur speech and plots that were dream-like and super-weird/illogical upfront. Yet somehow he made his works transfixifying. He was beset by non-Christian Manicheanism, but still held profound talent and product.

RIP Mr. Lynch, you magnificent bastard.

• Replies: @Steve Sailer
Mike Conrad says:
January 17, 2025 at 10:30 pm GMT

• Thanks: JMcG
TrumpWon says:
January 17, 2025 at 10:59 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Nicholas Stix
Mulholland Drive had the best lesbian scene ever filmed, in my opinion. Lynch found the perfect devices to subvert the noir genre too. For one, the love story is a lesbian relationship, or at least, feminine. There’s no “hero gets the girl” central plot. And Lynch masterfully subverted the traditional narrative forms by messing with time and causality (as he loves to do).

While subverting narratives isn’t original, and surrealism predated Lynch’s work, I think its fair to say that Lynch created an archetype all his own, with a uniquely recognizable aesthetic. I believe Tarentino was inspired by Lynch’s earlier works and decided to inhabit that aesthetic. As an art form, film owes so much to Lynch’s creative genius and his transformative willingness to be seen as truly weird. Something Quentin clearly also greatly enjoys.

• Replies: @Nicholas Stix
, @AlexT
Renard says:
January 17, 2025 at 11:00 pm GMT
@The Germ Theory of Disease
You’ve been a very good boy lately!

So I’ll just say “cool story bro”..

• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
anonymous[369] • Disclaimer says:
January 17, 2025 at 11:22 pm GMT
@ScarletNumber

Lynch also had a memorable turn on Louie where he played a washed-up television producer hired to turn Louis CK into a plausible replacement for David Letterman.
Anonymous[651] • Disclaimer says:
January 17, 2025 at 11:47 pm GMT • 200 Words
Lynch belongs in the strange category of Great Director with the Fewest Great Movies.

Conventionally speaking, a great director made several great films. Or one or two great films and good number of very good ones.

With Lynch, it’s just two that truly stand out: Eraserhead and Mulholland Dr. Some argue for Blue Velvet, the most sensationalist work, but it’s still up for debate. Elephant Man is respectable, Straight Story is solid. Dune is a disaster. Wild at Heart is awful, Lost Highway seem a prep for something better. Inland Empire is a mere sketch.

Still, Eraserhead and Mulholland Dr. are the ones that stand out, so astounding to justify Lynch’s place in the pantheon.
Winning two superbowls count for more than winning a lot of games without winning the ultimate game. Two mountain peaks, twin or not, count for more than smaller peaks or lots of hills.

Lynch’s warped and weird view of things made artistic fulfilment far less likely but then far more rewarding when it happened.
A hole in one by bouncing a golf ball off a tree is near impossible but then all the more amazing for that very reason.

And lightning struck twice for Lynch, and those were Zeus-level bolts that changed the way people regarded cinema.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-scene-stanley-kubrick-stole-from-david-lynch/

• Replies: @Steve Sailer
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 17, 2025 at 11:55 pm GMT • 400 Words
A repost

It is interesting how people differ….

That’s what I wrote about Twin Peaks, but is more about Lynch.

Twin Peaks reminds me of another, in my opinion better TV series of the 90’s, Northern Exposure. Both are soaked in the fantasy & the supernatural; but differences are bigger than similarities.

Northern Exposure is far superior in humor, characterization, wisdom & wealth of cultural references & erudition. Twin Peaks, on the other hand, dwarfs Northern Exposure as uncompromising artistic experiment & in its hallucinatory intensity.

With Lynch, there was a split between his work & world-view. As a life-long follower of Transcendental Meditation, he may have personally profited (inner peace etc.), but TM remains a shallow doctrine, not comparable to any serious wisdom practice & doctrine. And Lynch himself, as a creative personality, is the polar opposite of TM.

Strange.

Lynch was fascinated by style & was good at it. But, there is not much substance in his work. I am not saying he was “shallow”; more likely a creative stylist, so to speak. But not more, I guess. Even a clumsier director like Woody Allen has a world-view which can be articulated; Lynch didn’t have one.

Lynch was a visual artist, in all film & TV genres he worked in- and yet, he didn’t possess anything I would call a developed world-view (unlike, say, John Ford or Welles). He was socio-culturally dumb.

A rootless cosmopolitan, whether one likes it or not. Let me repeat-his work cannot be dissociated, completely, from his life. And he was a lifelong practitioner of Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation.

And Lynch has stuck, uncritically, with TM for decades. If I appreciate him as a visual artist/fantasist- how can I take him seriously if he has shown to be so uncritical in one significant matter which colored all his life? Or his attitude towards cultural & historical traditions of his own country?

I don’t expect filmmakers to be thinkers, but if we discuss Lynch’s case, my position is that he just didn’t have a cognitive ability to see what’s right & what’s wrong re some social, cultural, let alone existential crucial issues.

• Replies: @Steve Sailer
Anonymous[230] • Disclaimer says:
January 18, 2025 at 12:00 am GMT
@Joe Stalin
With Lynch the strangeness was true and deep.

With Maddin, it’s a put-on, coy and cute.

It’s like comparing oil painting and crayons.
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 18, 2025 at 12:00 am GMT
@clifford brown
As well as I know, that was a usual trope in literature in the interwar period. I guess Lynch read a few books in his life. In movies, Carpenter & some others.

“Dark underbelly” of superficially idyllic provincial life is a cliche in virtually all European films.

• Replies: @Steve Sailer
, @YetAnotherAnon
For what it's worth says:
January 18, 2025 at 12:01 am GMT
@anonymous
I wish Steve wouldn’t approve off-topic posts.
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 18, 2025 at 12:02 am GMT
@Corpse Tooth
No much difference in dying when you are 78 or 82.

• Replies: @Steve Sailer
, @kaganovitch
, @The Anti-Gnostic
Anonymous[420] • Disclaimer says:
January 18, 2025 at 12:20 am GMT
Most of Lynch’s coffee servings were off but the Eraser Latte and Mulholland Brew were excellent.

• Replies: @MGB
AnotherDad says:
January 18, 2025 at 2:08 am GMT • 200 Words
@Loyalty is The First Law of Morality

The results suck.

Yeah yeah, we be fat, we be blah blah blah. None of that is the answer. In fact, saying we could better just avoiding sugar means our healthcare system really is lame.

Loyalty, you’re supposed to be celebrating yet another dead boomer, and now you are complaining about our “lame” healthcare?

As one of the pre-dead boomers, I can tell you that the American health care system does a pretty good job of keeping a lot of people from dying of cancer, heart attacks, stroke, etc. who would naturally be dead, and would have died when I was a kid. No boomers are not dying earlier than their parents.

But yeah, maybe it’s not up to your brilliant post-boomer expectations: “I can smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish and scarf down gianomous sugar blobs like a complete bozo and carry around 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds of fat … and why aren’t you guys saving me!”

Maybe, just maybe your ideas about health and responsibility are lame?

• Replies: @Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
Joe Stalin says:
January 18, 2025 at 2:14 am GMT • 100 Words

The Supreme Court just issued a new cert order list, but no 2A case appeared on it.

The US Supreme Court’s decisiion in EMD Sales just offered a powerful argument in favor of due process in future 2A fights.

William Kirk discusses the matter of NAGR v. Garland, a for now successful challenge to this rule, where 16 Attorneys General have now felt the need to intervene in place of the United States so that they can defend this rule.

Montana Senator Files Bill to Stop Discrimination Against Firearms Industryhttps://t.co/5cX5s2mJT4

— Bearing Arms (@BearingArmsCom) January 17, 2025

Hawaii agreed yesterday to stop prohibiting citizens of Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands who are legally admitted into the United States from owning firearms, and will pay the plaintiffs who challenged the ban $28,500 in attorney's fees: https://t.co/muArji3Wv4 pic.twitter.com/UxRqDH5HuG

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) January 17, 2025

New Jersey argues in its brief that "the earliest [large capacity magazines] with magazine capacity beyond 10 rounds were designed specifically for use by soldiers during World War II."

However, the page in the "expert" report the state cites for that claim specifically notes… https://t.co/naS3BWz9Nh pic.twitter.com/syYHOTOYI6

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) January 17, 2025
AnotherDad says:
January 18, 2025 at 2:21 am GMT • 100 Words
@prosa123

Deaths are up in the 30s and 40s age groups. When people should not be dying. I wonder why that is.

Fentanyl?

Agreed. And
— obesity (metabolic syndrome, diabetes)
— more people unmarried, less sex, no one looking out for them; drifting, less life purpose
— lack of connection to community (less religious affiliation or other community connection) and nation
— leading to lack of care and worse lifestyle choices–drugs, smoking, alcohol, diet

We’re in kind of a dysgenic down spiral. Dumber, less conscientious, less healthy people.

I’d like to add tattoos, but sadly there doesn’t seem to be much of a negative effect to them… they just look really ugly and primitive and signal American decline.

• Agree: fish
• Replies: @anon
, @Mr. Anon
Mark G. says:
January 18, 2025 at 2:27 am GMT • 100 Words
@prosa123
“Lynch smoked himself to death.”

In his last few years, Lynch said he did not like to leave home because he thought his emphysema would make Covid fatal if he caught it. That is likely true. When I was in the hospital with Covid, I got sent home after four days, had no lasting ill effects to my lungs, and was taking three mile hikes within a month after leaving the hospital. My doctor told me he had another Covid patient the same time I was sick who was my age who died. My doctor said the other guy was a cigarette smoker and I was not and that is why he didn’t pull through.

• Replies: @Liza
, @Bragadocious
anonymous[251] • Disclaimer says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:01 am GMT • 100 Words

My doctor said the other guy was a cigarette smoker and I was not and that is why he didn’t pull through.

Tell your doctor I’ve smoked for 35 years, got Covid, got nauseous, featuring a migraine, for 3 days, didn’t have to be admitted to a hospital, although I almost went when I was at the worst of it, and nothing happened to my lungs, or affected my breathing, at all.

One of my relatives got it, went into his lungs, got hospitalized, resperator, and dead in a week. Never smoked.

Tell your doctor Covid is complicated.

• Replies: @Gordo
Rahuthedotard says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:05 am GMT • 100 Words
David Lynch came closest to captured my experience of growing up in 50s small town America but coming into adulthood in late 60s-70s big city America. Even before the hippie/drug scene came to Montana, the sparseness of population meant once you started exploring beyond your (Catholic) social world, everything from cowboy dive bars to horse set senator’s daughters was out there. Most small towns were stuck in the Depression, reduced to a filling station and a bar and grill. Old Weird America was real, not just some Dylan song: populated with gamblers and ranchers drinking over winter with town drunks, ranch hands and women who’d obviously “been rode hard and put to bed wet.” Drugs made it all weirder, no doubt, as Blue Velvet showed, but the types who adapted to it most quickly were there all along, right under our 50s Norman Rockwell noses.

• Replies: @Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
, @anon
Joe Stalin says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:25 am GMT
anon[308] • Disclaimer says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:33 am GMT
@AnotherDad
can’t possibly have anything to do with the shots or the poison we’re exposed to from every possible vector
JohnnyWalker123 says:
January 18, 2025 at 4:41 am GMT

Snoop Dogg & Nelly will be performing at Donald Trump’s inauguration 👀 pic.twitter.com/lwNeLBpJgo

— FearBuck (@FearedBuck) January 18, 2025
Reg Cæsar says:
January 18, 2025 at 4:52 am GMT
@The Germ Theory of Disease

I got a bottle of that old “Liquid Paper” stuff…

And made Bette– and Mike– Nesmith that much richer. Mike told a reporter he didn’t like his mom, but he took her money. Which would be close to nine figures in today’s currency.
Mr. Anon says:
January 18, 2025 at 5:02 am GMT • 100 Words
OT – Modern marketing:

Walgreens Replaced Fridge Doors With Smart Screens. It’s Now a $200 Million Fiasco

https://archive.is/rNv6L

Replacing the glass doors on refrigerators in retail outlets with LCD screens that display (ideally) exactly what you would see if you just looked through the glass.

Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. And so energy efficient too.
Nicholas Stix says: • Website
January 18, 2025 at 5:11 am GMT
@Corpse Tooth
Your loss, crooked tooth!

But for movie lovers:

“Imagine they made a Sterling Hayden movie without Sterling Hayden: A Review of Odds against Tomorrow (1959; Including two videos, one of which features an interview with Harry Belafonte)”

https://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/2024/09/imagine-they-made-sterling-hayden-movie.html

• Replies: @Corpse Tooth
Mr. Anon says:
January 18, 2025 at 5:16 am GMT • 200 Words
@AnotherDad

I’d like to add tattoos, but sadly there doesn’t seem to be much of a negative effect to them… they just look really ugly and primitive and signal American decline.

Some people have speculated that the heavy metals and organic compounds in tattoo ink may lead to chronic inflamation, carcinogenicity, neurotoxic effects, etc. They are, after all, placed underneath your skin. I suppose it’s possible that the inks could also be contaminated with bacteria and fungi too.

This disgusting and degenerate social mania has been in full bloom for thirty years now with no sign of letting up as far as I can. I still see lots of people, young and old, sporting ink. So perhaps there are no significant long-term health effects.

But to those of us who grew up in the old World (I mean temporally, not spatially) before all this started, the effect of it is just demoralizing. I often find myself looking away from people nowadays, as they’re just so god-awful ugly. I don’t mean plain or homely or even unattractive, but uglified – fat, slovenly, pierced, tattooed, or with day-glo hair. It’s like living your whole life at a carnival freak-show.

• Agree: Old Prude, Peter Akuleyev
• Replies: @Old Prude
Loyalty is The First Law of Morality says:
January 18, 2025 at 6:50 am GMT • 300 Words
@AnotherDad
Overall life expectancy is down. Now some of that is Covid related. It peaked in 2014, a decade ago, then it declined for a few years and flatlined. I don’t see how that is worth the $40 trillion we spent over the last decade.

I can tell you that the American health care system does a pretty good job of keeping a lot of people from dying of cancer, heart attacks, stroke, etc. who would naturally be dead

Can you? Not as good as they were a decade ago. And not as good as Puerto Rico, that bastion of science and technology. They spend 10% of their GDP on healthcare, we spend 17.6%. Does that impress you?

No boomers are not dying earlier than their parents.

I don’t think that is settled. And Dick Van Dyke is still going (former heavy smoker and drinker).

But yeah, maybe it’s not up to your brilliant post-boomer expectations: “I can smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish and scarf down gianomous sugar blobs like a complete bozo and carry around 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds of fat … and why aren’t you guys saving me!”

Boomers are infantile. They still react like angry teenagers. I’d say you should focus on being a tough medical customer. The high fructose generation (who were sold on the low fat idea by the gov’t) may indeed die even younger. But Boomers are the ones currently most at risk due to age. I would have thought you fellas would care about the lack of progress. Instead, you want to cheerlead for the system that is letting you down.

• Replies: @AnotherDad
Liza says:
January 18, 2025 at 6:56 am GMT
@Mark G.
From what I read, smokers are also alcohol drinkers. Didn’t someone (expert?) recently say that even modest consumption of liquor promotes cancer? Just asking. Maybe it’s the combination.

• Replies: @deep anonymous
, @Mark G.
Liza says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:06 am GMT
@clifford brown

“dark underbelly of small town America”

Hollywood movies tend to fixate on “the dark underbelly of White middle class suburbia” even more than small town America. Remember that stupid film American Beauty for just one example? Full of caricatures right from the first minute. What a piece of crap.

• Agree: Old Prude, Jim Don Bob
• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
, @deep anonymous
, @Mr. Anon
, @Truth
Loyalty is The First Law of Morality says:
January 18, 2025 at 9:15 am GMT
@Rahuthedotard
What in Jupiter made David Lynch’s view of America resonate with you? The common view of his art:

Lynch frequently examines the facade of the American Dream, revealing the corruption, decay, and hidden darkness beneath the surface

Say what? A “facade”? America was really some perv’s dream?

• Replies: @Steve Sailer
, @Jenner Ickham Errican
, @Rahuthedotard
Steve Sailer says: • Website
January 18, 2025 at 9:53 am GMT
@Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
David Lynch, obviously, was a great American artist and a great American patriot.

He wasn’t to my taste, but that’s to my discredit, not his.

• Agree: Jim Don Bob
• Replies: @Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
, @The Spiritual Works of Mercy
Steve Sailer says: • Website
January 18, 2025 at 9:57 am GMT
@Bardon Kaldian
You probably aren’t 77.

• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
Steve Sailer says: • Website
January 18, 2025 at 10:01 am GMT
@Bardon Kaldian
Lynch’s obsession with the dark underbelly of life on Earth was more universal: he was obsessed with how ants and similar parasites swarm over anything living that doesn’t defend itself.

• Replies: @Peter Akuleyev
Steve Sailer says: • Website
January 18, 2025 at 10:07 am GMT
@Bardon Kaldian
My next door neighbor was a regular in “Northern Exposure.”

• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
Steve Sailer says: • Website
January 18, 2025 at 10:19 am GMT • 100 Words
@Anonymous
What about Twin Peaks?

I actually haven’t seen much of either the 1990s or the 2010s version (I’m not a big fan of TV), but a lot of people really like both, and they were right about Mulholland Drive being great, so I take them seriously, so that would seem to give him about 3.5 great works. At least three great works wouldn’t put you at the Stanley Kubrick level, but would put you above the George Lucas (American Graffiti and the first Star Wars) level, and being at or above the George Lucas level is a good thing to be. George Lucas was really great, if only for a short time.

• Replies: @Anonymous
Loyalty is The First Law of Morality says:
January 18, 2025 at 10:21 am GMT • 100 Words
@Steve Sailer

David Lynch, obviously, was a great American artist and a great American patriot.

Obviously? Okay on the art front, some liked him, and praised him with articles like:

David Lynch exposed the rot at the heart of American culture (eyeroll)

If by “great” we mean somebody well known who did unique things, sure, why not.

I have no idea what makes him a Great Patriot. He did sign a petition in support of director Roman Polanski. Perhaps he sang God Bless America while doing so.

• Thanks: Gordo
Steve Sailer says: • Website
January 18, 2025 at 10:29 am GMT
@R.G. Camara
“RIP Mr. Lynch, you magnificent bastard.”

Indeed.

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 18, 2025 at 10:30 am GMT
@Loyalty is The First Law of Morality

The common view of his art:

[ unattributed quote ]

Say what? A “facade”? America was really some perv’s dream?

Who are you quoting? The New York Times? Jacobin? Negro Proceedings Quarterly? A high school reading list description for The Great Gatsby? I’ve never read a “common view” lamenting “the facade of the American Dream”.
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 18, 2025 at 10:36 am GMT • 100 Words
@Renard
Hey dude, for the rest of you guys, commenting here is probably some version of serious participation in an on-going serious conversation about world affairs. But for me it’s mostly therapy. Of which I need a lot.

One more fun detail about Lynch…

I read a long time ago in some magazine, an interview with one of the actors from Eraserhead (not John Nance, someone else, I think a woman). She said Lynch would come to the set early every day for about an hour before shooting started, and just sit there alone with a big smile on his face. One day she walked in early too and found him there, asked what he was smiling about. He replied, “It looks exactly like the way I saw it in my dream.”

• Replies: @Renard
Old Prude says:
January 18, 2025 at 10:46 am GMT • 100 Words
@theMann
Just a glance at Lynch’s work turned me away. I could sense the sickness from a distance. The only one I ever engaged with was Blue Velvet, because a friend of a friend said it was a masterpiece and made us watch it. It was one sick thing. “Irrational and boring”? Please add “Sick” to the list.

Nothing against the man, but his oeuvre made the world an uglier more disturbing place.

• Agree: obwandiyag
• Replies: @theMann
, @anon
Old Prude says:
January 18, 2025 at 11:02 am GMT
@Mr. Anon
Leaving a store earlier in the week I saw a deliciously thin and rosy young blond bouncing up the parking lot. As she got closer, I could see her face was full of fishing tackle. I had to look away. What a shame…

• Agree: bomag
• Replies: @Dmon
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 18, 2025 at 11:11 am GMT
@Steve Sailer

“RIP Mr. Lynch, you magnificent bastard.”

Indeed.

• Replies: @Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 18, 2025 at 11:46 am GMT • 100 Words
@Steve Sailer
If you are 77 & suffering from terminal illness, and have your legacy & finances sorted out and arranged for a funeral & the rest – you want to die the next day.

In Lynch’s case, it was even more than that. As a practitioner & a believer in Transcendental Meditation, which is a form of diluted neo-Vedanta, Lynch certainly believed that his death would mean just the end of this incarnation & transition to a continued glorified (trans)personal existence in some supra-physical world. For him, it was just a shuffling of this mortal coil.

I’ve been initiated into TM & I know how these people view life.
Loyalty is The First Law of Morality says:
January 18, 2025 at 11:51 am GMT
@Jenner Ickham Errican
If you like Lynch, Google “sprockets germany’s most disturbing home videos”

Mike Myers of SNL

That Dieter was quite the artist.

Also, here Sprockets exposes the bizarre nature beneath our so-called normal world. Be prepared to squirm!

https://www.tiktok.com/@huggyattack/video/7261417693184707886

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 18, 2025 at 12:01 pm GMT • 400 Words
@Steve Sailer
Northern Exposure was unique.

Lynch and NE creators Brand & Falsey have virtually nothing in common.

Brand & Falsey are (were, I think Falsey died from alcoholism-related diseases) educated intellectuals who have been working in TV industry; Lynch was a genuine filmmaker with little “high & broad” education. Brand & Falsey’s vision is, as far as NE is concerned, Joseph Campbell put into a TV show. They both had undergone Esalen Institute experience & they tried, in this series, to merge three different strands: visionary fantasy that owes, probably, something to Castaneda & similar psychedelic authors; satirical-comical comments on American society (for instance, treatment of homosexuality & race); and wisdom married to high culture, having roots in Jung & Joseph Campbell.

I’ve seen that show 2 times & can vouchsafe that there is nothing similar in the entire history of TV. Where else could you find readings from Dostoevsky, Joe Campbell, Shakespeare, Melville, …; references to Mrs. Sartre (Simone de Beauvoir); Indian shamans in training quoting St. John’s Epistle; experienced Native American shaman trying to locate white people’s Jungian Collective Unconscious; music from Mahler & small talk about Melville, French painter Ingres or Michelangelo in the Sistine chapel, Meister Eckhart etc.

So, it has nothing to do with Twin Peaks.

Twin Peaks, and I’ve seen just a part of it- so I am not too qualified to comment- seems to me a typically Lynchean surrealist experiment, superior in imaginative boldness. But- Northern Exposure characters, even if we include all fantasy trips, are “real”. Most of the characters’ dilemmas are convincing human experiences: envy, jealousy, love, aging, illness, snobbery, magnanimity, boredom, …. On the other hand, Twin Peaks’ characters & situations are not “real”. They are interesting & frequently impressive, but the entire atmosphere is surrealist & ineluctably a fantasy. There is no high culture content in Twin Peaks; Lynch’s work is that of a professional, master, but- he has no vision of life in Twin Peaks. All supposed Evil is a surrealist play: villains are not villains, psychos are not psychos; victims are not victims.

Twin Peaks is an orgy of visual mastery combined with low-level plotting. But it is a play to enjoy, not something deeper to absorb.

• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
TorontoTraveller says:
January 18, 2025 at 12:07 pm GMT • 100 Words
@theMann
Lynch believes in the presence of both good and evil, including pure evil, and an active conflict between the two in the realm of the physical and spiritual. For Lynch, Satan (or his equivalents) is not a concept, his is real.

You are right to be disgusted by some of Lynch’s material as he is depicting pure evil in some of its many forms. But that does not make him wrong.

And there is absolutely no question that Lynch is on the side of the angels. He just doesn’t shy away from the darkness and the confrontation with evil that man must accept.

He may be the most Christian non-Christian western man who has ever lived.

• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
MGB says:
January 18, 2025 at 12:27 pm GMT
@Anonymous
Lynch ‘borrowed’ the coffee scene in Mulholland Drive from Claire Denis’ Chocolat and the masturbation scene from Pedro Almodovar’s Matador.
Steve Sailer says: • Website
January 18, 2025 at 12:41 pm GMT
I’ve never seen a video in which an old male chimpanzee teaches a young male chimpanzee the way that John Ford teaches Steven Spielberg in this scene.

• LOL: Bardon Kaldian
• Replies: @Anon
, @Reg Cæsar
theMann says:
January 18, 2025 at 1:19 pm GMT
@Old Prude
You summed things up much better than I did.

Fundamentally, you go to the movies to have fun. I can’t imagine what kind of sick twist would have fun at a Lynch film……although making fun of his excrebly incompetent vesrion of Dune is fun.
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 18, 2025 at 1:39 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Liza
I wouldn’t agree. I liked “American Beauty”, although it was evidently tendentious- after all, it was a satire & satires are cartoons.

It had 3-5 good & entertaining scenes. A suburban midlife crisis guy (Spacey) finds a spiritual rejuvenation through pot & a wish to boink a teenage girl. Wife (Benning) is atrocious & daughter is psychologically repellent. True, the tendency is obvious- sympathetic characters are a gay couple (the director is gay), but- who cares in the end?

An average worn-out middle aged man, dried out of vitality and purpose by zombifying corporate machinery & a cheating wife who always puts you down would, I guess, find this all- entertaining.

• Replies: @Liza
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 18, 2025 at 1:41 pm GMT • 200 Words
@Bardon Kaldian
Having seen the original 90s Twin Peaks (but not the later stuff) and admired it a lot — or really, having admired the first 5 or 6 episodes a lot — I thought that Lynch made a foundational error in his conception of the show.

The show should not have been called “Twin Peaks,” it should have been called “Agent Cooper.” The subject of the show should have been Cooper: they should have wrapped up Laura Palmer’s murder in season one, and then for season two sent Cooper off on a new mission in a new locale. The other continuing thread should have been his ongoing struggle with different manifestations of “Bob.”

Twin Peaks the town was simply too eccentric to hold one’s serious attention for long. What would have been compelling was Cooper’s struggle with Bob. The “game” of each season should have been to try and identify who or where Bob was now hidden, and make it hard for the audience to figure it out.

• Agree: Bardon Kaldian
• Replies: @Another Polish Perspective
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 18, 2025 at 1:55 pm GMT • 100 Words
@TorontoTraveller
There is something in this, but- in my opinion- with qualifications. Lynch was, of course, culturally Christian. But his world-view was, judging from what we know, incoherent: on one hand, as a creative personality, he was a Manichee, not a Christian (I don’t see the need for a Savior in his scheme of the universe). But, he was also a neo-Vedantist (Lynch as man), so I’d say he truly believed in the reality of the supernatural Evil and Good, but without the Savior. Demons, angels,..do exist, but the overarching reality is impersonal Being, beyond good & evil, the supreme consciousness which is sat-chit-ananda (Being-Consciousness- Bliss).

I don’t know whether he harmonized these two world views in the way I wrote, or perhaps was simply content to hold two (or more) superficially conflicting world-views. Maybe Lynch was not aware of these contradictions.

• Thanks: Liza
Bragadocious says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:00 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Mark G.
I seem to recall a story from 2020 during the crazed early days of the “pandemic” where it was revealed that smoking might protect you from Covid. Nicotine, in particular, was found to be anti-inflammatory and a guardrail against the Cytokine storm that was killing people (along with ventilators and Remdesivir). The regime commissars didn’t like that story very much and so we never heard about it again. Just get the safe & effective and stop smoking!
Parbes says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:11 pm GMT
His movies were mostly vacuous content. If not for the sexy beautiful actresses, few would watch or care about them.
Peter Akuleyev says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:30 pm GMT • 100 Words
@YetAnotherAnon
Small town America definitely had its dark side in the 1950s. „Peyton Place“ was rooted in real New Hampshire small towns, and the author herself was no stranger to alcoholism and deranged affairs. I grew up in a small American town in the 1970s, plenty of weird shit went on. The principal of our high school used to do coke with his female students. Incest among the more impoverished families that lived at the end of dirt roads was a constant rumor. Domestic violence was just ignored. The death toll from car crashes in rural America is also ridiculous. 3 of my high school classmates died before age 25, which is 3% mortality. My wife’s high school class in rural PA was just as bad. It’s probably safer statistically to grow up in NYC. The „nicest“ places to live in America are affluent suburbs in my experience.

• Replies: @JMcG
, @Alan Mercer
deep anonymous says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:34 pm GMT
@Liza
Don’t recall where I read this, but I am pretty sure the combination of heavy drinking plus cigarette smoking has a (bad) synergistic effect, leading to cancers of the throat, larynx, esophagus, etc.
Peter Akuleyev says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:36 pm GMT
@Steve Sailer
That’s an interesting metaphor for Europe and African/Middle Eastern Immigration. I wonder how Lynch felt about that.

• Replies: @Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
, @AnotherDad
deep anonymous says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:40 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Liza
Jews tend to be overrepresented in the film business and also tend to have severe phobias surrounding small-town America and flyover country generally. I suspect a lot of this “dark underbelly” stuff is simply the fears and projections of the largely Jewish creators of these tropes. But it also is undeniable that a lot of trendy White wannabe-Jews have internalized this same mindset and propagate it.

• Agree: Mike Tre
• Replies: @Corvinus
Rahuthedotard says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:43 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
Your handle says it all. The best counter-argument was written by the author of Human, All Too Human:

“History teaches us that that part of a people maintains itself best whose members generally share a vital public spirit, due to the similarity of their long-standing, incontrovertible principles, that is, of their common faith. In their case, good, sound custom strengthens them; they are taught to subordinate the individual, and their character is given solidity, at first innately and later through education. The danger in these strong communities, founded on similar, steadfast individual members, is an increasing, inherited stupidity, which follows all stability like a shadow. In such communities, spiritual progress depends on those individuals who are less bound, much less certain, and morally weaker; they are men who try new things, and many different things.”

My heart is with the Lynches of this world.
Loyalty is The First Law of Morality says:
January 18, 2025 at 3:50 pm GMT
@Peter Akuleyev
Meanwhile, you could hitchhike across America in the 1950s.

• Replies: @obwandiyag
, @Peter Akuleyev
, @Buzz Mohawk
Onebelowall says:
January 18, 2025 at 4:40 pm GMT
Don’t look away. Let the fear wash over you.
Dmon says:
January 18, 2025 at 5:43 pm GMT • 200 Words
@Old Prude
Occasionally, there’s an upside. When my daughter was a tween, some of the kids at school started getting tattoos, and she asked if she could get one. One day a while later, we were going into a store and this aging blond woman came out. She had the raisin skin of former beach bunnies, and it looked like she had probably recently lost about 50 lbs., because the skin of her upper arms was hanging in big, sagging droops of flesh. Said droops were covered in tattoos, indistinct blurs of color which looked utterly ridiculous and utterly repulsive all at once, as if Hieronymus Bosch and Jackson Pollack had collaborated on a movie poster for Bride of Betelgeuse. I nudged my daughter, pointed, and said in a loud voice, “That’s why you can’t have a tattoo”. My daughter got a saucer-eyed look of horror on her face, and she never again showed any interest in getting a tattoo.

• Thanks: Mr. Anon
AnotherDad says:
January 18, 2025 at 6:39 pm GMT • 500 Words
@Loyalty is The First Law of Morality

Overall life expectancy is down. Now some of that is Covid related. It peaked in 2014, a decade ago, then it declined for a few years and flatlined.

Yes, and as other commenters have pointed out there is a major negative trend with fentanyl. And younger people are just way more likely to be obese than previous generations.

But yeah, maybe it’s not up to your brilliant post-boomer expectations: “I can smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish and scarf down gianomous sugar blobs like a complete bozo and carry around 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds of fat … and why aren’t you guys saving me!”

Boomers are infantile. They still react like angry teenagers.

Yes, some boomers are infantile. The keyword “some”. As I’ve pointed out, generations are huge fairly random collections of people, who only share particular cultural/economic influences of their time. If you analysis of the crisis is generational, worse some pouty “daddy did this to me!” then you are not only wrong, you’re already lost.

In this case, you are the one being infantile here.

Several commenters have pointed out that there are several issues which have stopped the gain in life expectancy. Fentanyl for starters, but the obesity, metabolic syndrome issues and others from a poor diet (food cooked with seed oils, likely another factor). Now for some of this poor public health information is definitely a factor. The whole “low fat” and carb heavy–“eat veggies and lots of grains”–prescription that was pushed in the late 20th century was just wrong. Americans are fat more because of a bagel and muffin and soda problem, not a bacon and eggs problem. But even those clowns didn’t tell people “ok to be fat!” much less “smoke weed all day” or “try some fentanyl”.

But rather than engage with that, you wave away all the actually useful “get your shit together” stuff which is rather obviously the main issue–at least pre-covid–with the decline in life expectancy and claim the its the medical system. As if suddenly in 2014 the docs and nurses and hospitals got notably less competent at tackling cancer and heart disease. This is frankly ridiculous. Crappy docs nor greedy hospitals didn’t kill George Floyd, George Floyd did. Our medical system is no doubt more expensive than it could be. But medical knowledge and practice continue to slowly improve. Our public health has gotten worse.

What’s going on in society–including these negative trends in health and life expectancy–is important. But if you then cough up some bogus answer and ignore the actual social/behavioral problems, their drivers (personal and social), how they could be fixed and how people could help themselves … then all your quacking is at minimum pointless, if anything it is noise that makes it harder to get people’s attention and turn things around.

• Replies: @Mr. Anon
, @obwandiyag
, @Anonymous
, @Reg Cæsar
, @Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
, @Mactoul
Wielgus says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:06 pm GMT • 100 Words
I once went to a Lynch all-nighter, Saturday night to Sunday morning. Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. I felt rather strange when I left the cinema in the morning. I had a couple of late-night beers which certainly added to the experience.
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:12 pm GMT • 100 Words
Also a respectful shoutout to friends across the pond for their losing their own thespian, Dame Joan Plowright, who passed on 1.16. Wife of Sir Laurence Olivier, and a star of stage and screen, she was well received in her day, and certainly was probably just as impactful as Lynch in the Entertainment field in her native land.
Mr. Anon says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:28 pm GMT • 300 Words
@AnotherDad

Several commenters have pointed out that there are several issues which have stopped the gain in life expectancy. Fentanyl for starters, but the obesity, metabolic syndrome issues and others from a poor diet (food cooked with seed oils, likely another factor). Now for some of this poor public health information is definitely a factor.

Microplastics may also be a culprit. That stuff has gotten into the food-chain. Moreover, people get a direct dose of them from plastic utensils, cutting-boards, packaging (if you have to cut into it), etc.

The whole “low fat” and carb heavy–“eat veggies and lots of grains”–prescription that was pushed in the late 20th century was just wrong.

And most doctors never questioned that, did they? They were also pushing the carb-heavy diet, as embodied in the “food pyramid”, that the USDA (and Archer Daniels Midland) told us was healthy.

Most doctors are conformists. A lot of doctors aren’t very good.

Crappy docs nor greedy hospitals didn’t kill George Floyd, George Floyd did. Our medical system is no doubt more expensive than it could be. But medical knowledge and practice continue to slowly improve. Our public health has gotten worse.

Even before COVID, it was estimated that one third of hospital deaths were iatrogenic, i.e. those people died BECAUSE they went to a hospital. I suspect that it was higher during COVID – that a lot of the deaths registered as COVID deaths were due to the aggressive use of ventilators (and Propafol) and Remdesivir.

Doctors have largely become pill-pushers. They treat life-style diseases with drugs because it’s profitable or convenient. The public health profession destroyed its credibility during COVID. Utterly destroyed it. The balance of the medical profession didn’t exactly cover itself with glory either. They lost a lot of the respect that they previously had. They aren’t getting it back.

• Agree: Mike Tre, deep anonymous, Mark G., Achmed E. Newman
Liza says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:37 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Bardon Kaldian
Well, Bardon, nonwhite, mixed race and none-too-blonde-type white people also have midlife crises which cause them to act crazy and/or immoral. They too have goofy wives and daughters. Yet all the undesirables in A.B. are whiter than white.

What – only white folks deserve to be the subjects of unkind, ultracritical satire?

A reply from you would be welcome. 🙂

• Thanks: Mike Tre
• Replies: @bomag
, @Bardon Kaldian
, @Lurker
, @Truth
Mark G. says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:39 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Liza
“Didn’t someone recently say that even modest consumption of liquor promotes cancer?”

There are over twenty three thousand studies on wine and health and the results are still inconclusive. It could be small amounts of something is good for you but large amounts is bad for you. I once read someone died from vitamin A poisoning from drinking huge amounts of carrot juice.

If it is uncertain something is bad for you like wine, I will not avoid it but also will not overindulge. I will also look for a more healthy form of something. For example, butter from grassfed cows has more healthy fats like omega 3s and CLA so I buy that instead of regular butter.

• Agree: Yojimbo/Zatoichi
• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
obwandiyag says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:42 pm GMT
David Lynch sucks. Typical All-American frat-boy degeneracy.

And you dumbass, self-contradictory asses love him. Pathetic.

• LOL: Jenner Ickham Errican
AnotherDad says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:43 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Peter Akuleyev

That’s an interesting metaphor for Europe and African/Middle Eastern Immigration. I wonder how Lynch felt about that.

A striking thing is that there have been basically no movies/TV really taking on the crisis–the meltdown–of the West, while we get yet another comic book sequel, the 439th holocaust pic, and finger wagging lessons about “racism” and “intolerance” jammed in everywhere (and now with blacks! more blacks!). “Idiocracy” was one of the few movies I can think of that even touched on a sliver of this–the easiest sliver.

Obviously, Hollyweird has a lot to do with that. But that’s not all of it.

“Artists” love to pretend that they are “bold”, “daring”, “insightful”, but I don’t see it. What I see is usually more like “boring”, “juvenile”, “noise making”, “tedious”, “repetitive” and sometimes “ugly”. Actual insight is uncommon. Really being “bold” is rare anomaly.

• Agree: Gordo, Yojimbo/Zatoichi
• Replies: @deep anonymous
, @Mr. Anon
, @Bardon Kaldian
, @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
obwandiyag says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:44 pm GMT
@AnotherDad
Stress is another cause. And lack of proper health care. And vaccinations. And loneliness. And despair. Do not think that, just because it sounds archaic, people do not pine away.
obwandiyag says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:46 pm GMT
@Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
Stress is another cause of lowered life expectancy. And lack of proper health care. And vaccinations. And loneliness. And despair. Do not think that, just because it sounds archaic, people do not pine away.
Mr. Anon says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:46 pm GMT • 300 Words
@Liza

Remember that stupid film American Beauty for just one example? Full of caricatures right from the first minute. What a piece of crap.

I agree. I saw it in the theater and remember thinking that while I was watching it. It’s pretty ridiculous the way that Hollywood continues to churn out movies about how straight-laced and repressed American society is. Do they live here? Have they never driven down an interstate in rural America and seen the huge billboards advertising the porno and sex-toy stores (next exit!). Have they never been to a formerly suburban strip-mall now filled with vape shops and tattoo parlors? Have then never been to a Target or Walmart and seen the slovenly mobs of people, the pierced, tattooed, and purple haired weirdos, the white baby-mommas, or white grandparents with mulatto grandchildren in tow? Have they never heard the radio ads employing sexual inuendo, the coarse and salacious banter on TV, seen the TV ads for Herpes treatments? They act like it’s still the 1950s.

Repressive, straight-laced America? Yeah, I wish!

That said, I view Lynch’s movies in a different light. Blue Velvet showed the fascination with the dark underbelly of life, but it also showed it to be sick, deviant, and repellant. In the end, the Kyle MacLachan character returns to the straight and narrow and the day is saved by the square policeman in their square coats and ties. And I don’t think that Lynch intended that to be ironic either. He seemed to have a real fondness for square America, even as he indulged his fascination with the weird. But I could be wrong. I was never a fan of Lynch and so never saw more than a couple of his movies (Blue Velvet and Dune)

• Replies: @Liza
Anonymous[256] • Disclaimer says:
January 18, 2025 at 7:57 pm GMT • 200 Words
@AnotherDad
I agree completely with your main point. But to nitpick once again, there’s nothing wrong with “veggies and lots of grains” or “seed oils” for most European-descended people. No one is getting fat because they include too much home-cooked lentil soup in their diet. My parents were strict vegetarians (not vegans) and 0% of their circle was obese. That is because they avoided the actual problem of extremely convenient, calorie-dense, unsatiating foods. True, that includes plenty of high-carb cheap-oil-infused junk food, but also things like fried chicken, ice cream out of the carton, and yes, inflated portions of meat.

I’m not a strict vegetarian now, but I still eat a traditional “peasant food” type of diet most of the time: no convenience food crap but lots of legumes, oatmeal, and FRESH vegetables (veggies have lots of fiber and require lots of chewing, unlike spices which are really a hack to trick your brain into thinking that your food is fresher and more nutritious than it actually is). When I eat more conventional low-bulk low-vegetable food, I notice how much harder it is to tell how much I’ve eaten–it just doesn’t result in the same sensation of fullness. It also takes way faster: unlike vegetable soup, 1000 calories of hot dog go down in a couple minutes without even thinking about it.

• Agree: fish
deep anonymous says:
January 18, 2025 at 8:09 pm GMT • 100 Words
@AnotherDad

“Artists” love to pretend that they are “bold”, “daring”, “insightful”, but I don’t see it. What I see is usually more like “boring”, “juvenile”, “noise making”, “tedious”, “repetitive” and sometimes “ugly”. Actual insight is uncommon. Really being “bold” is rare anomaly.

What I see is a herd of conformists. Sort of the same spirit that animates “journalism” nowadays.
Mr. Anon says:
January 18, 2025 at 8:23 pm GMT • 200 Words
@AnotherDad

A striking thing is that there have been basically no movies/TV really taking on the crisis–the meltdown–of the West, while we get yet another comic book sequel, the 439th holocaust pic, and finger wagging lessons about “racism” and “intolerance” jammed in everywhere (and now with blacks! more blacks!). “Idiocracy” was one of the few movies I can think of that even touched on a sliver of this–the easiest sliver.

I just saw an ad for a new movie about the attack on the Israeli Olympic team in Munich in 1972, September 5 – the second in 20 years, if you include Munich. There was also a movie released about six years ago about the raid on Entebbe in 1976.

Still no movie about the USS Liberty. Funny how that works. People will say – have said here – that nobody would want to see it. Really? Actually, I bet a lot of people would go see such a movie.

• Agree: JMcG
• Replies: @Mike Tre
Gordo says:
January 18, 2025 at 8:26 pm GMT
@anonymous
Its the respirators that killed people.
Anonymous[336] • Disclaimer says:
January 18, 2025 at 8:45 pm GMT • 400 Words
@Steve Sailer
Twin Peaks series are TV and doesn’t count as cinema.

Still, they’re important to Lynch’s reputation as an artist.

The first Twin Peaks was an aborted project because he went off to do Wild at Heart.
Maybe Lynch took on that project as a lark with some vague but potent ideas in his head. The fact that he quit halfway suggests he didn’t take it too seriously, especially as TV was still to movies as an art form back tehn. It was later that TV overtook movies as the favored format among ‘mature’ audiences.

So, while the first Twin Peaks had potential and lots of interesting ideas, Lynch didn’t see it through.

But later, emboldened by the critical and cult success of Mulholland Dr and the emergence of TV as a serious medium(and greater artistic possibilities owing to wider/larger screens and finer resolution), Lynch likely returned to the material with renewed commitment. Also, it took years before Lynch realized how rich the material really was, something that could be mined for real treasure(or plutonium).

So, what the first Twin Peaks only suggested, the second Twin Peaks fulfilled as it is one of Lynch’s finest achievements. But it’s not cinema.

Very Lynch-like, he took a dream into a nightmare, then dragged the dream out of the nightmare, only to end with a nightmare.
Atomic test in Twin Peaks 2 suggests a crucial turning point in humanity, with history since then being a kind of radioactive fallout, materially and spiritually. A pandora’s box that unleashed darkness on the world. In a way, the heroic agent’s unconscious role is to restore a piece of the world prior to the Bomb, but you can’t home again, just like no amount of dreaming by Diane Selwyn in Mulholland Dr. can restore the world before the murder or make real her fantasies.

Lucas’ American Graffiti is a nice movie and Star Wars as a blast, but they are within conventional expectations. He did very well what had already been established by others. One could make a case for THX 1138, but he didn’t follow through on his experimental potential.

In contrast, Eraserhead and Mulholland Dr aren’t merely cases of formulas Lynch did better than others but are uniquely Lynchian, something that wouldn’t exist and couldn’t have been conceived of without him.
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 18, 2025 at 8:52 pm GMT • 200 Words
@AnotherDad
It’s worse. You have- I heard- a film 2 years ago, directed by Polish-Jewish Agnieszka Holland pontificating about callousness of the West to some poor immigrant Muslims.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Border

Green Border

Green Border (Polish: Zielona granica) is a 2023 drama film directed by Agnieszka Holland. The film is written by Holland, Gabriela Łazarkiewicz-Sieczko, and Maciej Pisuk, and stars an ensemble cast that includes Jalal Altawil, Maja Ostaszewska, Behi Djanati Atai, Tomasz Włosok, Mohamad Al Rashi, Dalia Naous, Maciej Stuhr, and Agata Kulesza. It dramatizes the plight of migrants caught in the Belarus–European Union border crisis. The film was an international co-production between companies in Poland, Czech Republic, France, and Belgium.

The film competed for the Golden Lion at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize. It received positive reviews from critics but was condemned by Polish government officials and by some segments of the wider Polish nation.
……………………..
Polish government response

Government ministers

Green Border was consistently criticised by ministers from the Law and Justice-led Second Cabinet of Mateusz Morawiecki:

* Zbigniew Ziobro, Minister of Justice, condemned the film ahead of its Venice premiere, writing on X that “In the Third Reich, the Germans produced propaganda films showing Poles as bandits and murderers. Today they have Agnieszka Holland for that.” In a subsequent Radio Maryja interview, Ziobro further condemned Holland as having made herself part of Russian propaganda and disinformation and as “preparing a film that distorts the image and shows Poland from the worst angle.”[35] Some time after Holland announced that she would be suing him, Ziobro used a wPolscePL interview to make new comments, stating that his earlier comments were made deliberately, they were “exactly what I think”, and he would not back down from them. In reference to Holland’s threats to sue, Ziobro stated that the Last Judgement took precedence over any eventual court judgement and went on to accuse her of “reduc[ing] Polish soldiers [and] border guard officers to the level of criminals and sadists” and of hypocritically comparing these and the Polish government to Nazis. He did, however, say that his comments were less about the film itself and more about Holland’s views as expressed in interviews about the film, as well as admitting he had yet to see the film in person. When a court injunction was issued to prevent him from making further comparisons of Holland and her film to Nazi propaganda, he denounced it as an “assault on freedom of expression” and said that the judgement enabled Holland to “compare Polish soldiers and the border guard officers to bandits, sadists and German Nazis” while not allowing him to “respond to her words by standing up for the Polish soldiers and border guard officers who are so horribly challenged and insulted by her.”

* Mariusz Kamiński, Minister of the Interior and Administration, branded the film as a “brutal attack on Polish uniformed officers [who are] defending not only Poland but also Europe” and as “consciously manipulat[ing] our emotions”. In a later TVP Info interview, Kamiński claimed that the film was “a presentation of Holland’s political views that has nothing to do with reality”, that it was “intellectually dishonest and morally shameful”, and that it downplayed the Belarusian angle. Kamiński stated his intention to make a further statement once the film had had its Polish premiere where “[the government] will show how this is a deceitful picture, this isn’t an existent reality”.

* Stanisław Żaryn, Secretary of State at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland and Government Plenipotentiary for the Security of Information Space, claimed that the film was repeating narratives presented in Russian and Belarusian propaganda, that said Belarusian propaganda was delighted by the film, and that the film was falsely painting Poland as condemning refugees to die…
Reg Cæsar says:
January 18, 2025 at 9:34 pm GMT
@AnotherDad

In this case, you are the one being infantile here.

Never Boomers like this are just a broader version of Never Trumpers. Art Modell came up with a reply for such (to his mind) types 50 years ago:

https://twitter.com/EmusementPark/status/1880314721498472807/photo/1
JMcG says:
January 18, 2025 at 9:54 pm GMT
@Peter Akuleyev
The Wonder Years.
Peter Akuleyev says:
January 18, 2025 at 10:25 pm GMT
@Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
As long as you didn’t get in a car with Ed Gein.

The 1950s were a heyday for serial killers. That might have inspired Lynch as well.

• Replies: @Anonymous
, @Bardon Kaldian
, @Reg Cæsar
, @Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
YetAnotherAnon says:
January 18, 2025 at 10:54 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Bardon Kaldian
““Dark underbelly” of superficially idyllic provincial life is a cliche in virtually all European films.”

To be fair to TV and film writers, crime in the more enriched parts of our countries does tend to be (as Tom Wolfe’s prosecutors pointed out in “Bonfire”) one pos offing another pos, which, while it might make some kind of grim entertainment, would be racist to depict.

Even in pre-enrichment days, the British generally preferred Agatha Christie to Mickey Spillane.

Two of the most successful UK crime shows of the last 30 years, Inspector Morse and Midsomer Murders, feature death in Oxford’s dreaming spires and rural English villages.

• Replies: @Art Deco
Anonymous[233] • Disclaimer says:
January 19, 2025 at 12:39 am GMT • 100 Words
@Peter Akuleyev
It is silly to act like Ed Gein was normal or something that virtually anyone needed to worry about. Like most serial killers, he picked on hookers and was literally one in a million So no, that didn’t show some depraved underbelly of 1950s America.

It would be like saying Jack the Ripper tells us everything we need to know about Victorian England.

You guys just have a hatred for traditional America.

• Agree: kaganovitch
• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
Mark G. says:
January 19, 2025 at 12:54 am GMT • 100 Words
Off topic- newly elected Indiana Republican governor Mike Braun, who I voted for, just issued some executive orders. First, he eliminated DEI initiatives in the state government and replaced them with MEI: merit, excellence, and innovation. Second, he ended full time remote work for state employees that was put in effect five years ago, returning to a pre-pandemic status. Third, he eliminated a college degree requirement for a number of state government jobs. Because of creeping credentialism, many young people have to go deeply in debt to get a college degree in order to get jobs that used to be done by non-college graduates.

Before becoming governor, Braun was a senator. I considered him then to be one of our four best senators along with Rand Paul, Mike Lee and J.D. Vance.

• Thanks: JMcG
• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
, @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 19, 2025 at 1:46 am GMT
@Peter Akuleyev
Gein was actually not a serial killer, he killed only two women, both of them not sadistically; he was not a predator.

Just a deranged collector of human remains.
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 19, 2025 at 1:48 am GMT
@Mark G.

MEI: merit, excellence, and innovation

Great news for Shaniquas & DeSheetaviouses of Indiana.

• Replies: @kaganovitch
Joe Stalin says:
January 19, 2025 at 2:10 am GMT • 100 Words

Minnesota, you also have terrible self defense laws. William Kirk discusses an immensely important bill kicking around in the state capitol right now, SF76, which would clearly define Minnesota’s self defense laws and their citizens duties to retreat. This would be much more that what the citizens currently have which is the product of the legislature relinquishing some of Constitutional duties to the judiciary.

The Washington Supreme Court heard oral argument about the state’s ban on so-called large capacity magazines.

• Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Anonymous[109] • Disclaimer says:
January 19, 2025 at 3:26 am GMT
You people’s movie taste is so up your ass it calls into question everything else you profess.

• LOL: Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 19, 2025 at 3:31 am GMT • 700 Words
@AnotherDad
And the question further to ask, is, regarding David Lynch, how exactly did his films address or explore the issues (e.g. the Great Replacement, for example, and other societal issues facing the West at large)?

Did Lynch offer an actual coherent solution in his films? Of course not. Aside from many high level critics who determine what is and is not considered “artistic”, if we actually take noticing to its conclusion, one can safely say that most of David Lynch’s resume will be forgotten within 15 yrs (especially since most of his films did not turn a significant profit; in point of fact most of his films flopped).

One could concede this basic common sense fact, namely, that Lynch’s films, from a commercial standpoint, weren’t all that. The response will be, “but ah! All the film students for the last few decades ARE directly influenced by Lynch’s directorial techniques, themes that he explored in film, etc etc. AND current film students or the filmmakers of tomorrow will continue to learn from Lynch and promote the techniques that he helped to pioneer, whatever they are or were.”

Perhaps this is indeed the case. However. Uh, WHAT exactly are the themes that are currently being promoted by mainstream Hollywood, or those specific filmmakers that claim Lynch as a direct influence on their work? And, are these films contributing to the overall uplift and offering positive solutions to help the US out of its societal malaise? Or is the visual reflections on the big screen only getting worse and worse, an more nihilistic with no direction to help the nation out of its problems?

Until actually looking over Lynch’s films and how they did financially during this past week, I was pretty astonished to see that most of his films lost money and/or flopped at the box office. During his career, Lynch’s films were not synonymous with box office hits.

This isn’t always the filmmakers fault. However, if this pattern repeatedly continues throughout their careers, then it isn’t mere coincidence either. For the longest time (or most of the 20th century, the first part of his career), Martin Scorsese had very few certified box office hits. During the 21st century he has managed to turn this abysmal record around, due in no small part to having worked with Leonardo DiCaprio (as well as other current bona fide Hollywood box office stars). But the fact that Lynch worked with Alisters (who had box office hits at the time they worked with Lynch) and yet when they appeared in a Lynch film, the film flopped goes vs the idea that it’s not the filmmaker’s responsibility that their projects flopped. Uh, yes it is…especially IF the various actors’ other works around the same period did very well at the box office.

So having observed and read the various reviews of Lynch’s films, I still am mystified why he had an actual career for as long as he did, especially when the vast majority of his films did not turn a profit.

Perhaps its, translation: Lynch created his films for himself primarily and for the critics, but certainly he wasn’t so gouche as to make them for the public at large.

Even the video at the beginning of Steve’s post that he made for Chris Isaak flopped big time. When it was remade by Erik Jacobsen, it became a runaway smash and one of MTV’s most iconic videos ever produced in the 20th century.

Google AI? Do you have anything to add about this?

“Isaak has said that the video’s success was due to Christensen’s acting and Ritts’ direction”

NOTICE: Isaak did NOT credit Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” film which featured the song, or Lynch at all (perhaps because the film flopped in the US, whereas the remade video was a runaway smash hit and helped to sell the song).

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
, @clifford brown
, @Jamie B.
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 19, 2025 at 3:50 am GMT
@Mark G.
Well, then all the best as well as the luck to IN’s new governor.
Corvinus says:
January 19, 2025 at 4:03 am GMT • 100 Words
@deep anonymous
“Jews tend to be overrepresented in the film business”

Or perhaps they just have a knack and talent, with the cream riding to the top. So are you tacitly endorsing a quota?

“and also tend to have severe phobias surrounding small-town America and flyover country generally.”

This is YOUR projection.

“But it also is undeniable that a lot of trendy White wannabe-Jews have internalized this same mindset and propagate it”

It is undeniable you have a Jew fetish. Then again, so does Mr. Sailer.

• Replies: @Mr. Anon
Jim Don Bob says:
January 19, 2025 at 4:08 am GMT • 100 Words
@theMann

At least its body of work remains; same as Opera or Live theater, The New sucks, but the Classics endure.

Very true of opera. The new stuff blows dead dogs. The travails of gay black boxers and sheeit.

Tosca, otoh, debuted in 1900. I saw it last Sunday at the Met in NYC. Bryn Terfel sang Scarpia and it was superb.

• Agree: kaganovitch
Mr. Anon says:
January 19, 2025 at 4:36 am GMT • 100 Words
@Corvinus

“Jews tend to be overrepresented in the film business”

Or perhaps they just have a knack and talent, with the cream riding to the top. So are you tacitly endorsing a quota?

Yeah – knack and talent – that explains Seth Rogan. They clearly are “overrepresented” in a purely statistical sense. Only a nitwit like you would deny that.

“and also tend to have severe phobias surrounding small-town America and flyover country generally.”

This is YOUR projection.

What a load of crap. Have you ever seen some of what they put in movies? Outright seething hostility directed at rural goyim. It’s the old Stetl/Cossack s**t transferred to the new country.

Either you’re just an idiot who’s too stupid to see it, or a d**khead who’s too deceitful to admit it.

Either way, you’re an odious piece of garbage.

• Thanks: deep anonymous
Mr. Anon says:
January 19, 2025 at 4:41 am GMT • 100 Words
OT – Well, it only took five years:

US Suspends EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak After COVID-19 Evidence Uncovered By House Committee

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-suspends-ecohealth-alliance-peter-daszak-after-covid-19-evidence-uncovered-house

Daszak and EcoDeath Alliance are now debarred from federal contracting. That’s only a start. Prosecute Daszak and, more importantly, Fauci for negligent homicide – about a million counts of it. A real criminal prosecution with jail time as the penalty. And sue EHA into oblivion.

These a**holes need to pay, and pay dearly, for what they did.

• Agree: Jim Don Bob
• Replies: @kaganovitch
JohnnyWalker123 says:
January 19, 2025 at 4:53 am GMT

Reading population projections from 1966. "Net immigration is assumed to amount to 400,000 per year… 367,000 whites and 33,000 nonwhites… Reasonable alternative assumptions relating to net immigration would not have a great impact on the population projections." pic.twitter.com/K6WVOY9bCh

— arctotherium (@arctotherium42) January 18, 2025

• Thanks: Achmed E. Newman
kaganovitch says:
January 19, 2025 at 5:42 am GMT
@Achmed E. Newman
Sounds like a movement that will turn into a ‘spiritual retreat’ racket in Cali. complete with an ashram and sex scandals. Looking forward to it.

• Replies: @Achmed E. Newman
Loyalty is The First Law of Morality says:
January 19, 2025 at 5:44 am GMT • 300 Words
@AnotherDad
Some folks in your family in the med business?

Anyway, I am not arguing that doctors shouldn’t be well payed (and boy, they are, better than ever). And I’m not arguing that hospitals shouldn’t make money (and boy do they).

But I’ve had experience with our medical system and it isn’t all that impressive, except in certain high-end speciality areas. First off, most of the staff are pretty unimpressive – I mean nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, etc, etc. I knew women who became R.N.s They were not smart.

I think this has changed from decades ago. R.N.s used to smart. I don’t know what’s going on but they aren’t that impressive except for a few nurses in the operating rooms and sometimes ICU.

Then there are lots of dialysis places that hold people’s hands as they slow die over a few years. Not much improvement in two decades. I remember seeing hospital rooms 25 years ago. At the time I was impressed. It’s pretty much the same stuff today.

People are kicked out of the hospital faster than ever, barely given a chance to recover. Not exactly the doctors fault, but it is a new feature of the system (and not just because of germs). Heck, even nurses agree that it’s been forever since there were major breakthroughs.

And again, we spent $40 trillion over the last decade for health care that isn’t much better than what was available in 1997. There are some improvements in targeted cancer treatments. And a ton of stuff for the HIV folks. But it seems to me you would want more for the next $50 trillion we spend by 2035 than status quo.

The real hope comes not from the current medical establishment, but from gene therapies.

But I will say, you seem like a good person to sell a used car to.

• Replies: @jsm
Reg Cæsar says:
January 19, 2025 at 5:47 am GMT • 100 Words
@Peter Akuleyev

As long as you didn’t get in a car with Ed Gein.

At least he wasn’t a kleuterneuker, a fun Dutch alternative term for “pedophile”. One Raisa Blommestijn was sued by a politician to whom she applied the epithet. Worse yet, she was prosecuted for using the term negroïde primaat– which I shouldn’t need to translate– for individuals involved in a beating. She had to do 80 hours of “community service”, whatever that might be.

In today’s Orwellian Europe, to tell the truth is a crime

‘Raisa Blommestijn cannot simply say whatever she wants as a journalist’

She’s only 30 (named after Mrs Gorby?) and quite the looker. Should her career tank, she might have made a killing on OnlyFans. I hear that’s tanking, too, though.
Buzz Mohawk says:
January 19, 2025 at 6:03 am GMT
@Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
Well, I hitchhiked around in the four corners region in the 1970s. I guess I was lucky not to get killed.

(The Navajos were nice.)
kaganovitch says:
January 19, 2025 at 6:19 am GMT
@Bardon Kaldian

No much difference in dying when you are 78 or 82.

Is that a comment on the Biden administration?
Mactoul says:
January 19, 2025 at 7:27 am GMT
@AnotherDad
If problem is seed oils then low-fat is actually good. Because low-fat implies low seed oil.

But donuts and muffins are not low-fat.

• Replies: @Mike Tre
Renard says:
January 19, 2025 at 8:00 am GMT • 100 Words
@The Germ Theory of Disease
Happened across your remarks about Arshile Gorky in another thread. Responding here because that thread is sorta stale by now. You called his suicide note the best ever! Naturally I went searching for it but could find nothing more than wiki:

Gorky was found hanged in his barn studio. On a nearby wooden crate he had written “Goodbye My Loveds”.

Is that what you were referring to?

[MORE]

Knowing your obsession with celebrity stories — and against my better judgment — I’ll point out that I’m only one degree separated from the artist. Hard to believe really. I have some crude old Polaroids of the two paintings he left with us, which were later auctioned by my grandparents through Sotheby’s. I can’t find them online; maybe I’ll scan them in some time.

• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 19, 2025 at 10:02 am GMT • 100 Words
@Mark G.
“It could be small amounts of something is good for you but large amounts is bad for you. I once read someone died from vitamin A poisoning from drinking huge amounts of carrot juice.”

Too much Vitamin A will kill you.
So don’t eat a polar bear’s liver.

— the late, great Reza Abdoh, “Minamata”

• Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Loyalty is The First Law of Morality says:
January 19, 2025 at 10:32 am GMT • 100 Words
@Peter Akuleyev
The heyday for serial killers in the 1950s was in the USSR. And later in China. But they were not hidden figures, they were the supreme leaders.

Anyone who can’t tell the difference between living in Stalin’s country vs 1950s America, should be taught the lesson in the most extreme manner.
Another Polish Perspective says:
January 19, 2025 at 11:09 am GMT • 100 Words
@The Germ Theory of Disease
“Twin” (two) Peaks are another incarnation of two towers which adorn the city of Cain according to the Book of Genesis. BTW, the Red [Blood] Room of Twin Peaks is pretty masonic.

In some way, the deal with Satan which Cain made is this dark surrealist lining/atmosphere of many of Lynch movies being breathed by characters, who often engage in some unclear promises/deals too.

The greater part of Lynch movies should be placed on the same shelf as Polanski’s satanic movies or Parker’s “Harry Angel”.

• Replies: @Another Polish Perspective
Another Polish Perspective says:
January 19, 2025 at 11:42 am GMT • 100 Words
@Another Polish Perspective
Is Alan Parker’s “Harry Angel”, a story of a man who made a deal with Satan but does not know it anymore, an allegory of America?
Lynch movies are a bit like that, but without blacks.
In “Harry Angel”, blacks with their vodoo are “natural” minions of Satan, also raising the white Johnny Favourite [America – the favourite nation of Satan?] with their music as star.

• Replies: @Another Polish Perspective
, @JMcG
Another Polish Perspective says:
January 19, 2025 at 11:50 am GMT
@Another Polish Perspective
And in reality, blacks raised America, building her cotton empire.

• LOL: Mike Tre
the one they call Desanex says:
January 19, 2025 at 12:11 pm GMT
My favorite David Lynch movie was Dune. I thought the whole movie was beautiful. My favorite version was the two-part TV miniseries version (the one directed by Alan Smithee).
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 19, 2025 at 12:42 pm GMT
@Loyalty is The First Law of Morality

If you like Lynch, Google “sprockets germany’s most disturbing home videos”

Fittingly on topic, that classic skit guest-starred Kyle MacLachlan. Comedy gold.
Art Deco says:
January 19, 2025 at 1:04 pm GMT
@YetAnotherAnon
The perpetrator is invariably some facially harmless local bourgeois, often female. Except in those episodes when the screenwriters want to stick it to the English gentry.
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 19, 2025 at 1:46 pm GMT
@Anonymous
“You people’s movie taste is so up your ass it calls into question everything else you profess.”

Okay, so then please direct us to some examples of movies which show good artistic judgement and good taste.
Mike Tre says:
January 19, 2025 at 2:01 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Mr. Anon
No movies about the Bolshevik Revolution, the Holomodor, the Purges, the Pitesti Gulag (or the gulags in general), Lenin, Trotsky, only one serious movie about Stalin.. and I guess the the Rothschild family financial dynasty is just too boring and lacking in strange and eccentric members to ever bother looking at.

• Agree: Mr. Anon
Mike Tre says:
January 19, 2025 at 2:22 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Mactoul
Seed oils contain omega 6 fatty acids, while things like cold liver oil and olive oil contain omega 3 fatty acids. The problem with O6s (the body needs it but only a fraction of what most people consume daily) is that they promote inflammation throughout the body, which has been proven to be a significant factor in a whole host of chronic illnesses.

Fatty acids are similar to electrolytes in that it is crucial to balance their intake. A majority of people take in too much O6 and too much sodium* relative to their intake of O3 and potassium.

*In the case of sodium as it relates to BP, doctors tell everyone to lower their sodium intake when in reality what they need to do is triple (or more) their potassium intake. Man tip: Bacon is relatively high in potassium. You’re welcome.

• Agree: Mark G.
JMcG says:
January 19, 2025 at 2:33 pm GMT
@Another Polish Perspective
Sounds like Angle Heart. Is one a remake of the other?

• Replies: @Another Polish Perspective
bomag says:
January 19, 2025 at 3:29 pm GMT
@Liza

What – only white folks deserve to be the subjects of unkind, ultracritical satire?

Hollywood is so racialized = only Whites acceptable for such roles.

More White Man’s Burden.

• Thanks: Liza
Alan Mercer says:
January 19, 2025 at 3:36 pm GMT
@Peter Akuleyev

1970s… impoverished families that lived at the end of dirt roads

lol, back when anyone could afford a cul-de-sac
Mike Tre says:
January 19, 2025 at 3:43 pm GMT
OT – So as most of us here have known for some time, Joe Biden has not been in charge of the US in any real capacity since he took office, and now Speaker Mike Johnson confirms it:
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 19, 2025 at 3:49 pm GMT • 500 Words
@Liza
Coloreds don’t play any role in this movie. Perhaps many/some viewers thought it was a film with a “message”, a visual attack on the white middle class America at that time- but others didn’t perceive it that way.

You can consult the Wikipedia page on “American Beauty”, full of free-associations philosophizing and description of its fall from critic’s grace in the following 20 years. But, I would say all this is too inflated.

There are much more acclaimed films- for instance Russian Tarkovsky’s “Mirror” – that elude viewers, have some beautiful scenes, but are ultimately “about” nothing discernible.

“American Beauty”, in my opinion, was a story of spiritual liberation presented as a nuanced burlesque with a few great scenes, and the entire concept of a worn-out middle aged man who finds rejuvenation was exquisite. He- Lester/Spacey- didn’t run away from home to become a biker or hippie; he didn’t engage in extra-marital affairs; he didn’t become an alcoholic; he didn’t become obsessive, mean and sadistic in his office.

He just, knowing perfectly that he cannot save his family (let alone his nation), let all go, triumphantly dumping & literally robbing his despicable boss; he wanted to finally- finally- start enjoying life. And he did it. He tried pot; he had a good time with buying his dream car; he engaged in a body-building program to get himself in shape in order to have sex with a teen girl he was erotically mesmerized with (this happens even to geniuses- Goethe, when he was 78 proposed- and was rejected- to 17 years old girl. Some men in middle-to-old age find revitalization in erotic awakening to a youth of the opposite sex).

In this brief period- Lester is finally well and alive, full of vitality stemming from a carefree attitude and enjoying his life- his few efforts to re-connect to his family having failed (not his fault).

At the end, Lester, when he learns she is still a virgin, backed off & hugged her in a fatherly fashion. Cleansed of his desire, he contemplates his life & family, sees those beautiful moments he forgot – and is shot & killed by the colonel, a repressed homosexual.

Movie is full of either cliches or unbelievable scenes, but some are funny- a happy bourgeois gay couple; some are sad- Carolyn, Lester’s wife/Bening, cheating on him because she wasted the opportunity to re-connect with “new” Lester, imprisoned in her materialistic, narrow behavior & money-power obsession. Carolyn/Bening breaks down before she becomes aware that Lester is killed; she’s just entered the house – without passing through the kitchen where his dead body lies – with the intent to kill him, but couldn’t do it & broke down. Pity they didn’t film the scene when she discovers his brain-splattered corpse. Perhaps, that would be too much to handle.

So, in the end- this was a very good movie about the “short and happy life of Lester Burnham”. Nothing about blacks, Hispanics…and their “experience” or social politics. It is about one man’s life who broke free from conventions that stifled him & died happy (and I’ll add- his voiceover is not just a technical trick; Lester is, presumably, alive in some kind of the afterlife).

• Replies: @Nicholas Stix
, @YetAnotherAnon
, @Lurker
AnotherDad says:
January 19, 2025 at 4:10 pm GMT • 200 Words

The perpetrator is invariably some facially harmless local bourgeois, often female. Except in those episodes when the screenwriters want to stick it to the English gentry.

AnotherMom likes the Agatha Christie style–murders for a reason–style detective fiction. (Does not like the serial killer stuff.) So we’ve seen a fair bit of the cartoonish Midsomer. (The murderer always has to knock off several people in the village before Inspector Barnaby can figure it out.)

But I think the mass appeal of Midsomer is not denigrating backward, evil, conniving murderous white people–a typical Hollyweird trope–but rather that Midsomer County is still English.

Midsomer lets British people–and others like us in the Anglosphere–pretend for an hour and half that England is still England, with the occasional weird/evil Englishman or Englishwoman responsible for some local unpleasantness … rather than the reality outside their window, in their city streets that Britain has been invaded, its cities occupied, and its people subject to assault by assorted vibrants.

Midsomer is an escape from facing the reality of Rotherham or London “knife crime”.

• Agree: Bardon Kaldian
• Replies: @James B. Shearer
, @Ralph L
Joe Stalin says:
January 19, 2025 at 4:56 pm GMT
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 19, 2025 at 5:22 pm GMT
@Renard
Yeah, that is what I was referring to. You can’t find every single thing on the internet though, I think people would be happier if they got back into the habit of reading books again. Well, not Gorky though, obviously.

• Thanks: Renard
Liza says:
January 19, 2025 at 5:38 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Mr. Anon

Repressive, straight-laced America? Yeah, I wish!

LOL!! But Hollyweird does not stop with the anti white rural propaganda.

I agree with you about Blue Velvet. You have it figured just right. Poor Lynch, he lurches this way and that, from Straight Story (rather wonderful) to the incomprehensible Mulholland Drive, where he feels he has to insert his silly Lynch-isms, small and large, into the film. He seems to have something against normal ordinary linear understandable movies. You know – if you are left scratching your head, that’s “great” moviemaking.

The little bit of out of the ordinary in Blue Velvet was just right, though.
Reg Cæsar says:
January 19, 2025 at 6:26 pm GMT • 100 Words
@theMann

The New sucks, but the Classics endure.

European architecture in a nutshell:

Whereas American architecture fits what Michael Jackson once said about our beer– it wasn’t bad, just bland, middle-of-the-road. Didn’t delight, didn’t disgust.

• Replies: @muggles
Anon[285] • Disclaimer says:
January 19, 2025 at 8:16 pm GMT
@Steve Sailer
Wrong. Old male chimps are very abusive, mean, and nasty to the younger ones.

John Ford could have played an ape in Planet of the Apes.
James B. Shearer says:
January 19, 2025 at 8:17 pm GMT • 100 Words
@AnotherDad
“…The murderer always has to knock off several people in the village before Inspector Barnaby can figure it out.)”

I remember a quote by an Argentinian writer of pulp paperbacks who claimed to be able to finish a book in a few weeks. He said that whenever he felt the action was starting to lag a little he would have somebody throw a grenade at the hero.

I think this was something similar, the additional murders in Midsomer were needed to keep people awake.
Anonymous[150] • Disclaimer says:
January 19, 2025 at 8:20 pm GMT
@Currahee
Or Ed Wood with talent.

Americana Noir.

Americanoir.
Another Polish Perspective says:
January 19, 2025 at 10:02 pm GMT
@JMcG
Yes, “Harry Angel” is the title used in Poland.

• Thanks: JMcG
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 19, 2025 at 11:44 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi
That’s a lot of meandering text to say you don’t like David Lynch. It’s okay, you don’t have to like David Lynch. 🙂

Even the video at the beginning of Steve’s post that [Lynch] made for Chris Isaak flopped big time.

Lol wut. Lynch didn’t make that video. You been drinkin’ ?

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
JohnnyWalker123 says:
January 19, 2025 at 11:45 pm GMT

New song of the summer just dropped, right @kylegordon101?

Listen to "Little E.U." from tonight's episode of #TheSimpsons now! pic.twitter.com/gInCq579bh

— The Simpsons (@TheSimpsons) May 13, 2024
Reg Cæsar says:
January 19, 2025 at 11:50 pm GMT • 200 Words

I’ve never seen a video in which an old male chimpanzee teaches a young male chimpanzee the way that John Ford teaches Steven Spielberg in this scene.

There is a TED Talk by the late Swedish physician and statistician Hans Rosling and his son Ola in which they report their surveys taken in a number of Western populations regarding the stateof the world. Things like do natural disasters kill more or less today than in 1900, and how much less education do girls get, the worldwide average, than boys do. Each question offered three answers, one dark, one rosy, and one in-between.

They asked the same questions of chimpanzees, who presumably answered at random.

The chimps outperformed the humans in every country! In most cases, the rosiest answer was the correct one, with a few exceptions in-between. (Disasters are half as deadly as in 1900, and girls only a year behind boys worldwide– and a year ahead in the West.*)
Reg Cæsar says:
January 19, 2025 at 11:58 pm GMT • 200 Words
Does David Lynch hate psychylustro?

Relating to Lynch, the guidebook Walking Philadelphia points out his home near Fairmount Park where he made his first (four-minute) film. It doesn’t give the precise address, which is probably not open to the public (yet), but it’s on Aspen St between 24ᵗʰ and 25ᵗʰ Sts. The book also informs us that Fishtown, the white ghetto made famous by Charles Murray, has the city’s highest incidence of under-18 diabetes.

Lynch developed a deep and lifelong hate of the city. The city nevertheless honors National League rivals Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, so who knows, maybe they’ll be equally forgiving of Lynch!

*Also related to “male privilege”, we were at the Mall of America this week, and noticed sadly that JM Cremp, the unique store with a boy’s adventure theme, had closed. That shop had replaced the company’s catalog, so it looks like they may be totally out of business. Girly-themed shops are all over the place, though.
Reg Cæsar says:
January 20, 2025 at 12:19 am GMT • 100 Words
@Steve Sailer

I’ve never seen a video in which an old male chimpanzee teaches a young male chimpanzee the way that John Ford teaches Steven Spielberg in this scene.

Irving Berlin was just as rude to his fans, and Florence King feared she might be so avoided them altogether.

Here is the presentation I cited above, in which chimpanzees outscored Swedes on a knowledge test– but the Swedes outscored your country, so don’t snicker:

How not to be ignorant about the world
Corpse Tooth says:
January 20, 2025 at 1:04 am GMT
@Nicholas Stix
Sterling Hayden. Maybe I gots you all wrong.
Ralph L says:
January 20, 2025 at 4:34 am GMT
@AnotherDad
Original producer Brian True May was fired for saying the show was white because English villages are white. Since 2011, the show has been fully diverse in its guest actors, which must be tricky, because one is always the killer.

• Replies: @Lurker
clifford brown says:
January 20, 2025 at 5:50 am GMT • 100 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

And the question further to ask, is, regarding David Lynch, how exactly did his films address or explore the issues (e.g. the Great Replacement, for example, and other societal issues facing the West at large)?

Did Lynch offer an actual coherent solution in his films?

There is the opening scene to Wild At Heart….

And there you have it folks. The one Black character with a speaking part in a Lynch film. I don’t mean to imply Lynch was racist, but Blacks did not appear in his films. Lynch’s idealized America was pre-1965 America.

• LOL: Yojimbo/Zatoichi
• Replies: @Wielgus
, @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
Nicholas Stix says: • Website
January 20, 2025 at 7:33 am GMT
@Bardon Kaldian
“Father Knows Best: American Beauty”

https://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/2012/08/father-knows-best-american-beauty.html

• Replies: @Liza
Nicholas Stix says: • Website
January 20, 2025 at 8:44 am GMT
@TrumpWon

“Mulholland Drive had the best lesbian scene ever filmed, in my opinion.”

Thanks. I’ll have to keep that in mind. Great lesbian scenes do not grow on trees.
Pat Hannagan says:
January 20, 2025 at 11:07 am GMT
Dick Laurent Is Dead

Greatest line. Greatest setup. Greatest Scene.
YetAnotherAnon says:
January 20, 2025 at 3:53 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Bardon Kaldian
“Some men in middle-to-old age find revitalization in erotic awakening to a youth of the opposite sex”

That’s the polite way of putting it.

“You’re as young as the woman you feel”

The 72 year old British author Thomas Hardy became infatuated in 1913 with a 16 year old amateur actress whose mother he had been interested in some 40 years previously. She only died in 1992.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Bugler

One of his books is about a man who is attracted to a young woman, twenty years later to her daughter, twenty years after that to her granddaughter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well-Beloved

• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
jsm says:
January 20, 2025 at 3:55 pm GMT • 600 Words
@Loyalty is The First Law of Morality

I think this has changed from decades ago. R.N.s used to smart. I don’t know what’s going on but they aren’t that impressive except for a few nurses in the operating rooms and sometimes ICU.

I”m an old woman, used to be a radiology tech. Why are RNs not smart, anymore, as they were in the 50s, 60s, 70s? Women’s lib. The smart gals today go to medical school to be dermatologists and part-time OBs. The not-quite-so-smart, who used to make for good secretaries and PBX operators, are now accepted into nursing schools, in colleges’ desperate efforts to put butts in seats.

And again, we spent $40 trillion over the last decade for health care that isn’t much better than what was available in 1997

My anecdote will perhaps shed some light.

I broke my wrist a few years back. It was a bog-standard Colles’ fracture that we knew perfectly well how to treat, back when I was a young gal in x-ray school.

Back then, you went to ER, got an x-ray. If it was evening and the surgeon on call was in the mood, he came in and you got your surgical repair that evening. OR, you spent the night in the hospital in a splint and got your ORIF the next day. Total cost was $4000 -ish. This was the mid 80s.

Fast forward to 2018. Broke my wrist in the evening of a Thursday. Went to ER, got an x-ray. Yep, Colles’ fracture (I knew that when I broke it, from the dent in my wrist.) So ER gave me a splint and SENT ME HOME. In a splint that weighed 10 pounds, holding a bottle of hydrocodone, with an appt. to see the orthopod in his office next day.

So next morning my husband drives me to ortho office. (I’m stoned on narcotics.) When taken back, I was in a cubicle surrounded by curtains, so could hear what was being said next door. Just before it’s my turn, the orthopod enters the cubicle next to me. I hear Spanish from the man and the wife is translating. He broke his wrist on a drilling turntable. (So, if this guy were here working legally, he should have been covered by workman’s comp.) The doctor, being wise to reality, I’m sure, asks, “So, this is charity care?” Wife says yes. “Ok. Well, next available appt. at the outpatient surgical center for fixation is on Monday.” “Ok.”

I’m seething. This guy is an illegal alien, who obviously stole a high-paying job on a drilling rig from a White guy, here getting “charity care,” because he’s been working and getting paid “under the table,” hence no workman’s comp.

So the ortho guy sees me next. Yep, same deal, Colles’ fracture just like the illegal alien he just saw. “Next available appt. at the outpatient surgery center is on Wednesday. Here’s more narcotics to make, until then.”

So, the illegal alien not only stole a job from a White guy, stole American medical care, he ALSO stole my appt. to get my surgery on Monday, forcing me to wait an extra two days in pain wearing a huge, clumsy, heavy splint that pressed on my fracture if I laid my arm wrong.

And my bill, for less care (outpatient surgery center, for which I waited five days) and the same, good, old, standard surgery that they used to do for $4K? $20K. Why? Because I, for sure, got a cost-shifting onto me to pay for the surgeon’s “generous gift of charity care” to the illegal alien.

So THAT’s a goodly part of why medicine costs so much. Illegals’ stealing.

• Thanks: deep anonymous, Jim Don Bob, Loyalty is The First Law of Morality, kaganovitch, Mike Tre, Adam Smith
• Replies: @Achmed E. Newman
, @Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
Achmed E. Newman says: • Website
January 20, 2025 at 3:58 pm GMT
@kaganovitch
Heh! I’ve not been in a cult, but Creed Bratton explains the pros and cons:

• Thanks: kaganovitch
Truth says:
January 20, 2025 at 4:59 pm GMT
@Liza

From what I read, smokers are also alcohol drinkers.

Remember that stupid film American Beauty for just one example? Full of caricatures right from the first minute

Liza, it seems you’ve lived a beautiful, idyllic childhood. Please thank your parents if they are still alive.

• LOL: Liza
Truth says:
January 20, 2025 at 5:04 pm GMT
David Lynch:

Original, mediocre tedium for the self-proclaimed smart, misunderstood, rebel is school, who is above the hackneyed mediocre tedium of his classmates.
Mike Tre says:
January 20, 2025 at 6:01 pm GMT
OT – Trump’s speech was a solid A* in my skeptical opinion. Watching Biden and Billy Clinton have to sit there was the best part. Both look dead already.

*I’ll believe his promises when I actually see them, however.

• Replies: @CalCooledge
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 20, 2025 at 6:11 pm GMT
@Anonymous

Like most serial killers, he picked on hookers

Not even that. He is probably responsible for “only” 2 deaths, shooting two females. So, technically, he was not a serial killer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein
The Anti-Gnostic says:
January 20, 2025 at 7:16 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian
I’ve smoked American Spirits on and off but thankfully mostly off. If I’m still around at age 80 I’ll probably start smoking them again. Or maybe I’ll start sooner.

We’ve basically just traded smoking-related CV diseases for obesity.
J.Ross says:
January 20, 2025 at 7:51 pm GMT • 200 Words
OT – German PISA bias study —

The poor performance of foreigners and those with a migration background on PISA testing has often been attributed to discrimination on the part of teachers, yet a new study found the complete opposite to be the case, and that it is in fact German children who are facing discrimination.

“Our results do not show systematic discrimination, but rather the opposite. Children with a migrant background or from socially disadvantaged households are often rated better,” said Sarah Bredtmann from the research group from University of Duisburg-Essen, as reported in Spiegel Magazine.

The researchers believe that teachers are unconsciously trying to elevate children with migrant backgrounds by grading them more favorably due to their perception that they are socially disadvantaged.

The findings have broad implications for the German education system, as now nearly every third student in the country has an immigration background.

https://rmx.news/article/teachers-discriminate-in-favor-children-with-a-migration-background-over-german-children-when-issuing-grades/

https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bildung/schulnoten-und-migration-keine-systematische-diskriminierung-a-82de636e-039f-41f5-af7b-703fc33b2497
Wielgus says:
January 20, 2025 at 8:34 pm GMT
@clifford brown
There was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance by Richard Pryor in Lost Highway. He suffered from multiple sclerosis and I can’t recall if he said anything at all in the role, and may have been unable to.

• Replies: @clifford brown
, @YetAnotherAnon
muggles says:
January 20, 2025 at 9:28 pm GMT • 200 Words
@Reg Cæsar
You seem to have ignored the thousands of ugly Brutalist/Soviet style buildings all over their former empire.

Also, some of the same crap that Brit and EU demented architects inflicted on Germany and the UK.

The very old filigreed stuff either got bombed in wars or was torn down as impractical. Yes, some very nice older things exist and the Parisians are keen on keeping the old-style inner city look.

Much of the UK modern stuff is worse than American stuff, which is usually much larger and not old style cheek-to-jowl attached stuff. Americans need garages too. Euros walk, bus, ride bikes or take subways. It is okay for smaller cramped cities but not for spread out America.

America has lots of land in most places, so no need to cram up and together.

European living spaces tend to be tiny and crowded. Hence the cafe/coffee culture, to get out those tiny places. Europe is of course older and much denser than America.

Also, the majority of newer housing there is government financed/operated in some fashion. Rent not own. So their plans tend to be modern beehive.

Some of the best architecture is in Europe. Also, much more of the worst.

• Agree: The Anti-Gnostic
• Replies: @Reg Cæsar
clifford brown says:
January 20, 2025 at 9:54 pm GMT
@Wielgus
Thanks. I will check it out.
YetAnotherAnon says:
January 20, 2025 at 9:54 pm GMT
@Wielgus
Any relation between the film’s title and the Hank Williams classic?

“Take my advice, or you’ll curse the day,
You started rollin’ down that lost highway”

I hope Steve got an invite to the inauguration.

• Replies: @Wielgus
vinteuil says:
January 20, 2025 at 10:38 pm GMT
@The Germ Theory of Disease
This is GTofD at his best. The troll to end all trolls

But, obviously, now that Steve Sailer has left the building, it doesn’t much matter what anybody has to say here.
kaganovitch says:
January 21, 2025 at 12:17 am GMT
@Bardon Kaldian
As a grammar Falangist, I would insist on ‘DeSheetaviousi”.

• Agree: Bardon Kaldian
kaganovitch says:
January 21, 2025 at 12:27 am GMT • 100 Words
@Mr. Anon

Daszak and EcoDeath Alliance are now debarred from federal contracting. That’s only a start. Prosecute Daszak and, more importantly, Fauci for negligent homicide – about a million counts of it.

Il Fauci just got a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card from Biden on his last day, for any crime commited 2014-2024. I think we need one of those ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ Commissions to put Fauci, J6 Committee and their ilk through the wringer. If cards are played right, they can be liable for process charges going forward like obstruction, etc.

• Replies: @theMann
, @AnotherDad
CalCooledge says:
January 21, 2025 at 1:37 am GMT
@Mike Tre
Well within hours he has already signed orders attacking DEI and illegal immigration, so its a good start, but more must be done of course.
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 21, 2025 at 2:24 am GMT • 100 Words
@YetAnotherAnon
I knew something about Hardy’s unusual erotic infatuations, but not about this episode.

Can something general be derived from this?

I know a lot about biographies of famous, “great” people; also, I saw something in this, ordinary life. So, I would say that natural men, those in whom instincts prevail & who are almost completely non-mental; also, “artistic” types, men of “heart” – can truly become infatuated with young females in old age (I am not talking about sexual attraction only, but about falling in love like an adolescent; also, not about middle age).

On the other hand, rational men- science & philosophy- are immune to such old-age idiosyncrasies.

Though- I don’t know about extroverts like politicians, businessmen, military leaders,…
theMann says:
January 21, 2025 at 2:33 am GMT • 100 Words
@kaganovitch
Charge him in International Court for Crimes Against Humanity. You can’t get pardoned for that; and, AFAIK, any country can initiate charges. That is why Kissinger couldn’t get off the airplane in a lot of countries

And since “the Covid” was a supranational conspiracy, that is where to charge the thousands of people involved.

• Replies: @Mr. Anon
Reg Cæsar says:
January 21, 2025 at 2:42 am GMT • 100 Words
@muggles

You seem to have ignored the thousands of ugly Brutalist/Soviet style buildings all over their former empire.

No, I was illustrating Mann’s comment, “The New sucks, but the Classics endure.” Anything picked at random will do.

And Brutalism, as bad as it is, may not even be the worst.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-tech_architecture

Charlemagne is rolling in his nearby crypt:
Joe Stalin says:
January 21, 2025 at 3:00 am GMT • 200 Words

Mark Smith Four Boxes Diner discusses how Trump can win in Congress for 2A.

In the US Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, New Jersey has filed a major brief attempting to justify their semi-automatic rifle and magazine bans.

William Kirk discuses WA state HB 1386, a Bill by Berry, which if enacted into law will, by design, raise taxes to the point where the exercise of one’s Second Amendment right is cost prohibitive.

William Kirk discusses NJ state AB 5210, a piece of leglislation that if enacted into law, will required every adult member of a home to undergo a background check everytime someone else want to purchase a firearm

It's false that 90% of guns recovered in crimes in Mexico were sold in the US. That figure comes from the much smaller subset of guns recovered in crimes that Mexican authorities ask the ATF to trace because they suspect the gun came from the US. It does not include the majority… https://t.co/YC7BEVRpQb pic.twitter.com/nQe0UcY7jR

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) January 18, 2025

It is true that in nearly all self-defense shootings, <15 rounds are required.

But this ignores four points:

1. Sometimes, you really do need more. While rare, some self-defense shootings have required more than 15 rounds, particularly when multiple assailants are involved.… https://t.co/xru2wW9a1Q

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) January 19, 2025

• Replies: @J.Ross
Achmed E. Newman says: • Website
January 21, 2025 at 3:07 am GMT • 200 Words
@jsm
Tbank you, JSM! (You used to comment a lot more here a while back.) That was a very good explanation.

My story: My wife was in the ER for about 1/2 hour behind the counter, with maybe 10 minutes tops with the Doc. Luckily, it was nothing. The bill was not nothing though. This was nearly 15 years ago, and the ER charge was $1,200 and the Doc’s $300. I paid the Doc. After about $250 to the ER, I stopped paying. (I don’t care – my credit rating is “- N/A -“.)

On the phone to the billing agent from the hospital, I’m all “Hey, I don’t mind paying for our time in the ER. I just can’t pay for the 5 illegal aliens that were in there with us.” The guy got all offended-like, but I don’t know how much because I hung up in the middle of all that … (No credit and LUVIN’ IT!) This was not a simple rant either – we had SEEN the 5 illegal aliens in the waiting room.

Regarding RN’s, hospitals have been saying for 50 years, per a Nursing School President I met, that you’d need a BSN to get lots of the hospital jobs now. Talking about “butts in seats”, this is that in spades. You don’t need it to do RN work. Per the nurse in our family, though, they’re starting to do this. The tech schools are graduating nurses who would not have passed through 10 years back.
Loyalty is The First Law of Morality says:
January 21, 2025 at 3:26 am GMT
@jsm
This makes sense. We used to benefit from smart women in teaching and nursing and the other fields they were overrepresented in. Maybe we really should have paid them more.
SafeNow says:
January 21, 2025 at 3:27 am GMT • 100 Words
The link below is to an essay by Christopher Caldwell in which he analyzes Trump’s speaking style. He writes that Trump is “percussive.” And that Trump does not use words or phrases like “metropolitan area.” And that his followers, despite Trump’s exaggerations, find him sincere and authentic…and in fact, the only sincere and authentic politician they have ever encountered. Well those are clever and fun soundbites but most of the essay is complex and observant and thoughtful. I wanted to reread it while Trump‘s inaugural address is still fresh in my mind.

https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/speaking-trumpian/

• Thanks: kaganovitch, Achmed E. Newman
• Replies: @Loyalty is The First Law of Morality
Mr. Anon says:
January 21, 2025 at 4:34 am GMT
@theMann
The international approach you descirbe sounds reasonable. Addtionally, it seems to me that any State Attorney General in the country (and preferably all of them) could prosecute Fauci for negligent homicide for all the residents of his state who died of COVID. And they should.
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 21, 2025 at 4:45 am GMT • 200 Words
@Jenner Ickham Errican
Uh, Lynch had something to do with the FIRST video of Wicked Game, besides using the song in his film Wild at Heart. Steve goes on and on about it each time as if Lynch’s influence is the main reason that Isaak’s song was a smash hit. It wasn’t due to Lynch, period in any way shape or form. The original first video was either directed by or produced by Lynch. The first video (the one that few really recall today or even back in the day). Not the 2nd video which, was a worldwide smash and is considered to be one of MTV’s most watched video’s from that era, and which helped to make Chris Isaak’s “Wild at Heart” a smash charting hit that it became.

At this time, I…don’t actually have an opinion one way or the other on David Lynch. I AM making some notes of noticing that for all his inflated stature and reputation among critics, Lynch’s box office record wasn’t nearly all that spectacular nor outstanding.

But as of yet, I’ve no comment as to whether I find Lynch to be simply amazing or not.

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 21, 2025 at 4:48 am GMT • 100 Words
@clifford brown
IF this becomes wider known…down the road don’t be too surprised if Lynch is cancelled by Hollywood. I mean, no blacks in any major supporting roles in his films? And Lynch didn’t direct too many films (when compared to say, Scorcese, Spielberg, Ford, DeMille, Lang, Hawks, Hitchcock, et al).

Sorry, Steve.

• Replies: @Steve Sailer
Reg Cæsar says:
January 21, 2025 at 4:57 am GMT • 100 Words
@The Germ Theory of Disease

Too much Vitamin A will kill you.
So don’t eat a polar bear’s liver.

— the late, great Reza Abdoh, “Minamata”

He stole that quip from Dr David Reuben. It was in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Nutrition, which came out before Abdoh arrived in America. And came out.

• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
Reg Cæsar says:
January 21, 2025 at 5:00 am GMT
@Joe Stalin

Minnesota, you also have terrible self defense laws.
Jamie B. says:
January 21, 2025 at 5:03 am GMT
Why couldn’t it have been Spielberg or Ron Howard?
Loyalty is The First Law of Morality says:
January 21, 2025 at 6:43 am GMT
@SafeNow
Interesting that Trump uses more concrete Germanic words, instead of the Latinate words favored by the pundit class. Probably one of the reasons they all hate him on a gut level. None of them have ever done anything in the real world. They just play with words.

• Agree: SafeNow
JohnnyWalker123 says:
January 21, 2025 at 6:46 am GMT
One of the few occasions where you have to root for the Jew to beat the Gentile.

Elon has encountered someone cannier and more devious than himself. https://t.co/s6HIt65ceL pic.twitter.com/ejTDzJMzkI

— Sólionath (@Anarseldain) January 21, 2025

• Replies: @Achmed E. Newman
clifford brown says:
January 21, 2025 at 10:00 am GMT

I wanna glide down over Mulholland.
I want to write her name in the sky.
Gonna free fall out into nothin…
Wielgus says:
January 21, 2025 at 11:34 am GMT
@YetAnotherAnon
Quite likely. I think the basic plot was influenced by an Ambrose Bierce story about a Confederate spy about to be hanged who appears to escape, except it is a fantasy – the story ends with him being hanged.

• Replies: @Joe Joe
Steve Sailer says: • Website
January 21, 2025 at 11:56 am GMT
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi
David Lynch was a not so crypto-conservative, an “Eagle Scout from Missoula, Montana,” and, as we’ve seen, he was extraordinarily beloved for being a remarkable artist.

• Replies: @J.Ross
, @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 21, 2025 at 12:08 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Reg Cæsar
Well, Dr David Reuben never took me to breakfast when I was homeless, listened to me talk about Finnegans Wake for an hour and a half, then set up meetings for me with a couple of top theater companies, putting his own rep on the line. Besides, you know the saying, Amateurs borrow, professionals steal. Or maybe you don’t know it, since you’re not a professional.

Reza contributed bravely to the sum of human artistic achievement. You’re too busy sharpening that little point on your head.

Now go make an anagram out of “De mortuis nil nisi bonum.”
Joe Joe says:
January 21, 2025 at 1:40 pm GMT
@Wielgus
An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge. Read in HS and they showed us the movie too

• Replies: @J.Ross
AnotherDad says:
January 21, 2025 at 1:50 pm GMT • 300 Words
@kaganovitch

Il Fauci just got a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card from Biden on his last day, for any crime commited 2014-2024. I think we need one of those ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ Commissions to put Fauci, J6 Committee and their ilk through the wringer. If cards are played right, they can be liable for process charges going forward like obstruction, etc.

Exactly. Fauci is pardoned, now–if I understand it–he can not beg off testifying?

We need an investigative committee that is serious about getting to the bottom of not just the covid-19 origin and all the flip-flop lying about measures in response, but the whole sleazy game of pretty much useless but quite dangerous–let’s show we can manipulate this virus and make it infective and transmissible in humans … so we can publish a paper!–game that these clowns have been running at public expense.

Drag Fauci up there and make him confess what he funded, what he knew and when he knew it, his bribing scientists with grants to lie about origins, his lying and flip-flopping on measures like masking. And if he refuses or continues lying–nail him for that. He’ll understand, of course, so will try to spin what he did as best possible. But an investigation by competent knowledgeable people ought to at least expose what a slimy POS he is for the historical record and “to encourage the others”.

And we can put the people responsible for cooking up this mess–my guess Ralph Baric–in jail. And rein this nonsense in. The goal of research to figure out how we can defeat new viruses not create them.

• Agree: kaganovitch
Jamie B. says:
January 21, 2025 at 2:28 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

…most of David Lynch’s resume will be forgotten within 15 yrs…

Projecting your own incomprehension. I’ve long felt the same way about rap music. But rap is still with us, so I must accept that I simply don’t understand the value that others find in it. I can tell you from my own heart that Lynch’s works are immortal, and that you simply don’t get it.

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
, @Truth
Achmed E. Newman says: • Website
January 21, 2025 at 2:36 pm GMT
@JohnnyWalker123
Thanks, Johnny. Steven Miller is outstanding. He’s been against the invasion since he was in High School – I kid you not!

It’s a matter of who Trump listens to last.
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 21, 2025 at 6:11 pm GMT • 400 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

Uh, Lynch had something to do with the FIRST video of Wicked Game, besides using the song in his film Wild at Heart. Steve goes on and on about it each time as if Lynch’s influence is the main reason that Isaak’s song was a smash hit.

On and on? I’ve only seen one instance where Steve mentioned Lynch’s direction of a video for “Wicked Game”:

https://www.unz.com/isteve/why-are-music-and-sports-negatively-correlated/#comment-6492312 (#392, etc.)

Yojimbo/Zatoichi

You might be aware that the original Wicked Game video was directed by one of your favorite directors, David Lynch. Song was featured in Nicholas Cage film Wild at Heart.

The more globally famous video, shot in HI, with awesome looking supermodel was not Lynch’s work.

Steve Sailer

So the original video for Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Games” was done by an undisputed American genius, David Lynch, and then the second video was done by Herb Ritts, a guy who might have either become a gay genius or merely a soft core pornographer if he hadn’t shortly dropped dead of AIDS: it’s hard to tell.

Makes sense.

In that past subthread, it appears both you and Steve were making non sequitur tit-for-tat snipes at each other rather than engaging in any worthwhile cultural criticism.

But as of yet, I’ve no comment as to whether I find Lynch to be simply amazing or not.

No one’s stopping ya… In the sole opinion one Yojimbo/Zatoichi, what is your (rather than the market/popular, or aggregate media critic) opinion of the oeuvre of David Lynch? Afraid to say?

You’ve already written hundreds of words about other peoples’ perceptions of Lynch; given that Lynch is an important topic to you, it’s a bizarre omission for you to not give us your own analysis of his work on its artistic merits or lack thereof.

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
, @Anonymous
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 21, 2025 at 7:58 pm GMT • 800 Words
@Jenner Ickham Errican
“it appears both you and Steve were making non sequitur tit-for-tat snipes at each other rather than engaging in any worthwhile cultural criticism.”

Uh, NO…you did NOT fully quote the full context of that exchange. Then as NOW…my main points were that I am confused as to why such filmmakers such as David Lynch are heralded when his box office track record, to put it mildly, was abysmal.

My observations then as now, (or if you prefer, “criticism”) were and remain, that Lynch’s work must be heavily favored by a very small select audience…it certainly isn’t a mainstream mass audience.

Cultural criticism wasn’t a specific issue in that post. It WAS, however, SPECIFICALLY related to a SPECIFIC VIDEO MADE for Chris Isaak’s song “Wicked Game”.

You also reminded me that Steve, which is a bit unusual for him, engaged in a personal ad hominen attack vs the director Rits of the vastly more successful video version of “Wicked Game”. Whether or not Rits died of AIDS was irrelevant to the point, which was namely, that his version of “Wicked Game” helped to sell the song and was vastly more successful (and also vastly more iconic and well recalled) than Lynch’s work.

Even during our exchanges of say…whether or not Jackie Robinson is HOF worthy, Steve always manages not to engage in ad hominens vs various aspects of the points made; he focused on his own points to strengthen his case. In this specific instance as you highlighted, uh, Steve tended to let the heat of the argument get the better of him and he proceeded to attack the deceased director of the music video “Wicked Game”.

“In the sole opinion one Yojimbo/Zatoichi, what is your (rather than the market/popular, or aggregate media critic) opinion of the oeuvre of David Lynch?”

At this time, I’m open either way pro or negative to Lynch being the greatest filmmaker of the last few decades of the 20th century, albeit, one Tarantino would probably have something to say about that idea. And admittedly, it is hard to argue vs the idea that Tarantino isn’t at least as good as Lynch ever was.

That’s my current opinion on David Lynch. And in the words of one Forrest Gump “And that’s all I have to say about that!”

“Afraid to say?”

Uh, I just DID say, read the above paragraph for clarification.

“given that Lynch is an important topic to you,”

Not to me. I don’t bring up David Lynch ever. Take it up with Steve, who apparently thinks that Lynch was a creative genius of the first order. I’ve only brought him up as a response to his posts, pure and simple.

“it’s a bizarre omission for you to not give us your own analysis of his work on its artistic merits or lack thereof.”

Actually I brought up a question directly regarding his artistic merits one way or the other, by asking, WHAT were (or are) in his films the solution to various aspects of the societal decay that he so describes? I understand the various decaying rot, as well as the despicable characters, and that he well shows. At least when Paul Veerhoven explored similar themes, he had some box office hits to go with it. Yet at least in the US, most major prominent film critics did not/do not rate Paul Veerhoven as among the greatest ever filmmakers of the later third of the 20th Century in American film.

But what exactly are/were his solutions? So far, they don’t appear on viewing to be very obvious. After awhile, one gets the feeling that “there is no there there”, which in itself could be a point. Or it could be, I’m afraid to say, something along the lines of…

“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”

But perhaps this is once again an example of a filmmaker not making his films for a mass audience (or in most cases, a sizable audience at all) like…it was his personal wet dreams which he painted on the celluloid for human consumption. Problem is that for the most part, not many people bought whatever he was trying to sell.

I’m sure that since his influence is vast among film students, that both current and future filmmakers will start to incorporate more and more of Lynch’s themes and some of his style in their works, if they’re not doing so already.

But as of this time, I’ve not given a thought as to whether or not David Lynch is among the greatest ever US filmmakers. I reserve the right to change that opinion in the future.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

• Replies: @Mike Tre
, @Jenner Ickham Errican
, @Bardon Kaldian
Mike Tre says:
January 21, 2025 at 9:41 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi
” Then as NOW…my main points were that I am confused as to why such filmmakers such as David Lynch are heralded ”

He was perverted and weird. From a “modern art” perspective, that’s often all it takes. A Clockwork Orange and Natural Born Killers also come to mind. Those films were shite but people refer to them as the greatest films ever made quite often.
J.Ross says:
January 22, 2025 at 1:23 am GMT • 100 Words
@Steve Sailer
The most shocking thing about Lost Highway is how unapologetically right-wing it is (the second is how simple it is: the ostensible presentation is surreal, but all you have to do is accept what you’re shown. The confusion comes from expecting it to be more complicated than the presentation). That and “Only A Lad” by Oingo Boingo and the Sopranos vignette about “Who else?!” are another country.

• Replies: @Corvinus
J.Ross says:
January 22, 2025 at 1:24 am GMT
@Joe Joe
Also one of the best Twilight Zone episodes.
J.Ross says:
January 22, 2025 at 1:30 am GMT
@Joe Stalin
When people use the word “need” in this context, the response should be a picture of Yagoda or Beria, and the reminder that communists don’t think that you need food.
anon[332] • Disclaimer says:
January 22, 2025 at 1:32 am GMT
@Old Prude
One word for what I’ve been able to sit through of Lynch’s movies: nightmarish. I’m glad to see here that other people don’t particularly like his “work”. I always thought, gee, I guess I’m not hip enough to dig him.
Liza says:
January 22, 2025 at 1:38 am GMT
@Nicholas Stix
I read your review of A.B. and enjoyed it, in a manner of speaking. I wonder if anybody else noticed the irony of casting the sort-of has-been, slightly dissolute Gloria Swanson in the major role. What a coup in any case.
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 22, 2025 at 1:49 am GMT • 300 Words
@Jamie B.
“Projecting your own incomprehension“

No I do get it. Problem is, most moviegoers didn’t get it, as per box office of most of his films. And to be honest, when the majority of film goers don’t get it, then it’s good to admit that that’s the case. And then pivot to the standby “I don’t make my pictures for just anyone—I make them for a fit audience, though few”

While that does smack of elitism, snobbery, and of course a tactic admission that one can’t compete, at least it’s understandable. But film must be run as a business or over time, it won’t succeed as an art form since the till will be bankrupt.

Lynch to rap comparison is apples to broccoli and thus isn’t an accurate comparison.

For most of its relatively brief history, rap music has been vastly profitable and has made a huge profit. Rap musicians are world famous even in faraway places as Indonesia, Philippines Russia and everywhere in between. Can’t say that with Lynch’s work.

I don’t doubt that Lynch’s work is known in various parts of the world; I do doubt that Lynch’s work carries the same impact in not only Europe among ordinary people and in Asia Middle East etc in the ways that the biggest rap musicians are

The influence of rap is pervasive throughout the world’s four corners. Example, Snoop dog and Kanye are globally known by close to a billion (or perhaps more) people —can’t say that one in eight human beings are well familiar with David Lynch’s work, much less who he was. In that sense, who has had more direct pop cultural clout and influence in the world at large —lynch or the most famous rap superstars? The rap superstars win hands down.

• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
, @Jenner Ickham Errican
anon[332] • Disclaimer says:
January 22, 2025 at 1:57 am GMT
@Rahuthedotard
The sad, bleak world of small town America you described was beautifully captured in “The Last Picture Show.” That is a great movie. Lynch’s nightmare visions are untruthful and ugly.

• Agree: Bardon Kaldian
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 22, 2025 at 1:58 am GMT • 200 Words
@Steve Sailer
Yes but my question remains: uh WHO exactly was he beloved by? Most of his films flopped at the box office. The words “commercially successful” aren’t part of his resume. The Elephant Man and the Disney film he did in late 90s did well and that’s about it.

Ironically both projects were given to lynch – Mel brooks produced the elephant man , and Disney approached him. Lynch didn’t initially conceive the project for the elephant man.

I am trying to see it from your view point. At the same time, when a filmmaker constantly and consistently has more flops than hits on his resume, then I start to wonder if maybe the filmmaker just doesn’t know how to connect with a regular ordinary mass audience.

Roger Corman, for example, influenced as well as gave many filmmakers their first work in Hollywood; unfortunately his own films weren’t all that commercially impressive.

Lynch’s opposite in some ways, Quentin Tarantino on the other hand, doesn’t appear to have this problem as he does have some actual box office hits on his resume.
Anonymous[667] • Disclaimer says:
January 22, 2025 at 2:50 am GMT
Lynch certainly left his mark on the culture.

Usually when movie people die, even famous ones, there’s some buzz that soon fades.

But there are so many discussions on Lynch all over the internet since his death.

He certainly became a basement, if not household, name.
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 22, 2025 at 3:00 am GMT • 300 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

“given that Lynch is an important topic to you,”

Not to me. I don’t bring up David Lynch ever.

LOL. Here’s Lynch living rent-free in your head in your reply to Steve posting Ritts’ “Wicked Game” video. You brought up Lynch, not Steve or any other commenter 🤔 :

https://www.unz.com/isteve/why-are-music-and-sports-negatively-correlated/#comment-6484486 (#119, etc.)

Steve Sailer

I don’t know why Chris Isaak wasn’t the biggest star since Elvis Presley. He was extremely handsome, could sing, and was hilarious.

Yojimbo/Zatoichi

You might be aware that the original Wicked Game video was directed by one of your favorite directors, David Lynch. Song was featured in Nicholas Cage film Wild at Heart.

The more globally famous video, shot in HI, with awesome looking supermodel was not Lynch’s work. [e.a.]

You write to me:

But as of this time, I’ve not given a thought as to whether or not David Lynch is among the greatest ever US filmmakers. I reserve the right to change that opinion in the future.

If you so far have “not given a thought as to whether or not David Lynch is among the greatest ever US filmmakers” why do you ardently care if Steve does or doesn’t, and bring up Lynch out of the blue, while claiming you “never” do that? Funny that it grinds your gears that Steve has given a hat tip to Lynch’s work. It’s okay to admit you have strong feelings about David Lynch.

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
Lurker says:
January 22, 2025 at 4:04 am GMT • 100 Words
@Liza

Well, Bardon, nonwhite, mixed race and none-too-blonde-type white people also have midlife crises which cause them to act crazy and/or immoral. They too have goofy wives and daughters. Yet all the undesirables in A.B. are whiter than white.

Most TV, film, advertising is trending in this direction.

The only roles for whites, particularly men, are those as criminals, gays, losers, loons. The best they can hope for is to be a subordinate to a non-white or a Strong Woman.

• Agree: Liza, deep anonymous, Renard
• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
, @Bardon Kaldian
Lurker says:
January 22, 2025 at 4:25 am GMT
@Bardon Kaldian

and is shot & killed by the colonel, a repressed homosexual.

Who is also implied to be an eeevil naaazi.

• Agree: Achmed E. Newman
• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
Lurker says:
January 22, 2025 at 4:32 am GMT
@Ralph L

because one is always the killer

But never the black one. Never.

There’s only one place blacks commit murder – in real life.

• Agree: Renard, Mike Conrad
• LOL: Yojimbo/Zatoichi, deep anonymous
JohnnyWalker123 says:
January 22, 2025 at 4:52 am GMT

64% of Pakistani-heritage mothers were related by blood to the father of their child. (Among those recruited to the study in Bradford 2007-2010.)

The number among white British was 1. Not 1%, 1 person in the study.

This simple statistic show how profoundly different people with… pic.twitter.com/vcxF51uXqf

— Jonatan Pallesen (@jonatanpallesen) January 21, 2025

• Thanks: J.Ross
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 22, 2025 at 7:05 am GMT • 500 Words
@Jenner Ickham Errican
Hold up, and calm down.

How many months ago was this conversation?

And since that specific throwaway line was made, how often was the filmmaker brought up?

And…WHAT is this specific post about? It refers to a once in lifetime occurrence-or in the specific filmmakers case, an end of lifetime event.

For reasons known only to Steve, it cannot be denied that this specific filmmaker would rank near the top of his all time personal favorites. And that’s his own right and business, period.

I have attempted to understand the reason behind why some people feel this way regarding, not just this specific filmmaker but others as well, specifically those whom the arbiters of taste, the pervayors of culture constantly inform others that regular people should accept as “great”, or at least a someone who has left a major impact on pop culture and society at large .

Which was one of the main points of my post that YOU quoted excerpts from—but then you did NOT quote the other main parts.

At the time, I stated that I’m constantly amazed at various filmmakers that I’m told should be held up lauded and praised for being among the greatest ever. When I then examine to see what their track record was at the box office, and find that it wasn’t all that, then I’m more than a bit confused as to why such filmmakers should be esteemed and praised to the extent that they are.

But now today, I have realized that it’s good to examine exactly which types of people are telling others that such and such was great.

Unlike in a sports hall of fame, where at least one is working with tangible numbers and stats (even though at times such things are still debated) there is at least a level of objective facts.

For the most part, however, deciding the merits of a specific filmmaker remains more about personal preference, and thus is subjective.

EXCEPT in one aspect of a filmmakers career—and that relates specifically as to how well their pictures have done at the box office. For film, like it or not, thats the closest thing that people have to having an objective metric, a consensus of people who went to see the filmmakers film for themselves.

I elaborated on this in various points in the same post that you quoted from (but YOU didn’t bother to quote those specific points).

So basically the main point here is that Steve very much likes David Lynch, while I am still undecided one way or the other at this time. Obviously I can change my mind one day on this.

• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
, @Jenner Ickham Errican
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 22, 2025 at 11:38 am GMT • 100 Words
@Lurker
The other day I sort of casually randomly tuned into one of those PBS-y “quaint eccentric murder mystery in a quaint English country village” sort of TV shows. The very, *very* first thing I saw was a gigantic stupid-looking negro in some sort of Shakespeare costume. Traveling negro Shakespeare theater troupe or something. Visits quaint English murder-village mumbling in blank verse, Where de white wimminz at?

There isn’t a spoon in the world big enough for you to tunnel out of this with.

• LOL: Liza
• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
, @Jim Don Bob
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 22, 2025 at 11:54 am GMT
@Lurker
That’s your projection.
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 22, 2025 at 12:02 pm GMT
@Lurker
Not. True, I don’t watch movies anymore, but from what I’ve seen, now & then, almost all American films are about whites (if not specifically addressing some black issues or being fantasies inhabited by imaginary non-humans). And protagonists cover the entire spectrum – good, bad, neutral.
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 22, 2025 at 12:12 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi
I think you overestimate movies as art; or, even more, as entertainment.
Lynch’s films will be watched by a small audience.

All filmmakers fade away. Charlie Chaplin was treated as a god until, perhaps, half a century ago & now hardly anyone watches his films, whatever critics say. The same with Hitchcock, who is always highly appreciated.

Popular culture is destined to oblivion, as is more than 50-70% of high culture.

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
Truth says:
January 22, 2025 at 4:07 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Jamie B.

I’ve long felt the same way about rap music. But rap is still with us, so I must accept that I simply don’t understand the value that others find in it.

Well, I believe the great Lee Iacocca summarized that phenomenon 50 years ago…
Truth says:
January 22, 2025 at 4:16 pm GMT
@Liza

What – only white folks deserve to be the subjects of unkind, ultracritical satire?

Is that true, or is it hypersensitivity?
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 22, 2025 at 7:05 pm GMT
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi
You confuse higher & lower strata of popular culture. In the case of educated people, here in Europe, in my limited experience- no one among the 20-40 years age contingent can recognize a single rapper. And most saw a Lynch film.

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 22, 2025 at 7:10 pm GMT • 400 Words
@Bardon Kaldian
I agree for the most part, especially on your final point that there are exceptions. And that some of the best films by a filmmaker are timeless and eternal and thus won’t entirely fade away.

The fact that any filmmaker is recalled today by a significant number of people (and not just regulated to cinefiles) is due in no small part because they had a strong track record at the box office.

During their time, Chaplin and Hitchcock both had massively large box office grosses for their pictures, that’s one main reason that they’re recalled today. In other words a filmmaker’s pictures making tons of money means that they’ll be remembered (or their pictures will be remembered) well after they’re long gone.

Aside from Hitchcock and his silent era contemporary DW Griffith (who has all but been forgotten except for his monumental classic and iconic masterpiece “The Birth of a Nation”), there was one filmmaker who from a box office standpoint, stood heads and shoulders above everyone else in Classic Hollywood. From ca. 1910’s – 1956 (or pre-1960), this filmmaker was considered to be among the biggest box office champs ever.

One of his films today is still viewed regularly on TV (and was a main staple of Network TV for decades), and is considered, after adjusted for inflation, to be one of the most watched films in history.

Also of note: Then as now in Hollywood, the more money a filmmaker’s films make, the budgets for his next film(s) then increase.

I do not state that box office is the only metric of which to judge a filmmaker’s work. I am saying that numbers do tell some, or at least an important part of the story and shouldn’t be so cavalierly dismissed when deciding upon an individual filmmaker’s merits as a creative force in the medium.

After all. Who exactly is the filmmaker making the film for? An audience, a paying audience. The studio is releasing the film with what expectation? That the film will make money and turn a profit. This isn’t a charity ward.

I feel sometimes like an individual audience member in The Emperors New Clothes. Everyone was told that the clothes were the most amazing and brilliant thing ever assembled.

But was it really all that?

• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 22, 2025 at 7:11 pm GMT
@The Germ Theory of Disease
Anglosphere is particularly negrodepraved.
Jim Don Bob says:
January 22, 2025 at 7:37 pm GMT • 100 Words
@The Germ Theory of Disease
The Brits have done that to a bunch of their TV shows, and I find it hard to watch. Evidently the third season of Wolf Hall is just chock-a-block with blacks including some of the Queen’s ladies in waiting.

I am all for suspending disbelief somewhat, sci fi, for instance, but this shite is just not true.

That said, I am going to a theater Saturday to watch a Live in HD broadcast of Aida from the Met. Aida is played by the very black Angel Blue.

https://www.metopera.org/season/in-cinemas/2024-25-season/aida

• Replies: @Steve Sailer
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 22, 2025 at 7:39 pm GMT • 200 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

For the most part, however, deciding the merits of a specific filmmaker remains more about personal preference, and thus is subjective.

EXCEPT in one aspect of a filmmakers career—and that relates specifically as to how well their pictures have done at the box office. For film, like it or not, thats the closest thing that people have to having an objective metric, a consensus of people who went to see the filmmakers film for themselves.

I elaborated on this in various points in the same post that you quoted from (but YOU didn’t bother to quote those specific points).

No. There is no way to “objectively estimate” the value of a certain product of arts & entertainment.

The only thing that matters in evaluation is what educated & recognized experts say/think/write, over a period of time, on some film. Then, there is a cultural dimension- outside of the US, hardly anyone considers “The Wizard of Oz” worth watching.

Films as art are not, and I guess will never be, considered to be in the same rank of creativity as standard arts (visual, literature, music).

Box-office hits like “Gladiator” or “American Sniper” no one considers to be permanent (give or take) pieces of filmmaking.

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
, @anonymous
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 22, 2025 at 9:09 pm GMT • 500 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

Hold up, and calm down.

Why did you lie:

I don’t bring up David Lynch ever.

Yo, Jimbo doth protest too much. You’re obviously obsessed with the man. NTTAWWT. 🙂

How many months ago was this conversation?

You, not I, first referenced Steve’s “months ago” comment about Lynch. Apparently it’s been on your mind this whole time, LOL. I had to use the Unz search feature to find what you were still upset about after all these months, myself having not remembered it.

For reasons known only to Steve, it cannot be denied that this specific filmmaker would rank near the top of his all time personal favorites.

Has Steve said that? Citation needed…

At the time, I stated that I’m constantly amazed [e.a.] at various filmmakers that I’m told should be held up lauded and praised for being among the greatest ever.

For the most part, however, deciding the merits of a specific filmmaker remains more about personal preference, and thus is subjective.

You seem to be randomly arguing with yourself here. If some people think so-and-so creator is among the greatest, why the amazement? Unless you disagree with them—but oddly (and unconvincingly, given your demonstrated Lynch obsession) you claim not to have a personal opinion on Lynch’s work. Weird.

E.g., if I said a Euro-spec 1997 BMW M3 is a great car, it would be schizo of you to scoff and be “amazed” while not having an opinion on the car yourself. Perhaps both online and in real life you are prone to random effeminate ‘O.M.G.’ eye-rolling.

EXCEPT in one aspect of a filmmakers career—and that relates specifically as to how well their pictures have done at the box office [e.a.]. For film, like it or not, thats the closest thing that people have to having an objective metric, a consensus of people who went to see the filmmakers film for themselves.

LOL. You pretend to be unaware there are such things as purchased videotapes, DVDs, Blu-rays, downloads, streaming, etc. You’re leaving out major revenue streams over time. By omitting the numbers on those, you’re misrepresenting the metrics of how many people have paid for and seen Lynch’s material.

Also, you’re leaving out Twin Peaks which for at least the first season (in which Lynch was most directly involved) was a hit network series. Your lies by omission are certainly not “the closest thing that people have to having an objective metric”. If a band that toured to merely middling crowds sells millions of albums over time, and streams millions of track plays, you’d be a retard to only look at concert attendance as “the closest thing that people have to having an objective metric” of that band’s popularity. You’re not a retard, are you?

So basically the main point here is that Steve very much likes David Lynch

As a person or for his art? Your studious failure to quote Steve is suspect, one might say dishonest…

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 22, 2025 at 9:33 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

No I do get it. Problem is, most moviegoers didn’t get it, as per box office of most of his films.

But film must be run as a business or over time, it won’t succeed as an art form since the till will be bankrupt.

Are you speaking as the ghost of an old-timey theater owner from 1920? You are apparently unaware of other more recent technological modes of lucrative media distribution.

In that sense, who has had more direct pop cultural clout and influence in the world at large —lynch or the most famous rap superstars? The rap superstars win hands down.

They only “win” if that’s the only game in town. Obviously, it isn’t. E.g., not every restaurant wants to be McDonald’s.
Corvinus says:
January 22, 2025 at 11:16 pm GMT
@J.Ross
“The most shocking thing about Lost Highway is how unapologetically right-wing it is”

According to Who/Whom? Is it just merely YOUR interpretation? How about offering some context here in support of your contention.

• Replies: @J.Ross
J.Ross says:
January 23, 2025 at 12:44 am GMT • 100 Words
@Corvinus
Spoilers below more tag

[MORE]

It presupposes the existence of unsalvageable scumbags and the justice of the death penalty. I kept expecting some last minute twist that would prove that the protagonist was just a misunderstood good guy in a bad situation he didn’t create, because that’s pretty much what Hollywood does.

• Replies: @Corvinus
Steve Sailer says: • Website
January 23, 2025 at 2:16 am GMT • 100 Words
@Jim Don Bob
The rules have long been different for opera: vocal quality is #1 and age, weight, race, even occasionally sex* are secondary.

* I saw Gounod’s Faust in Salzburg and afterwards I was wondering why Faust’s mom did such and such. This very nice cultured couple from Texas overheard my confusion and kindly explained that that wasn’t Faust’s mom, that character was Faust’s little brother. It’s traditional in opera for adult ladies to play little boys, the way a lady does Bart Simpson’s voice. These are called “pants roles.”

But close-ups put a premium on plausibility in casting.

Thus, the 1983 “Carmen” movie that’s the best low cost intro to opera cast singers who looked right for their roles: e.g., rugged Domingo instead of fat Pavarotti. After all, it’s a movie.

• Replies: @Jim Don Bob
Jim Don Bob says:
January 23, 2025 at 2:40 am GMT • 100 Words
@Steve Sailer

The rules have long been different for opera: vocal quality is #1 and age, weight, race, even occasionally sex* are secondary.

Agree completely. I have seen Angel Blue before and she wouldn’t be doing Aida if people weren’t paying to see her again.

But the diversity casting only works one way. It will be a cold day in Hell before a white man plays Othello again.
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 23, 2025 at 2:59 am GMT • 100 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi
You are speaking solely about films, and actually about American films.

As far as I know- only cinephiles watch older movies, never mind whether they were box office hits or flops. For instance, artistic directors like Dreyer, Bunuel, Bresson, …

Successful filmmakers like Hitchcock or Renoir or von Stroheim … are watched by people who have enough maturity not to be bothered by clumsy details or highly artificial acting, so different from our contemporary standards. It is like reading 18th C novels, where the author constantly badgers you with “dear reader, in this chapter …”. You just accept it, sighing.

Just, most people- even those with taste- will not have the patience to watch old films replete with cliches we find, from our current point of view, exasperating.
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 23, 2025 at 3:18 am GMT • 100 Words
OK so I’m going to do a bit of a deep dive into David Lynch, and specifically into Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, but before I do, first I need y’all to listen to this: an acoustic duet version of “Birds of a Feather” between the great Billie Eilish and FINNEAS, in order to understand what I’m going to say. It won’t make any sense until you hear the cover first.

Assuming Steve clears the comment at some point, I will check back in as promised, with more about Lynch. But first, enjoy the only music that matters here in the early 21st century……

• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 23, 2025 at 7:45 am GMT • 200 Words
@Bardon Kaldian
Let’s keep it real. Personal antidotes are all well and good. Problem is, they cancel one another out. In someone else’s private circle of acquaintances, rap and hip hoppers are well known, and high end PBS style “art” is reserved for the over 60 crowd.

Also this faux distinction of separating film into high or low brow—film is a capitalistic art form, thus one of the premiere observations of an artists real worth is how their films perform at the box office—namely did people go to view their work?

What is one of the most popular music among 12-40 year olds, in the first world? (And in much of the world at large) answer: rap and hip hop. As Rap is now in its 2nd full generation, other nations have developed their own national and local rap hip hop artists.

When rap superstars can have private meetings with world leaders, that tends to mean that they have political clout, influencers.
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 23, 2025 at 7:53 am GMT • 100 Words
@Jenner Ickham Errican
“You pretend to be unaware there are such things as purchased videotapes, DVDs, Blu-rays, downloads, streaming, etc. You’re leaving out major revenue streams over time”

Most people tend to watch the films that were already hits at the box office during their initial run in the theater. The most popular streamed films are the ones that were already box office hits. After all most (most, but not all) people don’t want to waste their time watching a film that flopped in its original release.

I’m sure by this time in 2025 that all the streams and downloads have helped to make the filmmakers films that flopped (which is to say most of them) finally break even. That’s impressive—it only took about 30-40 yrs for the studios to recap their original losses.

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 23, 2025 at 8:24 am GMT • 600 Words
@Bardon Kaldian
“No. There is no way to “objectively estimate” the value of a certain product of arts & entertainment“

Uh yes.

I said that there is ONE way to determine a consensus as to whether or not a film reached an audience.

Film isn’t some unknowable that only a cabal of some elitist snobbish clandestine members decide what is and is not “art”

After all, films are constantly reevaluated over time. What was once considered a classic or art might now be reevaluated downward. Conversely, films that were once over looked often attain cult classic status and anre reevaluated upward.

There is definitely a place for giving films a second or even a third look over time. What this also shows is that the “elite educated” film critics can often change their initial evaluations, often contradict one another, or their evaluations are ignored or considered antiquated with the coming of a new generation of film critics.

Like pop culture and fashion at large, film criticism itself undergoes changes with every new generation—sometimes within the next decade. What was considered edgy creative and amazing is considered old hat cliched even reactionary in the worst way down the road.

“outside of the US, hardly anyone considers “The Wizard of Oz” worth watching.”

This is irrelevant, since the same argument can be made about another nation’s films. Outside the —fill in another nation—hardly anyone considers such and such foreign (to the West or US) film to be worth watching.

A more accurate argument is that film tends to reflect the culture it comes from. For the most part, film reflects national culture, society , mores, etc of which it was produced.

At its best, film can be considered the equal with the best of visual and certainly music art. Literature is harder to compare as film is an entirely different medium and uses different guidelines to produce. Also unlike a single author, a film isn’t produced by a single person (for the most part).

“ Box-office hits like “Gladiator” or “American Sniper” no one considers to be permanent (give or take) pieces of filmmaking”

That’s a subjective opinion. Could just as easily state various films that are considered to be permanent pieces of filmmaking .

Example: the Godfather. It was highly acclaimed in its time, and performed very well at the box office. It is considered by audiences and critics alike to be an iconic film; it has stood the test of time. It is …a permanent piece of filmmaking.

I would also add from the same era, “Rocky” (1976). It was a massive box office hit, and won several Academy Awards. It is considered to be an iconic permanent film. Is this because the critics decided so? Of course not. And in point of fact today’s critics aren’t huge fans of the film.

The audiences supported it. Outside the US, say, in the UK and other nations Rocky is considered to be a good film, just like the Godfather.

Films based heavily in mainstream popular culture can also attain iconic status worldwide. For example, though a British production (with US producers) the James Bond franchise is one of world cinema’s commercially successful group of films. Does this make them art? Of course not. But it does mean that they have achieved global iconic status. Aside from the Uk and US, Europe Japan Australia and Eastern Europe have viewed the Bond films, they are considered quite iconic in their own right. And going on a fourth generation soon of films, which would tend to indicate that in their own way, they’ve left their mark on world film at large since they’ve been popular in many parts and corners of the world.

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
, @Bardon Kaldian
Corvinus says:
January 23, 2025 at 11:34 am GMT
@J.Ross
So as we suspected you’re giving your own spin on the content. Essentially, it’s your opinion.
The Spiritual Works of Mercy says:
January 23, 2025 at 2:58 pm GMT • 200 Words
@Steve Sailer

“I get ideas and I want to put them on film because they thrill me. You may say that people look for meaning in everything, but they don’t. They’ve got life going on around them, but they don’t look for meaning there. They look for meaning when they go to a movie. I don’t know why people expect art to make sense when they accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.” – David Lynch

In contrast to that, James Joyce claimed that every syllable of Finnegan’s Wake could be explained. Another contrast is what happens to Gretta Conroy in Joyce’s The Dead when she hears The Lass of Aughrim being sung and what happens to Frank Booth in Blue Velvet when he hears Roy Orbison’s song In Dreams. There is a difference between being an artist and being someone who slops together characters in a production.

It is swell of you to say something nice about the deceased, but David Lynch was basically a macabre nihilist, one who certain deluded people like David Foster Wallace mistook for a deeply creative artist. To that you could say, “He didn’t care what critics thought about him: he probably wouldn’t care what nobodies like you thought of him either.”

To which I would say that I actually don’t really care about David Lynch, either.

• Agree: Yojimbo/Zatoichi
• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
, @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
MEH 0910 says:
January 23, 2025 at 3:14 pm GMT
Academy Award nominees were announced today:

https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2025

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/97th_Academy_Awards
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 23, 2025 at 5:15 pm GMT • 300 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

Most people tend to watch the films that were already hits at the box office during their initial run in the theater. The most popular streamed films are the ones that were already box office hits.

That may be true, but what does that have to do with you being mad at Steve for praising David Lynch, and you lying about never bringing up Lynch? You’re flailing, kiddo.

After all most (most, but not all) people don’t want to waste their time watching a film that flopped in its original release.

Presumably most people don’t want to waste their time, period. I doubt any given person is going to autistically seek out movies solely based on box office rankings, which could be a big waste of time. Someone who likes popular A-list rom-coms may not also like to watch Michael Bay action movies or hit Disney movies.

That’s impressive—it only took about 30-40 yrs for the studios to recap their original losses.

Since Lynch is the topic, gonna need the stats on that, chief. Since most of his films in their original theater runs made a box office profit, you might be (intentionally?) bad at math if you think his investors had to wait long to profit.

For some reason, you seem glum that Lynch was profitable for his backers. It’s clear that you have a burning love/hate for David Lynch that you can’t explain. Why embarrass yourself by trying to rationalize it away? Come out of the closet already.
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 23, 2025 at 5:20 pm GMT • 300 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

I said that there is ONE way to determine a consensus as to whether or not a film reached an audience.

Yes, that’s what you SAID, but is it true? You’d have to ignore home/private viewing of the material. That’s as retarded/autistic as ignoring album sales and downloads of music.

You’re engaging in classic univariate fallacy, because you have no point, other than to state the obvious that David Lynch films aren’t mainstream movies, which seems to trouble you. Have you been mocked IRL for being ‘basic’, and rattled by that? If you prefer the Fast and Furious franchise to David Lynch, that’s okay.

Now, if you watch the Fast and Furious franchise primarily because of its high global box office rankings, that’s weird, but understandable if you are unable to personally evaluate something on its artistic merits or lack thereof, which you have admitted regarding Lynch. Many spergs like yourself have this problem, and rely on blunt third-party social validation (i.e., ‘Is there community consensus? Is it broadly popular? Then it is safe to like.’) for cultural value judgements.

The dissonance and confusion for an autist insecure in his/her personal judgement in subjective matters comes from an awareness of different social rankings sometimes correlated with separate patterns of cultural consumption. If you, Y/Z, have had struggles in your life trying to ‘fit in’ socially due to Aspergers, you will go mad like HAL 9000 (btw, that’s a reference to a movie that “flopped in its original release’’) trying to figure out which group to ‘follow’, and why, since you are unable to judge a work by yourself. Y/Z, you are certainly an entertaining psychological case study. 🙂

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
, @Punch Brother Punch
Anonymous[535] • Disclaimer says:
January 24, 2025 at 3:57 am GMT • 400 Words
@Jenner Ickham Errican
Lynchpin is rather strange figure as far as Americana is concerned.

1950s Americana(and even later small town depictions, often presented as regressive nostalgia for the Old Days) has often been the stuff of subversive satire purporting to expose the underlying perversities and repressions beneath the outward appearance of bliss and harmony. The idea is that the harmony is all a facade, an illusion maintained by conservatives as an reactionary ideal or regressive dream of a better past. Thus, by exposing what lies beneath, the whole is exposed as fraudulent and mocked.

Given Lynch’s approach, it’s easy to see his approach as subversive as well, but it’s subconscious without being subversive, at least in the mocking sense. Unlike the Liberal approach that scratches the pleasant surface to reveal what’s ugly, Lynch digs through the ugliness and finds a deeper harmony. Thus in Blue Velvet, the nice green lawns yield to a severed ear but the story concludes with a heavenly view of Laura Dern’s ear as an reaffirmation of community and decency.
The hidden perversity, far from invalidating the communal decency, actually affirms it as a necessary bulwark against the dangers lurking everywhere, both external(in the form of freaks and criminals) and internal(in dark passions that can lead people astray).

Liberal mockers of Americana maybe mistook Lynch as one of their own as he seemed to be exposing and mocking the same falsehood. Except he didn’t regard it as falsehood but the essential counterweight to the dark forces all about.

Liberals say because there’s darkness below the brightness, the brightness is false. Lynch says because the darkness is real(and must be addressed), the light is essential.

Oddly enough, this makes Lynch’s view of the 50s somewhat parallel to that of homosexuals who, though critical of the conformist repression, also fetishize its sense of decorum and manners given that their community(and psychology) is split between perversity and order, with a keen sense of aesthetics. Perhaps, their perversity makes them long for order as balance.

The very Liberals who detest the Old Days adore homosexuals with their 50s sensibilities of green lawns and white picket fences.

• Replies: @Steve Sailer
, @HA
, @Jenner Ickham Errican
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 24, 2025 at 7:45 am GMT • 100 Words
@The Spiritual Works of Mercy
In another country,
With another name,
Maybe things are different.
Maybe they’re the same.
— Eno

“In contrast to that, James Joyce claimed that every syllable of Finnegan’s Wake could be explained.”

Well you already got the very first thing wrong (heh, as if there were a “first” “thing”, which is what the whole book is about.)

It is not “Finnegan’s Wake,” the title of an auld Irish drinking song (as if the Irish needed more reasons to drink), it is Finnegans Wake, as in Latin fin/negans, “negating (or erasing) the Ending).”

Now git along with you.

Oh and also, per Joyce, every syllable of the Wake CAN be explained; it’s just that not everybody needs to know about it. Or should.

• Replies: @The Spiritual Works of Mercy
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 24, 2025 at 8:08 am GMT • 100 Words
“Respect is a virtue
That strong men command.”
— Bob again.

Check this out, ladies……

More honest emotion, and more sincerity, and more earned wisdom, and more just freakin’ old-school WHAAAT THA F—?!?
than in 40+ years of all of hip-hop. You heard me.

From just one, just one, old gay white dude.
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 24, 2025 at 10:56 am GMT • 300 Words
@Jenner Ickham Errican
“Yes, that’s what you SAID, but is it true? ”

Uh yes.

“You’d have to ignore home/private viewing of the material.”

And again, the most popular home private viewing of material are those films that did well in their initial release in the theater.

Because IF Lynch was known for having films that were box office hits, we’d have heard about it long before now.

For example: Wiki states that Steven Spielberg has the most number one box office hits of any US filmmaker during a career. Most metrics give Spielberg the top spot or near the top spot as the most commercially successful US filmmaker for over the last half century. Lynch doesn’t come anywhere close. Per the-numbers, Lynch isn’t ranked in the top 500, or 600, filmmakers for total box office grosses. Granted the list includes several filmmakers pre-1970, so it can be a bit skewed. But many filmmakers are also ranked below Lynch (the website fails to take into account adjusted for inflation) So removing about 100 or so filmmakers at best, and Lynch still wouldn’t finish in the top 500 directors by the most box office revenues. He ranks at #700 all time. That’s not a very good batting average in regards to connecting with a mass audience.

And, unlike Lynch, Spielberg won not one, but two Academy Awards for best director. So his films have been just as critically acclaimed in the US.

You have not produced any evidence that most of Lynch’s films have made a profit at the box office. I have already granted the Elephant Man, and Disney’s the Straight Story. Aside from those, (and Twin Peaks but that is TV, and I’ve been specifically referring to his films), Lynch has had mostly flops during his career.

So, the idea that this filmmaker had any sizeable audience outside of film critics/historians, hardcore film buffs, and film students, is difficult to take at face value. He certainly wasn’t making his films for any sizeable audience in mind for the vast duration of his career.

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 24, 2025 at 11:03 am GMT • 100 Words
@The Spiritual Works of Mercy
“To which I would say that I actually don’t really care about David Lynch, either.”

And noticing what the public at large thought about him (that they didn’t care about most of his works), its safe to reasonably state that Lynch will be mostly forgotten by most ordinary mass filmgoers within a spate of a decade or so. After all, he didn’t make films for ordinary people, nor did he ever offer up a solution or a positive uplift for people. Therefore, there’s no reason to recall and remember him over time.

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
Steve Sailer says: • Website
January 24, 2025 at 11:35 am GMT
@Anonymous
Thanks.
Steve Sailer says: • Website
January 24, 2025 at 1:15 pm GMT
I’m vague on whether Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” is much influenced by David Lynch or not.

• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
, @The Germ Theory of Disease
, @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
The Spiritual Works of Mercy says:
January 24, 2025 at 2:27 pm GMT • 100 Words
@The Germ Theory of Disease

…which is what the whole book is about.

I think it’s a little more complicated than that. Or do you literally claim to be the first person who knows what that beast is all about?

And don’t be persnickety about my possessive apostrophe. YOU got the song’s provenance wrong: it was made in America.

it’s just that not everybody needs to know about it. Or should.

Again, you seem to be claiming superior knowledge of something everyone is baffled by. If so, then please, go ahead, elaborate. I’ve got my own theories about the book. But I don’t boast about them like I know they are true.

• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 24, 2025 at 4:56 pm GMT
@Steve Sailer
“I’m vague on whether Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” is much influenced by David Lynch or not.”

I’ve worked with Chris Isaak (and also Lynch).

It is not.
Punch Brother Punch says:
January 24, 2025 at 5:09 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Jenner Ickham Errican
You’re wasting your time. I got into it with this commenter a year ago over his claim that Martin Scorsese “directed mostly flops.” See the comments to this article:

https://www.unz.com/isteve/tommy-smothers-rip/

In his mind, any filmmaker who fails to achieve Spielberg levels of box-office success is a commercial failure propped up by the “anti-free market” Hollywood system. His definition of what constitutes profitability is extremely narrow and rigid and he keeps coming back to the same silly points over and over again.

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
, @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 24, 2025 at 5:19 pm GMT
@Steve Sailer

The Girl On Fire.

Nuff said.

Over and out.
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 24, 2025 at 6:33 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

Therefore, there’s no reason to recall and remember him over time.

Ironically, you recalled and remembered Lynch over time when you complained about Lynch (out of the blue) to Steve in a past thread, and brought up that thread here. The evidence in this current topic forum is that David Lynch’s work is quite memorable to both his numerous admirers and detractors. Your own revealed preference indicates that you’ll continue to think about Lynch (and possibly Herb Ritts, LOL) long into the foreseeable future. NTTAWWT. 🙂

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
HA says:
January 24, 2025 at 6:48 pm GMT • 200 Words
@Anonymous
“Lynchpin is rather strange figure as far as Americana is concerned….Thus, by exposing what lies beneath, the whole is exposed as fraudulent and mocked.”

Sounds like you could have been talking about Faulkner (with a dash of Lovecraft thrown in). Or maybe Hawthorne? I.e., for all its strangeness, it’s nonetheless canon at this point.

“Oddly enough, this makes Lynch’s view of the 50s somewhat parallel to that of homosexuals who, though critical of the conformist repression, also fetishize its sense of decorum and manners…”

Like, say, John Waters? Or RockyHorror/TrueBlood/B-52’s and all the other pulpy and seamy and absurd sendups of square and suburbian conformity we’ve come to know (and in some cases, to love)? That weird combination of affection and mockery and irony that even the creators can’t seem to disentangle? Unlike Waters, Lynch (eventually) had the budget to overlay all that with lush cinematography and smoking-hot actresses — like Sam Phillips was able to do with his reverb box back when Elvis was at the heartbreak hotel (or, more to the Lynchian point, like Chris Isaak and James Calvin Wilsey did on “Wicked Game”) — but even so, the rawness and freakiness was never far away.

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
, @Mark G.
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 24, 2025 at 7:00 pm GMT
@Anonymous
Good comment.

• Replies: @anon
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 24, 2025 at 7:17 pm GMT
@HA

That weird combination of affection and mockery and irony that even the creators can’t seem to disentangle?

Assuming you are generally familiar with Lynch’s work, regarding his creative output (from a personal appreciation perspective) are you more pro-Lynch, or more anti-Lynch?

• Replies: @HA
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 24, 2025 at 8:00 pm GMT • 600 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

“Yes, that’s what you SAID, but is it true? ”

Uh yes.

LOL.

Recap of lies by Y/Z in this thread:

I don’t bring up David Lynch ever.

Lie. You started this thread referring to a past thread where you, no one else, brought up Lynch out of the blue.

Steve goes on and on about [Lynch’s “Wicked Game” video] each time as if Lynch’s influence is the main reason that Isaak’s song was a smash hit.

Lie. Steve never did that. Steve once made a non sequitur (in that context) throwaway comment (quoted upthread) about Lynch being a better artist than Herb Ritts, which rattled you enough to bring it up again months later. Perhaps you are a huge Herb Ritts fan and was deeply offended all those months ago, LOL.

For reasons known only to Steve, it cannot be denied that this specific filmmaker would rank near the top of his all time personal favorites.

Lie. Steve on Lynch: “David Lynch, obviously, was a great American artist and a great American patriot. He wasn’t to my taste, [e.a.] but that’s to my discredit, not his.”

You write:

[Lynch’s] box office track record, to put it mildly, was abysmal.

Lynch has had mostly flops during his career.

Lies. Most of Lynch’s first run box office returns were profitable, and the minority amount of first run box office deficits were near break even (except The Straight Story). Obviously not “abysmal” or “mostly flops”. Here’s the full film list; budgets and box office returns are included in the links to each film (with few exceptions—if you have better complete data, post it):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lynch#Filmography

So, the idea that this filmmaker had any sizeable audience outside of film critics/historians, hardcore film buffs, and film students, is difficult to take at face value. [e.a.]

Only for you, who keeps lying about Lynch’s box office revenue, and refusal to account for other revenue streams. Lynch’s filmography is easily in the black, thus indicating he is a popular filmmaker, albeit not on a Spielberg or Michael Bay level.

Your whole argument, stripped of your lies, boils down to a bizarro repeated autistic whinge, paraphrased: ‘David Lynch gets a lot of positive ink but is overrated because he is not among the top box-office-grossing directors ever.’

Your view is that of someone who automatically defers to a perceived hive-mind consensus to form an opinion on something. Are you East Asian? You think like a bugman.

One thing I missed in your comments, due in part to your cowardly (and self-contradictory, see quotes below) aversion to stating your personal opinion of Lynch’s work (i.e. do you like it or not, and why), you actually did offer it (before retreating like a pussy):

After awhile, one gets the feeling that “there is no there there”, which in itself could be a point. Or it could be, I’m afraid to say, something along the lines of…

“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”

Followed later by:

But as of this time, I’ve not given a thought as to whether or not David Lynch is among the greatest ever US filmmakers.

The latter appears to be deflective effeminate snark. Being an effeminate snarker is no way to go through life, son. Also, lying is bad.

If you had frankly replied to my first comment to you (nothing wrong with simply quoting Shakespeare), you could have avoided degrading yourself by unnecessarily engaging in Jack D depths of deflection and dishonesty, including you lying about our host. Bad form for a regular commenter I heretofore held in generally positive esteem.

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
Mark G. says:
January 24, 2025 at 8:24 pm GMT
@HA
Bad news for you, HA. They announced who will be performing at this year’s Grammys. Billie Eilish will perform but your hero Zelensky will not be there playing the piano with his penis.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/arts/music/grammy-performers-billie-eilish-chappell-roan.html

• Replies: @HA
anon[196] • Disclaimer says:
January 24, 2025 at 9:34 pm GMT
@Jenner Ickham Errican
It’s like liberals wanna throw out the baby with the bathwater whereas Lynch wants to save the baby from the bathwater.

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
anonymous[423] • Disclaimer says:
January 24, 2025 at 10:48 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Bardon Kaldian

outside of the US, hardly anyone considers “The Wizard of Oz” worth watching.

So what? It’s a movie made by and for Americans. We don’t care what foreigners think about anything to do with us, although foreigners such as yourself think we do.

In any case, you are wrong. Japanese, for one, love that movie and the whole story. They even made an animated version back in the Eighties, オズの魔法使い, directed by 高山文彦. And Japan is vastly more important and significant than Croatia or all of the Balkans ever has been or ever will be. Compared to the Japanese, your opinions are unimportant.

• Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
, @Bardon Kaldian
HA says:
January 24, 2025 at 11:11 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Mark G.
“Billie Eilish will perform

Good for you, little guy — I hope you were able to contain your excitement. And thanks so much for keeping us apprised, in typical TMI fashion, of your ongoing obsession with Grammy awards (verily, the real genuine metric of all that is worthy in society and music — I mean, just ask Beyoncé) and Eilish and also men’s penises. It’s all starting to come together.

• Replies: @Mark G.
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 24, 2025 at 11:25 pm GMT
@Jenner Ickham Errican
tisk…tisk…tisk…

tut…tut…tut…

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 24, 2025 at 11:26 pm GMT
@anon
Assuming that there is a live baby in the bathwater.
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 24, 2025 at 11:28 pm GMT
@anonymous
He doesn’t get it or realize that films made in one country can have an iconic affect world wide (even though films are largely a part of the culture or nation from which they sprung).
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 25, 2025 at 12:02 am GMT
@Punch Brother Punch
Thanks for that link. I didn’t catch that thread before.

I know Y/Z is probably trolling (Can he be that retarded unintentionally??), but since I didn’t previously know him as a troll commenter, I don’t mind seeing how far he’ll go…
HA says:
January 25, 2025 at 12:12 am GMT • 200 Words
@Jenner Ickham Errican
“are you more pro-Lynch, or more anti-Lynch?”

I think the key to enjoying Lynch has to do with setting up expectations correctly. I learned, eventually, to go in to anything Lynch does expecting to be trolled, and to try and be a good sport about it, given that he seems to want you to laugh along. That’s as close to trying to understand him as I’ve been able to get. When it comes to grotesque and dark, I tend to be old-school, and generally stick with Bosch and Grünewald and the like. That being said, I’ll always have an upraised thumb for someone who against all odds was able to game a system as corrupt as Hollywood as long as he did and maintain a sense of humor about it all, and even whimsy:

There’s something kind of Sailerian about that. To see that connection more clearly, consider Lynch’s memories of Philly (in Fairmount), which I think go along way in figuring him out.

We lived cheap, but the city was full of fear. A kid was shot to death down the street … We were robbed twice, had windows shot out and a car stolen. The house was first broken into only three days after we moved in … The feeling was so close to extreme danger, and the fear was so intense. There was violence and hate and filth. But the biggest influence in my whole life was that city.

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 25, 2025 at 3:54 am GMT • 300 Words
@The Spiritual Works of Mercy
“If you love enough, you’ll lie a lot.”
— Tori Amos

Oh good grief. Will you pls check out Nerdy McNerdlinger here, trying to fact-check me on whether or not an “auld” (HINT: not “old”) Irish drinking song was in feckt ackshullly written in America (it was, yes I know), rather than have fun with a good swift line (another Irish-American trait, laddee.)

“I got lost on my wedding day.
Typical. The police came.
Oh but virgins always
Get backstage,
No matter what they have to say.
Make me laugh.”
— Tori Amos again

Here’s a good one for ye, laddie. Way back in the Stone Age, I’m talkin’ early 80s here if you can imagine, the Mary Boone Gallery down on Broadway in SoHo (NOT Soho, London nerd nazis!) used to have a New Year’s Eve thingy where the gallery stayed open all night, and they hosted a night-long marathon open reading of yeah you guessed it, Finnegans Wake. Anybody could (and did) step up to the podium and try to wrangle about a paragraph or two from that incomprehensible misterwerk (who is that, smartypants?).

So one night in about 1981, a teenage me got up and read a page or so from the Wake, at about 4:00 in the morning on New Year’s Eve. As I was getting offstage and passing the baton to the next reader, I noticed that the next reader in fact was Lou Fucking Reed, himself. I smiled as I passed him and said, “Hey Lou. You wrote “The Black Angel’s Death Song.” He chuckled and said, “Yeah. I guess I did, didn’t I?”

Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the

• Replies: @The Spiritual Works of Mercy
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 25, 2025 at 5:42 am GMT • 100 Words
@Punch Brother Punch
Except I quoted from the numbers, and, Lynch didn’t have many box office hits.

For the most part, I was correct about Scorcese. You were correct about Taxi Driver (for the rest of 20th century, Scorcese didn’t have many box office hits, period).

From Google AI:
David Lynch’s earlier films were some of his biggest box office hits, but his later films were less successful.

https://www.indiewire.com/news/box-office/david-lynch-box-office-history-1235085720

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 25, 2025 at 5:43 am GMT
@Steve Sailer
Chris Isaak’s song “Wicked Game” was inspired by a phone call from a woman who wanted to set up a hook-up. The song is about the consequences of having a strong attraction to someone who may not be good for you
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 25, 2025 at 5:55 am GMT • 100 Words
@Jenner Ickham Errican
Bad form for a regular commenter I heretofore held in generally positive esteem”

I never thought about you before, except as a vermin quasi inbred who didn’t like people disagreeing with him. And looks like I was correct on that account.

Difference of opinion. Both of us think that we are correct. Sign of maturity is to move on as neither side will admit error in their argumentation.

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
, @Jim Don Bob
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 25, 2025 at 8:25 am GMT
@HA
Thanks.
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 25, 2025 at 9:05 am GMT • 200 Words
@The Germ Theory of Disease
OK so this is just Part One of my (as-threatened) deep dive into David Lynch, PBUH.

Lots of people don’t like Lynch’s work, and that’s Okay: hell man, lots of people also don’t like my work either, but I don’t care. This one guy once came up to me on the street and told me to my face, Hey man, I saw that thing that you did, and you know what? It made it much easier for me to come out as a gay man to my friends and family, and so, really I mean this… Thank you.

And guess what? The thing he was referring to, had no obvious connection to being a gay man — but that was simply how he had chosen to read it. And so yeah, FUCK yeah!! man… you just never know what, or how, the things that you do, are going to ripple on off in the ways that you never even fucking thought of.

More later. And also, Fuck You.

• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 25, 2025 at 12:40 pm GMT
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi
You done got yo ass whupped, Yobimbo.

Cue: Wicked Shame
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 25, 2025 at 12:44 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

Except I quoted from the numbers, and, Lynch didn’t have many box office hits.

You silly twat, you lied upthread and wrote his box office returns were “abysmal” and “in point of fact most of his films flopped” (in an attempted support of a bizarre strawman). But even your own link proves you wrong.

If you weren’t a pussy you could have simply declared you don’t like Lynch’s work, without having to ‘rationalize’ it with fake and gay b.s.

• Replies: @Punch Brother Punch
, @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 25, 2025 at 12:52 pm GMT • 100 Words
@The Germ Theory of Disease

This one guy once came up to me on the street and told me to my face, Hey man, I saw that thing that you did, and you know what? It made it much easier for me to come out as a gay man to my friends and family, and so, really I mean this… Thank you.

Lemme guess… that guy was Yojimbo/Zatoichi
The Spiritual Works of Mercy says:
January 25, 2025 at 2:29 pm GMT • 100 Words
@The Germ Theory of Disease
How annoying. That is a lame story. Tori Amos and Lou Reed? Rock n’ roll is for losers. And you are calling me a nerd?

Just offhand, I can relate that a jolly big fella I was passing on my way out of the cafeteria goes, “That cake was an eight out of ten.” Then I heard another guy go, “Phillip, Phillip, can I have some coffee?”

I guess the water was only up to my ankles but I wasn’t wearing galoshes.

• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 25, 2025 at 3:00 pm GMT
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi

Sign of maturity is to move on as neither side will admit error in their argumentation.

https://www.unz.com/isteve/david-lynch-rip/#comment-6962709
Punch Brother Punch says:
January 25, 2025 at 6:23 pm GMT • 200 Words
@Jenner Ickham Errican
Definition-switching and goalpost-shifting are preferred tactics of his. He’ll say something like “this director made mostly flops.” This is a nebulous term but most take it to mean a film that lost a lot of money. You counter by pointing out that the majority of the director’s films made a profit, either in theaters or home video. He then shifts to “this director didn’t have any Spielberg-level box-office hits.” Even if you point to a film that undeniably made a great profit in its original theatrical run, such as GoodFellas, he says the profits were eaten up by marketing because he assumes every movie has a summer-blockbuster sized marketing budget and therefore even when the director has a hit he loses money.

His definition of what constitutes cultural memorability is refutable. There are many internationally celebrated artists whose work found little success in their lifetimes and offered no “uplift” or “solutions to problems” (Van Gogh, anyone?). By contrast, many cultural products that were popular in their day were forgotten just a short time later. If we look at the top-20 highest-grossing films of 1986, the year of David Lynch’s most famous film, Blue Velvet, we see a handful of memorable films, a lot of forgettable comedies and sequels, and some genuine trash like The Golden Child and Police Academy 3.

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls057842080/

Blue Velvet has likely surpassed most of these films in at-home views in the nearly 40 years since.

• Agree: Jenner Ickham Errican
Yojimbo/Zatoichi says:
January 25, 2025 at 6:35 pm GMT
@Jenner Ickham Errican
No, the link proves me correct.

• LOL: Jenner Ickham Errican
• Replies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
J.Ross says:
January 25, 2025 at 6:54 pm GMT
My favorite story about David Lynch is buying one of his books about the nature of inspiration (“Catching the Big Fish”), and getting all excited about “figuring out” Lynch’s process, and reading it and it turns out he’s into Zen. So the random stuff is just random stuff.
Mark G. says:
January 25, 2025 at 6:57 pm GMT • 100 Words
@HA
HA, it’s pretty funny that you are attacking me for liking Billie Eilish and it does not occur to that tiny little parrot brain of yours that, since Billie is a liberal, she might be pro-Ukraine. According to the Google AI overview I just looked at, Billie has shown support for Ukraine by raising awareness of the Russian invasion, performing with the Ukrainian flag and encouraging her fans to donate to the Ukrainian cause. At a concert in Bonn, Germany, Billie kissed a Ukraine flag that was given to her by Ukrainian singer Jerry Heil and then sang a song while holding it.

I like Billie in spite of her dumb politics because she has a nice singing voice. HA, I’m not sure your penis piano playing hero Zelensky would appreciate you putting down such a fervent pop star supporter of him and his country.

• Replies: @HA
, @Mr. Anon
HA says:
January 25, 2025 at 7:43 pm GMT • 400 Words
@Mark G.
“HA, it’s pretty funny that you are attacking me for liking Billie Eilish and it does not occur to that tiny little parrot brain of yours that, since Billie is a liberal, she might be pro-Ukraine.”

My “attacking” you — is attacking really the right word for a flabby geriatric armchair-warrior to pull into a discussion on Ukraine? — extends to pointing out that a 68-year-old man gushing over Billie Eilish is a sign on someone likely missing out on something, and that hole is unlikely to be filled by keeping tabs on Billie, or the Grammies, or some politician’s penis. You could try getting five cats, I suppose, like certain other people experiencing that kind of void are known for doing, but I don’t think that will help either.

And it’s not about what Billie thinks about Ukraine that’s particularly relevant, though to the extent she’s a supporter, props to her, I say (even though I consider that a pretty low bar, when it comes to basic humanity). Same goes for taking in dogs in need of rehoming — another round of thumbs-up. No, what’s more relevant is what some self-labeled queer woman of 25 who’s into pit bulls thinks about the likes of you. Or more to the point doesn’t think at all.

But like I said, you have a fascination — indeed, an uncanny knack for fixating on — that which loathes and discounts and is creeped out by the likes you. And with regard to all that gushing — I mean, when you clap along with girlish glee to the latest Billie offering on Youtube or Spotify, on taxpayer-funded broadband during taxpayer-funded work hours (all of it during “breaks”, I’m totally sure, wink-wink), are you certain that the people in the adjoining cubicles haven’t noticed? — regardless, the very fact that you think that THIS is exactly the kind of site where that’s going to be warmly appreciated isn’t nearly as “funny” as it is pathetic, but if you’re so good at noticing things that are in the former category, you might want to cast your eyes a little closer to home.

In particular, if you really want to get to the bottom of what’s ailing you, I suggest you look within closely enough to figure out how you managed to fall not just for Billie, but for a pharma-grifter like Vivek (we all know how keen you are on the dangers of pharmaceutical dealings, after all). Of all the corrupt, sleazy pols out there eagerly plotting to stick it to those stupid enough to have supported or praised them, you had to fixate on him. You think that’s just a coincidence?

Speaking of which, how’s your old pal Vivek doing these days? You keeping tabs on his governor’s run as eagerly as you’re tracking Zelensky’s penis?

• Replies: @Mark G.
Mr. Anon says:
January 25, 2025 at 8:04 pm GMT
@Mark G.
The loathsome piece of garbage known as “HA” has the gall to call someone else an “armchair warrior”. I’m not surprised. It is what I would expect from that odious piece of crap.

• Agree: Mark G., JMcG
• Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
Mark G. says:
January 25, 2025 at 8:42 pm GMT • 100 Words
@HA
“taxpayer funded work hours”

My management is happy to have someone there they can pay one fifth as much as everyone else since that is what I make after you subtract my pension I am not collecting from my salary. Poor HA, arithmetic is so hard for him.

HA, your comments are becoming increasingly senile, rambling and incoherent. You might want to get with the doctor of your fellow senile Zelensky fan Biden and see if he can put you on the same anti-Alzheimers drugs Joe is on.
Jim Don Bob says:
January 26, 2025 at 12:29 am GMT
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi
I found out two things about Pee Wee Herman today:
1) He was gay
2) He died in 2023

https://pagesix.com/2025/01/24/celebrity-news/pee-wee-herman-star-paul-reubens-comes-out-as-gay-in-posthumous-doc/

• Replies: @Mike Tre
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 26, 2025 at 3:55 am GMT • 100 Words
@The Spiritual Works of Mercy
“Rock n’ roll is for losers. And you are calling me a nerd? ”

Yes. Yes I am. I am calling you a nerd.

And Tori is the coolest. But you wouldn’t know bout dat, because you are a nerd.

Which I just called you, Nerdlinger. Because you are a nerd.

Nerldinger.

• Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
, @Mark G.
The Germ Theory of Disease says:
January 26, 2025 at 4:10 am GMT • 100 Words
@The Germ Theory of Disease
Which now that I think of it, Her Serene Tori Herself, in her unimaginable Supreme Gracious State of Coolness, would probably in fact correct me and give me a right smart rap on the knuckles: because of course it is so obviously Un-Cool to rudely yell at people like you who are so irritatingly Uncool. It’s just not cool.

You get the idea where this is going, it’s like circles within circles, like Kepler within Kepler and sh#t. Ugh.

Enough already.

• Replies: @The Spiritual Works of Mercy
Jenner Ickham Errican says:
January 26, 2025 at 6:16 am GMT
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi
All right Y/Z, we’ll call it a draw.

• LOL: deep anonymous, Truth
Mike Tre says:
January 26, 2025 at 12:04 pm GMT
@Jim Don Bob
Based on (among other things) the nature of his arrest history, I always thought it was obvious that he was a homosexual, as well as a pederast.

• Replies: @HA
, @Art Deco
The Spiritual Works of Mercy says:
January 26, 2025 at 2:19 pm GMT • 100 Words
@The Germ Theory of Disease
Irritatingly uncool? Yeah. OK. Lets see. What I did was a matter of mispunctuation. You started name calling, and fell into a stupid Joycean impression. And now this is all about Tori Amos. Huh? You keep calling me a “nerdlinger.” I suggest you calm down and consider what you yourself have written. Then honestly ask yourself if, as the Bible says, “those who accuse do the same thing.”
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 27, 2025 at 12:17 pm GMT • 200 Words
@anonymous
I saw this comment belatedly.

First- Japanese are into baseball & the rest of the world doesn’t care about this US sport. It doesn’t prove anything.

Second- my post, which included a comment on the irrelevance of “The Wizard of Oz”, was about the impossibility of some “objective evaluation” of works of arts & entertainment. But, if we limit ourselves to the products of Western culture (most classics of Chinese and Hindu cultures are alien to the European sensibility), I would agree with Tolstoy that the crucial element in judging a piece of art is universality.

And that’s why so many American products- I am speaking about high culture- are deemed parochial by other European & Europe-derived nations.

In the case of popular culture, it is different & American popular culture is indeed widely popular in the broader world. Just, many “cult” American products of popular culture are either uninteresting or incomprehensible.

Which, of course, has nothing to do with local cultures’ consumers (Americans, British, Germans, French, Swedes, Poles, Russians,…) right to enjoy their particular works of arts & entertainment.

• Replies: @Mark G.
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 27, 2025 at 12:21 pm GMT
@Mr. Anon

• Replies: @Mr. Anon
Bardon Kaldian says:
January 27, 2025 at 1:18 pm GMT
@Yojimbo/Zatoichi
Sorry, but your perception of art, entertainment, high-brow, middle-brow & low-brow culture is not worth discussing.
HA says:
January 27, 2025 at 9:39 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Mike Tre
“I always thought it was obvious that he was a homosexual, as well as a pederast.”

So says the former girls’-team coach who pontificates about the right time to have sex with women (maturity-wise) as follows:

When the grass in on the field, it’s time to play ball!

I.e., while I’m not surprised that images of pederasty float through your brain with alarmingly high frequency, what’s actually “obvious” to you is going to be called projection by most anyone else.
Mark G. says:
January 28, 2025 at 3:15 am GMT • 100 Words
@Bardon Kaldian
Whether one society is better than another is somewhat subjective so whether the cultural products of one society are better than another is also somewhat subjective. However, it is evident that most people would prefer to live in some countries as shown by immigration patterns. Even Americans who say China is better than this country usually remain here rather than moving there. Look at what people do, not what they say.

Most people value being wealthier and using that wealth to live longer. Anyone indifferent to extending their life would not be around long so you can assume anyone actually alive values life and therefore would dislike the societies and cultures where life is short and unpleasant.
Mark G. says:
January 28, 2025 at 4:29 am GMT • 100 Words
@The Germ Theory of Disease
“And Tori is the coolest. But you wouldn’t know bout dat, because you are a nerd.”

Unlike the nerds here, cool cats like me and Germ appreciate chick singers like Tori, P.J. Harvey and Billie Eilish. I recently listened to P.J. and Thom Yorke of Radiohead singing a song together. Pretty nice. Yorke said in an interview that Billie Eilish is one of the few new musical artists doing anything interesting.
Mr. Anon says:
January 28, 2025 at 2:27 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian
What’s that? Your high school yearbook?
Art Deco says:
January 28, 2025 at 6:15 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Mike Tre
Like Richard Simmons, his peculiarity was never concealed, just never described explicitly. Simmons may actually have been someone who could not be bothered with that side of life. With Reubens / Herman, the question was one of precise objects and the degree of practical executions. The surprise in the personal account (or preferred fiction) is that he took an interest in adult males.
Anonymous[392] • Disclaimer says:
January 29, 2025 at 8:16 pm GMT • 200 Words
Lynch had that rare quality among directors. A man with quirky look and personality.

Even people who didn’t watch Hitchcock movies knew who he was. The fat bald man who talked slow and funny.

Most directors, however talented, aren’t personalities. Lynch was one of the unique ones, especially as he wasn’t an actor(even though he acted a few times) like Woody Allen and Charlie Chaplin.

Tarantino has a similar appeal, something that eluded Spielberg and Lucas who aren’t all that engaging before the camera.

Personality goes a long way, like an attitude on a buggy. It gets someone known, even turned into a household name. People who never watched Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr. may nevertheless recognize Lynch as that weird guy.

It can even turn into a cult, and Godard coasted on it for a long time after his peak years.
Friedkin too.
AlexT says:
February 5, 2025 at 5:37 am GMT
@TrumpWon
Tarantino is nothing like Lynch at all.
Hibernian says:
February 15, 2025 at 4:03 pm GMT
Lara Flynn Boyle’s Dad worked at the Jardine Water Purification Plant up into the mid 90s. Not sure if Mike is still living or not.