Speaker 1: Meaning a live man like this man letting butterfly flapping
and wing dig down in the forest. Man, it gonna
cause a tree fall, letting five thousand miles away.
Speaker 2: Man, nobody see, nobody.
Speaker 1: See. You don't need to know.
Speaker 2: Many like you followed a little story and you got
directed for like that. That's the way. Man, don't likely
dag on the panel, man, Man, you don't matter.
Speaker 1: Man No ready, mister D welcome back to the Jay
Burden Show.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much, mister j bur and I'm
very very happy and please always to UH to see
your handsome visage and to UH to be back kid
talking to you.
Speaker 1: It's it's genuinely always a pleasure to have you on UH.
In a previous era of streaming, you and I came
into contact much more. But as things have changed, I've
made a deliberate effort to UH to keep in contact
with you because I always enjoy our conversations. You were
speaking before we went live about your your new project
of going over Twin Peaks and I have there's sort
of a shameful admission, mister D that not only have
I not seen Twin Peaks, but the only David Lynch
film I have ever watched is Rabbits, which was very
very odd.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's that's a bit unusual to have seen that
and not same. I mean I've barely seen that, you know.
I mean the Rabbits were, Yeah, the people don't know.
The Rabbits were kind of a they were kind of
an off shoot of David made. His final feature film
was called Inland Empire, which was made in the mid
two thousands, and it was shot on sort of low
end digital video cameras. There's some very old things about it.
I quite like that film, but yeah, the Rabbits were
were kind of related to that, although the rabbit thing
apparently has been around with him for a very long time.
But the thing about Lynch is he's so there's just
so many different projects that he's been involved in, you know,
certainly like from you know, just big studio cinema, some
of the things that he did in the you know,
in the seventies and eighties obviously to you know, to
some very small, very weird, obscure projects. But see, you
get a pass because you're you're a zoomer and so
you're not expected to have any cultural knowledge whatsoever. So
you know, so you're all right.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your four barons. If nothing else, the I'm
sort of fascinated by Lynch. And actually I've been meaning
to go to go through Twin Peaks because my current house,
we have a second unit, and the couple that rents
from us, he's a massive fan of Lynch. And you know,
once he he heard that I hadn't seen it, he
insisted on it, so it's on the docket. And I
really had gone through my entire life without knowing really
almost anything about it. And till you know, Dave Green
did a series of sort of essays where he mentioned,
you know, mentioned Twin Peaks and particularly this is his analysis,
not mine. Obviously I haven't seen it, but he was
speaking about the sense that it is, you know, that
the town is sort of a place that has has
already died and no one has realized it yet. And
you know, even just that that simple meme, that simple
idea was very sort of powerful and profound, because mister
d I know you're you're a fan of Americana, and
I am too in a way because I've never lived
in an era where Americana was alive, where it was real,
where it was something that existed on its own right.
It's always been the kind of you know, slightly run
down gas station off the main road and not to
get to Maudeline, you know what, three minutes in. But
it has been something I've I've been thinking about quite
a bit, you know, as we kind of watch this
administration flounder and try and pull in a lot of
this kind of classic Americana, classic symbols of the nation
very ineptly, you know, after they already seem to have
have died and sort of lost their power. Am I
entirely pulling it?
Speaker 2: Straws there, mister d No, I certainly see what you're getting.
I would say that that a very useful way to
approach David Lynch is certainly actually in a way to
contrast him with particularly Paul Titians, you know who, you
who certainly use quote Americana in an almost entirely cynical way,
you know, I mean generally when it is invoked. I
mean Democrats now sort of try to do it. I mean,
I remember Obama used to try to do it as well,
you know, but usually when politicians do it, it's done cynically,
It's done in a way to manipulate you for one
reason or the other. With David Lynch, it's very important
and I think a lot of people get this wrong
about David Lynch. Is that I mean, if you're aware
of him as a person, you know, if you watch
interviews with him, certainly, but also just going through his work,
is you must understand that he is never cynical about America,
like his strange what a lot of certainly younger people
read as you know, kind of slightly campy or you know,
or ironic. It's not ironic at all, like he you
know that whole you know, cherry pie and coffee, and
you know, white picket fences and fire trucks and you know,
and quirky characters. I mean, he genuinely loved and embrace that.
I mean, that's what he was like, you know, and
it's just so powerful and so strong, and he expressed
it in such a strange way that I think a
lot of people take take his sort of embrace of this,
this sort of particularly mid century, you know, nineteen fifties
era fascination as being as being again cynical or ironic,
and it's not, you know, And certainly to contrast that
with the way that's you. You know that the way
those tropes are used by by politicians, by other people,
it's it's just just absolutely opposite. And I think it
helps people to understand David Lynche much better, just just
to realize whatever you're watching. And of course there's all
kinds of seediness and subversion and dark, terrible things and
visions that he showed, you know, that he that he
brings to light, but that the underlying sort of fascination
with the character of America is absolutely pure, you know,
and lovely, and he loved it, you know, there was
not a drop of irony about it. So and I
encourage you to watch some some sort of interviews with
him because you know, he he of course had a
very distinct way of speaking, you know, oh, well, very
happy to see you today. Now we're going to look
at at you know bugs, buddy. Yeah, I mean he
that was not an act like that's really how he was.
Speaker 1: Well, and I sort of it kind of fell in
love with the figure because the figure of David Lynch,
because I don't know if you remember, during the pandemic
and briefly afterwards, he had a YouTube channel where he
just read the weather and At first, I was sort
of anticipating the other shoe to drop right there, to
be some sort of reveal, some sort of bit right
where we were all at on the joke. But no,
he was just reading the weather and he.
Speaker 2: Was doing it a fit months on end. Yes, yeah, And.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I just found it incredibly amusic,
like almost like the entire time, just the fact that,
you know, everyone was sort of analyzing He's looking for
some great hidden message and there simply wasn't one. It's interesting,
the sort of lack of the lack of cynicism because
in the same way that there is a hontology of
Adeolf Hitler in the case, you know, Irving made the
point that you know, there are two Hitlers. I write
about the real man, you know, not the sort of
Hollywood version. There's an equal sort of hontology of the
nineteen fifties in a like the the American psyche. Because
if you one of the things you've become aware of,
if you're like genuinely interested in like the academic left,
is that they haven't really had a new idea since
roughly nineteen ninety four, and even that new idea is
kind of just an idea that someone had, you know,
thirty years prior. And this is a point that your
former co host made right that almost you know, by
and large, the entire academy exists to deconstruct and attack
the kind of you know, rosy version of Pat Buchanan's childhood. Right,
and every time you see some you know, historical photo
of the sort of pre civil rights America, you have
dozens and dozens of people saying, how how creepy it is, right,
it's so it's so weird and off put it. And
you know, I have every reason to believe a large
portion of that is performative, but there is there seems
to be a deliberate cultural push to make that associated
with like the sinister, the uncomfortable, the threatening. And I
wonder if at least part of that is the kind
of what seems now kind of over the top, I
guess lack of citizen like the genuine in nature, because
you even see this in like advertising in music. Right
by and large, it's not very complicated. It's very earnest
on its face, especially to modern tastes. And weirdly enough,
I was the thing that got me thinking about this
was was Rodney Dangerfield of all people, right who you know, Okay,
look like it's not perhaps the most sophisticated comic, but
it's interesting the way that he has kind of burned
in effigy as the like, oh that that horrible you know,
kind of classless, you know, corny comedian and look like,
I will admit, like my sense of humor has been
absolutely ruined by being on the Internet and you know,
being part of Generation Z. So i'll you know, I'll
admit that it's not for me. But there is something much,
very very just genuine and honest and kind of guileless
about it that I think offends modern sensibilities. You see
what I'm getting at.
Speaker 2: D Yeah, I see what you're getting at. I mean
it's very interesting for use how you know, how we
how we view things. I mean, for instance, Rodney Dangerfield,
I mean he was sort of describing his comedy.
Speaker 1: And obviously he rose to prominence in the seventies and
eighties almost as a callback act.
Speaker 2: But sorry, mister well so, but what he was actually,
I mean you may not be aware of this, but
of course he was not born Rodney Dangerfield. He was
born Rodney Cohen, and he was of course Jewish. Like
many of that generation of comedians, he was associated with
what's called sort of cat Skills comedy. You know. So
there is an area in upstate New York called the
you know, called the Catskills, the Catskill Mountains that was
once famous because there were all of these resort hotels
in the mountains in the cats in and around the Catskills,
and they were frequented almost entirely by Jews from New
York City, you know, I mean, but the entire wave
of Jewish immigration that came in the nineteenth century, I mean,
all of those people who lived, who lived populated all,
you know, all the traditional areas of the sort of
Jewish ghettos, the Lower East lower East side of New York, Brooklyn.
Many of those Jews were then holiday they were in
the summer, they would go to these Catskill resorts and
you know, it was Kosher food, and it was this
very particular type of comedy, you know, which was just
profound only sort of related to kind of Yiddish theater
and Jewish culture. And so it's funny that you know
that a lot of these a lot of these comedians,
you know, who got their start early on the stage
and you know performing on the stage, I mean broadly
dangerful you know, did stand up you know, as you know,
all through his life. And it was only in the
really in the eighties that he became a very well
known figure before appearing in you know, in those those films.
But you know, he had a long career, as I said,
in this other world, and a lot of American entertainment,
particularly comedy, was was profoundly was profoundly influenced and populated
by you know God. I mean, you think of mel Brooks,
you know, a genius filmmaker who's still with us, who
who also I mean again is employing that sensibility in
a lot of his works. And so a lot of
the comedians, particularly ones from that era, they end up
being you know, from this particular cultural meeuse. So it's
just sort of funny to hear you talk about about
Rodney Dangerfield in that context when in a way it's
it's not really America. You know, these were people who
were you know, certainly that generation of Jews, you know,
never they never saw themselves as part of that of
the David Lynch nineteen fifties, you know, this sort of
classic image of the nineteen fifties that, as you correctly say,
is is now only seen as a kind of ironic parody.
And weirdly enough, of course, you know, this is why
I think a lot of people think David Lynch's love
of the nineteen fifties and love of you know, this
this sort of image of post war America and of
plenty and of you know, and of beauty and happiness
and you know, you know, all of you know, all
of these things which now you can't talk about in
intellectual circles without people. You know, there's that meme that says,
no one was ever happy, no one had a good chide,
no one you know, the father was was having homosexual affairs,
and the mother was a drug addict, and the children
were you know, were axe murderers whatever. You know. It's
just like you have these simple, beautiful, wonderful images, mostly
from the world of advertising from that period, you know,
and and now of course we can you know, people
can generally only see them as false and that that's
just I'm afraid that's just a poison modern way of
viewing them. But strangely enough, I think that part of
the reason why that image of society however true or
false it would have been. I think it was both.
But but you know, part of the reason that that
became so coded as hidden darkness was because of the
influence of this generation of not just Jewish, not just comedians,
but certainly filmmakers whatever I mean, you know, they tell
ended to always think of themselves as eternal outsiders that
were never really included in this vision. I mean, you can,
I mean Woody Allen is another great example of this,
you know, And you can watch some of his films
and you'll see in his famous movie Annie Hall from
nineteen seventy I can't remember what year, late nineteen seventies,
there's a little bit where, you know, the character Annie Hall,
who was played by an actress who recently passed on
Diane Keaton. But part of the joke of the movie
was that, you know that the Woody Allen's character was this,
you know Neber she little you know Brooklyn, New York too,
and Annie Hall was, you know, a wholesome white Christian
girl from Wisconsin, you know, and this sort of contrast
between her life and her past and his, and there's
a whole bit where he kind of compares, well, what
were what were his family dinners like compared to what
is her family dinner like? And you know, she said, oh,
you know, there's also a bit where she's says, oh,
you should have seen me then, I e back in
the late fifties, early sixties, and he said, you know,
and you should have seen what I look like. And
he said, well, you probably look like the wife of
an astronaut. And again that was a very particular trope
that NASA and the US Space program was entirely coded
as white Christian and therefore, you know, I mean, that's
why the left didn't like it. That's why, you know,
the kind of astronaut used to be a kind of
trope of this inaccessible, you know, sort of monolithic American
white culture to which excluded you know, the Jew or
the black or whatever. So a lot of these kind
of now would are just very common tropes of the
left of whatever. You know, they were all formed in
this period. But yeah, I'm sort of rambling, but there's
this whole stew of things happen, and strangely, David Lynch,
you know, becomes part of that. David Lynch not Jewish,
but he did a very well known film one of
his more well known big studio films was called Blue Velvet,
which was made in nineteen eighty seven, and of part
of the part of the narrative of Blue Velvet is
the idea of that there's this kind of picture perfect
American town, you know, which, you know, which, like many
David Lynch things, exists in this strange liminal time space
that could be nineteen fifty six or it could be
nineteen eighty six, you know, it's both. And there's always
this sort of sense of temporal slip with David Lynch,
and there's always this sort of idea that you're constantly
falling into this into this sort of echo of David
Lynch's childhood of the nineteen fifties. But I think a
lot of people misread Blue Velvet as being a savage
attack on you know, white America, on the small town,
on the idea of innocence, the idea of prosperity, when
as I said, from the outset, it wasn't. I mean,
David Lynch was painfully aware, and of course many of
his works are about the kind of darkness, you know,
but for him it was not like, oh, the dark
underbelly is the true nature of America. It was that
there are forces, there is good and evil, there's darkness
and there's light, and they are constantly you know, as
we often talk about that we're battling We're not just
battling ideology. We're battling evil. It's good and evil. It's
always good against evil. And I think that's what's happening
as well. But a lot of people were unable to
see that, and they saw Blue Velvet as a criticism,
you know, let's unmask this false narrative of mid century
America when it wasn't. But that's how Hollywood would, of
course see it, because again a lot of Hollywood came
with this outsider narrative which which just did not allow
them to act the kind of you know, the sort
of truth of of of of the good side, of
the light side.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think that that's and I say this
as someone who has seen exactly one David Lynch film,
but I would be curious if that I was going
to say relative moral absolutism, and I realized it's an
absolute nonsense phrase, but the sort of morality you're speaking of,
you know, where there there is this kind of you know,
sharp divide between dark and light. Is why so many
of our guys whatever that's constituted as are interested in
lynch because you see this in other kind of recurring
media figures and brands, if we can use that term,
that you know, people like us tend to be interested
in because it's one of those areas in the progress
of mind that they're a little bit uncomfortable with, right,
the idea of kind of you know, objective good and evil.
And who knows, maybe there's a crossover with the conversation
about you know, Anny Hall, but there's this there's this
desire to psychologize evil, right where it's like, oh, you know,
you're evil, or you did this thing because of you know,
some Freudian reason or because of some sort of psychological
problem with you. And one of the things that I noticed,
I mean, look, you could even look at at Bowden's
you know, pulp fascism, right, Why was he so interested
in all of these kind of pulp figures, you know
Howard and you know, the kind of Golden Age comics
and others, And you know, I think part of that
is that true kind of black and white morality, and
I I think that's sort of an interesting question to
poke at, you know, as we examine the kind of
meta narrative surrounding fiction or surrounding art. If you see
what I'm getting at, doctor Professor, mister.
Speaker 2: D yes, I see what you're getting at. I think,
of course, also David Lynch is a notable figure and
interesting ways. There's sort of lens through which we can
look at this because you know, he was sort of
the last of a kind. I think. I think one
of the reasons why his death last year, which I
think is part of the reason why there was this
sort of sudden revival and interest in him, you know,
was because we you know, he's sort of sort of
tragically had lost him. Was that, you know, that he
was the passing away of just another kind of you know,
a kind of free vector of you know, a way
of thinking about I mean, art, a way of thinking
about culture, way of thinking about you know, philosophy, American philosophy,
and all sorts of things. You know, because we you know,
he came out of a very strange, you know, sort
of cultural moment, and he was particularly informed, you know,
I mean, he came from the world of painting. I
don't know if if you were aware I mean, he
began his career as a as a as a as
a fine artist, as a painter. That's what he wanted
to be, That's what he thought he was going to be,
and of course he did remain a painter's entire life.
He produced a you know, a very large corpus of
paintings and drawings and sculpture mixed media pieces, and he
worked on them with you know. One of the reasons
why I'm so I feel so I've always felt so
close to him and felt such kinship with him, is
because he, I think, at heart always remained you know,
a painter, someone who thought about images in the way
that a kind of a kind of artist as a painter,
which is for people that know what is what I do.
So I feel always felt a deep connection to him
for that. But the problem is that we're you know,
we're not making people like like that so much anymore,
you know. I mean, obviously there's still many very talented
artists and you know, young, younger people who are getting
into all areas of cultural production. But you know, this
is this particular sort of brand of you know of
and particularly an artist who could rise to his level
of commercial success and recognition. It's just it's it's it's
a it's a kind of cultural moment that's just gone away,
and it's just it's no longer even thinkable that someone
like David Lynch, with his again very very particular and
deep and complex vision of morality, and you know, even
you know, just even his aesthetic sense, I mean, his
sense of composition, his sense of color. You know, it's
just unthinkable that someone like that would be able to
navigate their way into you know, sort of large cultural
recognition because because in a way, we don't even have
a we don't there is no culture anymore, There is
no monoculture anymore, as it was called, you know, and
I think that there are good things to that, but
there's also a lot of negative qualities to that, because
it is one of those things that holds a society together,
that holds of people together. You know, David Lynch was
not really making I mean, David Lynch just was making
work to satisfy himself, but he wasn't making work for
this sort of one small, kind of very separate, very
defined online niche community, you know, which is how we
tend to view each other and how we tend to
view everything now, you know. And of course if you
look at what's left of the wider world of monoculture,
like if you look at the sort of quote big
music acts, I mean it's you know, or films. You
know that. I mean almost no one makes sexual films anymore.
You know. It's just frankly embarrassing, you know. And and
it's and to me, it's just absolutely tragic because you know,
in losing this this this character, this kind of creator,
and and the and the culture that spawn spawn him,
you know, I think it's just an ill portend for
things to come, I think for me, you know, and
this is something that comes up all the time, you know,
every I don't know month, every month or so. There's
a big online right argument about culture. Ooh, what's culture?
Oh you know, it's publishing something by Curtis Yarvin at
Passage Press. Well that's you know, or you know, look,
isn't art deco cool? We need more art deco?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's the extent pretty much of the kind of cultural
discussion on the right. And it's it's just sad. I mean,
that's not that's not really what we're talking about. I mean,
for me, I honestly think you know that we tend
to think of problems, you know, in political problems as oh, okay,
we need to fix them. What are the what are
the mechanics, how do we fix this? You know? But
what really needs fixed, the thing that you know is
really upstream of all of these other problems, is this
sort of degradation and disintegration of cultural and national and
racial sort of unity and understanding. I think so, I
do think it's important, but I think that again, the
way we well, we need to fix culture, we just
have this strange mechanical idea of how that works, and
it doesn't. You know, it's a it's a synergistic thing
with the health of a civilization, and a civilization is
sick and unhealthy, then it's going to be nearly impossible
for kind of the sort of true of truth and
beauty productions of culture to even manifest themselves. So it's
a it's a problem again. Sorry for this is a
topic that invites me to wander into the weeds.
Speaker 1: So oh, look look what I gave you. No plan
other than we're recording on Thursday.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't know that's good. I like it, Yeah,
I like it. Well, this reminds me. You know, there's
an there's an interview with Lynch where the interviewer says, well,
they're talking about erase Ahead, which was David Lynch's first
feature film, and probably not the well we can talk
about that at the moment trying I was trying to
think of where the best place to start if you're
interested in David Lynch but have never seen his works.
Eraserhead may not be the best place to start, but
it also may be the perfect place to start. Anyway,
his first feature film was called Eraserhead, and it's a
fascinating story about how that was made and the circumstances
of how David Lynch became a kind of film you know,
a kind of Hollywood filmmaker. But he was being asked
about it, and he was talking about it and he said,
you know, a rasorhead is my is my most spiritual film.
And then the interviewer said, well, can you explain that?
And David Lynch said no, and that was it, And
that's the way to do it. That is how how
you work. You know, whether we're in the weeds or not.
I mean, you know, we have to learn also, you know,
people who consider themselves intellectual types. You know, you've got
to learn that things don't always proceed in a you know,
in a linear fashion. You know, sometimes you have to
wonder into into dreams, you have to wander into the weeds,
you have to wander into the into the dark woods,
you know, where the straight way is lost, as Dante
so eloquently put it, to find truth, you know, I mean,
part of speaking Dante. You know, this is something we
all know that that you know, the hero's journey, but
also the idea of a man descending into darkness, descending
into hell, and then coming back with his perceptions change,
you know, you know, and that is something that you
you know, almost every David Lynch film you know, deals
with this, I mean, and in a larger way, so
many things that we you know, the great works of
our civilization also do the same thing. You know. It
is a person or a situation that is plunged into
darkness that you know, that goes from you know, Blue
Velvet is a great example. You know, it's a character,
you know, a kind of naive, you know, a character
who's living in this sort of ostensibly beautiful, perfect small
town who descends into this river of darkness which was
always there and again evil is always with us on
earth and so and you know, the character was unaware
of it, you know. And this is this is so
many David Lynch films like this is. This is almost
entirely what Twin Peaks is about.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It is these various characters who who live in this
surface of beauty and then discover, of course that there
is always this dark well spring and they descend into it.
And sometimes they come back. They come back changed, often wiser,
battle hardened. Sometimes they don't come back. You know. Again,
sometimes when you face evil, sadly you lose, you know,
you don't survive that encounter. So this is I think
they're just the key, you know, the key sort of
broad idea that flows through all David Lynch's work and
throw it blows through so much of great literature and art.
So you know again you will you you you know,
it's it's easy to get lost in the quirky, you
know details, but you know we're dealing with very conventional,
sort of very conventional sort of literary journeys.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that that descent, right, the Nikia, the
descent to the underworld is a trope throughout Western literature.
I was actually just speaking to my wife about this.
One of the interesting things in Anna Karnina is that
Tolstoy sort of he plays with this right because and
obviously broader context, right, there's this sort of inverse relationship
between Anna Krenaa and oh shoot, I cannot remember the
other man's name, who'd sort of go on alternate arcs
right on this kind of core the question of chastity
in constraint, which is very funny because there's a movie
made of Ana Krenaa that's absolutely awful. It's actually almost
awful enough to be interesting from maybe ten or fifteen
years ago. But clearly the modern progresses are very uncomfortable
with the actual thrust of that. But the reason I
bring it up is because she has this this affair,
and while going through labor to produce this bastard son,
she nearly dies, right she's she's sick, she's at Death's store.
And what's interesting is that you're sort of led to
expect that this is that Nikea that descent, right, that
she will have her eyes opened. And what Tolstoi does
is that her husband, who rightfully hates her, for this,
the narrative sort of switches where we find out it
is not her descent. She, once she's healed, is unchanged
completely and totally unrepentant. He is, in fact the one
who is transformed.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: He becomes incredibly religiously devout. He decides to you know,
raise the sun as his own, despite to sort of
protect him from his you know, his estranged wife. And
it's such an interesting moment in so many in so
many narratives, right, like even but effectively, right, we see
on one hand, a subversion of that trope, right that
sort of you know, descent to rebirth, which of course
obviously you see in the narrative of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.
Right that, Like deeply it's kind of like deep structure
bearing myth in the West. And it's sort of one
of those I, as you could say, one of those
memes that I'm deeply fascinated by, because you know, once
you've seen it, once you begin to pick it out.
And I particularly found Tolstoy fascinating to you both subvert
and reinforce in the same work. But I'm sorry, I
slightly lost my train of thought. I'll edit that out
as well. So, mister d one of the things that
I wanted to bring up in response to kind of
your last comment was about you mentioned the kind of
death of monoculture, and this is something I think about
quite a lot. I had a conversation with a woman
in her late fifties, very intelligent, she's a literary scholar,
and she asked me a very basic question older people
often ask younger people, which is, what are people your
rage into? You know, what music do they listen to?
And you know, earlier, of course, you were making fun
of me for having no cultural context whatsoever, which is
quite apt because as that monoculture is completely and totally splintered,
that actually becomes a very difficult question to answer, because
there isn't a sort of you know, twenty twenty four
equivalent to like, I don't know, like the monkeys or
you know, pick your kind of top forty trash of
whatever year you want, right, Like, sure, yeah, the chop
charts still exist. But one of the interesting things, and
I think one of the reasons why there's so much
outcry as we see these figures like you know, Lynch,
but even other kind of less serious people like you
know Assie dying or you know, Carrie Fisher dying. Is
that more and more people are not indexing with new culture, right, Like,
if you look into the data on both streaming for
movies and streaming for you know, music, the share occupied
by new music is getting smaller and smaller with each year,
right that, you know, because that centralized node that was
you know, the radio or the theater system, right actually
going to see a movie has kind of broken. It
is also seemingly broken a lot of people out of
any sort of new culture. And so you know, you
have people who are listening to effectively the same songs
that their parents were, you know, they're listening to the
top forty of nineteen seventy six fifty years later. And
I think that's sort of an interesting thing because you know,
you look at these sort of celebrity deaths, and I
think one of the things that's notable about it is
that not only have so many of these figures been
famous for a lifetime, right, incredibly long career, but also
with each one there seems the feeling of there is
no one to replace them, right, There's no one really
waiting in the wings. And I noticed this as well
with kind of the death of the leading man, right,
the the kind of you know, the kind of a
list Hollywood actor. And sure there are still famous people around,
but that that institution, if we can call it, that
has changed, and I think it is very much a
symptom of that death of monoculture, which certainly has problems
to it. But I mean, to be perfectly honest, like
if you look at this, the country genuinely doesn't have
a singular culture anymore. I mean, like just look at
the number of you know, language languages spoken, you know,
the the large amount of people who were not born here.
Setting aside kind of any political consideration, there really is
no common culture.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, it's the tower. It's it's the Tower
of Babel, you know, obviously, I mean, and it's sort
of you know, if they're if there were cinemas and
in the Tower of Babel, I mean, how are they
how would they handle that? You know, they'd have to
have a screen for each one of the languages and
each one of the kind of quick cultures represented. Now
when I use the word monoco culture and all that,
and when we talk about this, I mean, obviously that's
simplification because there were always, you know, all sorts of
pockets of different things. In fact, it was weirdly enough
that there was probably more diversity in so called culture
in previous eras, you know, because of course there was
also a very local sort of culture. It depended on
where you lived, you know, just as if there used
to be America and Britain, both of them notably, used
to be a home of hundreds of regional accents, you know,
I mean you could tell in some cases where where
you know, where people were from. I mean, in the
case of England, you know, the accent would very village
by village. You could you could walk half a mile
to the next village and there would be a very
subtle but very distinct change in the way that the
dialectical and you know, even pronunciation of aspects of the language.
And of course that's been flattened and raised. And the
same thing in America, you know, I mean, even with
these things that we think, you know, we're lamenting, you know,
the passing away of kind of Hollywood. But it was
also Hollywood which dissolved a lot of this, you know,
cultural diversity in the good sense of the word diversity.
It's hard to use that word now without the negative connotations.
But you know, I mean, Hollywood erased almost every accent
in America, and now everyone in America, you know, with
some variations, still speaks. You know, you speak this sort
of received pronunciation that comes from California. Whereas you know,
you even you watch old films, you hear the precious
moments when you hear, like quote, actual people in old
newsreels and things talking, you know you will hear you
know this, this this great sort of collection of cultures.
So I use Monoco culture, you know, just as a
kind of concept. But there's never really been such a thing.
I mean, there was a sort of cultural main cultural
force that went through things. And and you know, of
course I don't know, I don't I don't know with
the passing away of this, I don't know anything else.
It's how I understand the world, and you know, I
don't know what's going to replace it. And now it's
important to remember that even the things that we're lamenting
as sort of the loss of tradition, they're not really
that old. I mean, you know, this, this whole idea
that we have of kind of mass culture is is
entirely a phenomenon of modernity, you know, I mean it's
something that was enabled by mass communication. It was enabled
by you know, the things that we understand that you know,
the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century, you know, prior
to that, you know, culture was the kind of taste
and vicissitudes of a very small layer of people at
the very top of societal hierarchies. You know, what was
in style was the province of you know, ladies at
the court, you know, or you know, the whims of
the monarch who who you know, who gave their imprimatura
to various playwrights or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But so even what we think of is sort of
this this great loss is something that's not not terribly old,
but I just think it was so it produced so
much sort of very powerful artwork, and you know, and
sort of I hate the word cultural products. It sounds
like some sort of cheese. But you know, but but yes,
I mean, you know, its responsible for all these things.
And you know, I mean, could you could call me,
you know, but you mentioned you know, the seventies, you know,
the top forty of the seventies. Well I can say
unequivo equivocally even the you know, and there was a
lot of shit, a lot of terrible things, but one
hundred percent there was more talent and skill and thoughtfulness
represented in just scooping up an average of nineteen seventies
culture than there is scooping up twenty twenty six culture.
Whatever that even means. You know, not to say that
everything in the past was good and things are bad.
There's wonderful things being produced now, but you know, they're
not rewarded in the way that I mean. This is
part of that perennial argument that bubbles up in the
right wing sphere online. You know, part of the problem
is to have this to have to have the incentive
for talented people to give their time and effort and
inspiration to the world in the form of art. There
needs to be an incentive structure for it. And you know,
however bad Hollywood was, or however bad the recording industry was,
or you know, or the West End in theater or Broadway,
however however bad and blinkered and awful those systems were,
they were still vectors of patronage for artists of all sorts,
you know, and it was a sort of you know,
you know, it provided the support needed you know, to
do this stuff. I mean, there are other ways of
producing things. Now. Of course, you can have micro funding,
as we all do. You can have your sponsors and
your patreons Patreon, and you can have vessel that buy
me a coffee. You know, all of these little ways
that your kind of micro audience can help you. But
you know, in order for like big things, in order
for like David Lynch's vision to go from you know,
his early kind of independent art films to making you know,
the Elephant Man or Erase Ahead, or you know, I mean,
I mean these other things. Is it. You know, you
need patronage, you need support, and you know, in order
to produce you would never have had Michelangelo Buneratti, you
would never have Leonardo, you know, you would never have
insert artists that you like without you know, powerful rich
people subsidizing them and and and allowing them to produce
these things. Because it's as I said, it's it's it's
like a vital sign. It's it's a it's like having
a complete blood count. Every one of those things is important,
is an important indicator of the health of the body,
health of the organism. And as I say, I mean
each one of these aspects of you know, law and order,
you know, art and culture. Each one of these things
is the kind of vital sign of the body of civilization.
And you know, when one of them starts to fail,
then they all go, you know, I mean that they
rely on each other, and that you know, we're in
this strange moment of flux. Something better come out of this,
I don't know, but certainly for the people living within it,
and people like me who are you know, older and
and sort of now hopelessly wedded to you know, to
these older ideas. I mean, it's it's terrifying and I
I don't want to see these these things pass away,
but I'm afraid they already have. So you know, in
a way, we also, I mean, we can try to
keep things alive. We can try to keep some of
these systems and some of these these aspects of creation alive,
but we also have to understand that they're necessarily going
to change. And but you know, I think we're moving
into a period of darkness. And of course, in such periods,
you know, art is not known to flourish. You know,
you you don't have the comfortable conditions needed to produce
your David Lynch, David Lynch came out of a kind
of a nation in flux, but there was an underlying
system of support without which you know, you would never
you would never get a vision like that. You would
never get a sort of strange, quirky, you know, unique.
And I was going to say iconoclastic, but he's absolutely
the opposite. You know, you can't you can't accuse of
someone of creating astoundingly resonant images of being an iconoclass.
But you sort of know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think that it's in this point has
been made you know many times before, right that you're
entirely correct to say that the system we are looking
back to, the one that is sort of passing away,
is in the grand scheme of things quite new and novel.
There's a great video searching for it, and was able
to find it by long term friend of mine, vingal
b I n g u L. You can find him
on YouTube and he has a great channel, mostly of
archival footage, and he has a series of captured of
Cajun life in the late sixties and seventies when Louisiana
was even more of a backwater than it is now.
And one of them is a great clip of accordion
maker Mark Savoy. You guys should be able to find
it from that vingle is the channel. And it's interesting
because one of the things that kept that culture, kept
that music alive, was effectively the fact that it was
laboring in almost complete and total obscurity. Right. There was
no system of dispersion for that music. You know, there
was no Nashville, there was no standardization, and so, you know,
as I found out from watching these sort of little
mini documentaries, because it's sort of organically just kind of
sat there, it developed a completely separate set of one
local institutions, you know, whether that how that that sort
of art that culture was practiced, but also a kind
of you could say, kind of cottage industry surrounding it. Right,
The accordions had to be made in a certain way,
and so someone arose to make them. And I think
a lot about the fact that you know, you and I,
mister D and our friends are very much in sort
of an internet ghetto, you know, whether we want it
to be or not, And there are certain downsides to that,
but I do think that that creates an interesting opportunity
to sort of crystallize something not sure what it is,
but I've been really encouraged over the last year because
you know, for a long time I've heard and you know,
heard people a pine on the need for right wing art,
and I sort of disagree with that formulation on its face.
Maybe a discussion for another time, but nonetheless, people I
met through this circle have started to produce very, very
good But in my case it's mostly literature because the
only thing I know anything about whatsoever they there might
be good painters, I just have no ability to identify it.
And to me that is interesting and one of the things,
because I interview a great number of these people, that
is sort of universally part of that story or part
of the artist statement, I guess you could say, is
effectively the fact that like the system for selecting talent
in culture broke, and it broke a long time ago,
and so you have guys who you know, are not
young men right there in the they're in their middle
aged years. You know, they're who are You've been sort
of forced to continue to labor away, continue to create
in obscurity because that selection mechanism is broken. And I
sort of find the you know, bi monthly conversations about
right wing art again just on its face irritating, but
that was a very encouraging sign for me, Like, oh, okay,
like we have gathered at least a couple of creatives
around who are actually worth having, who don't just have
potential like one day you could be good, but like,
are actually producing really good work. And I think of
my buddy Andrew Edwards and others, and I'm curious, what
do you make of that? Right, Because on one hand,
you know, you have this kind of desire to treat
art and cultural product. Right, You're right, just sort of
sound like craft cheese or something. It's almost like a
tech tree in a video game. Right, Well, you at
this number of points and you get one art, you know,
you get a culture, which I think is wrong. But
at the same time, right, if we accept that, you know,
there's a certain number who have that genius gift from
God whatever, who are not able to advance in the
traditional way, well we would assume that they will end
up here nowhere else. So kick it to you, mister d.
Speaker 2: Oh. Yeah, there's a lot, a lot a lot there.
I mean, first of all, if you are touched by
that particularly genius I'm not going to be so sort
of sort of self grandizing to say that myself, but
in a way I do, I mean, you know, in
a way if you are I mean, if you have
dedicated that I have my life to you know, to art,
and one way or the other, and then then you know,
you are familiar with going to this great well spreen
stream of inspiration and drawing from it and being very
lucky when you are able to reach it. When when
when that, when you are able to extract a bucket
of water from from this great stream of creativity, whether
you call it genius or whatever, you know, And of
course it's not, it does not always. Your thirst is
not always quenched when you go to that spring to drink.
In fact, often it isn't, you know. And often, you know,
even great artists you know, I know, I know several
quick you know, famous artists and have known, and you
know it's a universal thing that, of course, sometimes that inspiration,
you know, that well is dry, and it remains that
way sometimes for years for people. The thing about this
I think is very important is that fundamentally, the things
I consider great transcendent art you do not go to
that stream with any other intention, but to receive something
that is greater than us, some some some flow, some
access to you know, the kind of cosmic shared universal mind,
whatever you call it. You don't go there with conditions.
In other words, you don't get there and say, okay,
well I like to dip my toe in the waters.
But I want, I want, I want right wing art.
I want I want whatever you give me to be
right wing whatever that means. I mean, it's the most idiotic,
stupid formulation. There is no right wing art, just like
there's no left wing art. I mean, there are are
certainly plenty of examples. I and I talked earlier about
how things are used cynically, and they're used, you know,
but by some people, and they use in a pure sense.
It's it's anyone can take anything, you know, uh and
use it in a in a dark way. They you know,
you can. You can you can pollute something pure and beautiful,
or you can exalt it. And so I mean, this
is the problem with trying to categorize art. I mean,
art is like so many other things that we talk
of as components of civilization, components of culture, components of
a healthy you know, healthy people, and healthy nation. They're not.
They don't have qualifiers. You know again, you don't. You
don't produce a great civilization with right wing art. You
produce it with art. You don't produce it with right
wing truth. You produce it with truth. You know, you
date produce it with this or that. I mean these
political categorizations of these large and I use the word
again deliberately transcendent things. They do not come with these
puny political qualifiers now and and so I think one
of the problems of existing in a kind of space,
and I say the online right wing space, is that
it's inherently everything is given this political prefix. And that
is important when you're talking about politics, but it is
absolutely poisonous when you start talking about these larger things.
You know, and you can take it to an absurd example,
and it's an easy maybe easy to see. You know, well,
I want to have right wing you know, I want
to have a right wing marriage and right wing babies.
And what you mean when you say that is that
you want, you know again, you want to adhere to
a kind of traditional model model that we know works,
a model that you know that worked for your parents
and your grandparents and your ancestors, whatever. But again you
make the mistake when you assume that that is political.
I mean it's political in the kind of lowest sense,
but you know, in the larger sense, these are these
are things that are bigger, the bigger than kind of
these these sort of you know, these sort of ideas
that flow around the kind of way that we consume
we consume things well.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I've taken from are
in McIntyre's book, which is quite good, you should all
read it, is he describes this process by which things
that were sort of pre political when they're dragged into
the realm of politics. I not only does it a
miserate people, but that is what grows the power of
the state. So we'll take you know, marriage and child rearing.
Once that becomes I guess the appropriate venue for politics
due to you know, the pill, the sexual revolution, the suffragettes.
Wherever you pick as the objectionable point, well, that becomes
an arena for power to play it. Like you know,
pick your favorite pre modern just evil man, right that
whichever guy that is, Like, can you imagine him dictating
the terms of a divorce? Like can you imagine Genghis
Khan writing in and saying, oh, well, you know you
you need to treat your wife in such a way
either the most kind of you know, comedically evil, you know,
despot in the world. No, it was just not considered
to be within the realm of politics, right, It was
just what people do. And I think that is as
the state has grown, right, as more and more of
those bonds have been broken, you know, bonds that were
a political outside of the realm of the polis, well,
the state, whatever you want to say, power politics, it
enters in. It takes up that slack and it grows
from it. Like this is part of the reason why
it is so interested in breaking social bonds, because that
becomes an opportunity for a decision to be made, right,
it becomes a place to put your senecures, all of
these things. And so I understand using political analysis to
look at these issues. But of course, you know, as
as another you know friend and influence of mine often says, right,
the solution is not political, And of course you could
look at that and say, well, obviously the solution to
politics is politics, Yes, clearly, But to your point, mister
d that in and of itself, the fact that all
of these things have been subsumed into the political process.
Is very much that is at the core of the problem, right,
That is sort of the project product of modernity. Right
is taking all of these these institutions, these relationships, which were,
if not fixed, at the very least non political per se,
and bringing them into that realm. So I understand why
someone would say, well, I want a right wing marriage,
or I want, you know, a right wing relationship with
my father. And I sort of get what they mean
when they say that, but at the same time, it's
sort of missing the forest through the trees. Hopefully not
too poorly made a point there.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, you know, and and of course it's
a justifiable thing. I just I just think people they
give it the wrong name. You know, you don't you
don't want a right wing marriage, you want a moral marriage,
you know. I think sometimes we you know, I just
think the whole idea of the right wing, you know,
it's just it's no longer useful again. It's an ancient
you know, it's a metaphor, it's a it's a kind
of a system of categorization that comes from the French Revolution,
you know, and it just I don't know what use
it has anymore, you know. I mean I look at
you know, I look at if you if you want
to do it with political parties. You know, there's nothing
that you know, the Republican Party, which is where the
right wing o sensibly if politics lives in America. I mean,
there's nothing that particularly that they're doing in a broader
sense that I won't have anything to do with and
has any sort of bearing on my vision of a
functional civilization. And certainly it grows more distant every day,
you know, just just as of course, I mean Donald
Trump he's done, you know, some things that are wonderful
and certainly in the direction that we want to go,
you know, effectively stopping border crossings. But you know, in
another sense, I don't look to Donald Trump, you know,
as someone who's a model of my sort of ideal, healthy,
healthy civilization. You know, I mean, certainly on the esthetic front,
he must have some of the worst instincts towards esthetics
of anyone I've ever seen. Just look at what he's
done to the White House. Fortunately I don't I'm not
terribly bothered by that, because all that can be stripped away,
and that's just the case all the time. I mean,
you you know, you could look at the White House
during the Victorian era when you know it's sort of
plagued by potted plants and dark drapes and whatever. I mean,
all that stuff can be stripped off, all those plastic
gilded things, hope fortunately can be taken away. You know, fine,
but you know it's a problem when you you sort
of you sort of mix sure your larger goals up
with smaller kind of political political spaces or movements or whatever,
and a lot of you know, really sort of blinkered people.
Will you know what is right wing art? Well, you
know it's sort of pastly colored paintings of women with
garlands of flowers around their hair carrying baskets of wheat.
You know, well that can be good, but generally you
know that. Or you know, yeah, what's right wing architecture,
Well it looks like it's sort of a variation on
Art Deco, or it looks like it looks like Georgian
and you know it's Georgian facades. I mean, it's just
a very narrow way to look at to look at
these these sort of huge issues.
Speaker 1: Mister d I think that optimal right wing art. Uh.
You know it's sort of like the you know, the
the Assyrian tablets in the met right, just just a
picture of you with the the skate, the flayed skin
of you know, someone you don't like, and then just
a description of how you you killed him and all
of his friends.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: But no, I take your point there, mister d Unfortunately
we're at time. It's been a Honestly, it's been a
very interesting conversation for me, which is why I have
you on, to be perfectly honest, because I enjoy speaking
to you. We mentioned your YouTube channel. I know we
can find you on Twitter's there anywhere else people can
look for you.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, you know, it's certainly well. I mean,
you know, if I can make one a sort of
final wait, you know I don't ever share my artwork,
you know, it is it is a side of my
that isn't you know that that is not part of
my online you know, my my online presence. And there's
many reasons for that, and of course a lot of
them are kind of again trying to keep because I
view it as very fragile, as I said earlier, my
relationship to of course inspiration whatever that may be I
think of it as a kind of metaphysical and mysterious
and spiritual connection, and I don't want to profane it
or sully it with these kind of against what I
consider kind of low questions. So I just I sort
of keep my own work out of it because I
don't know. I mean, honestly, I think that. And if
you ask any artist, certainly if you would ask David Lynch,
you know, he was you know, I relate a little
anecdote where someone said, well, well, he said, Eraise Ahead
is my most spiritual film, and they said, well, please explain,
and he said no, and in a way, of course
he couldn't. I mean, you know, and I think that's
what happens with a lot of artists, is that, you know,
it's a fragile connection to this, to inspiration and to meaning,
you know, and it's almost out of our leagues, you know.
We know, to sort of define it is to kind
of to grasp at that ghost is to watch it
disappear in your fingers. So it's a complex question, and
we certainly talk about it at a future time. Also,
to tie up the beginning in the end, I mentioned
mel Brooks earlier. Well, it was actually mel Brooks who
allowed David Lynch to make Eras Ahead it. Mel Brooks
partially funded it and partially funded David Ditch's early filmmaking career,
so weirdly enough, but you know, I mean, this is
the system of kind of influence and patronage that is
very important to artists. And if you want to patronize
me you can certainly, yes, visit my YouTube channel. I
will be having new content on there, including a review
of Twin Peaks Season three, Twin Peaks Return, which I've
been an ongoing project I've been doing with my friends
Matthew Williams aka the Prudentialist and Christopher Sandbatch. And on Twitter,
I do Twitter spaces all the time, which are free
form discussions of things high and though and mister Burton,
well it very occasionally pops up as well, and I'm always
happy to see him, and I'm always happy to speak
with you, and thank you for inviting me on your show.
Speaker 1: Well definitely it's been too long, mister d We'll have
you on again soon. Thank you,