Lynch and the Creative Process w/ John Dee: The J. Burden Show Ep. 438

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.