The Hex

"Our next guest on Good Day with Sissy & Manolo is the former host of Good Day with Sissy & Danny, please give a warm round of applause for the one and only, Danny Oaktoast." Danny walks out and waves hello to the audience. He's wearing a black velvet suit by Hugo Boss and rainbow-colored suede loafers by Berluti. Sissy and Manolo stand up and clap, and the audience stands up and claps.  "This is what I wore when I arrived at the studio this morning," says Danny. "I'm wearing the same outfit right now that I wore this morning." Sissy and Manolo laugh and the audience laughs. Danny is here to talk about Oaktoast Studios, a full-scale media production center he's opening inside of the Ginzburg Children's Hospital, located in Germantown, Pennsylvania. "We're changing lives," says Danny. "At Oaktoast Studios terminally ill children can live out their wildest dreams. We have a full-scale media production center where the children can make their own shows, introduce celebrities, and perform music." Sissy and Manolo applaud, and the audience applauds. "It really helps the kids forget about what's about to happen to them. I'm super psyched about it." Danny stands up and waves good-bye. Sissy and Manolo stand up and clap, and the audience stands up and claps.  

The first thing to go when you get Alzheimer's is the names of all your favorite pornstars, because your brain, it says to itself, "We don't need these anymore, do we, really," and then it answers its own question and dissolves the brain cell which contains the name of the young woman who had sex with that guy from Cuba who can't speak English, come on, you know her last name, Stone, and you know his name, Ramon, but his name doesn't matter, his name must be in another part of your brain, because you still know it, but not her name, just the last name, Stone, what was her name, she had long brown hair and was wearing red lipstick, which doesn't help, does it, when so many of them have long brown hair and wear red lipstick, how many people have you seen with long brown hair and wearing red lipstick in your life, it doesn't matter, what matters is that you're not ready to forget this young woman's name, obviously, because you're hanging on to her last name, or maybe that's the next thing your brain is gonna get rid of, the last name of this young woman as well as the last names of all the other people you know, the people you know in real life or the people you know from your other life, your fantasy life, see, what they don't tell you when you lose your mind is that you lose the fantasies as well as the realities, which is a shame, because some of the fantasies are more realistic than the realities, or so you would like to think, wouldn't you, think, Stone, her last name was Stone, and her first name was, what was her first name, Missy, yes, that's it, Missy, see, Missy Stone, see, your brain didn't get rid of it, oh wait, now it did, it's gone, what was her name, her last name is Stone, what's her first name again, where did it go, what.

These are the signs of warning. Symbols of danger. Some are all too familiar. This one signals the most ominous threat of all. By the time you see it, it might already be...too late. "I've got a warning flag." "This is not a drill." "Seal the building. No one in or out." "God almighty." "How many dead?" "Help!" "You didn't see a thing, you understand?" "Who are you trying to protect?" "Yah!" "Ahh!" Pray for the people trapped inside. Pray they never...get out. Warning Sign. Sam Waterston. Kathleen Quinlan. 

They think because he's a man that he's unable to speak on the female experience, and yes, while it's true, he is a man, he's also an artist, and a damn fine one, and, as such, he's able, through art, to explore with a modicum of intelligence and grace a multiplicity of subjects concerning not only the human condition hut the condition of the non-human and the inanimate as well. That's literally what an artist is and what they do, and the fact that they either refuse to or simply can't understand this means they have no idea what art is, or why it's made, or how it's made. What they're interested in isn't art, but in everyone knowing their right place and making sure that everyone spouts the right slogans. They know what they are.  

A young man at the back of the auditorium has a question for David Lynch. "It's not really a question," says the young man, "but more of a comment." David Lynch lights a cigarette and says, "Shoot." The young man clears his throat and says, "I think this film is the purest distillation of your aesthetic, what all the other films have been leading up to. It doesn't feel like so much of a companion piece to Mulholland Drive as it does an even further drilling down into the questions raised by that film. I've never seen a better treatment of the subject of acting for the camera, of how actors get lost inside of a character, of how performances and individual films speak to each other across time and space, and how they infect each other. This film also made me think that maybe cinema history is more like a Mobius strip than a straight line." David Lynch exhales, nods and says, "Don't go anywhere. I'd like to continue talking with you after I'm done with the Q&A." Minutes later, the young man is backstage, standing in front of David Lynch. "Come with me," says David Lynch. The young man follows David Lynch to David Lynch's car, gets in the car, and sits in the passenger seat while David Lynch drives to Bob's Big Boy in lovely Burbank, California. "We'll both have the Big Boy Combo," says David Lynch to the waitress, "and we'll both have a chocolate malt. Thank you very much." The waitress winks at David Lynch and says, "No problem, hon." David Lynch takes off his beige fisherman's cap, musses his silver hair until it's standing straight up, and lights another cigarette. "So talk to me," says David Lynch. The young man says, "I don't know. This is like a dream." David Lynch exhales. "You do know," says David Lynch. "And this is a dream. It's mine."