Hacking the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer, Luana Anders, David Lynch and his many friends

Another mind bending podcast. The day David Lynch passed, I felt like I heard him say "So why didn't you interview me?"  I kind of chuckled to myself - thinking, "Of people I know, who knew David that well?"  I haven't seen all his films - just a few, so I missed the many Harry Dean Stanton appearances.

As fans of the podcast know, I knew Harry Dean, played guitar with him, he was close friends with Luana Anders (who passed in 1996) and when Harry Dean passed, we interviewed him.  He has shown up a number of times, also with Billy Paxton, whom I started me career with, and with whom Billy and Harry worked on "Big Love" together.

So "any friend of Harry's is a friend of mine" - in terms of how we are able to communicate with people offstage. 

In this instance, I started to ask Jennifer if David had been the person I heard saying "Why didn't you interview me?" and before I could ask it - she said "He is."

It's on camera. I thought it, started to speak; she answered it.

That's how this works.

Jennifer and I have been doing this together for ten years - every week, if one can imagine. And this time, all this past week I've been hearing "messages" from Mr. Lynch.

Some examples; my son suggested we go and see "Inland Empire" at the Egyptian.  Two people in the audience told me afterwards that they saw him "sitting off to the side" - exactly where he says he was, in the last ten minutes of the film.

It's when Laura Dern's character merges with her "old self" in the film.  A bright light appears as they embrace.  That's when these two said they saw him in the theater.

It's not my opinion they saw him - it's not my belief they saw him - I asked, and he said that "indeed, he was there at the theater, and that he was surprised more people didn't realize it."

David was an early proponent of Transcendental Meditation - something he learned from Maharishis Mahesh Yogi - the same fellow from Rishikesh that the Beatles went to visit. In one of his interviews (that I watched this week after hearing from him) he said that he had met MMY and learned TM from him.

And since then he would meditate twice a day. As he said in an interview, "once in the morning" and once during the lunch hour.

Also, I learned that he went to Bob's Big Boy in Burbank (a fan favorite for my family) and every day at 2:30 would have a "malted and a cup of coffee."  Sometimes he'd add fries.

So we went to Bob's and saw the huge display of memorabilia people have deposited in his honor - as well as saw there was an hour wait to sit at the counter. So we moseyed on down to Paty's - where we were able to sit at the counter and get our milkshakes, coffee and fries. We sat next to two David devotees - people who had met at Disneyland and become pals over David, and were doing the same thing we were doing.

And we talked about David and we talked about this podcast... that I had yet to do. I told them to "tune in this week and we'll see if we can get him to come by."  So a shout out to Derek and Sharon who are fans of Mr. Lynch.

It's an unusual event to be sure - people are spontaneously honoring him, not for any other reason than they were moved by him, or learned something from him.

Also, Jennifer did not know David's work - as she notes in the podcast. So she didn't know - couldn't know - that David's nickname for Laura Dern was "tidbit" - his nickname for Naomi Watts was "buttercup" - nickname for Patricia Arquette was "Solid Gold" - his old pal Jack Fisk is married to Sissy Spacek, Isabella was the Oscar nominee - Ms. Rossellini - and his nickname for Kyle MacLachlan was "Kale" (because producer Dino de Laurentiis couldn't pronounce Kyle on "Dune") -I forgot to ask him if he'd seen Dino yet, but as he said "I've seen them all."

He had a message for "Doug and Steve Martin" who directed his short promo for "Eraserhead"  and the Woody Woodpecker dolls... He mentioned talking to Dennis Hopper (Luana's pal) Dean Stockwell (whom I directed in the film LIMIT UP) and Bill Paxton (who I met while he was doing Aliens and we wrote a script together.)

He had messages for Steven Spielberg and Mel Brooks - all pals of his, and for his family "I had the ride of my life and I can't wait to do it again!" - For those coming to this podcast for the first time, I recommend looking over the past three years of online podcasts, looking at the transcripts of the 7 years prior to that in the books TUNING INTO THE AFTERLIFE and BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE FLIPSIDE 1, 2 and 3.

 

Jennifer and I have been doing this weekly for ten years.  If one wants to book a session with Jennifer, find her at JenniferShaffer.com - and if one wants to book a meditation (visit to their council) with me, go to RichardMartini.com and follow the links.

 

But as David said; all you need is a shake, some fries and a coffee to talk to him.  Enjoy.

He said something fun and