Filmmaker David Lynch died on Wednesday, January 15, a week after having to evacuate his home off Mulholland Drive (yes, like the movie) because of the Sunset Fire. He was only 78—but as he revealed last year, his health had been deteriorating as he'd been diagnosed with emphysema.
Image by annamaria anderson from PixabayCertainly the Hollywood community and critics alike mourned the loss of the visionary writer, director, and musician. But what happened next surprised me.
Fans began to gather at Lynch's one-time favorite lunch spot, Bob's Big Boy, where for seven years he'd drink chocolate milkshakes and scribble notes on napkins. He said that's where he got the idea for the character of Frank Booth in Blue Velvet.
I myself had gone to Bob's for brunch this morning sort of in memoriam to Lynch—but for me, it was really just an excuse to go to Bob's, not that I ever need an excuse to go to Bob's.
Besides, I wanted to see the makeshift memorial that I'd heard had been placed at the feet of the Big Boy statue. Upon my arrival, I saw that it had grown exponentially from the night before (based on photos I'd seen online).
Now, we've lost a lot of huge, mega-celebrities that were relevant to my generation—Kobe Bryant, Whitney Houston, Prince, David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, Tupac, Biggie, Aaliyah. Many of them got murals after their deaths. But this was something different.
David Lynch wasn't exactly mainstream, so there's a kind of coded language to the offerings made to him now that the's on the other side—including slices of cherry pie (you'd have to watch Twin Peaks to understand).
And of course there are flowers, but also plenty of coffee and cigarettes. Lynch was famously a lifelong smoker, hence the emphysema. His characters drank a lot of coffee—and in real life, he had his own coffee line. He also loved Cheetos and extolled their virtues when it was revealed they were his sole request for his dressing room on the set of The Fabelmans).
Fans have contributed portrait drawings...
...handwritten personal messages (some on napkins, of course)...
...and transcriptions of song lyrics, like those from "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison (featured in Blue Velvet) and "In Heaven" (from Eraserhead), composed by Lynch himself.
Some have even deposited movie memorabilia, like a treasured Eraserhead T-shirt, and other keepsakes like a stuffed log (a nod to the Log Lady character from Twin Peaks).
And at least today, they were going inside the coffee shop and ordering tribute meals—because the kitchen ran out of cherry pie, chocolate milkshakes, biscuits, and who knows what else by the time I placed my order.
From my own perspective, I just kind of loved David Lynch as an Angeleno. He posted daily weather reports on his YouTube channel for two and a half years during Covid, as he grew out his hair and beard. He feared leaving his home, considering the risk of catching a respiratory virus on top of his preexisting breathing problems.
His second-to-last weather report, from December 2022, is in the player above or can be watched on YouTube here.
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