David Lynch Reports the Weather (**VIDEO**)

by Mark Burbey

If you're a David Lynch fan, you're as much a fan of the man as you are of his films (Eraserhead, Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, etc.). He's a unique individual who makes amazing films, and seems not at all as personally dark as the subject matter he embraces. The people who think he's just weird are the same people who think Bjork is just weird, failing to see the intelligence, the creativity, and the humor in their work.

Several years ago, Lynch launched a website (www.davidlynch.com) where he could sell his wares, create short films, and have the occasional webchat with his fans. More recently, Lynch has been offering a daily weather report from his home/studio in Los Angeles: http://www.davidlynch.com/dailyreport

If you're a big fan of both Lynch and L.A., it's doubly cool and certainly worthy of becoming a daily habit. Even Lynch's way of speaking is unique -- very deliberate, very regional (not sure if his accent is from his years in Philadelphia, or his native Montana, or neither), and unquestionably endearing. Fascinating also is the surrounding detritis visible within the frame -- spray bottles, plastic cups, a wall phone in a wooden box, his favorite coffee cup, and other common items of mystery. Lately he's been ending each report with a plug for his new DVD collection of Dumbland, the Flash animated series originally created for members of his website. At the end of one report, Lynch simply held the Dumbland DVD in front of him on the table he's always seated at, saying, "If you truly love someone, prove it." Nuff said in this season of giving.

Even better, though, was the line that accompanied his pitch of Dumbland in his Dec. 22nd, 2005 report: "If you think you're a worthless, ignorant piece of waste, this may be the kite you'll want to fly."

How many film directors make themselves available in such an original and entertaining fashion? None I can think of. Then again, David Lynch is like no other director living or dead, and nothing makes waking up in the morning better than a daily dose of Lynch.