# David Lynch, you have just pissed me off royally **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 24, 2016, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715 "2016-09-24T10:23:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/1 "2016-09-24T10:23:11Z")
OK, David, you are among my favorite directors, I love your movies. But it must be said, you are a fucking idiot at times. [Here is the evidence.](http://www.nme.com/filmandtv/news/david-lynch-says-cable-television-is-the-new-art-h/418025) > [@](#): > > Elsewhere in the interview, Lynch discussed how Transcendental Meditation - a meditative technique that involves the use of a repeated mantra - could be used to combat violence in Chicago. > > “If people are happy and blissful within, if they’re filled with universal love within, they don’t have any desire to hurt anyone or make violence,” Lynch said. "They just enjoy life and enjoy all the diversity in life. In the words of your Cowboy from Mulholland Drive, _just stop for a little second and think about it. Will ya do that for me?_ Pretty easy to “enjoy life and enjoy all the diversity in life” when you’re rich, white and a Hollywood celebrity. How easy do you think that is when you’re poor, black and living in Chicago? I’m none of those things but let me tell you I have a strong suspicion that it could be a mite tricky. If you will forgive me, Mr Lynch, and even if you will not, you’re acting like an asshat. Keep the TM bullshit to yourself and go do something solid for the Chicagoans like contributing financially. Otherwise stick to making movies rather than telling others how to live. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/2 "2016-09-24T10:37:35Z")
He’s right, though. It may be impractical but meditation has a proven effect on mood equivalent to anti-depressants. It’s free, can be done anywhere, needs no special training, and only takes about ten minutes a day. Besides, Chicago has basically been a war torn shithole since forever and nothing else has worked so…fuck it. Might as well break out the yoga mats. It can’t very well make things worse. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/3 "2016-09-24T12:10:58Z")
It’s a weird suggestion, but then, this is David Lynch we’re talking about. The cinematic arts would be greatly diminished if he suddenly turned sane. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/4 "2016-09-24T15:59:26Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > It’s a weird suggestion, but then, this is David Lynch we’re talking about. The cinematic arts would be greatly diminished if he suddenly turned sane. I was just reading an account about some of the props used in _Eraserhead_. And it mentioned that one of the props was a dead cat that Lynch had found and preserved in some kind of experimental embalming fluid he had invented. But it also mentioned that Lynch had done this years before he made the movie in which the cat was used. The account concluded that David Lynch makes movies in order to justify the strange things he would be doing anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/5 "2016-09-24T16:11:55Z")
It’s been suggested that the reason poor blacks in Chicago turn to drugs is a desire to take their minds off their predicament. Wouldn’t meditation help achieve the same goal? And without the added burden of needing a means to pay for drugs. Not that I think yoga will replace illegal drugs, but I don’t think his premise is all that flawed. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/6 "2016-09-24T16:20:34Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Keep the TM bullshit to yourself and go do something solid for the Chicagoans like contributing financially. Otherwise stick to making movies rather than telling others how to live. “Contributing financially” how? Buy a month’s worth of healthy groceries for ten thousand poor black families on the South Side? That would probably wipe out his savings account, and next month they’d all be out of vegetables again. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/7 "2016-09-24T16:26:29Z")
…purchase 500 Steinway pianos and distribute them among schools in low-income neighborhoods? They say that music hath charms to soothe the savage breast. But TM is free. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/8 "2016-09-24T16:32:19Z")
Let them smoke cake! ---
**Author:** ![Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58956e/32.png) [@Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emtar_KronJonDerSohn)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/9 "2016-09-24T16:49:41Z")
So meditation only works if you’re rich and white, but money solves everything. I think he makes more sense than you do. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/10 "2016-09-24T17:57:11Z")
> [@Memnon](#): > > He’s right, though. It may be impractical but meditation has a proven effect on mood equivalent to anti-depressants. It’s free, can be done anywhere, needs no special training, and only takes about ten minutes a day. > > Besides, Chicago has basically been a war torn shithole since forever and nothing else has worked so…fuck it. Might as well break out the yoga mats. It can’t very well make things worse. I think you’re misunderstanding what he’s saying. TM Believers don’t just believe that meditating will have benefits for you mental state, or that Chicago criminals might become more relaxed if only they could somehow be persuaded to meditate. They believe that you meditating in your home will lower violence in Chicago by some sort of magical effect. David Lynch has believed this for a long time. It’s just a nutty belief he has. It doesn’t detract from the quality of his movies. I can’t imagine getting pissed off about it, any more than I’d get pissed off if a director said he was praying for Chicago. Why would that bother me? From Wiki: > [@](#): > > In the 1960s, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi described a paranormal effect that he claimed a significant number of individuals (1% of the people in a given area) practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique ™ could have on the local environment.[95] This hypothetical influence was later termed the Maharishi Effect. With the introduction of the TM-Sidhi program in 1976, Maharishi proposed that the square root of one percent of the population practicing the TM-Sidhi program, together at the same time and in the same place, would increase “life-supporting trends”. This was referred to as the “Extended Maharishi Effect”.[96][97] Evidence, which TM practitioners[98] believe supports the existence of the effect, has been said to lack a causal basis.[99] The evidence was said to result from cherry-picked data[100] and the credulity of believers.[99][101] ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/11 "2016-09-24T18:04:13Z")
Yeah, the difference between “meditation” and “Transcendental Meditation” are pretty much like the difference between "touching and “bad touching”. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/12 "2016-09-24T20:08:50Z")
I think transcendental mediation would be more useful. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/13 "2016-09-24T20:13:33Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > If you will forgive me, Mr Lynch, and even if you will not, you’re acting like an asshat. Keep the TM bullshit to yourself and go do something solid for the Chicagoans like contributing financially. Otherwise stick to making movies rather than telling others how to live. Says the person who is telling someone else how to live. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/14 "2016-09-24T20:22:22Z")
Gosh, it’s so unusual for creative writters, directors and actors to have such quirky beliefs and personalities. I mean most of the are just down to earth everyday people! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/15 "2016-09-24T20:43:55Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > I think you’re misunderstanding what he’s saying. TM Believers don’t just believe that meditating will have benefits for you mental state, or that Chicago criminals might become more relaxed if only they could somehow be persuaded to meditate. They believe that you meditating in your home will lower violence in Chicago by some sort of magical effect. Doesn’t sound that magical to me. People who are meditating are people who are not rioting. Or producing widgets. Or buying widgets. You know, until they stop meditating. So, if everyone in Chicago WERE to drop everything they were doing, whether it was widget-making, paper-pushing, Big Mac-chomping, rioting, baby diaper-changing, or traffic ticket-writing,\* and start meditating, there would be no violence occurring while the meditation was going on. \*not a comprehensive list. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/16 "2016-09-24T20:54:27Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Doesn’t sound that magical to me. People who are meditating are people who are not rioting. Or producing widgets. Or buying widgets. You know, until they stop meditating. . . . No, **Larry Borgia** was right: the TM fantasy is that if a certain percentage of the people engage in TM, then it affects all the other people too. For shits and grins, look up some of their claims about universal consciousness, quantum physics, and other stuff. They’re really insane about it. (These are the same guys who claimed that the skies would soon be full of people flying by willpower alone. What did we actually get? A few videos of people bouncing on their butts.) ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/17 "2016-09-24T21:00:15Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > No, **Larry Borgia** was right: the TM fantasy is that if a certain percentage of the people engage in TM, then it affects all the other people too. Is that supposed to work like the [Hundredth Monkey Effect?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect) Laughable. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/18 "2016-09-24T21:04:18Z")
So, Lynch could put this plan into action and see what happens. Open up a TM center in West Englewood, Chicago’s most crime-ridden neighborhood, and stock it with all sorts of New Age gewgaws and posters and artwork bearing positive intent. Staff it with peaceniks and hippies with flowers in their hair and have sitar music playing in the background. Then see how many times it gets looted and vandalized and make a movie out of it. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/19 "2016-09-24T22:10:52Z")
Maharishi Mahesh believe(d) in the magical effect of TM. Do we know that Lynch also believes it? I haven’t tried it myself but I can see how someone could find TM useful psychologically without believing yogi magic is involved. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715/20 "2016-09-24T22:32:05Z")
To be fair, I don’t know what Lynch believes. He may practice a stripped-down version of TM, without the Mahesh Yogi strap-on mysticism. (It’s a little like Buddhism: some people believe in the miracles of the Buddha, and others don’t. If someone says, “I’m a Buddhist,” that alone won’t tell you what their beliefs are.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-lynch-you-have-just-pissed-me-off-royally/766715.md?page=2)