Eraserhead (1977)“Oh, I don’t know much of anything.”
—Henry Spencer in Eraserhead Yes, my dears, just call me
Eraserhead—I got it
real bad.
Call me lone
weirdo, call me
trite and banal, call me
ersatz and delusional...
I just can't help myself dontchaknow—I like being
Eraserhead, baby.
Let me tell you why...it’s a crummy dreary drive back home along Airport Way East. But it’s better than the crummy insane freeway. The gloomy old decaying brick warehouses sadly leaning against up each other—they’re so gaunt and lonely and desolate-looking. All those desolate passing years—the same old depressing dreary
industrial zone-noir going all the way back before WWII…
The dumpy depressing apartment buildings—with curtains blowing out the windows. Fluttering desperately like delicate gone angel fingers—trying to escape the
Dreariness and Despair. The schmaltzy crummy ennui of whatever happened inside those cheap dingy old living rooms and skanky ho bedrooms. Dirty old rooms with beat-up old sofas up against the walls—yellowing nicotine lamp shades stinking like lost dreams from Nowheresville USA…
Creepy old red brick walls decaying and groaning all around me on way my home from work—rotting window sills with dead geraniums drooping over the edge. Looking down at me—like sicko graveyard gargoyles trying to tell me something. And those slanting old telephone lines overhead—silhouetting the dirty industrial sky like cobwebs. Fumes and dirt pouring down off the freeway—down onto shabby forgotten Georgetown. Tell the story good—or tell the story bad. But for gawd’s sake, baby, tell the story like it is…
I don’t have to watch Fox News or CNN when I get home—I have other more domestic Americana ways to get depressed. Like all I have to do is look in the crummy bathroom mirror—that’s more than enough for a modest case of
Total Disgust & despicable
Self-Loathing. After having a nice cold slice of left-over Domino pizza and a couple of Silver Bullets for dinner—I can at last kick back and relax to watch
Eraserhead in the privacy and comfort of my own dumpy dingy depressing straight-from-hell neo-noir bungalow…
Henry Spencer is my
Avatar—he tells the Story for me. That long dreary walk home that “Henry Spencer” makes through all that endless debris of his shitty industrial park neighborhood—it always reminds me of my drive home through dingy depressing Georgetown. That continuous throbbing industrial noise in the soundtrack—is it for real or is it just in Spencer’s head?
It reminds me of the throbbing industrial background noise in Fritz Lang’s
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)—drowning out everything with its horrible menacing neo-noir clunking and banging away. No wonder Spencer is always jumpy—looking over his shoulder. His dreary Expressionist industrial neighborhood so full of threatening noises—emanating from dark railroad tunnels, sullen belching factories and snarling mad dogs.
Poor Henry Spencer’s existence—it’s definitely a lot worse than mine I suppose. That’s why I watch
Eraserhead religiously every night—Henry Spencer wants to tell me something. Everyday is SSDD—everyday is a lucky chance to
Erase everything and start again. It’s
Eraserhead Day, baby—for all the dumb rubes and carnival freaks out there. One day you can be Olga Baclanova the beautiful
Trapeze Artist flying high—the next day you end up
The Chicken Woman groveling in the carnie saw-dust in front of all the leering smirky cute dumb farmboys.
“Squawk on, Chicken Queen—Squawk on, Madame Baclanova!!!” Tell the story, girl—tell it good…
Some know-it-all Film Critics whose names I won’t mention don’t like
Eraserhead—they say it’s a despicable crummy real sicko movie dontchaknow. But that’s why I like to watch it—I’m kinda sicko myself. Like I play this little game with myself—it's called
Who’s More Sick? The
NYTimes or me? Who’s more sicko? That self-righteous pro-family right wing
Tea-Room Queen senator—or coy little ole abstinent cineaste me? And what about that crazy fucking guy in the attic—or that sicko woman hanging out in the radiator? C’mon, whose more sicko,
ladies and gentlemen of the jury…them or me?
David Lynch is always fucking me over—and it feels good, baby. Satire is an Art—like when there’s nothing else to lose. Like I’m always asking myself—“Is there something he wants to tell me? Is there something I should know?”
Tell me a Story, baby—that’s why I watch
Eraserhead every night. I need a good Fractured Fairy Tale
bad—Henry Spencer’s my all-time Number One Guy. He’s my Jack and the Beanstalk Kid—he’s the One that climbs the Sky. He knows where the Action is—he knows where Mother Goose lays the Golden Egg. Think about it—but don’t think too much. I wouldn’t want you to burn-out your single neuron—that gimpy one down there between your skinny-ass legs…
Yes, your Honor and all my esteemed leering
Lolitaesque jurors—like who’s really beyond-a-doubt more sicko? Henry Spencer repeating his sicko existence every night on TV just for me? Or me living & breathing & sleeping & dreaming it? Erasing my whole sicko Existence down the sicko drain? I can feel it happening—like I don’t have to do anything.
No time anymore for
Weimar cabaret—no time for tacky
Neocon Gotterdamerung drag. Industrial music turns me on—neo-noir is ultimate el supremo sicko satire.
Like yesterday driving home from work—there under the dark dreary overpass. Moiling about down there in the gutter—
Lordy Lordy shut my mouth!!! A horrible scene—right out of
Black and Blue Velvet. There it was staring right at me—a grotesque horrible greenish fly-infested rotting penis lying by the road…
I blushed like Kyle MacLachlan...I pulled over to the side of the road....
