RIP Eraserhead (and Log Lady)

First of all, I was "that guy" in college or "that guy" in a post-college room mating situation -- you know, the guy who would be sitting on the couch all day, hogging the television, and making everyone feel uncomfortable when they would sit down to eat dinner and see the INSANITY I was watching. From Jodorowsky to Lynch to Miike to Argento. I was the guy watching all those weird *beep* movies that kept you up at night with the horror of having viewed just a minute or two of them.

Specifically, I have fond memories of watching Eraserhead, starring Jack Nance, on a bootleg VHS while one of my roommates was in the silent treatment phase of an hours long argument with his fundamental Christian girlfriend. He sat down on one side of the couch, and then she sat down in the middle.

I had already seen the movie several times, so my attention began to focus on the girl and how uncomfortable she was becoming. She was so disturbed by the film, she vocalized dissent and left the room.

Thank you Jack Nance, for being so creepy as Eraserhead. That one memory alone brings me such joy.

But also, how endearing Jack Nance could be in other, less radical works of film. In Twin Peaks, he was such a sweet man -- the lumberjack who fell in love with the beautiful rich bitch and then became old enough to realize his mistake -- I feel so bad for him. He was like an old man Charlie Brown. Yet, in that same character's arc, he takes on a deviant, gloating form, when he presents his undead wife's blackmail demands to that bastard Benjamin Horne; laughing and smiling with glee!

And who can forget his drugged out and disconnected, self gratifying role as Frank's thug in Blue Velvet? Cool and casual and ready to punch you in the gut.

I didn't know much at all about Jack Nance at the time of viewing these classic works of cinema, and he was never the first person I thought of while watching them. But... he really tied those movies together. The more I watched them, the more he really stuck on me.

He stuck on me so hard, I ended up searching for documentaries about his life and acting. I haven't done that for any of the other actors in those films, except for Dean Stockwell (singing Candy Color Clown in Blue Velvet and most famously known as Al from Quantum Leap)

-- so what I can truly say in all my rambling is that Jack Nance stood out because he played very sympathetic side characters, and not even so much that he was Eraserhead.

Ahhhh, the fond memories David Lynch and Jack Nance have given me -- thanks guys. RIP Jack Nance (and Catherine Coulson).