Apparently life is full of strange coincidences. I didn’t know about this until yesterday when I walked into silverscreen (a dvd shop in maidstone). They were playing and REM song called Electrolite. I just wandered over to the sale stand and pick up a dvd – as it happened it was “Mulholland Drive”, a film by David Lynch. At almost the same time the song that was playing sang the line “If I ever want to fly, Mulholland Drive, I am alive.” This was strange. The expalination is from here and below.

“There is a significance to R.E.M.’s name-dropping of Mulholland Drive in Electrolite. Mulholland Drive is a really long (42km I think), really windy road that goes across the hills overlooking Los Angeles. You get some stunning views from up there, and it’s right near the Hollywood sign, hence “Hollywood is under me.” And when you drive along Mulholland Drive, and you’re above one of the world’s biggest cities, you do very much feel like you’re flying (“if I ever want to fly”).

As for the film, I think it’s quite possibly the best ever made. I am a very very big Lynch fan and Mulholland Drive is what got me into his work. The metaphor of Mulholland Drive is used to similar effect as in Electrolite. The film is all about Hollywood, and the naivity some take in coming there to experience stardom and love, and end up crushed, bitter and twisted. The only drawback is it’s near impossible to understand what’s going on first time of viewing, and that makes a lot of people give up. But I like a film where the plot isn’t fully explained in the first 10 minutes, something you have to actually think about. So take your time in watching Mulholland Drive – it truly is a wonderful piece of cinema. It’s probably only $5 cos it’s about 3 years old, it’s pretty cheap in the UK now too.

I was in L.A. with my dad earlier in the year and we made a special effort to drive along Mulholland Drive to pay tribute to the film and to Lynch, and as we did we listened to Electrolite, paying tribute also to R.E.M.’s homage to Hollywood.”

Bored yet? Another strange coincidence was that a few months ago I bumped into an old school friend (Happy Time Harry) who also happed to be working in Maidstone, so we started travelling to work together. Then after a while I started giving his sisters boyfriend (Bruce Lee – that’s his real name) a lift to.

Yesterday Tim was working in Sainsburys, and he asked one of his usual customers if they would like cash back, and they said “Yes please, I need some petrol money to give to your brother for giving my boyfriend a lift to work.” Confused?

Well it turned out that this lady was Happy Time Harry’s sister and Bruce Lee’s girfriend, and she recognised Tim as my brother after only seeing me one, in the dark, for about a minute. It’s sort of one of those non-anicdotes isn’t it a mad world.