There’s nothing special about this story
It can be proven to within a degree of absolute certainty with near-scientific exactitude that Clint Eastwood wants that Transcontinental Meditation Center opened in Kyiv almost as much as David Lynch does.
Transcontinental meditation is how the two Hollywood luminaries became good close friends, putting aside philosophical differences on approaches to filmmaking and what it means to be a star.
So upon getting wind of Lynch’s problems in the ancient Rus capital, Eastwood dropped his golf game and wasted little time thereafter, except that time which was unavoidably wasted due to his advanced age, to get here.
At this very moment Clint Eastwood is sitting with David Lynch inside Chin & Chang’s East Eats, one of the top Chinese dining establishments in Kyiv center, as recommended by Bret Boner, hard-driving rough and tough no-holds-barred freedom-fighting chief editor of the Kyiv Poster, the only leading English-language news source in town – now, of course, blown up.
“Well, David, I can’t believe they’ve done this to you,” says Clint.
“I’M DAVID LYNCH!!!”, screams the dwarf who looks amazingly like David Lynch and charges viciously at Eastwood out of nowhere.
His intent, apparently, is to kick Eastwood in the shins, but the old man is still strong enough to hold him off at arm’s length.
“You’re a dwarfhead and I’m about to do to you what that girl did to you here when you got too close to her.”
The dwarf looks hurt and dismayed.
“That’s right, dwarfhead, I heard all about it. Now go ahead and scoot on out of here – before I keep my promise…”
The dwarf backs off. “I’m David Lynch,” he says sadly and turns dejectedly away, disappearing into the vast labyrinth of Chin & Chang’s East Eats in search of the karaoke stage.
“Yes, it’s truly amazing,” resumes Lynch. “Yet week after week I hang on their every word believing that any moment now they’re going to deliver on their promises and I’ll finally get my meditation center. It’s as if no matter who you are or what you’re here to achieve, all of that somehow gets suppressed and pushed aside, as if by these odd forces, the likes of which I’ve never experienced, and you begin to sink into a mist of ignominious anonymity and slowly disappear.”
“Yes,” agrees Eastwood, gritting his teeth. “A funny feeling struck me as soon as I set foot here. I thought I’d be mobbed with requests for autographs. But while it was clear that people recognized me, they merely went on their way. There’s almost an arrogance to it.”
“Yes, at first I thought they were just being modest and mindful of others’ privacy, but now I see it as a form of abuse and treachery.”
“Hrrrmm,” growls Eastwood. “Where’s that damn waiter?”
No sooner the line’s spoken than a Ukrainian waiter appears beside their table.
The waiter’s smile is suspicious. Is he being friendly and helpful, as his job requires, or is there a surreptitious mockery at work? He clenches his teeth:
“You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?’
“Well,” says Eastwood, “just bring me a bottle of dark beer, like at that table over there.”
“You’re shit outta luck…”
“Well, then just bring me whatever house beer you have on tap – lager’d be fine.”
“And you – punk…” the waiter says to Lynch, still clenching his teeth.
“Oh, ah, I’ll just have a sparkling water for now – any kind will do.”
The waiter goes.
“Why did he do that,” asks Eastwood.
“I don’t know,” answers Lynch. “Maybe he thinks it’s America. Maybe he thinks it’s the West.”
“Hurrgh…”
The waiter returns with the order.
As he places the beer and the water in front of Eastwood and Lynch, Eastwood notices another waiter placing a bottle of the dark beer he’d wanted in front of a customer of yet another neighboring table.
“Hey, punk, I thought you said I was shit outta luck, but that guy over there’s getting the beer I wanted.”
“A man’s got to know his limitations,” the waiter replies.
“You’re some real wiseass, aren’t you? Well, maybe I’ll just take it up with Chang.”
“Go ahead, make my day…”
The waiter leaves.
Being an old man, Eastwood apparently forgets the incident immediately.
He says to Lynch:
“Yeah, you know, Dave, I’ve got more on my agenda here than just trying to help a good close friend get his meditation center opened.”
“What’s that, Clint?”
Eastwood reaches into his back pocket, groaning a little as he does. He farts. Lynch blinks, making believe he doesn’t hear. He also makes that face that says he doesn’t smell it, either. Eastwood finally pulls out a bent-in-half oversized postcard that he opens to show Lynch the naïve childlike drawing.
“It says ‘Commix Café’ on it, but I call it ‘Agents and Freaks.’ At first I was flattered, thinking the guy on the left here was supposed to be me, but when I read the message on the back, I knew I had to find these assholes and put them in their place – some cockamamie writing outfit called Kyiv Unedited.”
“You won’t find them, Clint. I’ve tried.”
“Yeah? We’ll see about that. And I’ll find the jackass who wrote this message too.”
“Well, I wish you luck. What’s it say?”
“It says:
‘Hey, Clint:
‘Next time you make one of those cruddy cheap films, let us know!
‘You know:
- the bad acting
- the stupid storyline
- the contrived plot
- the disingenuous moral
- the farfetched conceits
- fill in the blank
- the petty-mindedness
- the trite characterizations
- the old-man desperation (even in your early Dirty Harry phase)…
‘Cheers!
‘From your friends at Kyiv Unedited!!!’”
David Lynch smiles, losing himself in unreconstructed thought.
“Seeng ‘Meesty’ for me,” a young woman chortles, passing the Lynch-Eastwood table.
“That’s PLAY ‘Misty’, not sing, you dumb –”
“Ain’t NO ONE faster than Bronco Billy,” shouts some guy from afar as he waves at Eastwood and Lynch and then leaves.
“Get off my laaawwn…” exclaims a couple, pointing their index fingers at Eastwood as they walk in.
Somewhere from the restaurant’s depth, the microphone clicks on and the dwarf starts to sing.
Filed by Jack Step, CTFSA, April 28, 2016