Video: I Bought David Lynch’s Weird Coffee Maker

The minute that news of the auction went live, it felt like the internet simultaneously started sending me links. As I looked through the listings, I felt a little impressed and a little horrified. They were selling David Lynch's Keurig coffee machine. Someone was going to spend an appalling amount of money to have that. (Though I will admit that someone spending $4,500 to own his Mr Coffee made more sense to me. Not good sense, just more sense).

We talked a lot in the studio about bidding, in particular about setting a ceiling price before things got emotional in those closing moments. As for what we wanted to bid on, well there we never had any doubts. This coffee maker looked cool, I'd never seen one before and (compared to the $5,000 being bid on 13 pretty standard cappuccino and espresso cups) it looked "affordable".

Side note: Clearly the auction business is the place to be. Buried in the fine print is the fact that all bids were subject to a 27% additional fee on top of the final bid. 27%! The person who bought a GS3 for $45k would have paid $10k in buyers fees as part of that. Absurd.

I don't really know when the David Lynch hair comparisons started happening, but they've been a steady drone in the comments for years now. It is a very kind thing that people say, because he did indeed have great hair. Iconic hair. What is absurd is that, while I was already a fan of his work, I think that this did change my relationship to him. Or at least to the avatar of him online.

Winning the bid for this little machine was a surprisingly joyful moment. It felt so improbable, so absurd and thus it was completely delightful. I'm very glad I got to make coffee with it, and to document that too. However, one of the key ideas of this Patreon is that I do not wish to hoard things, and having them find a new home really does bring me a great deal of pleasure.

I'll be truly sad to say goodbye to this terrible little coffee brewer, and the history it carries with it. I hope you all enjoy the video!

James

P.S. Obviously this video required pie, and I do want to shout out my appreciation for the team because it turns out finding a cherry pie at reasonably short notice is surprisingly difficult. These are probably not the kinds of problems you think you'll be solving when working on YouTube videos about coffee, but that (I think) is a big part of the fun!

P.P.S. Here is a very short blooper for you that didn't make it into the final video. We had a great time filming this!

P.P.S. Yes, the winner of the Mysterious Coffee Maker was in fact the winner of this David Lynch espresso maker. Mystery seemed to suit the occasion!