The Dude

"Sometimes there's a man.  I won't say a hero, 'cause what's a hero, but sometimes there's a man and I'm talkin' about the Dude here. Sometimes there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place.  He fits right in there, and that's the Dude in Los Angeles and even if he's a lazy man, and the Dude was most certainly that...  Sometimes there's a man. Sometimes there's a man..."

And so begins one of the Coen Brothers' all time great cult classics, The Big Lebowski.  I have lost count the number of times I have watched it but the movie is brilliant on so many levels.  Writing, acting, dialogue, with a nice shot of zaniness.  I want to give credit here to the ethos of the Dude and it can be done by directly quoting him.  I won't call him a hero, because, well the writers tell me not to right off the bat, but he is a man worth paying attention to, worth listening to, and maybe even worth emulating, if not all the time.

The crux of the movie hinges on a rug of his being pissed on by some two bit thugs who mistake him for another Lebowski.  They surprise him in his apartment, and stuff his head down the toilet while they ask where the fuckin' money is.  They obviously have the wrong guy.  The Dude likes to bowl and one of these said thugs picks up his bowling ball and asks what it is.  What does the Dude reply?  "Obviously, you are not a golfer."  He just throws the quip right at the dumbass, like it's nothing.  He's funny, and he's willing to throw fire, at least at some two bit thugs.  Sardonic courage.

When he tries to right the wrong of having his rug being pissed on because he was mistaken for a millionaire with his same name, what does he do?  He quotes George H.W. Bush!  "This aggression will not stand, man."  The Coen brothers make him a multidimensional dude, not the cliche hippie you would expect him to be.  He's got the other half of the live and let live philosophy he encompasses by confronting (his strategy is another matter) those who would not live and let live.  Also, the man, who's philosophy is basically to take it easy. also hates the fuckin' Eagles, man.  Again, against the cliche, with his own idiosyncratic likes and dislikes.  A person.  Weird and lazy, but a person nonetheless.

As stated before, the Dude is not a golfer, but a bowler.  He's on a team with Walter (an awesome performance by John Goodman playing a scarred Vietnam vet) and Donnie, and when they're about to play in a tournament against a team with a man who calls himself The Jesus, Jesus brings some trash-talking to the Dude's team.  The Dude's comeback?  "Yeah well, you know, that's just like uhh your opinion, man."  Perhaps my favorite line of any movie ever.  It's so true.  This Jesus guy is just talking shit about the future, a future that none of us knows, and the Dude knows and accepts that.  And if it's a competetion looming, especially if it's bowling, he'll take his chances in that unknown, jump into the arena, or up the lanes as the case may be.  He's a man who accepts his contingency and bowls anyway.

Toward the end of the movie, the Dude has a discussion with the Stranger a recurring character who plays somewhat the role of the chorus if it were a Greek tragedy (which it most certainly is not).  The Stranger asks him how things have been going, and the Dude replies that he's had some gutters and strikes, ups and downs, but here he is, and he's gonna take it easy.  Through it all, the Dude abides.  He accepts the ups and downs.  He rolls with the punches, or at least staggers, falls, slowly gets up, brushes himself off, fixes a white Russian, and smokes a doob.

So what do we have here?  We have a lazy man, gettin' by, doing his best to live and let let, yet confronting aggression against himself when it comes.  A man who is sardonic to dipshits.  A man who knows the future is not set, who knows that people are gonna talk shit and usually it's a bunch a bullshit.  A man who is loyal to his friends.  A man who abides, accepting the good and the bad, enduring through it all.  Not everyone will like the movie or the ethos of the Dude, but I do, and that's enough for me.

Disclaimer: some of my family will be reading this, and ask why I have to use so many cuss words.  I'll let the Dude answer that one for me.