The Big Lebowski Art Gallery

Here are some paintings by Joe Forkan inspired by The Dude and the gang. To see them all:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-lebowski-paintings,0,5400978.photogallery

Does It Include a Rug, Man?

FYI all Big Lebowski fans: El Duderino's bungalow is on the market. In fact, all six bungalows are on sale together:

http://www.bulldogrealtors.com/pages/property_detail/venezia-606.html

606-608 Venezia Ave.
Venice, CA
6 One Bedroom Cottages
$2,295,000

"The Big Lebowski" Compound

Six historic one bedroom cottages on a 10,628 sq ft lot, all just blocks to the beach and Abbot Kinney. These historic, bigger-than-average bungalows feature spacious side-yards, garage parking and a lushly landscaped gated courtyard.

In 2005, property underwent major renovations, including new sewer line, roofing. This a perfect candidate for a residential subdivision.

Compound was used as location for classic film "The Big Lebowski," starring Jeff Bridges.

Recent Media Coverage:

•The Huffington Post
•Washington Post
•The Beat of Young Los Angeles
•Film Drunk
•The Dude's Paper
•Guest of a Guest LA
•Hemp Beach
•Movie Locations Guide
•Mahalo
•Realtor.com
•Zillow.com

Offered at $2,295,000

Winston Cenac
cell: 310-963-9300
office: 310-452-5004
winston@bulldogrealtors.com

Golda Savage
cell: 310-770-4490
office: 310-452-5004
winston@bulldogrealtors.com

The Cast Of 'The Big Lebowski' Reunites in New York

Sound problems and a rambunctious crowd made for a challenging but hilarious tribute to the fan-favorite film
Andy Greene
August 17, 2011
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/the-cast-of-the-big-lebowski-reunites-in-new-york-20110817

When The Big Lebowski hit theaters in March 1998, few people could have imagined it would quickly become one of the biggest cult films of all time. Most critics dismissed it as a disappointing follow-up to Fargo – and it got creamed at the box office. Here's a list of movies that had higher grosses that first weekend: the twelfth week of Titanic, the fourth week of The Wedding Singer, U.S. Marshals, Twilight (the widely forgotten Paul Newman film noir) and Hush. If you don't remember Hush, it's that awful Gwyneth Paltrow thriller where she's pregnant and Jessica Lange is trying to kill her.

Well, nobody is dressing up like a pregnant Gwyneth Paltrow and headed to Hush Fest these days – but every year thousands of young men (and the occasional woman) dress up like characters like The Big Lebowski to bowl and drink White Russians at Lebowski Fests all over the country. Tuesday night at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom, the entire main cast reunited to celebrate the release of the movie on Blu-ray and participate in a panel discussion. Achievers (the preferred nomenclature for Lebowski fans) travelled from all over the country for the celebration.

On paper, this is the outline for an amazing night. Unfortunately, the panel discussion didn't go very well. The sight of Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, John Turturro and musical supervisor T-Bone Burnett together again was awe-inspiring – but group interviews are notoriously hard to carry off. Factor in thousands of drunken fans screaming out lines from the movie every three seconds and endless sound problems that made it near-impossible for the panel to hear anything, and you have a borderline disaster. Entertainment Weekly writer Clark Collis was a trooper as moderator and did his best to navigate through the chaos, but you could see his frustration boiling over as the night went on. During a forty-minute discussion, he was able to ask about five or so questions to the panel.

That isn't to say that the discussion didn't have its moments. The cast members all told hysterical stories about being accosted by obsessed fans in the streets, John Turturro shared his plans for a sequel about Jesus becoming a bus driver and Buscemi shared his theory that Donnie is actually just a figment of Walter's imagination. The whole cast said they would be happy to participate in a sequel, though John Goodman took everybody back to reality by saying there was no chance it would ever happen. Nobody could quite explain why the Coen Brothers have been so reluctant to embrace the movie.

I had the pleasure of sitting extremely close to James Hoosier, who had a bit (but highly memorable) role as Jesus' bowling partner Liam O'Brien. Lebowski Fest organizers Will Russell and Scott Shuffitt introduced him to the crowd early in the night, and he was more than happy to recreate his famous belly shake for the crowd. He wore an O'Brien/Quintana bowling jersey and seemed delighted to mingle with the fans. He stuck around for the movie, and soaked in thunderous applause every time he was on the screen. The very instant his initial scenes were over, he got up and left.

In many ways, viewing the movie for the millionth time was more enjoyable than watching the panel discussion. The crowd's drunken catcalls became endearing, and we all sang along to "The Man In Me" and screamed out "shut the fuck up Donnie!" in unison. Tiny details that don't register during the first 30 screenings become hysterical – like the fact that The Dude has book called Japanese Cooking in his apartment or that The Dude is singing the theme song to Branded (an actual 1960s western) while in the back of the police car. I had honestly only planned on staying for a bit of the movie so I could go home and write this, but before I knew it I was singing along to the Townes Van Zandt cover of "Dead Flowers" while the end credits rolled.

Celebrating The Big Lebowski

http://denofgeek.com/movies/479021/celebrating_the_big_lebowski.html

Celebrating The Big Lebowski
Sean Leyland salutes the power of The Dude, as he looks back at The Big Lebowski...
May 6, 2010

When searching for the definition of a cult film, a number of possibilities identify themselves:

A film that fails on every level, yet is enjoyable for that very reason? Even Super Mario Bros. and Batman & Robin have their fans.

A film that is messy and uneven, but has enough good ideas and/or charm to make it almost work? Look at Dune or Southland Tales.

How about a film that passes people by first time round and is discovered by fans due to positive word-of-mouth rather than studio promotion? That's a bingo. Donnie Darko, Office Space, True Romance, I could go on. In fact, I will. Because in the last ten years or so one cult figure has stood above all others and they call him The Dude.

It takes a special character to hit with an audience the way Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski has. A man who seems to have an ideal stress-free lifestyle only to have it interrupted by mistaken identity and a labyrinthine set of circumstances that, to try and understand, is to miss the point entirely.

In many works of fiction we are supposed to believe that our protagonist is ill-suited to being a hero before we see his/her transformation into exactly that. They will always learn to believe in themselves or fathom even the most impossible of circumstances to emerge as the person we all wish we could be.

Not here. That would very un-Dude.

Our man learns nothing. He ends the story just as he began: drinking, bowling, doing as little as possible. The Dude abides, and we love him all the more for it. He is the personification of the film itself. If you understand him, you'll know what's going on elsewhere. If not, you're buggered.

Writer, editor, producer, director team Joel and Ethan Coen were already renowned for their characterisations of idiots and losers and a common theme in their, frankly, extraordinary body of work is that, despite appearances, nobody really knows anything.

Take the opening sequence of The Big Lebowski. We open at night on a dusty desert landscape as a lone tumbleweed blows in the breeze and Sam Elliott's Texas-accented narrator begins his preamble.

We could be forgiven for thinking we're watching a western until the camera tracks over a canyon to reveal modern day (well, early 90s) Los Angeles (a reference to Once Upon A Time In The West, I reckon).

Nevertheless, our narrator continues unabated by the present day setting and the tumbleweed drifts through the city until we meet The Dude, wandering shabbily through a supermarket in his dressing gown and paying for a carton of milk by cheque (we never learn source of his income), refusing to move with the times.

At this point our narrator drifts off on a tangent and admits that he's lost his train of thought. Then minutes later, The Dude and partner-in-crime Walter refuse to interrupt their strict bowling routine to solve the mystery of Bunny Lebowski's kidnapping ("Fuck it, Dude. Let's go bowling."). They don't care about the plot. They don't want to know what's happened to her. They want to bowl. And how can we blame them? We wouldn't let it upset league play either.

Even when the mystery is solved (well, sort of) it fades into inconsequence as the death of Walter and The Dude's friend, Donnie, obscures everything else that has come before it. His death shows us that, if properly written, there are no pointless characters even if their involvement seems to be so.

The aftershock of his unexpected passing is played for laughs, but is laced with such tenderness that it is incredibly touching, and repeated viewings make you fall in love with him all the more for knowing his fate.

Speaking of seemingly pointless characters, why is John Turturro's Jesus Quintana even in the film? What bearing does he have on the plot (beyond stealing both of his scenes)? Nothing whatsoever.

Like Donnie, he's important to us because he's important to The Dude and Walter. He's their next opponent in the bowling tournament. Who are we to tell them that Jackie Treehorn or the Nihilists or the other Jeffrey Lebowski should be their archrival?

Like the tumbleweed and the rambling narrator and The Dude himself, The Big Lebowski has no agenda. Its existence seems to be for nothing more than having fun and meeting a bunch of cool people that we like hanging out with. Isn't that what life is about, anyway? Couldn't we all learn a little something from The Dude?

Some of his fans clearly think so. Lebowski Fest is eight years old this year and has been held in various venues across America with a similar event, The Dude Abides, being held in London. How about Dudeism, the religion based on the teachings of El Duderino himself? How many other films have inspired their own religion? (Battlefield: Earth doesn't count).

It seems that despite boasting the tightest ramshackle plot in the history of film and taking the risk of being completely unique, this box office flop has done what the likes of The Da Vinci Code, 2012 and The Phantom Menace could never even dream of: it has become a legend.

It is the film that the weird beardy guy at uni talks about while he pours vodka in his milk. It's the film that the girl with the designer holes in her jeans and faux-faded t-shirt pretends she's seen. It has spoken to people on a level that they themselves don't understand and has found an audience despite being misunderstood and mishandled on initial release.

And that, friends, is the definition of a cult film. So, if you haven't met him before, or if you have and want to see him again...lost my train of thought there. Ah, hell I've done introduced him enough...

The Big Lebowski, Review by Roger Ebert

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100310/REVIEWS08/100319989/1004
The Big Lebowski (1998)
BY ROGER EBERT / March 10, 2010

"The Big Lebowski" is about an attitude, not a story. It's easy to miss that, because the story is so urgently pursued. It involves kidnapping, ransom money, a porno king, a reclusive millionaire, a runaway girl, the Malibu police, a woman who paints while nude and strapped to an overhead harness, and the last act of the disagreement between Vietnam veterans and Flower Power. It has more scenes about bowling than anything else.

This is a plot and dialogue that perhaps only the Coen Brothers could have devised. I'm thinking less of their clarity in "Fargo" and "No Country for Old Men" than of the almost hallucinatory logic of "Raising Arizona" and "The Hudsucker Proxy." Only a steady hand in the midst of madness allows them to hold it all together--that, and the delirious richness of their visual approach.

Anyone who cares about movies must surely have heard something about the plot. This is a movie that has inspired an annual convention and the Church of the Latter-Day Dude. Its star, Jeff Bridges, has become so identified with the starring role that when he won the 2010 Oscar for Best Actor, Twitterland mourned that his acceptance speech didn't begin with, "The Dude Abides." These words are so emblematic that they inspired a book title, The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers, by Cathleen Falsani. This is a serious book, though far from a dreary theological work.

The Dude is Jeff Lebowski, an unemployed layabout whose days are spent sipping White Russians and nights are spent at the bowling alley. There is always a little pot available. He has a leonine mane of chestnut hair, a shaggy goatee, and a wardrobe of Bermuda shorts, rummage sale shirts, bathrobes and flip-flops,. He went to Woodstock and never left. He lives in what may be the last crummy run-down low-rent structure in Malibu. Trust the Dude to find it.

It is widely known that the Dude was inspired by a real man named Jeff Dowd, a freelance publicist who was instrumental in launching "Blood Simple" (1984), the first film in the Coen canon. I have long known Jeff Dowd. I can easily see how he might have inspired the Dude. He is as tall, as shaggy and sometimes as mood-altered as Jeff Lebowski, although much more motivated. He remembers names better than a politician, is crafty in his strategies, and burns with a fiery zeal on behalf of those films he consents to represent.

In the film, Jeff Lebowski tells the millionaire's daughter (Julianne Moore) that in his youth he helped draft the Port Huron Statement that founded Students for a Democratic Society, and was a member of the Seattle Seven. In real life Jeff Dowd was indeed one of the Seattle Seven, and remains so militant that at Sundance 2009 he took a punch the jaw for insisting too fervently that a critic see "Dirt," an ecological documentary Dowd believed was essential to the survival of the planet. True to his credo of nonviolence, the Dude did not punch back.

In "The Big Lebowski," our hero has left politics far behind, and exists primarily to keep a buzz on, and bowl. He is never actually drunk in the movie, and always far from sober. His bowling partners are Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) and Donny Kerabatsos (Steve Buscemi). Walter, even taller than the Dude, is a proud Vietnam veteran and the strategist of the three. He and the Dude never mention politics. Donny is their meek sidekick, always a step behind the big guys. He says perhaps three complete sentences in the film, all brief, and is often interrupted by Walter telling him to shut the f--- up. He is happy to exist on the fringes of their glory.

Details of the plot need not concern us. It involves a mean-tempered millionaire in a wheelchair who is the Big Lebowski (the Dude becomes, by logic, the Little Lebowski). He broods before the fire in a vast paneled library, reminding me of no one so much as Major Amberson in "The Magnificent Ambersons." His trophy wife Bunny (Tara Reid) appears to have been kidnapped. This leads indirectly to the Dude being savagely beaten by hit men who mistake him for the Big Lebowski. Well, how many Jeff Lebowskis can there be in Malibu? One of them urinates on The Dude's rug, which he valued highly ("it pulled the room together"), and the whole movie can be loosely described as being about the Dude's attempts to get payback for his rug.

The inspiration for the supporting characters can perhaps be found in the novels of Raymond Chandler. The Southern California setting, the millionaire, the kidnapped wife, the bohemian daughter, the enforcers, the cops who know the hero by name, can all be found in Chandler. The Dude is in a sense Philip Marlowe -- not in his energy or focus, but in the code he lives by. Down these mean streets walks a man who won't allow his rug to be pissed on. "That will not stand," he says, perhaps unconsciously quoting George H.W. Bush about Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. The Dude does not lie, steal or cheat. He does swear. He wants what is right. With the earliest flags of the republic, he insists, "Don't tread on me."

The Coens have always had a remarkable visual style, tending toward overwhelming architectural detail -- long corridors, odd interior decoration, forced perspectives, lonely vistas, lurid cityscapes. Even in ostensibly realistic settings, such as the suburbs of "A Serious Man" (2009), they like to insist beyond the point of realism. Their suburb is the distillation of Suburbhood. In "The Big Lebowski," their anchor location is the bowling alley, their dominant colors what might be described as Brunswick Orange and turquoise. The alley is strangely underpopulated, its lanes vertiginous in length. There is one POV shot from within a rolling bowling ball. When Jeff hallucinates or is unconscious, he inhabits bizarre fantasy worlds.

One of their fellow bowlers is Jesus Quintana (John Turturro), a man who has converted himself into an artwork in his own honor. Another trio of supporting characters, the Nihilists, is led by Peter Stormare (who played the man feeding the body of Buscemi into the wood chipper in "Fargo"). A considerable role is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Brandt, the worshipful assistant to the Big Lebowski. Some of its fans have seen this movie dozens of times. I suppose they've already observed that that Hoffman and David Huddleston, who plays the Big Lebowski, bear a strong family resemblance. Someone knowing nothing about the film could be excused for suspecting that Philip Seymour Hoffman plays both characters, the older man with skillful makeup effects. A coincidence? I would not for one moment put it beyond the Coens, Ethan and Joel, to encourage this misapprehension. I suspect they cast Huddleston for the physical resemblance.

The film is about all about Jeff Lebowski's equanimity in the face of vicissitudes. He is pounded, water-boarded, lied to and insulted. His rug is pissed on and his car set aflame. He is seduced by a woman who wants only his seed. He has a fortune dangled before his eyes, only to have it replaced by telephone books and used boxer shorts. To heal and keep himself whole he stirs himself another White Russian, has a toke, sits in a warm bath. Like the Buddha, he focuses on the big picture.

The film is narrated by The Stranger (Sam Elliott, never more gloriously mustached). It is he who observes at the end that the Dude Abides, and says he hears there is a little Lebowski on the way. The Dude however is denied matrimony, and indeed seems to have no women at all in his life, except by lucky chance. Does this depress him? Is he concerned about being chronically unemployed? No. If a man has a roof over his head, fresh half-and-half for his White Russians, a little weed and his bowling buddies, what more, really, does he need?

"TWO GENTLEMEN OF LEBOWSKI"

http://www.runleiarun.com/lebowski/

"TWO GENTLEMEN OF LEBOWSKI"
FAQs AND BLATANT ADVERTISING FOR GENERAL READERSHIP
Information Regarding the Creation of the Work.

"How many people worked on this?"
Exactly one. Adam Bertocci. He doesn't get out much.

"How the hell do you pronounce that name, anyway?"
Ber-TAH-chee. Rhymes with 'Versace'.

"So what are you, an unemployed English major?"
No, I'm an unemployed film major. (Northwestern University.) With a minor in English lit.

"How long did it take you to do this?"
The short answer is: about three weeks. The first draft was written over one weekend while everyone else was seeing Avatar. There were a couple weeks more of revisions, on and off in between work and the holidays. The play was finalized in early 2010, posted on Wednesday January 6th (you got a date Wednesday, baby!) and went viral pretty much instantly.

"What was your inspiration?"
I just posted a funny little message on Facebook wherein I 'translated' a couple of famous lines from The Big Lebowski to amuse people. They amused pretty much only me. Anyway a month or so later I got bored and started typing.

"So you're on Facebook! Can I friend you?"
Please don't.

"Why did you decide to undertake this project?"
I am a screenwriter, and sometimes it's very hard to get attention from the powers that be in the industry. I was frustrated with the trouble I was having getting interest in my screenplays from production companies, agents, managers, the whole deal. I decided what I needed was a publicity stunt. My hope was that the buzz from Two Gentlemen of Lebowski would help me get some attention for my 'real' projects. What I didn't expect was how huge a project it would become for me in and of itself!

"So did the publicity stunt work?"
Pretty much. Although my screenwriting career hasn't been directly affected yet. (Can you fix that?! See below.)

On Adaptation of the Web Site to Other Media.

"Are there any plans for a book?"
The play is now represented by a literary agent at one of the top agencies in New York. We have publisher interest; the next step is to get the approval of the rights holders.

"Can I see this performed?"
Be aware that this is an unauthorized parody and any and all productions are themselves unauthorized, without the participation or approval of the creators of The Big Lebowski.

"Will you bring the show to (insert city here)?"
I don't bring the show anywhere; bringing shows places is the job of theatre companies, who find a director and actors and crew and a venue. I maintain no legal, formal or financial relationship with any such company.

"So what is your role in the stage productions?"
I have none. I'm just a guy who wrote something on the Internet. No company has ever received permission or rights from me to perform my intellectual property on stage (especially since, as I've warranted, I don't own the rights to The Big Lebowski), merely my choice not to stop them.

"Will this be performed at Lebowskifest?"
The staff of Lebowskifest is aware of the piece. What happens next is out of my hands.
*
Sample dialogue from "Two Gentlemen of Lebowski":

WOO: Rise, and speak wisely, man — but hark; I see thy rug, as woven i’ the Orient, a treasure from abroad. I like it not. I’ll stain it thus; ever thus to deadbeats. [He stains the rug]

THE KNAVE: Sir, prithee nay!

*

WALTER: In sooth, then, faithful friend, this was a rug of value? Thou wouldst call it not a rug among ordinary rugs, but a rug of purpose? A star in a firmament, in step with the fashion alike to the Whitsun morris-dance? A worthy rug, a rug of consequence, sir?

THE KNAVE: It was of consequence, I should think; verily, it tied the room together, gather’d its qualities as the sweet lovers’ spring grass doth the morning dew or the rough scythe the first of autumn harvests. It sat between the four sides of the room, making substance of a square, respecting each wall in equal harmony, in geometer’s cap; a great reckoning in a little room. Verily, it transform’d the room from the space between four walls presented, to the harbour of a man’s monarchy.

*

THE KNAVE: Let me not to the marriage of false impressions deny impediments. I am not Master Lebowski; thou art Master Lebowski. I am the Knave, called the Knave. Or His Knaveness, or mayhap Knaver, or mayhap El Knaverino, in the manner of the Spaniard, if brevity be not in thy soul nor wit. A Knave by any other name would abide just as well.

*

THE KNAVE: I speak of information borne anew! I blither of the new stuff come to light! Know ye she kidnapped herself? ‘Tis true! A lady happy fair, spurn’d, thou knowest, in the parlance of our time, ne’er borrower nor lender be, to known nymphs and satyrs; Yet I am well, I am well. She must feed a wilderness of monkeys; occurr’st that?

LEBOWSKI: In faith, Master Lebowski, it occurr’d not.

BRANDT: It had not occurr’d to us, Knave.

THE KNAVE: That it occurr’st not to ye, I forgive, for ye be privy not to the new stuff; that is why I am charged. As such, might we speak of settling accounts? Mine equerry feareth for mine excises.

*

WALTER: O toe! Thou wouldst have a toe? A toe can be obtain’d. Ways are known, Knave. Thou wilt not like to hear. I’ll have a toe for thee this afternoon. Ere singeth cockerel at three o’clock. These amateurs would have us soil’d with fear.

*

WALTER: This befalleth when thou firk’st a stranger ‘twixt the buttocks, Laurence! Understand’st thou? Dost thou attend me? Seest thou what happens, Laurence? Seest thou what happens, Laurence? Seest thou what happens, Laurence, when thou firk’st a stranger ‘twixt the buttocks?!

Big Lebowski t-shirts

http://www.80stees.com/pages/t-shirts/Big-Lebowski-t-shirts.asp

Big Lebowski t-shirts

The Big Lebowski is the movie that made it ok for guys to drink White Russians and to care about area rugs that tie a room together. Browse our wide selection of Big Lebowski t-shirts and buy one or more that suits your needs, you'll make the Dude Abide.

A fun trip to Seattle's Lebowski Fest

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/090722

July 22, 2009
A fun trip to Seattle's Lebowski Fest
By Jim Caple
Page 2

I'm sorry to disappoint fans of the film "The Big Lebowski," but the real Dude was never that much into bowling. His sport of choice, which he revealed to me in an interview earlier this week, was running. Yes, the man who was the inspiration for "quite possibly the laziest [man] in Los Angeles County" and in whom "casualness runs deep" was a dedicated runner, who said he often did six miles a day over regular routes throughout Seattle's northern neighborhoods.

"Well," Jeff (The Dude) Dowd said in his defense, "you had to be in shape to drink all those White Russians and make love to all those women."

Another disappointment -- The Dude didn't drink White Russians. Well, Dowd did, but only briefly -- he said it was more like a flavor of the month. But he really is called The Dude, and has been since the sixth grade.

The Dude was part of the Seattle Seven -- a group of people from the University of Washington charged with conspiring to incite a riot during a 1970 Vietnam War protest. But the marmot, the scissors-wielding nihilists, the iron lung, the faked kidnapping, the bowling, and the smart, incredibly funny script? That's all a product of the writing/directing team of Ethan and Joel Coen. (Although Dowd said he did provide some inspiration for The Dude's dialogue by saying the expletive starting with an "F" a lot.)

A writer, producer and movie rep, Dowd said he met the Coens when the brothers were fighting to get their first movie, "Blood Simple," released in 1984. Taken with his colorful personality, they later used him as the basis for the lead role in "The Big Lebowski," arguably one of the funniest comedies of the past 20 years. The film revolves around mistaken identity, a million-dollar ransom, hired thugs, a conniving businessman, an Oriental rug, nihilists, pornographers, a paranoid Vietnam vet, friendship and, of course, bowling.

''Those two guys make movies that are an homage to genres and 'Lebowski' obviously is very much a Raymond Chandler, classic L.A. crime story put together with a buddy movie and injected with lots of nitrous oxide and acid," Dowd said. "They called me up and said they were doing this movie and had cast it with Jeff Bridges and John Goodman. And I'm like 'Uh oh,' worried because I'm on the cusp, and it could go either way, with Jeff Bridges or Goodman [playing me]."

Not to worry. Goodman played Walter Sobchak, while Bridges played The Dude -- the bathrobe and pajama-wearing, White Russian-drinking "hero," who wants nothing more than to drive around, bowl, experience the occasional acid flashback and get back his living room rug ("It really tied the room together'') amid a chaos of outrageous characters and plot lines. The movie flopped commercially when it opened in 1998, though it did pick up the coveted Russian Board of Film Critics award for ''Best Foreign Film." As with "It's a Wonderful Life," however, audiences came to embrace it in ensuing years, turning it into a cult classic that spawned a book ("I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski") and a nationwide Lebowski Fest. Fans pay up to $20 a head to watch the movie, enter trivia and costume contests, and bowl while wearing pajamas and robes.

At the Seattle fest this week, hundreds of fans filled a bowling alley near a suburban shopping mall. Every lane and lounge area was packed with people dressed as characters from "Lebowski." There were dozens of guys dressed as The Dude in bathrobes, just as many dressed as Walter in khaki hunting vests and shorts, guys in outrageous velvet jumpsuits, large-busted women in Valkyrien helmets, and even a guy in a homemade marmot costume. It was like a "Star Trek" convention, but instead of slightly pathetic Trekkies speaking in Romulan, you had guys laughing, drinking White Russians and spouting movie lines ("This isn't 'Nam, Smokey. This is bowling. There are rules.") while bowling.

It's a little frightening how much this guy looks like Walter.In other words, it was like most nights in a bowling alley, but also with nihilists in red skinsuits.

Not counting the person who brought the iron lung, no one topped Scott Glancy, who was a dead ringer for Walter, complete with the shorts, vest, stylized crew cut, dog tags and yellow-tinted shooting glasses. Aside from the glasses and dog tags, it wasn't really a costume. "This is how I dress," he said. "My mother called me after the movie came out and asked, 'Why do they have John Goodman dressed like you?'"

Glancy, 43, calls bowling "shockingly important" to "Lebowski," but Dowd said the bowling scenes were merely meant to provide a location where you could have the characters talk with the illusion of action. "Not only does The Dude not bowl in the movie, bowling is just a background," Dowd said. "There's no tournament. There's a big scene about the tournament coming up where Jesus is warning them about what he's going to do in the tournament, but there's no payoff. We never see the tournament. Walter talks about how important the tournament is but we never see a big-game 'Hoosiers' type moment."

Whatever the importance of bowling to "Lebowski," it's a movie that rewards with repeat viewings. I found it mildly amusing when it first came out, but uncontrollably funny during a midnight showing at a local art house a few months ago. And no, no substances, controlled or otherwise, influenced my second reaction. That is how a lot of people react to a second viewing, including Dowd and, he says, Jeff Bridges.

Dowd believes this is because people went with initial expectations of what the movie would be like, and were slightly put off by what it was. "It's much more of a Ethan and Joel mosaic than a traditional narrative plot movie, though there is some of that in there," he said. "Then we go in there with a different expectation the second time and we realize it's really a brilliant satirical movie you can see many, many times."

Of course, that's just like, his opinion, man.

"This is not some little 'Lebowski 'cult," Dowd insisted. "There are a million people watching the movie right now in the United States. Well, tons of them. It plays across demographic and age lines. It plays Democrat and Republican. It plays young and old. It plays pretty much [to] all races, men and women and obviously stoners and college kids. This is the most popular movie in the U.S. Army. It's not 'Top Gun' or 'The Green Berets.' If you go over and poll guys in Iraq, I guarantee you the top movie is 'The Big Lebowski.' They may have the big movie of the moment, but the movie they watch most? 'The Big Lebowski.' You ask any sports team? 'Big Lebowski.' Any band? 'Big Lebowski.'"

There he is, Jeff Dowd himself, surrounded by Jesus lookalikes from the film.I don't know if I've seen too many baseball teams watching "Lebowski" in the clubhouse (their loss), but to call Dowd on this would be very un-Dude.

Besides, he's right. The movie is very popular and touches everyone, usually in the funny bone. Joe Germano, a marine biologist from Bellevue who attended the bowling party dressed as the white-suited pornographer Jackie Treehorn, says he brings the movie with him on his frequent assignments at sea. "It keeps the guys from going crazy," he said. "It's become a philosophy of life. Not to take things too seriously."

Dowd told me stories about Republican families that watch the movie together every Christmas to prevent old wounds from being ripped open after dinner, and of the Wall Street-area paramedic who told him at the New York Lebowski Fest that the movie saved his life after 9/11 because it allowed him to laugh again.

"It's pretty hard to watch 'Lebowski' without feeling better than when you went in," Dowd said. "It might be like freebase [cocaine] and the feeling runs out in 10 minutes, or it may last for a few hours or a day. But it's also a bonding thing as you can see in there.

"And that's a wonderful thing to be in some way part of -- to bring a little bit of joy into people's lives for a few hours."

The Dude abides, and I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that.

With the recession, the deficit, the mess in Afghanistan and the Middle East, terrorism, global warming and the spiraling cost of health care, it's good knowing "The Big Lebowski" is out there, via Netflix and available on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com.

The Overachieving Dude

http://eatthestate.org/13-11/OverachievingDudeInterview.htm

The Overachieving Dude: An Interview With Paul Krassner
by Nathaniel S. Berke

Paul Krassner would be The Dude from The Big Lebowski if The Dude had done something with his life. Krassner is a holdover of 1960s hippismo, a laid-back stoner-for-life type with a quick wit and irreverent attitude. He wears his ideology on his sleeve, and that ideology is decidedly anti-"The Man."

But while The Dude bowls, Krassner keeps himself much busier. Political activist, prankster, writer, and avid pothead, Krassner has been an inextricable part of American culture, helping mold it for over 50 years by fighting the hypocritical standard-bearers of decency, and advocating for truth, openness, and "liberated communication" in the public debate.

He's best known for founding The Realist, a newspaper of "investigative satire," in 1958. It introduced readers to writers and comedians who would go on to be icons of American irreverence, including Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, Ken Kesey, Kurt Vonnegut, Dick Gregory, and Lenny Bruce. But The Realist was best known for its sharp-tongued critiques of American decorum, using satire and pranks to expose hypocrisy and tear down the notion of obscenity in America. Its legendary hoaxes, which included a widely believed "exposé" that described President Lyndon Johnson fornicating with the neck-wound of recently assassinated President Kennedy, are now the stuff of dreams for would-be pranksters.

Pranks aside, Krassner often took an active involvement in his stories, believing passionately in the causes he reported on. After interviewing a doctor who performed abortions when it was illegal in the US, Krassner ran an underground abortion referral service. While covering the antiwar movement, he co-founded the Yippies political party with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the iconic leaders of America's counterculture. While chronicling the psychedelic revolution that was sweeping America, he took LSD with Tim Leary, Ram Dass, and Ken Kesey, later accompanying Groucho Marx on his first acid trip.

For his efforts, The Realist has been described as the best satirical publication in America. Krassner is the only person to win awards from both Playboy magazine (for satire) and the Feminist Party Media Workshop (for journalism). He was inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, and was described by the FBI as "a raving, unconfined nut."

While The Realist retired in 2001, Krassner hasn't. He writes a monthly column for High Times, a bimonthly column for AVN [Adult Video News] Online, and is an occasional contributor to The Huffington Post. His articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Spin, Playboy, Penthouse, Mother Jones, the Nation, National Lampoon and the Village Voice, among others.

What's next for The Dude that has done so much? "The unknown, and I welcome it."

ETS!: What's the significance of the phrase "Irreverence is our only sacred cow"?

Krassner: That was a slogan for The Realist. It meant that there was no subject that we--the writers and cartoonists--would be afraid to make fun of. But, at least for me, I don't appreciate irreverence for its own sake. Otherwise, it's pointless. Oppressors, not victims, should be the targets.

ETS!: What is an "investigative satirist"?

Krassner: Simple. I do research on an individual, a group, a trend, an act, a concept--whatever strikes me as hypocritical or cruel or absurd--and then, working from what I've gathered, I find a form to satirize it. However, I never labeled an article as satire or journalism. I didn't want to deprive readers of the pleasure of determining for themselves whether something was the literal truth or an extension of it.

ETS!: You have done a tremendous amount to demystify taboos and tear down the notion of obscenity in America. What's your fuckin' problem?

Krassner: Well, I just had nothin' better to do, asshole! I never learned how to drive a car, and I can't even shuffle cards, but I did have a certain talent for recognizing irrationality and seeing through bullshit and the way people rationalize their evil ways. Taboos were arbitrary and anti-obscenity was a vehicle for control.

ETS!: When it comes to the sacred cows, we're in a whole new world. A lot of the stuff you couldn't say in the US before is fair game. It seems sex, swearing and narcotics are the new national pastimes. While they're a lot more fun than baseball--are we really better off for it?

Krassner: It's the risk of freedom. When I started, I was a lone voice. But controversy has become a commodity. And irreverence has become an industry. Now sarcasm passes for irony. Name-calling passes for insight. Bleeped-out four-letter words pass for wit. Easy-reference jokes pass for analysis. Instead of laughing, audiences applaud, as if they're patting themselves on the back for recognizing a reference.

ETS!: The other day, the southern conservative Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, speaking on the Senate floor, described the auto bailout as "ass backwards." In an era when a guy like that can make a comment like that in a place like that--what the heck are today's sacred cows?

Krassner: Depends on the culture. In America, I think the biggest sacred cow has to do with the fear of admitting that the soldiers in Iraq have died in vain, killed in vain, been maimed for life, physically and mentally--all in vain. Also, eating your own shit at a table in a posh restaurant is generally looked down upon. Unless, of course, you had a reservation and are a big tipper.

ETS!: You worked with Lenny Bruce and knew him better than most people. What would Bruce think of the world today?

Krassner: He would be saddened, he would be outraged, he would be amused--simultaneously. He would practice his form of alchemy, transforming horror into humor. Having been a self-taught semanticist, he would be embarrassed at the indiscriminate use of words--the same words that he got arrested again and again for saying--now serving stand-up comedians as all-purpose nouns, verbs, adjectives, expletives... I think Lenny would decide never to say cocksucker again. That's what his first arrest was for, by the way.

ETS!: Through your writing and activism, you've been a proponent of legalization and a critic of US drug policy. Why do you oppose the War on Drugs?

Krassner: Oh, you must mean the War on Some People Who Use Some Drugs. Sometimes. I'm pro-choice whether it has to do with reproductive rights or the freedom to smoke, ingest, inject, shove it up one's rectum, as long as it's done voluntarily. Tobacco is legal, and results in the death of 1200 people a day in the US alone. Marijuana is illegal and the worst that can happen is maybe you'll raid the refrigerator at midnight. As long as any government can arbitrarily decide which drugs are legal and which drugs are illegal, then anyone in prison on a nonviolent drug charge is a political prisoner.

ETS!: For the first time in US history, the nation has elected a president who has written and spoken unapologetically about his drug use. Does the election of Barack Obama mean a boost to legalization efforts, and does it put the end of the War on Drugs in sight?

Krassner: Not an end in sight but a hint of hope. Obama is trying to maintain his balance while walking along a tightrope between status quo and progress. So, on one hand, he says that he'll stop the DEA from raiding medical marijuana dispensaries, but on the other hand, he's gone back and forth on recreational use of pot. Five years ago he supported eliminating criminal penalties for possession or use. He said that the war on drugs has been a failure and that the marijuana laws should be decriminalized. But now that he was in the heat of a presidential campaign--and, because he wanted to be president, he compromised, pandered, and flip-flopped--claiming he did not support eliminating criminal penalties for possession or use. It's really disappointing, but he's all we got, and if McCain had won, it would really have depressed me. Obama may grow in the Oval Office, but one thing is sure, he won't grow pot there.

ETS!: What about the US's international drug policy? How will ending the War on Drugs affect our relationships with other countries?

Krassner: Ideally, it would set an example for them. Realistically, those who have a vested interest in continuing prohibition--those who benefit from the criminalization of drugs, from the smugglers to the dealers, from their [police] captors to their attorneys--would not be very happy. Because, like everybody else, they want to keep their high-paying jobs. How many innocent Mexicans have been killed in the Drug War--over 5,000 at last count--and wouldn't they still be alive if the vast drug industry had been legal?

ETS!: Can't it be argued that--whatever the cost at home--the War on Drugs has been beneficial to certain foreign countries? In South America, for example, Peru and Colombia receive substantial aid packages tied to their efforts to combat coca production and smuggling. Proponents say that aid has helped provide stability in those nations, and has put violent groups like the FARC and Shining Path on the defensive--nearly eliminating them. Could ending the War on Drugs legitimize these groups and undermine stability in those countries?

Krassner: Yes, it can be so argued, but where's the morality? The US government gave $43 million to the Taliban five months before the 9/11 attacks to prevent the cultivation of poppies in Afghanistan. I try to see things through the eyes of Peruvian farmers deprived of their livelihoods, thanks to America funding the war on their coca crops. But it's too complex a process for me to predict whether ending the Drug War would undermine stability in another country and whether that could help bring about liberation by the citizens of that country.

ETS!: From your work at The Realist you've been called the father of the counterculture press--to which you demanded a paternity test. What is the counterculture press, and how has it affected today's culture and politics?

Krassner: In the early 1960s, independent weekly papers began to flourish around the US, reaching a peak of about 300, serving as a form of counter-propaganda by articulating the consciousness of a generation of young people who experienced the difference between what they experienced in the streets and the way it was reported in the mainstream media. The notions that were taboo then now play an inextricable part in the marketplace of free expression.

ETS!: Are blogs the new underground press? Where do you think blogging will take us?

Krassner: Definitely. It's changed the nature of research and communication. When I launched The Realist in 1958, my mission was to communicate without compromise. I decided to publish the final issue in 2001. One reason was that personal computers enabled anyone to communicate without compromise, with a minimum of expense, and with the potential of reaching a large audience. Blogging on the Internet provides virtual immediacy to the spreading of information, misinformation, disinformation, opinion, entertainment, insight, and triviality. I'm becoming almost as much in awe of technology as I am of Nature.

ETS!: What's a "Yippie," how does it differ from "Hippie," and what do you have to do with it?

Krassner: The Yippies (Youth International Party) was a name I invented on December 31, 1967 at a meeting to plan a counter-convention at the Democratic convention in Chicago in August 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War. Yippie signified a phenomenon that already existed: an organic coalition of political activists and stoned hippies who indulged in a cross-fertilization of values at civil rights demonstrations and antiwar protests. They saw the connection between busting kids for smoking a weed in America and burning kids to death with napalm on the other side of the globe, understanding that those events were linearly-connected dehumanization extended to its ultimate extension. A Yippie was a hippie who got hit on the head by a cop with a billy club.

ETS!: During the 60s, Yippies used street theater and flamboyant theatrics to capture the media's attention and manipulate the political narrative. As a master of such media manipulation, what changes--in politics, media, culture--need to be made so such tactics won't work?

Krassner: Actually, we borrowed a tactic from the CIA. You didn't have to manipulate the media if you could manipulate the events that the media reported on, from throwing money in the stock exchange to levitating the Pentagon. These days, websites such as the Huffington Post, Counterpunch, and TruthDig are providing the antidotes to the secrecy that's necessary for such tactics to work. The election of Obama can have a trickle-down effect that will result in more transparency in politics. And, as usual, the culture will be ahead of the political curve.

ETS!: For the past decade or more the term "liberal" was the dirtiest word in politics. But with a half-black Democrat president, an increasingly open mind towards progressive economic and environmental policies, and a general resentment towards the right-wing establishment--what does the future hold for American liberals?

Krassner: In my dreams, peace and justice replace greed and misuse of power. In my waking life, I'm scared shitless of worldwide disorder and anguish. Excuse me while I go back to sleep for a while so my subconscious can figure out what I can do to transform my dream into a reality, starting with myself and working my way out.

ETS!: In a recent article, "The Last Election," you hinted that you thought Obama's election was a possible culmination of the cultural and political activism of the 1960s leftists, and pondered whether it "signified the early tremors of a nonviolent revolution." Well, did it?

Krassner: There are too many outside variable factors that leave me only with hope. But as the singer/songwriter Harry Chapin once told me, "If you don't act like there's hope, there is no hope." And remember, placebos work.

The Decade of the Dude

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/22694342/the_decade_of_the_dude/

The Decade of the Dude
How The Big Lebowski — the Coen brothers' 1998 stoner caper starring Jeff Bridges as an L.A. slacker called the Dude — became the most worshipped comedy of its generation
ANDY GREENE
Posted Sep 04, 2008

"This whole room is kind of dude-like," Jeff Bridges says. It's a summer afternoon at Bridges' Santa Barbara, California, estate, and the 58-year-old actor is digging around his dusty garage, looking for memorabilia from The Big Lebowski. Artifacts from the movie are strewn about his Spanish-tiled house. In Bridges' recording studio — where he once cut an album with Michael McDonald — sits one of the bowling-pin hats used in the trippy dream sequence with Bridges and co-star Julianne Moore. In his office are the grimy jelly sandals that Bridges' character, a slacker called the Dude, wore for most of the film. When we walk up to the ocean-view bluff where Bridges likes to hike every day, there's the remains of a cocktail in a dirty cup. It's a Black Russian. As far as I can tell, this seems like the biggest difference between Bridges and his most enduring character, who prefers his Russians white.

Now Bridges, a four-time Oscar nominee, is rooting through a giant stack of cardboard boxes in his garage. After a while, he clutches something and pulls it out.

"Ahhh," he says. "Here it is."

It's the Sweater. As in, the beige and brown zigzag cable-knit sweater that the Dude wears through much of Lebowski. For a die-hard fan, it's like seeing Harrison Ford dig out Indiana Jones' fedora.

Bridges sees me smiling and laughs hysterically. "Here, try it on," he says.

"I can't," I say. It would be wrong.

"C'mon," he says.

I put the Sweater on. It's heavy, and way too big. Bridges grabs my cellphone camera. "Move your right shoulder a little bit to the side," he says. "Head up a little bit, perfect, right there."

To think this is all about a strange movie that bombed when it came out in 1998. But in the 10 years since its woeful release, The Big Lebowski — a tangled Desert Storm-era comedic caper directed by Ethan and Joel Coen (Fargo, Raising Arizona, No Country for Old Men) — has become the most beloved movie of its generation. Young comic stars like Seth Rogen (the co-writer and star of the current hit Pineapple Express) and Jonah Hill (Superbad) worship the film. The Internet teems with Lebowski tributes and videos (like "The Mii Lebowski," a homage done entirely using Wii video-game characters), and the film has inspired dozens of academic papers, with titles like "Logjammin' and Gutterballs: Masculinities in The Big Lebowski." Several times a year, thousands of costume-wearing fans flock to conventions called Lebowski Fest. Bridges attended a Southern California Fest a few years ago — "My Beatles moment," he says. To date, The Big Lebowski has made $40 million on DVD — more than twice what it made in theaters — and in September, Universal is releasing a 10th-anniversary limited-edition DVD of the film, which will come (of course) in a bowling-ball case.

"No movie is quoted more often amongst [our] friends," says Jim James, the lead singer of Louisville, Kentucky, band My Morning Jacket, who performed at their hometown Lebowski Fest in costume (James dressed as the Dude). "We often hear stories about how it has changed people's lives."

Why has Lebowski become an early- 21st-century phenomenon? The answer may be as complicated as the film's labyrinthine plot, which the Coen brothers loosely based on the L.A.-noir novels of Raymond Chandler. Part of Lebowski mania can surely be attributed to the fact that it's just a very funny premise for a film. Bridges' Dude (real name: Jeffrey Lebowski) is a listless L.A. pothead wiling away the early 1990s playing in a recreational bowling league with friends Walter Sobchak (a mercurial Vietnam vet played by John Goodman) and Donny Kerabatsos (a mild-mannered sidekick played by Steve Buscemi). When a pair of clumsy thugs confuse the Dude with another, wealthier Jeffrey Lebowski — peeing on his prized rug in the process — the Dude is thrown into a screwball escapade that involves a family feud, a gang of nihilists, the avant-garde art world, the SoCal porn scene, lost homework, Tara Reid and a missing toe.

But that's just the start of it. Early in Lebowski, the narrator (a cowboy named the Stranger, played by Sam Elliott) intones, "Sometimes there's a man, who, well, he's the man for his time 'n place." The odd truth is this man — the Dude — may have been a decade ahead of his time. Today, as technology increasingly handcuffs us to schedules and appointments — in the time it takes you to read this, you've missed three e-mails — there's something comforting about a fortysomething character who will blow an evening lying in the bathtub, getting high and listening to an audiotape of whale songs. He's not a 21st-century man. Nor is he Iron Man — and he's certainly not Batman. The Dude doesn't care about a job, a salary, a 401(k), and definitely not an iPhone. The Dude just is, and he's happy.

"There's a freedom to The Big Lebowski," theorizes Philip Seymour Hoffman, who played Brandt, the wealthy Lebowski's obsequious personal assistant. "The Dude abides, and I think that's something people really yearn for, to be able to live their life like that. You can see why young people would enjoy that."

"Lebowski is one of those rare magnets of the universe that has the power to change time and space, to draw people and events together," says James.

"The Dude is like Dirty Harry," says the brash conservative screenwriter John Milius (Apocalypse Now, Dirty Harry), one of the Coen brothers' inspirations for Goodman's manic vet, Walter Sobchak. "Dirty Harry became a movement. And the Dude became a movement. It's symbolic of a whole way of life."

No one is more surprised by the extended life of Lebowski than the people who made it. When I meet him one afternoon in L.A., Goodman immediately tells me it's his "favorite thing [he's] ever worked on," and he laughs uproariously when I quote him some of Walter's best lines (a favorite: "Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos"). Moore, who played Maude, the estranged artist daughter of the wealthy Jeffrey Lebowski, says it's "one of the movies people mention most to me. I keep saying that one of these days I'm going to go to a Lebowski Fest." Adds Buscemi, who has appeared in nearly 100 films, including a few Oscar winners, "I'll pass three guys on the street, and they may just give me a nod. They don't even have to say a line from the movie. I know what movie they're thinking about."

Bridges, too, says that he never really saw The Big Lebowski's second life coming. An actor's actor, he has played rowdy townies (The Last Picture Show), quiet aliens (Starman), louche piano players (The Fabulous Baker Boys) — but none have had the impact of the Dude. And while some actors have difficulty accepting the indelibility of a well-loved character, that is not the case with Bridges. He is at peace with the Dude. When asked if he would be upset if The Big Lebowski is the movie he's most remembered for, Bridges doesn't hesitate. "No," he says. "Not at all."

Read the entire story in the new issue of Rolling Stone, on stands August 22, 2008.

Zen and the art of Dudeliness

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2135314,00.html

Zen and the art of Dudeliness
Jeff Bridges on The Big Lebowski
Friday July 27, 2007
Guardian

People often ask me if I'm surprised at the amount of attention The Big Lebowski has received over the past few years. They usually seem to expect me to say "yes," but my answer is always "no". What surprises me is that it didn't do as well as I thought it would when it first came out. It was so damn funny, and the Coen brothers had just won the Academy award for Fargo - I thought people would flock to this thing. To tell you the truth, I was sort of disappointed. But now ... well ... I'm glad people are digging it, that it found its audience.

People will sometimes ask me, "What is it about, this movie? I can't figure it out - how come people like it so much?" Well, that one's a little tougher to answer. I usually point them toward the script, to what the Stranger says at the end of the movie. I think the Stranger's enjoyment of the story sums up what most people like about it:

"I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there, the Dude, takin' her easy for all us sinners. Shoosh. I sure hope he makes the Finals. Welp, that about does her, wraps her all up. Things seem to've worked out pretty good for the Dude'n Walter, and it was a purty good story, dontcha think? Made me laugh to beat the band. Parts, anyway. Course -I didn't like seein' Donny go. But then, I happen to know that there's a little Lebowski on the way. I guess that's the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin' itself, down through the generations, westward the wagons, across the sands a time until - aw, look at me, I'm ramblin' again. Wal, uh hope you folks enjoyed yourselves."

What's great about that is how it says it all without really saying anything. Maybe that's one reason people dig the movie and are able to watch it over and over again. It's like picking up a kaleidoscope. You see something new each time.

Then there's this perspective. A few years ago I met a guy named Bernie Glassman. Bernie started an organisation called the Zen Peacemakers and has founded a number of Zen centres in the United States. He calls his brand of Zen Farkatke Zen. He's a Jewish fella, a wonderful cat.

Anyway, we got to talking, and he said, "You know, a lot of folks consider the Dude a Zen Master." I said, "What are you talking about? Zen?" He said quite a few people had approached him wanting to chat about the Dude's Zen wisdom. I'd never heard of that.

I never thought of the Coen Brothers as Zen guys. They never talked about it. I don't think the word Zen was ever mentioned, or Buddhism, or Judaism, for that matter. I don't think of the Dude as a fancy spiritualist or anything like that. But I can see what these folks are talking about. There's enough room in the movie that a lot can be read into it.

For me, the Dude has a certain type of wisdom. I like to call it the "Wisdom of Fingernails": the wisdom that gives you the ability to make your hair and fingernails grow, your heart beat, your bowels move. These are things that we know how to do, but we don't necessarily know how we know how to do them, yet still we do them very well. And that to me is very Dude. It's not like he's a know-it-all, the Dude. He's not a guy who has figured out the way to be or anything like that, but he is comfortable with what he's got, and, as the Stranger says, things turn out pretty well for him. I guess we can all take comfort in that because - who knows? - things may turn out pretty well for us, too.

From the foreword to I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski by Bill Green, Ben Peskoe, Will Russell and Scott Shuffitt, published by Canongate on August 2, £12.99