The Daily Zeitgeist - Icon #31 - The Dude: The Patron Saint of Chill

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

In this edition of The Iconograph, Jack and Miles are joined by writer/film critic Vince Mancini to talk about the Marlboro Man of marijuana: The Dude! They’ll explore how Joel & Ethan Cohen created the character, the real-life Dude, how the character changed Jeff Bridges’ entire personality and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello, the internet, and welcome to this spin-off episode of Dernetely Zeitgeist! Yeah. Which we're calling the iconograph, instead of looking at the zeitgeist through current events, on Monday mornings, we're looking at the zeitgeist through the powerful pop-cultural deities that are our icons. and this week we were talking about a fictional character who is responsible for the most iconic movie sweater, the most iconic movie drink,

a character who spawned a religion called Dudism that was found in Thailand in 2005 and has 450,000 ordained ministers around the world. That can't be true. And yet it says it right here on the internet, so it has to be. This is not the first movie, to spawn a joke religion. There's like Jediism, um, but you know, Jediism and a matrixism.

Come from movies where that is kind of, that's what you would expect. They have like mytho-religious overtones. They made billions of dollars at the box office. Uh, but today's icon appeared in a single stoner comedy that flopped at the box office, uh, was not even popular with critics when it came out. And it, it didn't matter. He is unstoppable. He even infected the actor portraying him like a brain parasite. He hasn't been able to shake this character since the day he tried him on. And then he passed that character onto millions of us, like a common cold that causes you to sneeze forth movie quotes instead of virus laden snot. We are talking, of course, about the dude, his dudeness, El Duterino, if you're into the whole brevity thing, which clearly I'm not.

based on that intro. I'm thrilled to be joined, as always, by my co-host. He really ties the pod together. It's Miles Gray! Hey, man, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This is great to be here. This is great to be here.

Great to talk about something that this is one of those fucking movies that ruined me too, personality-wise. Yes. Where I'm like, yep, yep, I'm going to be this for about... And that's me from now on. 18 months straight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in our third seat, the person who picked this icon,

a very funny host of a podcast like The Frotcast, imagine yourself a man, a food writer, and a film critic, which makes sense because Mancini some films. He's throwing rocks tonight. It's Vince Mancini! Great to be here. Do you think that Dutists look down on Pastafarians? Probably.

Although they seem pretty They're both like This is a serious religion By the way it has a very cute Kind of icon for the religion Their version of a cross Is it ying yang But instead of having a single dot on each side

It has the three bowling holes That's fucking And that's how you know it's serious That's how you know they're doing good work Yeah yeah yeah They're not flippant about this whole thing But the features of his iconography Are the Pendleton Swee

dirty bathrobe. Those are interchangeable. Unkempt goate, sunglasses, any of those paired with a white Russian. And I know who you are for Halloween. Yeah, jelly sandals, as you prefer,

you know, to your taste. Jelly sandals, to your taste. I had a friend who went as the dude one dear for Halloween and fucked his feet up so bad wearing jelly sandals the whole night.

They were so, They just touched, they were just not built for the way his foot was shaped. He was like bleeding through the jelly sand those by the hand. Yeah, you got to work up to that before you do like a whole trick or treating thing. Because he had, he bought the Pendleton sweater. And I'm like, okay, you could just do that. He's like, no, I got to get the jellies too. And I'm like, I think those are like $300 sweaters now.

Yeah, yeah. They're not cheap. They're not cheap. They always were. Yeah, yeah. Like the, the sweater from the movie was just, just belonged to Jeff Bridges. He had one in his closet and they were so hard to come like they were so out of print the sweaters that they had to like hand knit uh extras so that

they would have extras in case wow in case his got fucked up but he just wore the the one that already belonged to him for the movie yeah and i'm not i'm not normally like i need to have that uh from a movie yeah like close from a movie guy but i definitely saw the dude sweater and i was like oh yeah i could definitely use one of those i think i don't know if this made in the recording but when we were talking to robert evans who i think was wearing a dude sweater when we were recording. I talk about all the time, like, whenever I go through either like Seattle or Portland Airport, there's always like a Pendleton stand that has like dude sweaters.

I'm like, am I feeling like real stupid today? And is this is this the time I finally do it and buy a knit sweater in August? But no, no. I feel like this movie caused me to consume conservatively 3.5 trillion calories worth of white Russians in my 20s. by the way that drink would be extinct but in any timeline not containing this movie that drink no longer exists

but I mean the whole dairy industry should have promoted they should have started canning that shit to be like they have they have such a perfect college kid drink too because it's like it's not a good cocktail and the only like really good thing about it is that it really does like disguise the amount of alcohol alcohol in it. Yep.

Yeah. It's like melted ice cream. It's a perfect like you're transitioning into binge drinking as like an early 20s person. Like, well, this just tastes like melted ice cream and I'll drink that till my stomach goes inside out. There's a line from a mob deep song that says it's like mixing vodka and milk. And it's saying it like as in a like in other words, it's disgusting. Right. Right.

Watch out. That is this drink's calling card. We mix up some I'm like you have to worry about milk Like whether the milk is good There's a part in this movie where he makes a white Russian with a powdered coffee cream It's fucking so gross

Anyways you know It's a kind of drink that like seems like a cool old man drink when you're 22 Yeah yeah yeah Get to be an actual middle age person like I am now It's like that's a terrible old man drink You're like I'm gonna be farting all night drinking that But yes, I am giving this the most iconic movie drink over the James Bond martini because

the martini, like you might just be a fancy alcoholic. You might not be like James Bond, you know, but if you're drinking a white Russian, I know you have seen the Big Lebowski over a dozen times. That is true. Yeah. Also, a martini tastes like is the opposite of a white Russian where if you are 22 and trying to look cool and you taste it, you're like, wow, this is terrible. Holy.

So this is what I've been drinking? You're like, Jesus Christ. Is this gasoline? I mean, yes, I'm very sophisticated. I guess if you're just like good to me.

I guess it's cool if I're just trying to get like drunk like way quicker. Yeah, yeah. I always feel like it was invented by like an alcoholic dad where it's just like, James, are you, are you drinking straight gin again? No.

No, it's got onions in it. What are you talking about? Get off my back. Little onion juice and I rinsed out, put a little vermouth and then I just kind of whipped it out of the glass. It's, all right, it's vodka.

It's, it's, I'm just drinking. I'm just, drinking milk, babe. What are you being so weird about? With ice in it? And you smell like you're flammable.

Yes, there's lots of bars around the world that are like big Lubowski bars that have weekly screenings that still sell out to this day and, you know, sell white Russians. Somewhere in my house, I have a coaster from the Lubowski bar in Berlin. Oh. Yeah. They're out there. Very popular. I think it was just the dude's face. on it if I remember correctly. I haven't had it

near to hand for quite a long time. I also think this is the movie character whose life would be most improved by the invention of vape pens who would also refuse to use a vape pen like once they came into existence. 100%. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I just wouldn't hit the same if he was like, you mind if I do a vape? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I do a vape here. Well, because he also like doesn't give a fuck that he's smoking indoors. Like, I don't think that's ever proper. thing is like he's not interested in modern comforts. Like he's very much like this sort of time capsule guy. So even if there was like easier ways to do, he's like, no, I like these five things.

Thank you. But Vince, you are a film critic, which is a profession that has mentioned, kind of got this movie wrong. You're still a film critic. You're still a great. I mean, we just referenced your substack recently on the show. So in our book. Yeah. It came out before Rotten Tomatoes. and a lot of critics have, like, gone back and fixed their scores. David Denby of The New Yorker was like, did not like it at first and now considers it a classic. Roger Ebert took it from three stars to four. But it's still only 71% on Rotten Tomatoes. That's just not designed.

I mean, a critic, a review is like an instant response to a movie when it's fresh and new. And like, the Big Lobowski is very much not designed for that. And I don't think I liked it the first one or maybe two times I saw it. Like I think when you're watching it at first, you're sort of waiting for a point. It's sort of built out of, it's sort of built out of the DNA of like a hard-boiled detective story, you know, with like a goofball narrator. And you're sort of, you're looking for, you're trying to figure out where it's going. And then you realize ultimately that the point is that it doesn't really go anywhere. Like that is kind of the point that it's this shableness.

naggy dog tail. And like with, once you know that, it's, it's much more easy to appreciate what it's doing. But I think like, you know, opening weekend, if you saw it and you're looking and you're like trying to figure out where it's going, it's, I can see being sort of disappointed by it. Yeah. If you're paying attention to the plot, the plot is by like by design met there to frustrate you. And so you have to watch it at least a second time to be like, all right, I know where this is going and now I'm just going to luxuriate in the dialogue and the characters and just

treat this like the sort of aimless ramble that it is with like definitely some design. And we'll get into the many different sort of readings of Big Lobowski because I think there's, you know, ways to read it as about, you know, a reaction to early 90s capitalism and a like a comment on masculinity in the crisis of men. masculinity and a bunch of other things. But yeah, it feels like it is the slowest of slow burn movies. Like the movie that I don't know anyone who was like watched it, loved it right away, and have had the same appreciation for it the whole time.

Yeah. I also think there's a thing about it where it's very campy. Like it's, you know, if you watch the Cohen Brothers movies and like their past movies and now that they're sort of split up, in my mind, Ethan is the campier one. and Joel is sort of like the more serious like cultural commentator one. And the Big Lobosky feels more like an Ethan Cohen movie. For sure. Like it's super campy.

And there's a thing that I always do when I rewatch it, which is sort of the same thing I do with Casablanco, which is just another movie that I absolutely love. Is that you smoke weed first before you watch it? There's a crazy thing I do. Yeah, yeah. Casablan Coatone weed. Nickelback second album and I watch it at the same time as Casablanca. No, it's like you watch the first, when I watch the first two minutes of either either movie, I'm like, ah, this is, this is definitely not as good as I remember it.

I shouldn't have, I shouldn't be rewatching it right now. And then like, the longer you keep watching, like, the better it gets. And then by the end, it's like, oh, nope, I was totally right. I love it. Yeah. Kind of a slow starter, but like, not even, not even in a bad way. But yeah, it just like sort of brings you in. the first, like, minute of the movie is just watching a fucking tumble weed,

like, you know, drift through Los Angeles. What also, it feels like it's supposed to be punchline funny, and it's not really punchline funny. It's like conceptually very funny, and there are, like, some definite, like, laugh out loud moments that I'll never get out of my head. But it's, it feels like it's going for punchlines and not really hitting them when you first watch it. And then it's only, you sort of come to appreciate the longer burn, later, I guess. Yeah.

It like almost works better in memory than in experience. Right. Yeah. It's, it's just chock full of vocal stems. Like, it is. It is chock full of vocal stems that, by the way, we're all,

everyone's always like, man, how'd you improvise that? And, uh, all the actors are like, no, that is exactly how it's right. You go and read the script and it's every like and like pause and man is exactly as it is on the, right, right.

I mean, I don't think anyone takes like greater pleasure. in sort of arcane and specific vernacular than the Cohn brothers do. And I think that's something in all their movies. I think I've said this before on the show, but that I watched this for the first time since I think my 20s last year. And like I've often been surprised by how much I don't remember movies from my 20s. Like I watched the first Lord of the Rings many times in college,

very stoned as I was when I watched this movie, a lot of them in my 20s. and I go back to the Lord of the Rings. I'm like, I have not seen this movie. I don't know what happened to me, but I have not. But when I rewatched Big Lebowski, like, every, I remembered everything. Like, every shot, every line, every, like, pause. And I do think this movie is a major event.

Like, America's shared consciousness was, like, changed by this movie in a way that I think we're still feeling. Like in the same way that, like, it's a more benign version of, you know, how the Truman show came out. And a year later, like, people started showing up at psych wards with, like, the Truman show delusion. Right. Yep.

Yep. I feel like this did a version of that just, like, not, not as bad. For really chill guys. Yeah. For, like, I think it just infected people with this mindset. Like, you know, like, movie characters are what we have instead of Greek myths. and he's like a very powerful addition to the pantheon. Yeah, well, he hits that like middle,

like the big Lobowski as a character just has such mass appeal to like men of like three generations. Yes. In this like weird way, it's like I think from like boomers to millennials and Gen X in between, I remember like my dad being like, oh, to be this guy, fuck yeah. And then for me as like a teenager, I'm like, I love smoking weed and being chill.

And like this is a good, like, this guy is showing me that you can still be this. Like a sloppy stoner. And it's actually kind of cool and you're kind of like a hero at the end. Yeah. People still want to fuck you. You're conscientiously unemployed and people still want to fuck you. They're desperate to bear your seed.

Yeah. Exactly. And I've got a little hair clip in with jellies on. Oh my God, his hair clip is incredible. I mean, not to bring it down, but like when we decided that this was the episode or that this was the person that we were going to do for this episode, I think subconsciously like part of the reason that I chose it is that like my dad has always reminded people of the dude.

Like he's always very dudelike and I think after he saw the movie, he played even more into that. And then he passed away like a couple weeks ago. So in between the time that I chose this and us doing it, I sort of, you know, like that parallel has only, like, grown stronger in my mind. Wow. And even just, like, discovering other things because, like, I'm an only child, so I'm the one who has to, like, go through all his stuff and all his finances.

And my dad, 100% would be the dude who writes, like, a check to Ralph's for $0.69. Yeah. Like, that was him to a T. Um, uh, man. Well, he is based on a real part. That's like one of the things that you always hear. It's like, the dude is actually, the dude is a real guy, which. I've met that guy.

You have. Uprox made, produced a documentary about this guy. I forget his actual name. We're about to go through it. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Yes, and I'll share my personal anecdotes as we continue. Good, good. As we continue.

But yeah, I think it's partially people just want this to be. true. They, like in the same way people want Santa Claus to be real. Like, yeah. Or the soup not saying he's not. Yeah. I think honestly,

I feel like more people would want the dude to be real than fucking Santa Claus. Yeah. There's something like, you'll be sad. It's very much a be careful what you wish for situation when you meet the actual guy.

Right, but I'm saying, but I'm also what I have Santa Claus by the way, guys. Yeah. He's a fat piece of shit. He's on fucking speed. He's a fucking, yeah. He keeps flying on speed. So there are a couple real people that the Cohn brothers admit influence them.

The one who calls himself the dude that most people are like, that is the dude, is kind of the less interesting one. There's also a guy named Peter X-Line who gave them one of the storylines from the movie and the main inciting incident. they were hanging out with this guy, Peter Exelined at his apartment. His apartment was a real shithole. And he kept saying that his ratty-ass rug really tied to the room together. And they were like, that's so funny. And so that just always stuck with them. And then one of Peter Exelain's favorite stories to tell is he was a Vietnam vet.

And he had this friend named Louis Abernathy. Louis Abernathy you can actually see in Titanic. He was good friends with James Cameron. He played Bill Paxton's bearded friend in Titanic with like a Texas flag shirt on. So at one point, Peter Axeline, the guy with the rug that tied the room together, had his car stolen. And he asks his friend Louis Abernathy, who's like a self-styled detective, you know, to help him. and he's basically so this is from the story as told by X-Line

Lou is a former sniper and he said you'll never find your car again you live by the 405 freeway somebody stole a car in San Diego they ran out of gas they stole your car and they're gonna dump it and that was not true it's just like one of those things

that like fake detectives love to like the operator guy. Yeah, yeah. Operator guy. They're extremely confident and wrong. Just touching the gravel by your garage. Yeah, yeah. At the driveway. Yeah.

Exactly. I think the gift that I've used the most by far from the Big Lobowski is the cop being like, yeah, they got us working in shift. That's my favorite line in the movie. My wife and I say that shit to each other. All the time. All the time. As soon as Savannah Guthrie's mom, they got kidnapped.

I was like, oh, this is like Cash Patel. We got any leads? We got any leads? Yeah. I'll just go check with the boys down at the crime lab. They got us working in shifts. Leads. He's just like,

is dying laughing. I love that line because it's basically like, yeah, that's how cops actually think. It's not even like, oh, sure thing. Just really being like,

yeah, dickhead, we're at a junkyard. Yeah. So they actually did, he got a call and they were like, hey man, you owe like $200 in parking tickets

because whoever stole his car was still using it and like parking all over town. He went to a junkyard to get it and they found a kid's homework in the back seat. This is X-Line or Aberde?

This is X-Line and Abernathy working together. I'm just going to show you a picture of Abernathy. I know he's the scruffy dude from Titanic. He's the scruffy dude from Titanic. He looks like Walter. Yeah.

So they find this homework and track the kid down and, like, put the kid's homework in a plastic, a plastic, like, evidence folder and show it to him and interrogate him in his living room. And there's an old man in a medical bed behind them, like, as that's happening. So all that shit actually happened. So the entire Larry Sellers' arc is from real life? I think they embellished the fact that his dad was a writer. Right, right, right. The old man wasn't in an actual iron lung. And is he biracial with like a Latina mother who's going to go, Larry, the man is here?

Oh, I thought that was, I didn't know that was supposed to be his mother. I thought that was supposed to be his maid. Yeah, Pilar. Pilar. Yeah, in my mind, I was like, I was trying to see another biracial kid in the film. I'm like, yeah, there you go. You got the mom with the accent telling you the man is here. That's another vocal stem from my friend group as we go,

Larry, the man is here. I love the part where he goes, does he still write? And she goes, oh, no, he has health problems. In an iron lung? He's in an iron lung. Miles, I thought you would identify more with the jacked Asian guy at the beginning who's the Wu. Yeah, yeah.

They keep on the China man. I like always, it's funny, Whenever I have the same thing, I go, oh, they're saying it. And then I always forget Walter's like, that's not like the correct part. Dude, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not the preferred nomad. There it is.

And then they go, but then he goes right back into referring to him. Yeah, Walter then immediately refers to him. Like that would have been, Asian American would have been super woke in 1991. Yeah. But that's like the funny part about Walter's character. You know what I mean? 100%. It's always finds these odd moments of propriety to be.

Right. Huge wife guy. Yep. By I mean, ex-wife guy. Yeah, ex-wife guy. Well, you know,

once you get divorced, you don't change from a wife guy. He's getting 3,000 years of religion. Um, the other thing they got from his, X-line was a big, uh, amateur softball player that like,

ran his life was all around amateur softball and the Cohen's decided to change that to bowling. Um, but so he's kind of, a lot of the, the stuff that his grade about the movie is from X-line. The person who usually gets credit is this guy, Jeff Dowd.

He referred to himself as the dude, also the Pope of Dope. He was a roadie for Metallica. He was a member of the Seattle 7. Was he one of the authors of the Port Huron statement? He was not one of the authors of the Port Huron statement. Yeah, yeah. But he is like kind of a movie guy. Like, he's kind of successful.

Yeah, he's like a marketing movie guy who, like, he kind of reminds me, like, the stories you hear of, uh, the guy that Rudy is about is, you know, who is like, like, just such a huge, uh, sociopathic self-promoter. Yeah. Like, that kind of feels like what this guy's deal is. Um, yeah. According to him, he, like, helped Robert Redford start the Sundance Institute and, um, produced Ferngoly and, you know,

he was a roadie for, uh, Metallica, but then he also like helped produce some kind of monster. So he like stage as, that album everyone loves. Right. Uh, the documentary about them being like going to therapy together. Yeah.

Um, so yeah. Can I tell my personal. Yes, please. Yes. So what's, what's here? About 10 years ago, Uprox decided to make like a, mini documentary about this guy. The real dude.

So I was there. I didn't go to the office a lot, but I was there in the LA offices when Jeff Dowd, the real Big Lebowski, came in to watch like the first final cut of this. It was like seven minute documentary. Sure. And he is, Jeff Dowd is like the dude in the sense that he's like a slob. Right. But like, whereas the dude is sort of like a lovable.

Like Jeff Dowd was just like gross and off-putting. Like I remember like he just talks nonstop. Like he's one of those guys who just does not shut up ever. He was there. He had, it was like one of those moments where I realized that if you have any sort of perceived juice in L.A. at all, like you have like at least three people just like hanging around you at all times trying to soak up some of it. Yeah, he's one of those people.

He was one of those people. He had like a younger guy who was like an acolyte of his and then like a much younger like suicide girl girlfriend where you're just sort of looking at her going like how. What is this duo? How are you choosing to be with this guy who like I can see visible like spittle like dribbling down his chin while he talked? And he just talked for like an hour and a half about the cut of the seven minute documentary and like none of it was actionable. he was just like, just, he just goes. And wow, really hard guy to be around. Wow.

So there's a episode of the podcast, blank check where they had Seth Rogan on for the Big Lobowski episode. He also had interacted with the real, with the Jeff Dowd guy and was like, yeah, he's kind of annoying. That's like genuinely the only review I've ever heard of him. So the last day you'd ever want to get stuck on it, elevator with is that guy. It's okay, so I can see where

like the influences of like Exelon and Abernathy are and with Jeff Dowd is it purely like his appearance and his sort of insistence of being like the dude were there any other dimensions of it? Because I feel like you get these nice details from these actual people that the Coen brothers know.

Yeah. And then you need Jeff Bridges to like really make it like a likable guy. But was there anything else from the Jeff Dowd story that? No, not really. Like it's just he called himself the dude and was like it's almost like they plucked biographical details from him as opposed to anything about his like who he is. Yeah, it was personal detail, like personal styling, a few details and just like sort of

the general idea that he's like this sort of L.A. gadfly where he's like sort of buzzing around at the edges of the entertainment industry a little bit and like you can't really tell if he has a job or not. Yeah. I would say that that's, yeah. Let's take a break, actually, and we'll come back because I think that it's instructive like what they change from him to the dude in the movie. So let's take a quick break.

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And yeah, so we were talking about like the differences between the dude and the Big Lobowski and the guy that everybody says he is based on. and I think this takes us into like kind of what the meaning of the Big Lobowski is and like what the sort of what it symbolizes because I do think like for something to connect at the level of this movie connected with people like there have to be ideas that are resonating with people. But I would say like the thing that's different about the Jeff Dowd guy is like he's probably like more interesting at cocktail or like you know he like works with celebrities. He's probably, like, got a decent house. Like, he's not, he's not as big a loser as the dude. Like, the dude is an ideologically pure loser. Like, he's specifically not getting on board with what the world is doing. Like, he rowdyed for Metallica, but unlike the real Jeff Dowd, who, like, kind of clings to

them to, like, get access to, like, some fame and success. The dude just, like, calls them a bunch of assesleck. and, you know, goes back to hanging with Walter and, like, going to his weird landlords, one-man show. By the way, that is, like, one of my favorite moments in the movie. Oh, the dancing? The dance. Well, first, just the initial interaction where he doesn't, he doesn't get that the guy's asking for rent.

Yeah. It's the 10th, man. Yeah, but also that the guy's, like, I'd love it if you could come and offer me notes. And then he's like, yeah, I'll be there, man. and like he just dancing. The performance is so bizarre. I think, yeah. I also think that speaks to like the dude's essential nature

and why people hang out with him is that he has all this time and he would be the kind of friend who is, you know, like not the, not always like the greatest hang, but he's the guy that will support your art and come to your show. And probably, and give you like his honest opinion on something. Like even if it doesn't, if it doesn't make sense, you're like, I know he'll go, he'll actually engage with it, and he'll tell me what it made him feel.

And it's free, too, which, like, I think is an important part. Like, he is getting by on doing the cheapest, like, there's this, so a key part of, like, dudeism, I guess, but, like, a lot of, like, philosophers right about this movie also. specifically with regards to Epicurean philosophy, which like Epicurean like has become a thing that people associate with foodies for some reason. But like the main idea of this philosophy is just like basically contented poverty and like not be not like taking more than you need. like there's a big thing they say about like yeah nothing is enough for those for whom enough is too little essentially is like what they're trying to guard against and it just seems like you know the movie opens with the stranger uh you know saying like he's the man for his time and like that doesn't it's not really true in the sense that like if you were just picturing somebody in

1991, you wouldn't necessarily picture a stoner, but he's kind of the stoner. He's not the stoner we deserve. He's the stoner we need at that point in time. And like, the American shared consciousness, especially in like 91 and 1998, was probably ill-disposed to someone speaking the gospel of like working as little as possible and not buying into the self-mythologizing of the wealthy. But, uh, and like he even rejects like, I think it's instructive that he like hates the Eagles who like sort of took the boomers on this ride from like hippie rock people to like 80s yuppies. Yeah, they co-opted the counterculture. You know, that's like ponytail, ponytail rock. Yeah.

And like I feel like the real dude, like the Jeff Dowd guy would probably hang out with Eagles. And like he will ruin his chance of getting home to be like turn this shit off. You know? Yeah, yeah. He's just like, yeah, like conscientiously unemployed. And like in the same way that like, you know, I talk on here a lot about my theory that like, Apocalypse movies are so popular because they're a fantasy about escaping the capitalist world where like you have to go to work and you can't walk anywhere without getting run over by a car.

And the apocalypse delivers like walkable cities with like fewer people where you don't have to go to work. I feel like the dude, like, and this movie just generally, like, getting to hang out with him is, like, a refuge where people are able to, like, live in a world with a loser who embraces his looserdom and, like, with no responsibility. Yeah, just like a happy, comfortable life with just a handful of, like, you know, well-worn clothes, a couple leftover roaches and, like, cheap fast food. Right. And I think he also, but, like, he's not even a loser. You know what I mean? I think that's what is the magic about him, is that he is a loser by. by society's sort of standard definition.

But to him, he is so, again, he's like an artist. You know, he's not, he lives purely to satisfy his own inner needs and desires. He's not worried about what the perception is of those. It's like, and yeah, he also is a true believer in the social contract. I think is another really interesting thing about him is like he insists on the social contract, like being enforced and far. Well, except for when it comes to a parking and handicapped spot. Sure.

But I mean, like, because like he says a lot of things to, like, when the Nihilus break into his house and he's taking a bath, he'll merely be like, uh, this is a private residence. That is going to dissuilly. Oh, I'm so sorry. I did not realize. He's like, now go about your day. Yeah, like, but like there's like some of the funniest moments are merely just his idea is like, well, you can't do that. And sir, don't sure. Oh, you're peeing on it.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think he that's like one of the things that's super like appealing at a deep level about his character. Some good readings of the movie that I've read. Like I had a, you know, one of my friends in college who always like pointed out that like, you know, it's all about masculinity and like different structures of what it means to be a man. Shout out Alex. But like there are tons of like feminist readings of this movie and like philosophical reasons. about how it's like these different structures of masculinity at a time when, you know, the hippies have lost, the soldiers have lost. The capitalists are full of shit. The cowboy is like not around anymore. The intellectual is weird. The, you know, muscle men of the 80s. And like the, like, I feel like Jackie Treehorn kind of represents the 80s in a lot of ways.

Yeah. He's got these like muscular dipshits and the way he like, dresses and stuff. And go ahead. So, like, my, I mean, am I, am I okay to say my read on this movie? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So, like, I feel like it's about, like, two main things, which is one, I feel like it's about the fecklessness of the counterculture, like, sort of the failed promise of the counterculture revolution. And I think, like, one of the important aspects of the Big Lebowski that even a lot of people and myself forget, like, in rewatches is that it was a period piece set like seven years before the movie came out. like during the first Gulf War and I feel like there is a certain amount of commentary

and this is true of a lot of Cohen Brothers movies which is sort of about like the failure of the counterculture revolution and how it sort of it branched out into like people doing the personal revolution like the dude and then you know people that have done like a full on reactionary heel turn like Walter who you know is based on

John Millius which is another like fun. Like the John Millius angle is very, it's impossible to think about John Millius without thinking about Walter for me at this point. Can you talk about who John Millius is? John Millius is a famous screenwriter in the 70s. He was sort of part of the crew of the film school brats like Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola. They were all sort of trying to do their own thing separate from the Hollywood machine in the early 70s. And they ended up sort of taking over Hollywood in the process. And John Millius was one of the earliest most successful of that group doing like script

punchups. And he was sort of this rich guy chicken hawk, like sort of the guy who was obsessed with guns and was personally shamed that he didn't get to like fight in the Vietnam War, not necessarily like for ideological reasons, but because that would have been like a test of his like being a cool badass. but he didn't go because he had asthma basically. So he's sort of like... But he like gave the impression to people that he went.

Yes, he's sort of like the first, the first appearance of like the tactical dad sort of archetype where it's like, bro, this one time I almost joined the special forces and now it's my whole personality kind of thing. We covered him before in the Arnold in our episode about Arnold Schwarzenegger because he directed Conan the Barbarian. Yeah, that's like sort of his high watermark of filmmaking. I mean, he was nominated for an Oscar for co-writing Apocalypse now.

Right, yeah. But I also prefer Conan. Well, Conan, he directed. Like, he had more of a direct hand in that one. And then so it's like partly about the effectiveness of the counterculture. And I also think it's about the frontier, the idea of the frontier. a lot of Cohen Brothers movies deal with this idea of the frontier. And like,

if you read like Joan Didion's white album, there's a, you know, there's a bit in it about how, like, America is built on this promise of the frontier where, like, you,

we're rugged individualists. And part of that is that you can always just go a little further west and carve out your own little piece of paradise. Um, but then sort of like, once we hit the coast, once we hit like California and the frontier was officially like dead. as an idea or as like an other place

like there's this idea of you know people that were sort of searching for a new way to be in the 60s and 70s and like most of the cults and all that stuff sort of came out of California because it was sort of like people hit the coast and they no longer had this idea of somewhere else that was better in my mind yeah they had to go like way up into their mind and like

she had a thing about like how many people like move west and then get here. and then commit suicide because they realize like there's nothing else further. And I think like you sort of see that in the opening sequence with the tumbleweed. It's sort of end the end of the stranger. It's like this idea that they're kind of going towards this frontier and then they hit it. And like the last shot I think is that tumbleweed like, you know, rolling past the beach where it's kind of the same thing as the White album where it's like, oh, this is where it's

stopped and people have, a lot of the characters are sort of, you know, they've gone inward in that way where that frontier no longer exists to them anymore. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good, and like to the point of the ocean being sort of the end point, that's where, you know, they do seem like very into mortality as a theme and yeah. Their, their key insight that like the movie, their first movie, Blood Simple, came around was like, what if we made a murder mystery movie where it's like really hard to murder someone and like you have to deal with the dead body and it's like really hard? And like it's funny, like Fargo, which was the movie they made right before this,

which I think also was responsible for people being like, what the fuck is this? Because it's not, it's not Fargo. They both end with people having a difficult time getting rid of Steve Bouchemmy's dead body. but in this case it's at the ocean trying to like put it out put his body out into the ocean into this like eternal thing and it just like blows right back into his face um there's there's a bunch of you know the wind that's blowing the tumbleweed around also like blows his his remains back into his face and the psalm on the wall at the mortuary says as for man and his days are as grass as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.

So there's like a lot of stuff with wind and mortality, and I think you're right. Like they, that's also where Barton Fink ends is like at the ocean, kind of, I feel like they like to sort of end things there. And that does tie in with Joan Didion in a really cool way. It's like they're looking for a frontier,

and then they get there, and it just sort of blows back and the ashes of that idea blow back in their face. It's just a hard boundary. Yeah. I do just a couple other things on the masculinity reading

because there are a lot of like phallic imagery. Obviously like the bowling pins. They think it's hilarious how much bowling pins look like dicks, which they don't have to. By the way, if you've ever gone bowling in Massachusetts,

they do candlepin bowling. They're not as, they don't have. the rounded head of a dick on top. So it's the Puritans there. They're like, nah, these are two dick shaped.

We've got to come up with something else. Making real thin dicks. But yeah. And, you know, Jackie Treehorn, log jamming, like there's all sorts of phallic things.

There's a giant key on the wall in the Labowski mansion. Jackie Treehorn's drawing on the notebook. Jackie Tree. So that's what I wanted to bring up. The best moment of the movie. That's my favorite joke in the movie. it's like the one moment where he's like doing a thing that is recognizable as like what a character in this sort of movie would do

he like runs up does the shading and it is it's both like the funny it's a it's a cartoon character with a giant dick so many so many movies about california and southern california are about how like the authority figures are not what you thought they were like they like they're like they're there's no grand plan and everybody's just sort of a dumb child. And that's very much of that scene where he's like, oh, I'm going to use my clever detective tricks. And he figures out that, oh, yeah, the guy is just daydreaming about big dicks. The thing I also love is like for how short that phone call is with Jackie Treehorn,

he does it so quick that whenever I saw him like, dude, he must draw this thing like thousands of times. He's so talented. Like he was just like, let me just do my thing. All right, I'm off the phone. Well, and his performance at that part. where he's like doing the thing and then he finishes the phone call,

tears the thing out that he wrote down and like folds it and puts it in his pocket in this very serious way that you're fully expecting there to be something there. And he has just done that to take away a picture of a guy with a massive hog. And then plus one of my other favorite bits

of like physical comedy in that is when the dude runs up and then has to sprint back to the couch and then go full recline. Yeah, go full recline. We've all had to do that before. Yeah, that Jackie Treehorn drawing scene is the fucking best. Between Jackie Treehorn and the bad guy in Roadhouse,

I feel like Ben Kazera just like punched his ticket to immortality with two, like, not huge roles, but just like, you'll never forget either of those roles. Exactly. Just shows up and absolutely kills it. Sorry, what was the thing about dicks and masculinity, though? I mean, that's basically, I mean, so the idea is that they're all men struggling against a world that has like moved on from traditional models of like primitive masculinity. Like, cowboys have gone extinct. Like all, you know, soldiers have like become persona non grata after the Vietnam war.

Hippies are, you know, these had this moment. And it's like we've moved on to just being like they've lost and it's the failed promise. and then, you know, compare, and then you have, like, porn, which, like, compare log jam into, like, mod, making vaginal art, you know, and having babies with a man that she's, like, basically using as a sperm donor, like, the bunny is, like, maybe the most powerful person in the movie because she just, like, doesn't give a fuck about anything. And, you know, and then you have nihists who want to cut off your Johnson. So it's just, like, people struggling with the fact that, like,

the structures of masculinity have just, like, gone away and they don't really know what to do with them. I like the idea that any movie set in Southern California has to have a red hot chili pepper in it somewhere. Right. That's right. It's keyness or flea, man? You pick one. There's also stuff about, like, timelessness, that it's like, you know, the different characters are, like, stuck in different eras. Yeah, cowboy.

Walter stuck in the 60s, the dude kind of stuck in the 60s, I was saying Jackie Treehorn feels like the 80s. Liam O'Brien, the Jesus' bowling partner is like straight out of the 50s. Like, how did those two meet? What a name.

I didn't even realize what that character was called. It was like, look at Jesus' white guy. Yeah, I was going to name my kid Liam. And then I was like, fuck. No, I can't do that. that. Good thing you want with Jesus. That actor was like the featured speaker at one of the Lobowski Fest that I went to,

which was great. Oh, he was like, you might know me. I stood right by John Tutero. Yeah. And, yeah, and then all of these different models of masculinity meet in a bowling alley, which itself is like a place out of time that like the shoes still look like they're from a different era, you know, the decor. Yeah, it's like a, I mean, the bowling alley is sort of,

this like mausoleum to 50s conformity where like men had these clubs like everybody was sort of part of these clubs as adults that they would go to and like they would be part of these little communities and like that's the the bowling alley is like the last sort of place for that and you sort of see

see how it's like decaying like throughout the Big Lobowski. Yeah, right. I mean the dude has which is like kind of not what would expect a picture of Richard Nixon on his wall, but it's Richard Nixon bowling. Right. You know? Yeah, there is something to like, we see.

He also has sartre on his bookshelf. Oh. The, I think like, yeah, to the point of like all of these sort of dying forms of masculinity, it's like they get together in like the ghost house of Americana, which is the bowling alley. You know what I mean? It's like very interesting. Like, that's where all the spirits gather in this other thing. Like, to your point, Vince also like that a lot of like sociologists point to like,

there was something about the bowling alley in America and people getting together and talking about stuff in a bowling alley that just also doesn't exist in the same way. Yeah. There's a theory that it's actually a time travel movie that's like taking those things and then just like taking it way too far.

And I'd tell you about it, but it doesn't make sense and it sucks. But I will say that the Coen brothers are maybe time travelers because the first scene where we meet the dude, he read did anybody clock the date that he wrote on the check no 9-11 1999 oh shit 1991 I'm an idiot because I focused on the fact that it was for 69 7 yeah and so he writes a check on 9-11 that looks up in George H.W. Bush saying this aggression will not stand and then

his son goes on to do 9-11 oh my fucking god like if you if you honestly think it like if that movie was made after 9-11, you would be like, that's so fucking stupid and on the nose. To be like, foreshadowing. So stupid. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. I can believe they did that. Actually, let's take a quick break. And we'll do a couple more stories about how this took over Jeff Bridges' personality and many other people's.

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or wherever you get your podcast. And we're back. We're back. I will say, last thing on like a fun reading of the movie. I always hate when people and like make fun of it, when people are like, you know, the Avengers movies are kind of about found family.

I'm like, shut the fuck. Like, I mean every movie where there are a group of people who like each other. This was the one found family theory that I kind of like because they were pointing out on this podcast. I think it's called no podcast for old men or something. It's like four philosophy PhDs talking about the films of the Coen brothers.

But they're talking about how the movie's about like failed families in a lot of ways. Like Bunny is like this wandering daughter who like the people, you know, the brother Seamus who, by the way, he's like from the 1940s movie, the other private eye. is like it's a wandering daughter case. Like that's just a normal thing. Walter obviously has like this failed marriage. But like the best family we meet in the movie is like Walter as the dad, dude as the mom and like Donnie as the child. Which like Donnie is that that's the thing that like really struck me is like Donnie is just a child. It's just like, this is a part where the dude's like, I'm going to lose my Johnson.

He's like, what do you need that for, dude? He's clearly just there as, like, the guy who's good at bowling, who can, like, keep their team in the round robin. Yeah. But he, he truly is just like, I mean, Walter is like, you're like a child. So, I mean, like, some of their conversations, even how they're, like, physically sat from each other is, like, parents in the front seat with child in the back. Yes. Yeah. Like, especially the I am the, like, when he talks about Lenin.

I am the walrus. I'm the walrus. I'm a shut the fuck. Out of your fucking depth, out of your fucking depth is also another time honored line between my friends too. Yeah, I have fucking A. I got a rash as one of the things that I think all the time

for some reason. It's like nothing I've ever heard of anyone else quote. But it's like he comes into that mid-conversation with the limo driver. And he's like, fucking A, I got a rash, man. He's like, misses the point of the,

the story. So the Coins have said they didn't have Jeff Bridges in mind for the part of the dude while they were writing the script. They, basically everybody else except the big Lobowski was pretty much who they had in

mind. John Goodman, Steve Buschamie, Julianne Moore. Bunny was going to be Heather Graham and then Boogie Knights came out and they were like, oh, that's the same character. We can't do that. And so they switch her to Terry Reid.

Did Julianne Moore's character have a Coke problem in Big Lobowski? And they're like, ah, fuck. All right. This has to be buggy nights all over again. So just to, like, give you an idea of how much he changed from before this movie to after, he almost turned the role down because he was worried that playing a pothead might embarrass his kids. Oh, man. Like, he is post-Labowski.

I just, but in my brain. rain, he is the Marlboro man of marijuana. Like he's like, for him to be like, I don't want to be associated with grass. That could be hard for my children is wild. And like, they're just interviews. You can just like find interviews with him from before where he's just like, he speaks totally differently. And then like when you see him accept the Academy Award for best actor for that movie.

Heart that I, is that good then? I still haven't seen Crazy Heart. I feel like nobody's seen. I feel like that is an award for the Big Lobowski. Crazy Heart. And he, and he dutifully accepted the award as the Big Lobowski because he's like, yeah, man, like, my parents taught me this acting thing was groovy.

And he, like, calls like five different people, man. Yeah. He's like, thank you to my wife, man. He was the director, Scott, man. He was like, the first. example of a role like Austin butlering someone? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, right.

I mean, I, I always point to Al Pacino and scent of a woman, but it's not like it took over his actual, it just took over his acting career. Like he won an Academy Award for it. And then from that point forward, he was just like,

whoiing his way through every, every movie. But like, yeah, Jeff Ridge is like unlocked something inside himself. And like, there, there are just so many quotes. Like he was talking about his time on Iron Man.

And he's like, they had no script, man. You got the suits from Marvel in the trailer with us. You would think $200 million movie, you'd have your shit together. And then I just figured out, just jam, man,

just play. It's like, looking at interviews with him before, he's like, yes, well, I approached the role in this way. You know,

you're just like, yeah, he's an actor doing, like, being a normal person. I mean, it gave him the freedom to sort of not give a shit,

probably. Yeah. And then it's also, I think it affected him in the same way that it affected a lot of people because he, like when he talks about the movie, he has the, he, he's like, if it's on TV, I will get trapped. Like, I'll be like, I'm going to watch this until the Jesus scene. And then he's like, ah, fuck, I'll watch it until, like, with a movie that he stars in and he like, it's just one of his favorite movies.

Yeah, I think the campiness that was like initially a turn off maybe, I mean, especially for me and probably like a lot of critics who first saw it when it came out. Like it comes on really campy. And so you're like, and that's sort of the, that's sort of the Ethan Cohen effect. But I also think there's a thing with campiness that it, because it is less grounded, it becomes more mythical in a way. like it becomes like they're sort of creating their own archetypes in this in this way like you're not trying to see them as like these guys in 1991 anymore you're seeing right as these sort of timeless characters and types that you can sort of apply to so many like people that you know in your life and just sort of these situations um yeah i also like i'd be interested in like watching

this with a younger person um just because i'm very lonely um no just just because i just because i be curious to hear like, weirdest Craigslist ad ever right there. To me, come and watch the Big LaVosby. To me, it feels very tough. Like,

it feels like if this movie came out a week ago, I wouldn't be like, what the fuck? You know, I would be like, yeah, that makes sense as a movie that came out a week ago.

It makes much more sense to do a 1991 period piece now than it did in 1990. Yeah, like, imagine like you're doing a movie now and you're like, all right,

this is going to be set in 2020. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, but that's, yeah, that's what's so brilliant about it. There's even like, did you do any like reading into the Port Huron statement? Like what that's about? It's like a student socialist manifesto kind of thing that was written. But what's really interesting and kind of timely is that they were really pressing the Democratic Party to get rid of Dixiecrats to embrace the civil rights movement. And it's like just interesting. Like you begin to see the sort of fallacy and being like, we got to refer. form the party because, yeah, sure, you get the Dixie crats out, but then you just get another

version of, like, neoliberal in that isn't actually against racism. It's in the same way that, like, you can see even now, like, with some, like, the policy things, it's like, yes, we do need to stop what's happening in Gaza, but largely it's about imperialism and, like, colonization. Do we have enough people on that page? So it's interesting, like, when you even hear the way he talks about it, like, not this, like, watered down second draft shit. The author of the first draft, not the watered down second. draft. Yeah, that's why I think it's so much about the fecklessness of the counterculture,

because it comes out at a time when, like, you know, Clintonism and Third Way is, like, so ascendant where it's like you got these guys who used to be idealistic hippies, you know, in the 60s and fighting for civil rights and fighting for all these things. And then their actual path to dominance was like, what if we just do all the things that Republicans did. What if we just adopt all the Republican policies? Just do that. Give it a sheen of like lifestyle hippiness,

you know, and yeah. Yeah. The Seattle 7 were like taken down and they, you know, they were an actual progressive group that was like protesting the arrest of the Chicago 7 and you know, Black Panthers.

And they have long suspected that they were taken down by, you know, undercover FBI agents, which is how they took down the Black Panthers and how they continue to take people down today. And also Jeff Dowd did work with Hillary Clinton and was seen as her kind of left-wing guru. And then when she was rising to prominence,

people were like, she's friends with this guy who believes in Palestinian statehood. And she just dropped his ass. So I think there is a lot. of that, but I, I, I kind of feel like they're a little bit forgiving of the dude. Like at least he has a code as opposed to, you know, like some of the other people who just seem to be swinging between these different extremes. Right.

But that's also why he's like not successful is that he hasn't dropped any of that in order to, you know, none of that is like a victim of his ambition. Exactly. Like the, and the success is not a. worthy aim, I feel like, is kind of the dude philosophy. But yeah, one of the weird things about Bridges being a fan is like, he's kind of my, uh, he's like, yeah, I had a fan tell me that, this theory that I thought was pretty cool where like Donnie's a figment of Walter's imagination.

And it's like, wait, what? Like that doesn't make any set. Like, that's, if you talk to people who like the big Lobowski, they're going to like, bring that theory up and that theory sucks. He was like, I thought it was cool, man. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Pointless head cannon, exactly. That's got to suck.

That's got to suck playing the Big Lobowski because a bunch of stoner idiots are going to come up to you thinking you instantly understand everything they're talking about too. Like that. You're going to like this theory. What if that guys, you're in your imagination? You're like, no. I'm sure, I don't know. You want me to sign your Pendleton sweater, man?

But he does, like he, you know, there's an anecdote where, you know, somebody was at a birthday party with one of his daughters and every, the kids were like, dude, dude, dude. And like, he went and like got into character as the dude and just like, you know, chaperone to this party for his daughter as the dude for a while. That's something from Jesse Thorne's podcast, an anecdote that he told to him. And he was like, I don't remember that, but it sounds like, me. Wow. Say the line. Say the line, Jeff.

Say it. The dude abides. Yay. Yay. A couple weird what ifs. So the Coen brothers initially approached Mel Gibson to play the dude.

That was who they kind of had in mind as they were writing it. And then Mel Gibson, I don't know. I've got some line edits for this all one. I'm referring to this. fellow. I've got some better suggestions here. Not a lot of detail of how that meeting went,

but they were like, and then we thought of Jeff and never thought of anybody else. Yeah, Mel Gibson's a little too intense. And I think, I think Mel Gibson's a fantastic actor, but yeah, yeah, maybe as Walter. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. Like I said, everybody else was kind of who they had in mind, except for the Big Lobowski, which they offered the role of the Big Loboskey to Robert Altman, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, and Marlon Brando. They're going huge on that one. Well, imagine Brando saying strong men also cry. That would have been a totally different movie.

He would have been like, and this guy is also a dolphin for some reason. Well, he's got a little blowhole that will reveal in the third act. An early draft of the movie explained that the dude was able to afford his jobless lifestyle because he was the heir to the Rubik's Cube fortune. Kind of like this movie, the fact that he has any money is a question. Yeah. But I do feel like, I don't know,

I'm able to just be like, yeah, I don't know. He found some money here and there, you know, found it in the couch cushions. He's kind of like the patron saint of universal basic income. Like, sure. But also like an era where like you could live, in L.A. and like kind of be one of these guys and still somehow get

by. Like now, I remember my dad's an artist. Like, we knew people like this too where I was like, what is your friend like Danny do? And he's like, yeah, just stuff. This and that. Yeah, like, exactly. And like, I remember like going to his house like... Drives around. Yeah, every 18 months he gets

$20,000 to deliver a package. Yeah, whatever it is. Yeah, he took one of those trips to Montreal again. Yeah. But yeah, like I think that's another thing that's kind of, even though it seems unbelievable. There was a time where you'd be like, yeah, I don't know, I got like my foot run over by a bus two years ago.

I've been coasting off of that. Then someone happened to like an aunt that I didn't realize was related to me. Class action lawsuit because a pez dispenser broke and got caught in my throat, you know, a bunch of different stuff. Yeah, and you only needed 69 cents and a checkbook to get some half and half. And you're Ralph's customer card. Yeah. The only thing in his wallet is a Ralph's customer card, which is amazing.

In LA, that's the thing I also love about it. such an L.A. movie. It's super L.A. Ralph's is such a fucking staple grocery store. Had no idea. Ralphs was a real thing

when I first saw it. Had no idea. Had no idea. The In and L. Burger was a real thing. I thought that was like Big Cohoonaburger burger when I first saw it.

You know, I was just like, these funny made-up chains. Yeah. I lived near the Radford Street that Peter lived on. Right?

Wasn't that Peter? The little boy? No, Donnie. No, not Donnie. No. Larry. Larry. Larry.

You're killing your father, Larry. Radford in North Hollywood. Yep, I know exactly where that shit is. So eventually this movie makes $100 million, like on home video alone. Critics have walked back their negative reviews. And it's seen as a classic. There's, you know, it becomes immediately a cult classic. They have the, uh, the,

Lobowski Fest start happening Louisville's the big one, but they happen around the world. Thousands and thousands of people come. Jeff Bridges has come and like performed there. And the very first Lobowski Fest, they held at a bowling alley that did not allow cursing or drinking, which meant that they couldn't even screen the movie or drink white Russians. By the way, so I hadn't realized that I think it was like kind of envelope pushing in the sense that like it, you know, it's a pot movie that's not, that's not the main thing. Like, it's not, it's not Cheech and Chong where it's like stupid pot jokes, you know,

it's just like an incidental thing where, that he smokes weed is also the most, uh, top five most F words of a mainstream movie behind Goodfellas, casino and menace to society at the time. They say, they say fuck 281 times in the movie, which, like those movies are all. movies that I would be like if you ask me to name the movies where they say fuck the most I would say you know Goodfellas casino menaced society but like Big Lobowski they kind of

say it the way people actually say the word you know in a way that like is kind of incidental but also seems important yeah and I weirdly think of it as like a good family comedy even though it's like oh no it definitely has like swearing and drugs and nudity in it but you don't that's not like

the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the big Lebowski. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Also, the ear biting off at the, that happens at the end of the movie was a big deal because Mike Tyson had just bitten Evander Holyfield's ear off. And like that apparently influenced, like it caused the age rating to be higher in England because they're like, well, that's too much. Yeah, Peter Stormair's ear.

That's according to David Sims from blank check. But, yeah, so I would just say, like, in terms of its legacy, like the movie of the year in 2025, according to the Academy Awards, at least, was one battle after another.

And the look of Leonardo DiCaprio's character like seems so inspired by the dude. Like, DeCabrio has said that his performance was like based on aspects of the dude. And Paul Thomas Anderson like clearly loves this movie. Like he made inherent vice, which feels very indebted to this movie.

I mean, there's sort of like the Coens and PTA are sort of the unofficial like patron saints of California, like Southern California specific cinema, I would say. Yeah. And then there was a San Francisco Chronicle article last month about the wave of labalskization in California with more people turning into the dude because of the rise of unemployment or self-employment, casual fashion, recreational pot use, a decline. line in wine and beer drinking, even though he drinks a lot of beer, thanks to canned cocktails, including white Russians, the popularity of area rugs and the fact that more people are living alone. That's like such a trend. A bit of a stretch.

Wow. A bit of a stretch. But I do, I don't know. I do feel like they introduced something that is very necessary, you know, like to, like, people find it useful at a time. when, like, people like the big Lebowski, you know, who are, like, running schemes that basically have ruined the world. And so, like, just to, like, live by a code of, like, I'm just going to, like, get by and enjoy the simple pleasures of life at some level. Yeah.

It seems valuable. And also to have, like, his whole mental state is, like, an impenetrable fortress of good vibes. Yeah. We're like, even when other bad shit, it's like just like, he kind of like has this thing where he will look at the absurdity of what's happening around him and be like, what the fuck? Rather than like anger, frustration. I think that's a really interesting philosophical point about him is like he'll find the absurdity and be sort of like to sort of blown away by that rather than sort of resorting to like anger or something. He definitely gets flustered, but he also has amazing one-liners as he's being flustered. He fixes the cable.

It's one of my favorites. Yeah, it's like the ultimate reminder. You know, America's a, a, like, business-driven, ambitious, industry-driven kind of place and culture. And we love to treat people like they are business machines and productivity machines. And, like, the Big Lebowski is, like, the ultimate counter example slash reminder to, like, no, you can just, like, be a person and just enjoy stuff and enjoy, live to a little. Live to enjoy art and live to enjoy pot and hanging out with your buddies.

And crash your car. The opening song that they like let ride for the entire song is the man in me by Bob Dylan where he talks about not wanting to turn into some machine, you know, like it feels like all that stuff. I mean, it's a rich text, you guys. It's a rich text. It's a great icon. Vince, wonderful having you here.

Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks so much for picking this icon. Where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff? You can find my movie writing, Vince Mancini.substack.com. I am also the food editor at Fresno land, if you ever want to know about the goings-on in the food world in Fresno. And yeah, and then my podcast, The Frotcast and our rewatch podcast, Mad Yourself a Man, Patreon.com slash frotcast for all that stuff.

Amazing. Miles, anything to add? No, man. just everyone find your own inner dude you know uh find your own peace just fucking live by that dude don't you feel like you get like it's like you get a feeling i mean just talking about the big lobowski makes you like happier in some way it has that effect on me it like again i think also just some of the most underrated car comedy i've ever seen to like the way the cars crash in that movie.

Just like, dude, I wanted to mention that, like the slapstick of when he, you know, drops the roach and crashes the car

into like the retaining wall. It's just like so, you've never seen car slapsing like that. It's so hard. It gets on two wheels. It's like, don't, don't.

And his glasses are like, oh. And you know, like, the Cohen brothers had to be so specific about what they wanted in order to get that shot. Oh,

hell yeah. Yeah, the specificity of like how they film accidents, like the milk exploding against the wall in the very first scene where they like stick his head in the toilet there's so there's so many like really specific

and even like the real realistic way that like Donnie died where he's like he's been shot which is like how it would have happened in a movie but it's like no he just died of a heart attack that's how people die and then you know it's messy and you have to dispose of their body all right I will be back in a moment with some notebook dumps, man.

Man. We'll be right back. All right. That was our episode about the dude. Thanks to Miles, as always, and to Vince Mancini, for being a great guest, as always, and for picking the dude, picking a great icon, and sharing that story about why he chose him of all the icons to have. have your dad remind people of.

That's a pretty cool one. Sounds like a pretty cool dad. Thanks to J.M. McNabb for the research on this one. And to Brian the editor for the edit. And for naming the episodes. I think he's been nailing the names of these icon apps. So shout out to Brian the editor. This is the dude.

No, no, no, no. Book dump. I think we kind of hit on this, but I think he only becomes more and more relevant in our world that is more and more taken over by hypercapitalism. We need a prayer for the losers. We don't, you know, a patron saint for people who don't worship winning and who don't really show up anywhere else in our popular culture, losers. We'll toy with the idea of valorizing a loser and worshiping a loser.

Like, Rocky is a movie where the entire power of the first film is that he actually loses. I mean, he's a loser in many ways. And then the sequels treat that like a grave injustice that needed to be urgently corrected. He, in the next sequel, he beats Apollo, the guy who beat him in the first one, if you're not a Rocky fan. he beats him so badly he retires and then becomes his coach starts working for Rocky and then gets killed in the fourth one Apollo does and Rocky avenges Apollo's death by winning the Cold War um so yeah that that franchise basically takes this lovable loser character that I think we were more comfortable with in the

70s late 70s and early 80s and um inventing a scenario where he couldn't win any harder. Like, I challenge you to come up with a way for Rocky to be a bigger hero and a bigger winner than what happens in the first four movies. Sticking with Stallone Rambo is even a loser in the early 80s. The first film, he's a Vietnam vet who represents, you know, the loss and trauma of that war. and then, you know, three years of Reagan and by the mid-80s,

he is going back and single-handedly, like, killing the entire North Vietnamese army and taking the greatest L of our nation's history and, I mean, arguably, and turning that frown upside down on Vietnam. That is, that's what the 80s did. The Beach Boys go from being, you know, songs written by, Brian Wilson, a sad lonely man struggling with mental health to in the late 80s, Kokomo, which is just an ode to yuppies taking tropical vacations, I guess. And yeah, so I think that's probably part of the reason why it makes sense to place the movie

and the dude in 1991, like after this decade of America being addicted to winning of Reagan and obviously Nancy makes an appearance in the script and both of them on Lobowski's wall of achievement. It was like a decade of art made by and for the winners, the rich people, from the Eagles to the Huxdibles and into that world steps a character who is so thoroughly a loser by every American standard definition of the world. I mean, people are, it's a pretty surface level read. I'm not going too deep here.

People are constantly calling him a loser in the movie. It is the explicit point of the movie, but I think that's what makes him such a powerful symbol and continues to make him such a powerful symbol. The losers have not had a good run of it since 1991 either. There was a brief moment in the early 90s when Grunge was becoming a thing, and it seemed like we were right,

suspicious of success. I remember coming of age at this time, like bands who were successful were very frightened of selling out. Kurt Cobain was like humiliated by his success. So, you know, I don't know. Maybe that's the reason he's the man of his time and why they had to set the movie. They made in 1998 in the year 1991 because by the late 90s and the early 2000s, being suspicious of success was just no longer a thing. We were celebrating Jay-Z and Puffy's prosperity. You get what I'm saying. All right.

Let's talk about fan theories here. As mentioned, there are some very popular Big Lebowski fan theories. I don't love. The one where Donnie isn't really there. He's like a figment of Walter's imagination. I just, in my opinion is just like my opinion, man,

but I don't think it's supported by the movie. The dude responds to him and talks to him. And it doesn't make the movie any more interesting, which is usually what I'm looking for in my fan theories. The internet has also posited a fan theory that it's no coincidence. The dude and the Big Lobowski have the same last name. The dude is actually the Big Lobowski's illegitimate son that he had with is made. I don't know where they got that specific detail.

but um so yeah he's the reason the dude is able to like live a semi comfortable lifestyle as mentioned uh the coens thought the where he have the money from question was possibly worth addressing uh with the rubics cube thing uh i feel like there is some nepo energy bleeding through from jeff bridges to the character of the dude um but uh this fan theory is the big labowski like keeps him on a allowance like he does with Bunny because he's actually his father. And of course, he may ask questions like, why does the Big Labasky act like he doesn't know him? Maybe it's a secret, but then why would the dude still have his same last name if it was a secret? That's like when Obi-Wan Kenobi hides from the empire under the last name Ben Kenobi, which I guess we are just willing to accept

that particular plot hole because movie magic. But anyways, I don't think. I don't think. think that one makes a ton of sense, doesn't make the movie that much more interesting if he's actually his son. But it does imply that the dude and mod are brother and sister. And obviously that's what the internet is really interested in, according to porn hub's trend reports. There are, there are some mysterious details, not really fan theories, but like fan theory ingredients that the Coen's put in the movie that I find interesting to think about.

Maybe you guys can work with them and hit me with a fan theory. But there's some interesting mystical stuff around the bowling, just surface level. Donnie only bowl strikes. And then when he bowls a nine, he dies. Like he feels like something's off.

And then he dies like minutes later. We never see the dude bowl in the movie. people do like to point that out but the really weird part is the scene where Walter pulls a gun on Smokey I'm pretty sure it's the match that puts them through to the semis

because Walter says like this is lead play so what we're watching is the dude Walter and Donnie beating Smokey and his team but when you watch the scene Walter shows up late because he's picking up his wife's dog calls the foul on Smokey pulls his gun

gun, they go and hide in the dude's car while the cops come, and then we hear they're just through to the next round somehow. But if you watch the scene, the logic of the scene, there's no way Walter even rolled a single frame. So, I don't know. There's also a mystical thing at the end where the dude, it's like after he and Maude have sex and he has just figured out that the big Lobowski is lying and took the money. And he calls Walter and is saying, you know, come on Walter pick up while the phone's ringing and Walter picks up and knows it's the dude. So the phone was ringing, but it was almost like he could hear him or something. It would make sense if he was leaving a message on Walter's answering machine,

but they specifically make that happen while the phone is ringing. Is that just a mistake? I've noticed in a movie that I've watched 3,000 times? Or are the Cohen's implying that the dude and Walter are in like some? mystical realm, some mystical connection part of the time. I don't know. Hit me with your best theories. On Jeff Bridges acting in the movie,

which every time I see it, it gets better. It's just a monumental performance that I've watched as much as any, you know, piece of acting with a possible exception of the performances and jaws. And there's just not a single false note in the movie. the Coins have said the extent of their directing bridges

boiled down to bridges coming to them before every scene and asking them if, quote, the dude had burned one on the way over and if they answered in the affirmative, he'd, quote, rub his knuckles in his eyes and turn them red and do the scene. So rubbing your eyes, the original practical effect. And yeah, staying with bridges, just curious to hear any other examples people have of characters who kind of take over the actors who play them. Like they're real.

There's the famous recent example of Austin Butler turning into Elvis on the Elvis Press tour. There's the much darker example where when Heath Ledger died, Jack Nicholson blamed the the Joker was immediately like, I warned him that character was dangerous. So I don't know. But it's got to be very common. Like, I'm watching these movies, like, I inherently ingest some piece of these characters and, you know, become them a little bit. I'm sure for the people who embody them for a living, it's got to really change you.

But give me your best examples on Twitter, Blue Sky. I'll share them in a future notebook dump if they're good. there's a lot of writing I encountered during research about hypothesizing that the movie didn't connect with people because it was such a departure from Fargo and I do just want to reiterate

a point I made about Bouchemey it's also a movie so it's a movie about a bungled kidnapping plot that ends with people having a difficult time disposing of Steve Bouchemey's dead body. It is definitely totally different but I'm just saying it's not like in terms of movies to go from this to that it's not the

strange it's not the strangest swing they're both dark comedies maybe if they had just put uh this movie is based on a true story thing at the beginning of the big lobowski people would have been on board all right uh honestly in case you couldn't tell I could talk about the big labowski for eight episodes probably maybe we'll do a future Walter episode uh on him as an icon but uh that is going to do it for this one. We are back next week with another counterculture figure, uh, who runs, I feel like directly perpendicular to his era in some ways, uh, and somehow becomes an icon. Actually, you know what? I'm going to start giving you guys clue. See if you can figure out who next week's icon is before it drops. So next week's was, uh, peak popularity in the 80s, um,

kind of hitting a career nadier when, uh, uh, The Big Lobowski takes place in 1991, but then has a big moment. And I'll say he's not normal. They don't call him normal, Al Yankovic. So that's all the clues I'm going to give you. I'll see if you guys can figure out who I'm talking about even before the episode drops. Mr. Policeman, I gave you all the clues. That's next week's icon with super producer Ana Hosniere.

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