The Dude on Tour
One of my favorite movies is The Big Lebowski. In my mind, this is one of the finest movies the Coen Brothers have ever made. Yeah, I'm one of those people who quote the movie and point out every Lebowski reference in Pop-Culture (the writers of the TV series Chuck must really love the show as there is one reference to the movie almost weekly). As with anything that has a passionate and devoted fan base The Big Lebowski has spawned a series of fan events called Lebowski Fests. I've never been to a Lebowski Fest, not out of any objection but for a lack of funds, time or location. I
When I first heard about the Lebowski Fests I thought they were a cool idea and a natural progression of fan adulation of the movie. However now that they have become a thing of their own, it feels like the whole thing is turning into a Star Trek convention.
Seriously, minor actors who had small roles now go to these things and sign autographs and do the whole niche celebrity thing. The people who put this thing on have turned the thing from a nifty idea honoring a cool movie, to a cottage industry to a small marketing machine. They published a book on the movie, which was really kind of about themselves, they produce a bunch of merchandise (hey, I won a couple of the shirts, so at least it's cool stuff) and they thrive right on the edges of copyright infringement the way Star Trek fandom did thirty years ago.
Anyway, the end of the Star Trek convention, at least as it applied to fans, was when the things became an industry of their own. Suddenly, they were no longer cool and unique fan events, they became schlock merchandise-fests designed to separate you from as much of your money as possible. Soon the convention promoters became licensee's and they made crappy merchandise o ftheir own which their favorite dealers then sold in the exhibit rooms.
Like I said, I have never been to a Lebowski Fest. I would like to one day just to see what they are all about. I would like to think that I am wrong about the fate of these things, but the announcement of what the show organizers called "The Speed of Sound Tour", a series of events from Las vegas to Seattle complete with a line-up of touring actors and bands makes me feel, well, like the thing has become a little un-dude.
Like I said, I might be wrong, I hope I'm wrong.
The Big Lebowski has a place deep in my psyche as an American. It was the weekend after 9/11 and we were coming up on Monday NIght (which, at the time, was a weekly holiday in which all of my friends and I would get together to sort of watch the game but mostly to touch base on the weekend that was and the week ahead). The NFL had made the announcement that that weekend that they were canceling Monday Night Football that week.
I understood why, and honestly did not have a problem with the game being cancelled, but it did hurt a little, kind of creating a feeling of the bad guys having won. So, my friends and I got together anyway, gathering at my house to watch a movie. There was no debate as to which film we would watch. I reached in for my well worn VHS of The Big Lebowski and we watched it, laughed at it, spoke the lines with it and for a couple of hours just plain ignored the chaos enveloping our world.
You see the Dude is a man for his time. He just fits right in there wherever there might be. So I think the Dude might look at the Lebowski Fest and what it has become and just give a nod and a "far out" to the whole thing. but then I think he would wander into a Ralph's for some half-and-half and then straight home for a cold Caucasian and an evening of listening to highlights of his favorite bowling tournaments.
The dude, after all, abides.
Comments
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