Noncultists may ask, "The big the-whatski?"
But The Big Lebowski, the Coen Brothers' 1998 cult film that defined a post-countercultural sort of slackerdom, is now bigger than ever, a hep hub for fan celebrations nationwide. And Lebowski fever is coming to Baltimore this weekend, with Dude-
Fest! The Big Lebowski Tribute Party. It promises to make up in ingenuity what it lacks in scale.
Lebowski fans, pay attention!
Initiates, bear with me!
Charm City's DudeFest will boast Wii bowling, so you can bowl and see the movie at the same venue. The Creative Alliance has a liquor license, so you can drink White Russians the same time as the Dude. The refreshment stand will offer imitation versions of the movie's signature food, In-N-Out Burgers. The organizers have been hard at work locating and touching up a rug that can serve as a replica of The Rug - and they promise to set aside a space with a photographer where Lebowskians can pose on it.
Used bowling pins will be awarded to those who best portray the Dude, the Big Lebowski, Walter Sobchak and Jesus. (Not that one; another one.) Big Blow and the Bushwhackers will provide live music, which is only fitting, because Big Blow's accordionist and Creative Alliance member, Don Plehn, catalyzed this unbelievable event for the City that Believes, and molded it carefully with CA's Andre Mazelin.
Now for the explanation.
In The Big Lebowski, Jeff Bridges plays a social dropout who is so euphorically wacked you get a secondhand high just looking at him. Padding around his Venice, Calif., apartment in a V-neck T-shirt that barely covers his midriff bulge, he's like a beach bum who bowls instead of surfs. His nickname is "The Dude" - a perverse nickname for a guy with a Sasquatch hairdo and togs resembling washed-out pajamas.
Every now and then, he'll stretch his back or his hamstrings, but when he's not hitting strikes and spares, he's smoking dope and listening to 1960s-1970s vintage tapes. ("Creedence" is his favorite group.)
There's a rich idea behind this spluttering romp, and Bridges keeps cashing in on it. At the outset, a couple of mysterious thugs mistake the Dude for an unrelated Pasadena civic lion who shares the same proper name, Jeff Lebowski. The Dude winds up with his head in the toilet and a urine-stained rug - which really bums him out, because to the well-trained eye of the Dude, the rug is what "ties the room together."
