1998. March. A most magic time.
I saw my first R-rated movie without a parent or legal guardian. My best friend Parsons and I went to see the most important movie of the modern era: The Big Lebowski.
The two of us quickly huddled inside the house and excitedly chattered about what it was we were about to embark on. We entered mere boys of 13. We left forever changed. We left as mere boys of 13 who had experienced something too awesome to fully fathom when one is just 13. It had loads of humor, wit, action, drinking, nudity, and CCR.
The Big Lebowski is movie that requires no explanation. That's handy of it because there is little explanation possible. The Dude's journey and travails was the modern interpretation of what Joseph Campbell called Hero's Journey. That's at least what I wrote about in my English Composition II class at UH in 2002. Something about having Jesus and a gang of nihilists and a marmot altogether meant that it had to have deeper meaning in there. Or it's just a stoner movie. All that adds to the fun.
The Dude spoke to me on a personal level because he was the laziest man of Los Angeles, which put him in the running of laziest man worldwide. Yet, his unique set of skills allows him to solve a web of mystery and do it with style.
My friends and I can still spout quotes of this movie for long stretches at the time, but not quite go through the whole thing verbatim. Though we've only forsaken what we were doing at the time to go bowling once, we have done that. My favorite cocktail is the White Russian, and it makes me bowl better.
When my wife saw the movie the first time she gained a deeper understanding of my friends.
Today, I am an ordained minister of Dudeism. It's one of my proudest achievements.
All that from a fortuitous combination of being bored one weekend, having the money and a ride, and an overly lax enforcement of ratings for my best friend and I to get in at the theater.
The Dude Abides.
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