Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

Just like any self respecting college male (and ex policy debater) I’m a huge Big Lebowski fan. I quote the movie without realizing that my words are actually the Cohen brothers’. Whenever a dispute comes up over suspected cheating or malfeasance in a compeition, I’ll angrily declare that “this is not ‘nam, this is bowling, there are rules.” Half the people around me will get it, and everyone else will just think I’m weird. Sometimes, I’ll get more obscure, and talk about my admiration for the original Port Huron statement, not the watered down second draft, or complain about how much I hate the fucking Eagles. The point is that Big Lebowski fandom is something more than simply liking a movie, it’s a meme that will truly infect your very speech and thought processes. And, for those who are over 21, your choice of drink.

After seeing Lebowski enjoy so many “Caucasians,” you’ll start ordering the wondrous Vodka, Kahlua and milk mixture originally known as a White Russian – and if anyone runs into you or hassles you, you’ll agitatedly say “Hey, careful, man, there’s a beverage here!” Well, apparently a style editor at the Times is also a Lebowski-ite, because he assigned Steven Kurutz to write one of those delightfully concocted “trend stories” on the not-so-newfound prevalence of the Dude’s favorite drink.

There isn’t any “news” in the piece – Lebowski has had a huge cult following ever since it was first released, and the Lebowski fests where tanks full of White Russians are served to long-haired guys with beards and sunglasses in bolling alleys have been around for at least a few years. But this is not to disparage the article, which does a good job of tracing the Dude’s fondness for White Russians to Jeff Dowd, the producer who the character is based on. Not suprisingly, the article has all sorts of wonderful anecdotes and asides, but this is my favorite:

“There was a woman I lived with named Connie,” Mr. Dowd said, by phone from his office in Santa Monica, Calif., beginning a rambling oration that was highly Dude-like. “She and her boyfriend, Jamie, were mixologists. We were hanging out and drinking at that time. We went from White Russians to Dirty Mothers, a darker version of a White Russian. It was a very hedonistic period.”

Mr. Dowd moved on from White Russians years ago, but has started drinking them again, mainly so as not to disappoint fans. “When I first met Cheech at the Sundance Film Festival,” he said, referring to Cheech Marin of the comedy duo Cheech and Chong, “the first thing we all wanted to do is smoke a joint with him so we could tell our grandchildren, ‘Hey, I smoked a joint with Cheech.’ Well, people want to say they had a White Russian with the Dude. I don’t want to turn them down, which has added a little extra tonnage to me.”

The Dude abides.