Tuesday, July 20, 2010

In the Parlance of Our Time

Anyone that looks close enough will notice that I have named myself on this blog, "the Dude." To those that do not recognize the reference, it is to one of the greatest movies ever made, "The Big Lebowski." To those who have not seen it, The Big Lebowski is about a slacker named Jeffrey Lebowski and he calls himself the Dude. The story is about a guy that is mistaken for another Jeffrey Lebowski and is visited by a couple of thugs that are looking to extort money from this other guy named Lebowski. One of the thugs urinates on the Dude's rug and the Dude goes looking for the Lebowski that the thugs were looking for. All the Dude wants is a replacement rug but ends up becoming a bag man and the center of attention for several unsavory characters. He becomes harassed by a group of German nihilists, an artsy feminine modern hippie, a police chief, a private dick, and the Big Lebowski himself. The Dude is regularly accompanied by his bowling buddies. One who is a militant Vietnam veteran that seems to relate everything to the Vietnam conflict and the other is....well...Steve Buscemi.

What makes this movie great are the characters and the dialogue. Jeff Bridges did an excellent job portraying this unemployed slacker and his friend Walter Sobchak was played by John Goodman. This movie was one of many written, produced, and directed by the duo known as the Coen Bros. If you have not seen this cult classic, you have no doubt seen one of their other masterpieces, maybe Raising Arizona, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou, No Country for Old Men, or Burn After Reading, just to name a few. Their art is one that is not enjoyed by all, my wife being a perfect example, but for those who appreciate them, they are geniuses.

So why am I writing this? It does not seem to fit with the 4 other posts I have written thus far. Well, I once heard that in order to start writing, you have to start writing. So why not write about what I know. I figured I had to explain why I call myself the Dude and at the same time I could talk about a favorite pastime of mine, movies. It is my desire to one day write a novel. I have some ideas and in one case have already started writing. But it seems that as soon as I have an idea set in stone, once I start writing, it turns into something else, a different plot, a different theme, and different symbols.

I was inspired to start writing in this blog again after I found this blog after not writing in it for a few months and I realized that I had not written in it since I found out the news that not only did OU say "No", but a job that I had applied for in October, that I thought had decided against me in November, called me in early May to set up an appointment for a telephone interview. The job was my dream job, being a counselor for veterans in the VA. The job would have been very close to my family in Southern California. Well, the interview came and went, the projected time to hire a counselor came and went and I heard nothing. I did not want to be pushy, so I did not call them until this last week. Of course, we know what the answer was.....NO.

I suppose there is a reason for this. At least that is what I keep telling myself. I guess God has something different planned for me. We'll see.

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