A conversation with the real life "Dude" from Big Lebowski: Comparing 60's activism with the activism of today

caption: The Dude w/ his real life counterpart, Jeff Dowd

Everybody knows "the Dude" from the 1998 cult classic The Big Lebowski. But what you may not know is that Jeff Bridges' now-classic character is based off a real life person, Jeff "the dude" Dowd.

As a young man, Dowd was a major player in the 1960’s antiwar movement, was an outspoken draft resistor and spent time in jail as a political prisoner.

Like his film character, Jeff currently lives in L.A. He is a talented filmmaker and one of the founders of the Sundance Institute. His autobiography, "The Dude Abides: Classic Tales and Rebel Rants from The Dude" is slated to be released this year. Check out his website: www.jeffdowd.com.

I recently sat down with the Dude to discuss his experiences with youth organizing in the 60’s and how it compares to today.

Give it a Listen.



Download the mp3.

Escape from paradise...!

beauty courtesy of anders

There were aussies and Scotsman and kiwis. Two thick-ankled giants from Calgary. Starry-eyed and foul-mouthed lovers from Manchester.

Like some sort of international “Survivor” dream team, we all converged on the pirate-cove-turned-beach-resort of Olympos, as thousands of tourists do every year, at the southern tip of Turkey’s turquoise coast, where the past is forgotten and old grudges put aside to celebrate the wherewithal of the worlds heartiest binge drinkers.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved marching through the cave-city valleys of Cappadocia and climbing the ruined high-rises of hasenkeyf. But it was in Olympos that I finally found myself on “vacation” as defined by people’s dreams- that mystical land where everything always goes right, where the men are handsome and funny, and women are beautiful and sometimes sunbathing topless.

We were the chilled-out California boys, which is a good thing to be, especially if you have curly blond hair, which, when on the beach of people’s dreams, glows with a wispy sunlit halo and makes you look like an angel, which in turn makes people in a good mood almost disgustingly friendly towards you, and snowballs your delusional mental/vacation state to a dysfunctional prozac ecstasy.

Happy :)

Olympos is the kind of place where the lazy in you inevitably takes over. Slowly, terrifyingly, it oozes into your ears and settles in the front of your skull, just like those weird desert worm thingies that crawl into Chekov’s ears in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN.

Visitors inevitably find themselves staying an extra day or two regardless of schedules, plane flights or murderous pitchfork wielding mobs. There were legends of a German tourist who became so swallowed up by the lazy that her feet turned to wood, and her toes curled and worked their way into the sand like roots, and she became a tree.

Well, not really, but I’m starting one right now. I saw it happen. I swear.

A once sizable Lycian city, Olympos has roots in Greek and Roman mythology, allegedly being the birthplace of Vulcan, the god of blacksmithing, and the deathplace of Chimera, a firebreathiing demon of yore more widely recognized as the logo for the Turkish chain of gas stations PETROL OFISI.



chimera vs. chimera corporate logo

The Chimera was slain when Iobetes, King of Xanthos, dropped lead in its mouth from above. At the site where the creature died burns an eternal flame sprouting from the earth, which you can still go check out. The flame has been burning for as long as recorded history, and is also the site where the first Olympic torch was lit.

eternal flame of chimera

Supposed “smart” people say it’s a pocket of methane gas that is slowly seeping out of the ground, but ask the German tree woman and she’ll tell you differently. You need to bribe her with cigarettes first- no lights or menthols, and don’t bother her before 10 AM cuz she’s cranky.

Regardless, the historic mythology to the spot is and always will be appropriate for me. I will always remember Olympos as the place where the ancient Lycian Lazy Monster got to me. I became too comfortable there. When Anders and Ren were ready to go, I chose to stay. I let the lazy in, I let the beast crawl in my ears- I married it, made love to it, wallowed in it.

Amidst my decadence, the thought that I would never be able to leave set in, and I panicked. I became so comfortable that I ran. I ran away from paradise.

On the day that I sullenly boarded the dolmuş out of Olympus, somewhere on the sunny coast of the Mediterranean, the Greeks looked east towards Turkey and saw for the second time in 4000 years a pointy-nosed kid icarus falling back to earth like a flaming meteor, having flown too close to the sun, having come too close to heaven for any mortal to withstand.

German tree woman (taken by anders)

party people at the Chimera (taken by anders)

I will never be the same...

A week of many firsts...

Traveled over 1,000 miles since last post and now we’re in Van, a lakeside city in the southeast corner of Turkey, less than 100 miles from the border of Iran. Both Van the city and the lake rest on a plateau more than a mile above sea level (eat it Denver), making for a beautiful/alien landscape of snow-capped mountains atop smooth blue water. The lake is naturally alkaline due to the quality of the rock- that means that if you wash your clothes in the water, they come clean without soap.

We are way off the beaten trail here. English-speakers are rare, so we depend mostly on pantomime and a few key phrases from our guidebooks. Right now we are definitely the only white people in Van, and my brother and I get constant stares. A man in the market told us we are the first tourists he’s seen in 2 years. With our blond, curly hair and pale skin, people think we’re German. We let them. People are cautious of Americans here. "Aufitersen!" we shout as we walk away.

I’ve never been to Turkey before, so naturally I’m experiencing a lot of things for the first time. Some of my more notable firsts in just one week of travel…

For the first time ever, I’ve-

• been hustled by goat herders
  
  
• eaten paprika-flavored potato chips
  
  
• thrown a rock into Armenia from the ruins 1,500 year-old city
  
  
  
  
  
  
• seen so many satellite dishes fixed neatly atop the roofs of stone huts, surrounded by roosters.
  
  
• been sponge-bathed and then violently man-handled by a scar-faced man in a Hamam (Turkish bath house).
  
  
• successfully performed emergency toe surgery on an ingrown toenail on the bathroom floor of a hotel with tweezers and a sewing needle while running a flu of 100.
  
  
• celebrated Easter on the Black Sea 100 miles from the Republic of Georgia in a catholic mission, run by a Polack and a Romanian, with a congregation of 5 people.
  
  
• sat amongst a herd of grazing cows and found peace in the sound of dozens of mouths slowly chewing cud.
  

Needless to say, I’m having a good time.

Muslim prayers make the hungover and jetlagged wince.

Hi all. My name's Mark Ristaino, and I'll be blogging my 5 week tour of Turkey right here with Global Transmissions. A little about me- I've spent my last 2 years organizing young music fans against big bad President Bush with Music for America, a very cool non-profit that does issue education in concerts to help give kids the tools to change things in our unfortunate homeland America.

For those of you who've never done political organizing before, well... it's exhausting. I'm looking forward to getting a break and some perspective by eating lots of kebabs. I'll be blogging Turkish culture, and letting my dear companion Renato give you the virtual tour, as he does so exhaustingly well.

Adhan- the first shockingly different thingy I noticed
Turkey has over 70 million people, and as much as 99.8% of them are Muslim (mainly Sunni). Anyone used to a christain-centric culture will notice a big difference because of this, and nowhere is it more obvious than with the Adhan.



Adhan is a chant sounded loudly from atop Mosques 5 times daily, summoning muslims for fard salah, or mandatory prayers. I imagine that in smaller towns, the muezzin (recitor) simply yells as loudly as he can, but in Istanbul they blast the Adhan through loudspeakers from mosques at every corner of the city, which, at 5:30 AM, can otherwise be described as the Turkish version of Taps. Not too great if you're jetlagged and trying to sleep, or if you've been partying till 4 AM, but kinda nice if you like to be woken up early for a morning roll in the hay. (i wish)

You think McDonalds is good at getting people to come back for more? The Adhan keeps Muslims thinking about their faith no matter where they are and what they're doing 5 times a day... Kinda like a sing-songy, foghornish, screaming commercial for Islam.

Fortune 500 execs agree, that's good marketing. No wonder Islam is the biggest religion in the world.

more to come...

Youth turnout breaks records, gets congress addicted.

Originally published on Music for America, 11/8/06.

The elections are over, and boy are the results ever in...

Yesterday, we let the rest of the country know that we're here by destroying previous young voter turnout records, breaking the 1982 turnout record by 2 percentage points. (About 2 million votes) Although all the numbers aren't yet in, young voters voted 2-1 for change and likely had a huge impact in electing a democratic congress.

You made it happen, whether you voted, or registered people to vote, or volunteered at an MFA show, or threw an election day party, or went naked sky diving with a "go vote banner," love handles rippling in the g-forces...

Yesterday we took control of our lives and the direction of this country.

Let me dork out for a second (like I'm not already). Groups of people with something in common who tend to vote a similar way are called voting blocs. There are lots of'em... thats what people are talking about when they mention "the gay vote" or "the black vote" or "the guy that lives in a van down by the river vote."

If you belong to a voting bloc, and your bloc becomes a difference maker on election day, representatives will start legislating on issues that are important to you in order to get your vote again. Essentially, they become addicted to your vote. They'll do anything to get it.

What does that mean? If you're a kid who's drowning in college loans, congress will work to make paying your bills a little easier, because they need your vote to stay in power.

If you're a young woman or minority who's fed up with unequal treatment, congress will work to even the scales because they're addicted to your vote.

If you're having trouble finding a decent job, congress sure as hell better start working create more jobs, because hell, this good shit we got? It ain't free.

MFA was founded on the idea that if the 65 million 18 - 29 year olds in America (yes, there are 65 million of us) could get organized and involved, we could basically shape this country in any way we damn well please.

In a presidential election, 65 million votes is a majority.

It's not over yet. The young voter bloc is here, now we need to start flexing our muscles. I hope you'll stick around and flex with us, pump some iron and shape vibrant communities full of music and opportunities. Your participation makes MFA what it is. Not mine. Yours.

But for now, go home and take a day off. Forget about politics, watch a movie, hook up with a hot person, listen to some tunes, drink a beer or a soda or a sunnyD or whatever. Go to bed knowing that we all worked together like a team to make this happen, and we're all going to be better off because of it.

This is our greatest accomplishment to date, and it's just the beginning. We really did it.

(Oh yeah, and in 2008, the White House is OUR house.)

Remembering Hunter S. Thompson: Hero, Lecher, Manic-Psychotic Doctor of Journalism

Originally Published on Music for America, 3/5/05.

On Sunday evening, February 20th, 2005, thousands of bullets were fired across the globe- in Baghdad and Kabul, hurtling towards the fleeing Taliban, driving concrete splinters from the decaying barriers protecting Sunni guardsman, in the forests of England and the African Serengeti, penetrating the coveted pelts of terrified woodland animals and severing ivory husks, in the urban ghettos of America, waking elderly from their sleep and distracting the red-eyed and blue-collared from their television sets…

but of all these stray slugs, zipping both overtly and discreetly between the spaces of our lives, the bullet that did the most damage this depressing Domingo was slung in Woody Creeks, Colorado, through the troubled yet active mind of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

Thompson took his own life in the comfortably sturdy confines of the fortified compound he called home. He shot himself through the head, probably with a revolver of which he was very fond. (considering the Doctor was fond of many a firearm) Another historic life wrapped up neatly- live by the sword, die by the sword, they say. Live by the gun…

And that’s it. One trigger pulled, and a mind meticulously catalogued in plain sight of the world throughout the last forty years suddenly vanishes. Don’t wait up, Bubba, I’ll be running late tonight. Very late.

It had been reported that Thompson had spent the last year of his life in and out of wheelchairs, having recently broken his leg. I would not dare trivialize the physical and mental horrors he must have been experiencing. But Doctor, for the sake of the morale of the free speech movement, which, like Mike Tyson, is battered and reeling against the metaphoric ropes of the unabashed capitalistic practices of today, couldn’t you have hung on a bit longer?

I can’t help but be continually reminded that, while the Doctor was certainly fond of firearms, he lived his life by the word, not the gun. More than ten books published in the last forty years: Hell’s Angels; Kindom of Fear; The Great Shark Hut; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; Fear and Loathing in America; Songs From the Doomed; Better Than Sex and The Rum Diaries, just to name a few. Not to mention a vault of uncollected freelance works.

King of Gonzo, if only you could read your post-mortem praise. Writers across the globe are sounding their trumpets for you; The New York Times; Salon.com; The Washington Post; The San Francisco Chronicle; Tom Wolfe; Ralph Steadman. If only you could feel the utter revelry we feel when reading your works, the emotional solidarity the pissed off liberals of America share with you. If only, if only, if only…

“We are At War now, according to President Bush, and I take him at his word. He also says this War might last for ‘a very long time.’ Generals and military scholars will tell you that eight or 10 years is actually not such a long time in the span of human history -- which is no doubt true -- but history also tells us that 10 years of martial law and a war-time economy are going to feel like a Lifetime to people who are in their twenties today. The poor bastards of what will forever be known as Generation Z are doomed to be the first generation of Americans who will grow up with a lower standard of living than their parents enjoyed"

-Hunter Thompson, September 17th 2001

Men like Thompson come from the generation that ushered in Civil Rights and Stadium Rock. Riding the backs of the Beatniks of the fifties, they solidified the existence of an American counter-culture. And if it weren’t for counter-culture, every friend you have would be a visor-wearing, football-loving, war-mongering douche bag.

Yesterday’s heroes are feeling old these days, folks. They’ve fought the good war; any good man deserves retirement at age sixty-five. Our heroes were given a mess and they created a movement, a movement which unfortunately later degraded back into a mess. But if mama taught me anything, it was that a clean room takes constant vigilance. Let your guard down for a week and you’re wading in dirty undies.

If the only three things a generation of foul-mouthed, horny, liberal rock-and-rollers were able to accomplish are Civil Rights, stadium rock, and counter-culture, (and the true list of accomplishments is longer) well that ain’t bad. In an age where government policy is silencing the creative and critical voices through policy, it is a very sad day when our idols cut out the middleman and become their own, final censor.

Fellow members of the doomed Generation Z, our response to this tragedy should be to grab that First Amendment torch Hunter held aloft so high and run with it. Because now, there’s one less creative genius in the world to look after our ungrateful asses.

“On my way out, I paused long enough to give him a quick beating on both sides of his ugly, truthless head…"

-HST