Transcript of Dune Pod’s The Big Lebowski (1998) Episode.
[Dune Pod theme song plays alone, ramps down]
HAITCH Hey everybody, it’s Haitch and welcome to the latest installment of Dune Pod, your one stop shop to get ready for the new Dune movie. This week I’m joined as always by my co host Jason.
JASON I will say that I have bowled at the White House.
HAITCH And by legendary tech investor and Shark Tank host, Chris Sacca.
CHRIS I mean at minimum, that movie is a disaster that you will watch again and again. But at a maximum there is something genius there.
HAITCH We discuss the number one cold film of all time, The Big Lebowski. Shot by our man, Roger Deakins. We discuss the amazing community that has sprung up around the film, it’s limitless rewatchability, and give you all the behind the scenes secret insights. If you’re enjoying the show, we need your help. Be cool like listener Charlie and leave us a five star rating and a review wherever you listen to your podcasts, as it really helps listeners find the show. And now without further a-Dune, The Big Lebowski.
[theme music fades out]
HAITCH Well tell us about, tell us about the first Lebowski Fest you went to?
CHRIS Well, the first one I went to, I mean, I saw on the internets that it was happening in Kentucky and I was a little jealous because at the time I don’t think that was really in my, in my budget to get to Kentucky. But ultimately, I there was a break in work and Lebowski Fest was happening at the Imperial Palace in Vegas in 2004. And so I rounded up a couple of my besties, a guy named Chester Young, who I’m pretty sure you’ve sat with at some point Goldman, unwittingly.
JASON Yeah, yeah.
CHRIS And Chester and my buddy Hawkeye and another guy, Forrest, who now works at Salesforce, I think. But first, it was kind of implied that you’d show up with a costume so we rolled up dressed as Autobahn.
JASON So strong.
CHRIS The album cover.
HAITCH Smart.
CHRIS And so easy to achieve, but like conceptual and so it felt smart. But and the way they broken up the program was into two nights. The first was a screening, a group screening, at the Imperial Palace in a ballroom, they hadn’t provided enough seating. It was very well organized, but they hadn’t provided enough seating. So we sat on the floor. Jason for the shownotes, I think I sent you a picture of —
JASON Yeah, can we include that?
CHRIS Oh, yeah, please.
JASON Great. Okay, great, great, great.
CHRIS A picture of like, you know, at least a half a dozen spilled white Russians on the ground, straws everywhere. It was pandemonium. [Haitch laughs]
JASON Yeah, a lot of fallen soldiers. A lot of fallen soldiers in that photo.
CHRIS A lot of ins, a lot of outs. Lot of what-have-yous. But, but it was an incredibly well run event. And then the second night was come in costume, let’s go take over a bowling alley, where the scoring screens where they ran the feature itself, and it was just fantastic. And at every turn — like, look, I know people go to Comic Con and stuff like that and cosplay. But at every turn, I was really blown away by the extent to which people embrace the culture of the movie. And dressed up and went in on it. Because that just didn’t happen with random kind of hipstery type movie. It wasn’t you know, like this wasn’t centered around a Marvel character or anything.
HAITCH And the attitude, the vibe, the vibe was there?
CHRIS It was insane. It was like this wildly inclusive group actually. And so but what I think was unique about it was it was one of these idiosyncratic things where instead of dressing like the main character, sure, there were a couple Walters, there were some dudes — I mean, that Pendleton sweater was out there available. But it was almost a contest to see who could come up with the most obscure costume reference to the film. And so —
HAITCH How many Autobahns were there?
CHRIS There was one other Autobahn group in 2004.
HAITCH Nice.
CHRIS And so I’d sent Goldman a picture, we took a picture together actually with them.
JASON Yeah. It’s strong.
HAITCH Nice.
CHRIS There was a — but I think the most devastatingly well executed was this girl who on her front wore Larry’s homework about the Louisiana Purchase. [Haitch laughs] That had a D on it. As a full sandwich board, and on the back, Jackie Treehorn’s doodle.
HAITCH Oh yeah. Ohh yeah.
CHRIS I just, I mean, I swooned like I’d never seen anything like this. I mean, sure, there were guys who dressed as the rug and we would try to pee on him all night.
HAITCH Sure, sure.
CHRIS There’s full commitment type stuff where someone would come in a wheelchair. You know, my buddy, Chester is Asian. So he got a lot of the ‘Chinaman is not the issue’ thrown at him. [Haitch laughs] But I did appreciate you know, if you think about the movie like Walter, Walter’s reaction to the big, to the dude in the bowling alley, when the dude mentions the Chinaman, I really do respect Walter for calling his friend in instead of calling him out.
JASON Yeah, yeah.
CHRIS You know? Like, I think there’s a there’s a lesson to be learned for our times right now.
HAITCH Absolutely.
CHRIS Instead of being enraged, he was like, “Dude, please, preferred nomenclature” and he really called him in. You know?
HAITCH Yeah, yeah!
CHRIS It’s a teachable moment. Instead of pushing his friend away, we could do more of that. Right?
HAITCH We need to do more of that.
JASON But you you went to, you went to Lebowski Fest in 2004, which implies that you were a fan of the movie from long before that. Like you had the vibe had spoken to you on some spiritual level. Like what was your journey into the movie?
CHRIS So, is there ever a movie that’s harder to provide a synopsis of, ever? Like, I mean, I mean, I’m putting that to a couple of geeks. I’m sure you’re gonna come up with one.
HAITCH I have one. It’s hard. It was very difficult, yes.
CHRIS My kids asked me “so what’s it about?” And the I googled it, the IMDb one that came up was: Two goons mistake The Dude Lebowski for a millionaire Lebowski and urinate on his rug, trying to recompense his rug from the wealthy Lebowski, he gets entwined in an intimate kidnapping case. [Chris laughs] I mean, the Coens have gone on to say like the plot doesn’t matter at all. But, like, and so I think because it’s a piece of art, it’s the most rewatchable movie of all time. You watch it for new details, new revelations, new coincidences, new callbacks, every time is is a new journey. And I mean, God bless everybody who’s like, made it into a religion and stuff like that. I don’t think it’s like that for me.
HAITCH It’s not all passive either, right? Like, it’s not like, it’s not like just like this mellow vibe. It has a whole ride to it. And it has intensity and emotional stuff. It’s not that The Dude is like a one note, you know, he has a very explicit journey. That really works, so.
CHRIS Well it’s amazing that a guy who has regular outbursts in the movie is revered as Zen like character.
HAITCH Yeah, exactly! [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS I kind of appreciate that. I think in all of our journey to figure out how to chill out more. I definitely have my moments where I’m prone to absolute rage. That’s funny. I mean, there’s The Dudeism religion with 500,000 priests out there.
HAITCH Amazing.
CHRIS And, and yet he loses his fucking mind multiple times in the movie.
HAITCH Well, we’re gonna get in deep on it, as folks, in case you haven’t noticed already, tonight, we are talking about here on Dune Pod, we are covering The Big Lebowski. We’re sort of an unofficial Coens’ podcast and definitely an official Roger Deakins.
JASON Deakins podcast. Yeah. Anything Roger Deakins touched is fair game for Dune. Even though he has no involvement with Dune.
HAITCH It clearly, like, Denis studied with, you know, at the altar of Deakins, as we have as well. So he has a huge impact on the look and the style of Dune 2021. So, so that is our that is our topic tonight. In the bottom of the hour, we’ll be talking about The Big Lebowski. And here to join us and enlighten as you’ve already heard, we have investing legend, progressive icon, Chris Sacca. Welcome to the pod.
CHRIS Right on, man. I mean, that is the most tenuous nexus I’ve ever heard to tie in. [Jason & Haitch laugh] The subject matter of a podcast. Tell me, can I just go back like, did you guys start this thing and then run out of shit to talk about, but just enjoyed talking about Dune still?
JASON Sacca, the movie got moved back a year, is what happened. [Chris & Jason laugh] This thing called the pandemic happened and the movie got moved back from December of 2020 until October of 2021.
CHRIS I appreciate you owning it. Good. Okay.
HAITCH But I think also like we realized at some point, we like talking about these movies. And if Jason and I think they’re interesting, and they have something to say about Dune, or they have something interesting to tell people, hopefully they’ll have fun listening to it. So I no longer lose any sleep. I used to create like these tenuous relationships and stuff. And now I’m like, fuck it. It’s just we want to talk Lebowski. So we’re gonna do it.
JASON Yeah.
CHRIS I mean, I get that look, I think particularly during the pandemic, my go to pod has been the Rewatchables on The Ringer network. And it’s just, I mean, you just need these moments of sentimentality, of looking back, of reveling, you know, at a time when we can all hang out together. There’s community in these films, right?
HAITCH Totally.
CHRIS Even if you’re not watching at the same time, there’s community in these things. And I just find myself, really I get like, probably inexcusably emotional listening to old Rewatchables stuff. It’s a real go to right now. So I totally get it.
HAITCH Awesome. Well, we’ve been having a great time and I love the fact that we can go on a very wide journey in terms of what we’re doing. So this week, we’re talking Lebowski, Coen brothers and Roger Deakins. Next week, we are talking Coen brothers and Roger Deakins as we have Merci Grace, PM and investing trendsetter who will be joining us to talk about True Grit.
JASON Oh, great.
HAITCH Yeah. Jeff does it again. This time we have Josh Brolin featured in Dune 2021, this was a film he did just a couple of years before. So excited to see Josh.
JASON A strong connection.
CHRIS Yeah, that’s that seems much firmer. I appreciate that.
HAITCH So tell us about your extensive history with Dune.
CHRIS Okay, so I feel like I betrayed you guys because I actually went and watched the trailer last night.
HAITCH Oooh!
JASON Oh, of which one? Of the Lynch one? Or of the new one? [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS The old one, the old one, the original one.
JASON Okay, okay.
CHRIS And I, so I — it’s like a two minute trailer, three minute trailer? Two minutes in and Sting still hadn’t been revealed and then I started worrying maybe I had the wrong movie in mind. And and then again, I was kind of disappointed there was no Tina Turner and then I realized she’s in a totally different picture. [Haitch laughs]
JASON That’s a different movie. That’s a different movie.
CHRIS I didn’t realize that the Twin Peaks guy was in this movie.
JASON Yup.
HAITCH Oh, yeah, Kyle. Yeah.
CHRIS That was surprising. I also, it looked kind of Blade Runner-y to me.
JASON Yeah. Same time.
CHRIS It’s got some futuristic stuff. But what’s funny is my recollection of it, never saw it, probably saw it flipping channels, was it it was all like some desert worm type stuff.
HAITCH That’s pretty good for Dune. Pretty good synopsis.
CHRIS Big desert worms. But, but yeah, when I watched that trailer, it had some really cool cities and futuristic, like, you know, like, aerial subways and stuff. So. I mean, yeah, that’s, that’s —
JASON That’s great.
CHRIS If you can tell, so I don’t prepare for podcasts. And I never get nervous. But I’m a little on edge right now. [Haitch laughs] Because this is like a Dune-less pod as long as I’m on it. There’s very, very little Dune.
HAITCH Alllll are welcome.
JASON Yeah, we’ve had plenty of folks who don’t really have any connection to Dune. And like, we appreciate you watching the trailer. And being willing to join our religious movement.
CHRIS I thought about actually watching the movie, but um, I’ll just be honest, that Netflix F1 series is is amazing.
HAITCH Nice.
CHRIS And last night was last night was episode like season three, episode nine, Man on Fire, which I had to watch twice in a row. It’s so compelling. Are you guys into that yet?
HAITCH I haven’t seen it yet, no.
JASON No.
HAITCH It just hit our Discord. People were raving about it. So.
CHRIS I went from not caring about cars at all to I now have multiple fantasy teams in F1 leagues.
HAITCH Wow.
CHRIS Like yeah, I mean, not only did I make my family, listen to the race in the car on our way to brunch the other day.
JASON Listening to a race is aggressive
CHRIS Listening to the race. Well, we were watching it. And then we had to go get in the car. And so I made everyone listen to it. I plugged a USB , and made everyone listen to it.
JASON Oh my gosh.
CHRIS And then had to check my fantasy results. I’m actually — I did pretty well.
HAITCH Ha!
JASON Yeah. That’s great. That’s great. I’m really proud of you.
HAITCH Congrats.
CHRIS Okay. That’s why I didn’t watch Dune last night. I apologize.
JASON That’s fine.
HAITCH No, no, that is not a problem. It is absolutely not required.
JASON It’s a good excuse.
HAITCH Alright. Well, let’s, let’s break into just briefly into some Dune News.
[sound bite plays] Would you like to know more?
JASON Dune News.
HAITCH There’s no Dune News.
JASON No, the movie’s in the can, we’re just waiting for it to come out.
CHRIS Okay, but tell me about that. Like are they gonna —
HAITCH It’s coming October 1st, so Warner Brothers is releasing all the films through 2021 day and date on HBO Max. And they kind of surprised and screwed over all of their production partners by just announcing that that was happening. And they’ve been renegotiating deals with them to try and have everybody get along. And there’s been no official announcement about Dune. But it’s all, everything is unfolding.
JASON And the international exhibitors have already announced their dates.
CHRIS That wasn’t Dune News, that was just for my benefit, right?
JASON Well, you know, it’s helpful. It’s helpful.
CHRIS No, it is. It is. I appreciate. I’m grateful. But none of that was news.
JASON No.
HAITCH No, not new news. Godzilla vs. Kong, which was also produced by Legendary and Warner Brothers, the same as Dune, that opens on Friday. So this is like the first big test of sort of mid end pandemic stage opening in theaters and HBO Max. So hopefully everybody gets paid and everything works out.
CHRIS Can I ask for a tenuous nexus to a follow up segment right now?
HAITCH Sure.
JASON Sure.
CHRIS In Lebowski news, what’s the state of Turturro’s movie? Like that was slated for a 2020 release and I didn’t really follow up on it. Where’s that?
JASON Which movie is that?
CHRIS It’s the one where he’s a pederast. Turns out he was framed for being a pederast is the backstory.
HAITCH Hmm!
JASON Like, there’s going to be a Jesus movie?
CHRIS Yeah! Turturro couldn’t get the Coen brothers to sequel it. But they did give him permission to go out —
HAITCH And make the character.
CHRIS And make this spin off around his character. Because he’s only got two scenes in Lebowski.
JASON Ohhhh.
CHRIS Which seems criminal in retrospect. And I don’t, by the way, I don’t think he was excited to actually play those scenes from what I’ve read.
JASON Oh, The Jesus Rolls?
CHRIS But that said, where did that movie go? Yeah. Jesus Rolls. Where is it? It was a 2020 movie.
JASON I don’t know, yeah. It’s, I don’t know. It’s got Bobby Cannavale and Audrey Tautou and Christopher Walken. It looks amazing!
CHRIS I mean —
HAITCH Yeah, at a minimum, we’ll provide links in the shownotes to whatever we find.
CHRIS I mean, at a minimum that movie is a disaster that you will watch again and again.
JASON Oh, yeah, for sure. [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS At a maximum, there is something genius there.
HAITCH Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
CHRIS I’d really, anyway, I’d really like to know the fate of that film. So if anyone’s listening and could reply in the tweets, I’ll reinstall Twitter to look for mentions to let us know where that film is going.
JASON That’s great. It’s got a poster and everything. Oh, man.
CHRIS It’s got art?!
HAITCH Ah!
JASON Yeah, it’s got art. The art is a purple ball with the hairnet on it. [Chris laughs]
HAITCH Nice. It’s in the can, right?
JASON It’s definitely done. Yeah.
HAITCH Alright, well, so I do have one piece of Dune Pod news even though we don’t have any Dune News. And that is that we now have starting this week, we have transcripts available for every episode. So if you would prefer to read our thoughts as opposed to listen to them, or if you do not have the ability to listen to them, you can read them. And those are available Medium.com/@dunepod. Those transcripts will be uploaded every Monday morning. And you can check those out. So please take a look, and our dear friend Sophie Shin, from another show is creating those transcripts and editing them for us. So we’re really excited. Sophie, thank you so much for doing that for us.
JASON Thank you, Sophie. That will be, those transcripts are all that will remain of human civilization and they’ll have to rebuild everything based on the transcripts from Dune Pod. So good luck.
CHRIS Wait, that’s a person who does that?!
HAITCH Yeah, combination of AI with personal scrubbing —
JASON It’s a cyborg. Sophie’s a cyborg.
CHRIS That’s incredible.
JASON Yeah.
[interim soundbite plays]
HAITCH Alright, well, so shall we get into it?
JASON Let’s do it. My God.
[The Man in Me by Bob Dylan plays]
HAITCH The Big Lebowski is a wild ride through the surreal streets of Los Angeles in the bygone era of the early 90s. Jeff Lebowski, also known as The Dude has his laid back lifestyle of bowling and chilling out thrown into chaos when he is the victim of mistaken identity. Beaten up and intimidated by unknown assailants for the debts and reckless behavior of the young and beautiful Bunny Lebowski, he is drawn deeper into a shadowy world of crime, philanthropy, art, pornography, and nihilism. Alongside his bowling league teammates, Walter Sobchak and Donny, The Dude attempts to figure out what’s going on, stop getting his ass kicked, and maybe even walk away from all this with a little extra cash in his bathrobe. Will he put the puzzle together, make rent and advanced to the league semi finals? The Dude abides in The Big Lebowski.
[The Man in Me by Bob Dylan ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
JASON Mmm. That’s good.
CHRIS Oh, that’s strong. You authored that?
HAITCH Yes.
CHRIS Oh, that’s fantastic. Well done.
JASON You can send that to your kids.
CHRIS Yeah, yeah.
HAITCH And it’ll be in the transcripts.
CHRIS Give them some nightmares. But it also be illuminating. I appreciate that. That’s well done. See that’s one of the big draws to this thing is like, how do you cast this? It’s like a Rorschach test. How do you summarize this movie?
HAITCH So for me, I saw in the theaters in ’98. I was living in Minnesota at the time getting a computer science degree and I came back to visit my buddy Hamid. And we went and saw it in the theaters, I was a big Coen fan.
CHRIS You saw it because their name was attached? That’s why?
JASON Yeah.
HAITCH Because the Coens? Yeah, I mean, every time a Coens movie came out, I was definitely there.
JASON And this is the movie after Fargo. So it’s like, if you liked what they had done, you were excited for their next movie.
CHRIS But just to be clear, very few people went to see it in a theater. So I was just curious —
HAITCH Right.
CHRIS What the compulsion was. So I mean, those guys went from Oscar to 5 million box office.
JASON No one saw this movie. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
HAITCH Well, so like I discovered the Coens with Raising Arizona. I mean, that was just like, seminal film of my college days. And I think my sophomore year of college, Miller’s Crossing came out. And that was for about 20 years, my favorite film of any film, like I think the best made film ever, in terms of script and acting, and dialogue and cinematography, just the whole thing. So yeah, I was definitely way into them.
JASON I mean, it’s interesting. I don’t really know the explanation of how this movie became a cult classic, we should get into it, but like the — I saw this movie in the theater too, because I was a big Coen Brothers fan, like my peer group was really into, like, you know, the entire kind of Coen Brothers vibe, and we went to you know, we went to go see it, and it became like a movie once it came out and DVD and I graduated from college in ’99. That we just watched on DVD, like daily. When I was in like a real like, low point, burnout stage of my life living in Baltimore, like, you know, kind of falling out, flunking out of grad school.
HAITCH Ooff.
JASON We were watching The Big Lebowski like every day.
CHRIS I’ve never heard about that chapter actually.
JASON Oh, it’s the darkest chapter of my life. Yeah, I was like —
CHRIS It’s weird. So I thought that would get covered in Dune Pod news. [Haitch laughs]
JASON Yeah, no, I we’ve I think we’ve talked about a bit before but I saw Dave Reardon I think is an occasional listener of Dune Pod, was my roommate in Baltimore. And we almost killed ourselves by accident. When like, there was a maggot outbreak in our apartment and we accidentally combined — not accidentally — we combined bleach and ammonia to try to —
CHRIS Oh yeah, that’s a good one.
JASON To try to kill the maggots and produce chlorine gas. It’s amazing we didn’t die. I should also note I was in grad school for physics. So there’s really not a lot of excuse.
HAITCH What was — like what was happening? You’re just like, were you existential crisis or?
JASON Just really stoned. Just way too much weed.
HAITCH Okay.
JASON Just like, yeah, just really stoned a lot. We were like, We were listening to Howard Stern on tape delay. And like, just yeah, not in a good place mentally. I was only there for about seven months and then dropped out and moved to California, but it’s definitely the low point of my life. Hopefully, ever.
HAITCH Alright. Well, this was a beacon that you grabbed onto.
JASON Big Lebowski was there! Yeah, it was great. So I saw, I’ve seen the movie 50 to 100 times.
[Tumbling Tumbleweeds by Sons of the Pioneers plays]
HAITCH So the film starts out with this unbelievable, like, I was so stoked when it came on. And I heard it start with Tumbling Tumbleweed. And we have Sam Elliot with his unbelievable voice giving this intro. So like, what’s you — when when you see that, when you hear those words, Chris? Like, what does that do? And what are your initial impressions just to that opening shot in the grocery store?
CHRIS You know, depending on what kind of night it is, like when you hear that song. Look for your lighter. [Jason laughs]
JASON It’s like a Pavlovian response?
CHRIS Yeah make sure, yeah, make sure you’ve got clean water. And like that’s, I mean, that song is —
JASON Is a cue?
CHRIS Yeah, pretty much. Exactly. Stage left, let’s go. But no, I mean, look, I’m not one of those. Like, I can’t name multiple music supervisors. But the T Bone Burnett shit is just special.
JASON Yeah.
HAITCH Yep.
CHRIS And so a movie opening with something like that just makes it feel authentic. And it makes it feel totally non commercial in the very first scene. Right? And so you’re like, Alright, we’re into something now. And then when they bring in Sam Elliott, you’re like, oh, we’re gonna do some cowboy shit right now, like that, that just brings so much grit to the opening of this movie that just makes it so different than everybody else, what everybody else is doing, particularly at that time. I mean, so Jason. I’m like, I graduated college, I think two years ahead of you. And so what was seminal when I, I mean, you know, like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction hit hard in school for me. They’re everybody’s Halloween costume. And that was a big shift in cinema to where it was back on the dialogue. Like it was just the sport of the nuance of pointless dialogue. Like talking about food, drink —
HAITCH Clerks
CHRIS Yeah. Oh, yeah. Clerks, Swingers, like just movies that didn’t need to have a major purpose and didn’t have to revolve around a traditional plotline, but instead could just be about the conversation. And so Lebowski obviously elevated that a lot. I mean, one of the most quotable movies of all time.
HAITCH Yeah, how about that, how about that intro long shot at The Dude?
[clip from The Big Lebowski plays]
THE STRANGER VOICE OVER Now this story I’m about to unfold took place back in the early nineties — just about the time of our conflict with Saddam and the Iraqis. I only mention it ’cause sometimes there’s a man — I won’t say a hero — ’cause what’s a hero? — but sometimes there’s a man. And I’m talking about The Dude here. Sometimes there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that’s The Dude in Los Angeles.
[clip from The Big Lebowski ends]
HAITCH Just one shot with him getting milk, or half and half, and checking that out. Just absolutely gorgeous, slowly rolling in, you know, Deakins just flexing bright out at the beginning.
CHRIS Good callback to Dune. But it is strong and the lighting in there is great, the writing the check out.
HAITCH 69 cent check.
CHRIS Yeah at Ralph’s.
HAITCH And then also the Bush saying ‘this aggression will not stand’ I had forgotten about him specifically saying that and that context that set you know, it’s sort of like this is a post Desert Storm versus post 9/11 but seeing how it permeates all the characters through this film is actually quite powerful.
CHRIS Well, do you remember the date on the check?
JASON Yeah, the check is 9/11.
HAITCH Oh, really?
CHRIS Yeah, massive foreshadowing, man.
HAITCH My gosh.
CHRIS Coen brothers are Illuminati.
JASON They know. Yeah. The Coen Brothers no jet fuel melts steel beams. The, I think the idea of I mean, the, ‘this aggression will not stand’ which comes like, you know, a callback line in the movie and the fact that like, the narrator establishes that he The Dude is The Dude for his place and time sort of establishes The Dude as this character that is the Zeitgeist character who he doesn’t himself almost, he almost doesn’t have a personality himself. He just kind of absorbs things that other people saying gets kind of —
HAITCH Reflects.
JASON Yeah. And well also in the in almost every scene of the movie, there’s a lot of scenes that end with The Dude getting knocked out or a phone call coming or like being you know, you know, like shanghaied by some guy like in the alley.
HAITCH ‘I’m sending a car to pick you up!’
JASON Yeah, exactly like a lot of scenes in with something just happening to him as opposed to him making a choice. And that is true on the language level of the movie as well, which is like one of the interesting kind of postmodern elements of the Lebowski movie.
HAITCH So we have kind of a smash cut from him at the grocery store walking in his door into his apartment, and immediately being attacked. “Where’s the money Lebowski?!” and the guy peeing out his rug.
CHRIS “Where’s the money shithead?!”
HAITCH So one problem I had getting ready for this episode. I always rip samples to drop in. Literally every line in this movie could be included in here, like it is insane how absolutely memorable this is. And the goons in that opening scene are hilarious.
JASON Yeah, they’re really good. And, and like there’s a line — Sacca and I were texting today — there’s a line, I’ve seen this movie like a billion times, and I just noticed today that Woo says —
[clip from The Big Lebowski plays]
WOO Ever thus to deadbeats, Lebowski.
[clip from The Big Lebowski ends]
CHRIS Ever thus the deadbeats?
JASON Ever thus the deadbeats! Semper tyrannis, but for deadbeats. [Haitch laughs] Which is, which is amazing. I mean, it’s such an amazing, like, kind of. It’s such like a throwaway line. Like I said, I’ve never noticed it before. But it’s like just such a like, it’s such a statement of what this movie is gonna be. I was excited. That’s like part of what makes this movie so great as you can find new things and then on your 100th viewing of it.
HAITCH So these two guys realize that this is not the Lebowski they thought, they leave. And we go to Bob Dylan —
CHRIS Wait, wait, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, well, I appreciate you. I mean, for you summarizing things as a superpower. [Haitch laughs] But I cannot imagine another human being on this planet saying these two guys find out he’s not the Lebowski they’re looking for and they leave. The rug was micturated upon!
JASON That’s true.
CHRIS I mean, Woo pees on the fucking rug. man. That literally is the impetus for everything that follows.
HAITCH Oh, yeah, for sure. I said that earlier. But yes. We will recall that. That’s right. Let the record reflect — is it miterate?
JASON Micturate.
CHRIS Micturate.
HAITCH Micturate. Okay. Very good. Yeah, I noticed that line when it came from The Big Lebowski later. [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS In this fair city? [Haitch & Jason laugh]
HAITCH So we cut from there to the bowling alley, we have credits, as we have slow motion bowling. And we have Walter and Donny, and again, this scene is just ridiculous. In terms of memorable lines.
JASON Yeah.
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
THE DUDE Yeah, man. It really tied the room together.
WALTER So this was a valued —
DONNY What tied the room together, Dude?
WALTER Were you listening to The Dude’s story, Donny?
DONNY What?
WALTER Were you listening to The Dude’s story?
DONNY I was bowling.
WALTER So you have no frame of reference here, Donny. You’re did like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie —
THE DUDE Walter. What’s the point man?
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
JASON It’s also gorgeous like the shot of the bowling alley and all of this stuff before the dialogue is amazing too like, just in terms of how they establish the vibe of the bowling alley, which I believe no longer exists. We found that out last week. That bowling alley is gone.
HAITCH How about the Jesus’s partner and it’s just a shot of a stomach?
JASON Yeah, Liam.
CHRIS That’s Liam, man, I’ve had multiple drinks with that guy.
JASON Really?
CHRIS Yeah. He comes down for Lebowski Fest. I don’t know if he misses them.
JASON Wow. That’s great. That’s great. I’m glad that he exists.
CHRIS So one thing that’s special about Lebowski Fest is it in the beginning, you know, like Bridges and folks didn’t show up to those things. But then they started appearing and taking it seriously because they’ll fill the Wiltern Theater. I mean, there’ll be, however, many people can fit that theater that is full, like and everybody, you know, like that place is cloudy, by the time they get to the bowling alley. But, but all the big players show up so you can get a picture and a signature with Liam, with the Ralph’s checkout girl.
JASON That’s amazing. The Ralph’s checkout girl is strong.
CHRIS With the waitress from the family restaurant. The guy passed away recently, I believe, but no, the guy who owns the Corvette.
HAITCH “I kill your fucking car man!” [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS I mean, they, they come to these things, and it’s just amazing. I mean, it is there is a psychological thing I love witnessing of where these folks are the most powerful and celebrated people in the room for the night.
JASON That’s awesome.
CHRIS You know, I mean, it’s like Liam walks on air in that room and it is beautiful, for all the right reasons, you know, for the most positive stuff.
JASON I feel Jeff Bridges has like embraced this movie in a big way. Like it’s almost like kind of making a part of his like public personality that he is Dude like.
CHRIS I mean, he wrote a book about it. He wrote a book about the Zen of it, right? With some Zen master. There’s a great interview that he and Goodman, and Buscemi gave with that guy from The Today Show who’s name I forget, not Matt Lauer. I mean, it’s way more recent than that. It was not a big anniversary. Anyway. It’s a fun interview. Because you see, Jeff’s absolute joy.
JASON That’s great.
CHRIS Like the, the how much he revels in this movie in the performances, in the bit performances to not just like fellow stars, but how much he enjoyed. And then it’s infectious. You see Goodman really excited about the role, and how many lines from other characters that Goodman knows who aren’t even in his scenes! And so they start asking, and he’s like, yeah, I rewatch it. It’s great. Like, he’s like, I don’t you know, and these are guys, you don’t tend to rewatch their own movies.
HAITCH Sure.
CHRIS And Buscemi at first is a little cold, but he starts to warm up. There’s just something so special about this movie, you know, I mean, maybe if you’re just somebody where anyone who sees you in public walks up and says, ‘Shut the fuck up, Donny’ you know, maybe you’d have a different set of memories about it or different inclination. But it’s really, really cool to see how excited Jeff is. And so I went to Lebowski Fest LA where he showed up and played with his band.
JASON Oh, yeah, he’s got a band.
CHRIS And then as they introduce the movie, they were striking the band set as the screen comes down. They’re playing the movie, everybody’s you know, super loud and baked.
HAITCH Going crazy.
CHRIS Somebody brings him his sweater, and his sunglasses.
JASON Oh my God!
CHRIS And the place loses its collective mind. And it was just one of those just wildly, like, cathartic and powerful moments. And, and, you know, like, I mean, like, humans crave shared experiences. And it’s super fun when your team scores a touchdown. But when The Dude is standing on a stage in front of a couple 1000 super high people who are about to repeat and scream at the screen, every single line of this movie, it’s really special.
HAITCH That’s amazing.
JASON It’s also, it’s amazing that this movie, I mean, just on the subject of being a cult movie, like the other cult movies that I’ve personally been involved with, not like the making of but have gone to see in the theater multiple times, is like Dazed and Confused. And the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And this is just a much better movie than either of those like, this is a good movie like this is a Coen brothers movie shot by Roger Deakins. Like it’s a legit great movie. So it’s weird for a cult — you know, Dazed and Confused is a good movie, too. But like, this is a legit great piece of cinema. And so it’s weird for a cult movie to also be very good. Like, you know, like there’s this movie was not well reviewed. And like you said it didn’t do good box office. But a lot of the reviewers who panned it have gone back to acknowledge that they missed something. Which is rare for —
CHRIS Including Ebert. I think Ebert went back and gave it four. I think he gave it three and went to circle back to give it four.
JASON Which is crazy. Yeah.
HAITCH Did Ebert ever come back around on Dune?
JASON No, I don’t think he can, I think Ebert went to his grave knowing didn’t work.
HAITCH Yeah, yeah. [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS No, but that’s another tight tie in though, I like that.
JASON It’s a tight tie in.
CHRIS Keep it going.
HAITCH So Joel was on the Team Deakins podcast — which Chris, if you haven’t listened to that podcast, phenomenal, Roger Deakins, and his wife James, interviewing everybody in the film industry. Joel said they made 25 million total, international, 25 million. But starting the next year, they sold 700,000 DVDs a year.
JASON Crazy.
HAITCH And that was the just sensation that they made, quite, quite amazing.
CHRIS Jason, you and I have a friend in common whose name I can’t mention for the following reason. He recently, he’s in the midst of a divorce right now. And as he was leaving his home to move out, he took all of his clothes and toiletries.
JASON And he took his Lebowski DVDs?
CHRIS He took his Big Lebowski DVD. [Chris laughs]
JASON Yeah, I feel if you’re recently divorced, The Big Lebowski DVD is what you need. Like to start that journey for sure. I mean, I don’t speak from experience, but.
CHRIS He literally, that’s how he let me know he moved out. He texted me —
JASON A photo? [Jason laughs]
CHRIS Yeah, it was almost like Steve Martin like —
[clip of The Jerk plays]
NAVIN The ashtray and the paddle game, that’s all I need! And this…the remote control. The ashtray and the paddle game and the remote control and that’s all I need!
[clip of The Jerk ends]
CHRIS I’m gonna take this thermos.
HAITCH And this remote control. [Chris laughs]
CHRIS He took his Lebowski DVD. [Haitch laughs]
HAITCH That’s incredible. Alright. So remind me, does The Dude decide just on his own to go visit The Big Lebowski? He doesn’t get a call right?
JASON Walter suggested and then in an off screen moment, he must call Brandt and tell Brandt like what’s going on.
HAITCH Yeah. Alright, so here so here we are. Finally, I had completely forgotten about this. This performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Unreal. Every second he’s on screen.
JASON Yeah. As loyal Dune Pod listeners know, Philip Seymour Hoffman, my neighbor, one apartment above me in New York City at the time of his death, unfortunately.
CHRIS Really? Woah.
JASON Yeah. Yeah. Crazy.
CHRIS Yeah, I guess I’m not a loyal listener. I’m sorry.
JASON No, that’s okay. That’s alright.
CHRIS But Jason, I don’t know if you remember this. But my team at Google was project Lebowski.
JASON Uh huh. Right, right.
CHRIS And, and every one of my team was issued an Achiever shirt.
JASON That’s amazing.
HAITCH Oh my God. [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS And I’m proud we are of all of them.
JASON My team was The Bums Lost. [Chris & Haitch & Jason laugh]
CHRIS Are you employed, sir?
HAITCH On a weekday?!
JASON Is that what —
CHRIS Without the necessary means for the necessary means for.
JASON Necessary means for, yeah. I love that line reading. Can we talk about that for a second?
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
THE DUDE These are —
BRANDT Those are Mr. Lebowski’s children, so to speak —
THE DUDE Different mothers, huh?
BRANDT No, they’re not —
THE DUDE Racially, they’re pretty cool —
BRANDT They’re not — [laughs] they’re not literally his children; they’re the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers, inner-city children of promise but without the necessary means for necessary means for a higher education, so Mr. Lebowski has committed to sending all of them to college. Excuse me? Thank you. Thank you.
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
JASON The fact that Brandt does that like, he does that the children without the necessary means the necessary means for.I feel everything he’s doing through like the the the cringe at Lebowski continuing to touch the plaque on the wall.
HAITCH Indrecible.
JASON It’s just so good. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was such a gift.
CHRIS That guy’s really incredible. But one of the things when you rewatch it again, you’ll notice that I think is special about his acting, is he will make a full facial expression or reaction before he makes the noise that goes with it.
HAITCH Yeah!
JASON Yeah, that’s good. That’s well spotted. That’s good.
CHRIS It’s just amazing. Like you’ll have like a cringe face or process something and then actually make a sound or speak to it. It’s really unique to him.
HAITCH And his laughs! His laughs are incredible as well. When Bunny is painting her toes and talking about blowing Lebowski. His reaction there —
CHRIS Brandt can’t watch her. He has to pay 100. [Haitch laughs]
JASON Yeah, marvelous.
CHRIS I’m just gonna go find a cash machine.
HAITCH When she says to him —
[clip from The big Lebowski plays]
THE DUDE Are you sure he won’t mind?
BUNNY He doesn’t care about anything. He’s a nihilist.
THE DUDE Oh, that must be exhausting.
[clip from The big Lebowski ends]
CHRIS Must be exhausting, yeah.
JASON But first he meets with Lebowski, and I want to say this is a trope and Coen Brothers movies. So I want to say a couple things —
HAITCH Right, the guy behind the desk.
HAITCH The guy behind the desk is, in many ways this movie is like kind of a spiritual cousin of Hudsucker Proxy. Like Hudsucker Proxy is also like a zany genre mix, like movie, like it’s a movie that plays genre. It’s a movie that plays with kind of bizarre humor. It’s a movie that plays with postmodernist language stuff. And then it’s also got, like, you know, a bunch of like, kind of similar motifs, like the guy behind the desk and stuff like that. And this is like one of the Cohen’s branches of movies that they make of which Hail, Caesar! was the most recent example, that generally don’t get well reviewed, like people, that critics don’t like that as much. They want like, you know, they want No Country for Old Men. And they want Fargo. Like the more existential despair stuff. But like the fun ones, the fun ones can really — you know, and then of course, they have like Lady Killers, which is total fucking mess, but like, you know, the like, the fun ones can be really fun. And that’s also where you get like the best soundtracks like, you know, O Brother, Where Art Thou? being the other example.
CHRIS Hey, can I ask you, so who is The Big Lebowski?
HAITCH What do you mean?
CHRIS There’s some debate about this. Who —
HAITCH Who’s the titular character?
CHRIS Yeah.
HAITCH I assume it’s, it’s him in that wheelchair. I assume it’s that Mr. Lebowski.
JASON What’s the argument for not the guy in the wheelchair?
CHRIS It’s Maude. That’s the other argument.
JASON Ohhhhh.
HAITCH Woaaahh.
JASON ’Cause she’s like the real power behind the family?
CHRIS Yeah. Yeah.
JASON I love it. I love it. That’s great. That’s great.
HAITCH Interesting.
CHRIS I mean, there’s —
HAITCH Let’s put a pin in that for just a minute until we get to Maude because I want to talk about specifically what they were doing with her character, which I thought was super interesting.
JASON I love, I love this. I never even thought about this before. This is the levels you get when you bring a real expert into a podcast as opposed to some dilettantes.
HAITCH Alright, so anything else we need to say about the supposed, the heir apparent to the role, the titular role?
JASON I mean, you also get, this is also like ‘the bums lost’ and like you know, ‘do what your parents say, get a job’ and all that stuff, which is just really good. Really good writing.
CHRIS By the way. There’s also, if you really want to nerd out on this, there’s a theory that if you do consider the millionaire Lebowski, The Big Lebowski, then The Dude is actually Little Lebowski because there’s a there’s a little idea that maybe he is the millionaire Lebowski is illegitimate son. And he is actually —
HAITCH From whom? Oh.
CHRIS A beneficiary of the trust.
JASON Of the trust? Ohhh.
CHRIS Yeah, and that’s his source of income. Because there’s a lot of, in the original draft of the script, he was, he had a piece of the royalties of the Rubik’s Cube. [Haitch laughs]
JASON Whaaat?
CHRIS No, seriously. That’s a true story.
JASON That’s an amazing fact.
CHRIS And so, fans — that got cut.
HAITCH The Dude did?
CHRIS The Dude did. Yeah.
HAITCH Wow.
CHRIS He was like Hungarian somehow and had a piece of Rubik’s Cube royalties. And so that’s how he’s able to live this life. [Haitch laughs] Yeah, you know, it’s the 10th already, if you could just slip that check out of the door.
JASON I wondered about that. Because it’s like, yeah, it’s the 10th already. Yeah, it’s like, where’s that check coming from? He’s like writing a 69 cent check at Ralphs. Like, where’s the — where’s the —
CHRIS Dude, it’s already the 10th. You know, if you slip that under the door.
JASON Far out, man. [Chris & Haitch laugh]
HAITCH What do we think about Tara Reid as Bunny?
JASON Where did Tara — where was she coming off of? What was she coming off of when she did this?
HAITCH I mean, this was early days. This was early days.
JASON This is the height of Tara Reid’s powers?
CHRIS I was gonna say, this is Apex mountain. So. [Jason laughs]
JASON American Pie was ’99. So it was actually —
HAITCH After this.
JASON Yeah, it was American Pie was after this. Yeah, ’cause this is the year before.
CHRIS You’re not blowing!
JASON This is the height of her powers. This is, this is like really — actually, this is like her first, this is before the height of her powers. It’s before Cruel Intentions. It’s before American Pie. Yeah, before like the Van Wilder movie. So this is like Tara Reid’s ingenue.
HAITCH Yeah, I thought she was great actually.
JASON Seemed fine. I don’t know if great… great seems strong. [Jason laughs] But I liked her, she does dine.
HAITCH She was believable as Bunny Lebowski.
JASON She was believable as Bunny Lebowski.
HAITCH Alright, so anything else we need before we move back to the bowling alley?
CHRIS I get — hold on. I’m sorry. I completely agree. I do think though there is this moment — so one of the things I struggle with is this Dude, is and the idea of like, Dude as the Zen master. And, and when he walks out of the room, out of the office and says, “he told me and told me to take any rug in the house!” Like that’s, that is a savage chest move.
HAITCH Yeah!
JASON Yeah, that’s good.
CHRIS Like that, I mean, that takes a lot of gumption. And, and so Jason, to your point earlier about how the dude kind of gets stepped on beat up, pushed around, etc. I mean, that’s an offensive move.
JASON That is an offensive move. That’s a rare example.
HAITCH In the movie, yeah, it takes a long time for him to make another move.
JASON Yeah.
CHRIS And so to your point, the movie happens to him. But that right there when he puts those glasses on, and just takes a rug, like, that’s bold, man. That’s bold.
HAITCH Well, and specifically, when he puts the glasses on, it’s like, shields up. He’s like, “fuck you. I’m done with listen to your bullshit.” I love that. And you’re totally right. Going for the rug is awesome.
JASON There’s really only kind of three moments I can think of, in which The Dude kind of has the upper hand like that. Like, there’s that moment. There’s the moment in which like, Lebowski asked him like, you know, what makes a man he says, “Yeah, that and a pair of testicles.” Like he gets, he bests Lebowski in that moment. And then there’s the Jackie Treehorn, “I still jerk off manually” moment, where it’s just like, there’s like those three beats where like Lebowski and the rug and where he’s like, kind of got the better of someone, but they don’t happen often. [Jason laughs] A lot of times he’s just getting the shit kicked out of them.
CHRIS Yeah, he’s on his heels a lot. But on that one, he’s on his toes. For sure.
JASON Yeah, he’s on his toes. Yeah.
HAITCH And I would say so right after the the scene that you just referred to, Jason, is where in Jackie Treehorn, takes the phone call writes down something on the pad. And he, as he sneaks out as he leaves the room, The Dude sneaks over to rub the pencil and see what it was. And that’s like, that’s like a move again, Chris. That’s an offensive move that he’s making in that moment.
JASON Yeah, but it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work.
HAITCH It doesn’t work. But I was like, oh, shit. He’s actually trying something. Yeah. And, and he’s demonstrating some competence, at least to have the idea to know that that was a thing that you could do. [Jason laughs]
CHRIS Do we do we think that do we think that The Dude had access to the $1,000?
JASON No, absolutely not. I don’t believe so. I don’t believe that, I believe that was pure bluff.
HAITCH No, that was a joke.
JASON It was pure bluff. I didn’t know about this Rubik’s Cube knowledge. Before my question, I was gonna ask her in the podcast how we thought he actually ended up paying the rent. ’Cause it didn’t seem like, it didn’t seem like he was gonna be able to do it, Like every like, you know at the end and where they push the invoice over for Donny, he like makes no effort to try to pay for it.
HAITCH Yeah, right. [Haitch laughs]
JASON I feel the dude is not very liquid.
HAITCH No. [Haitch chuckles] No.
CHRIS I mean Walter with the peace of mind. Yeah which is a shout — that’s a callback to Barton Fink.
JASON Yes.
CHRIS To his character Barton Fink. The peace of mind.
JASON I’ll show you the life of the mind!
CHRIS Yeah also the initials for it or SS, like there’s some there’s some Nazi undertones there.
JASON Yes.
HAITCH Alright so Smokey steps over the line.
JASON Ohhh my God. I think this is the first truly great scene in the movie. I think Walter losing it is the first truly transcendent moment of the film.
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
WALTER OVER THE LINE!
SMOKEY Huh?
WALTER I’m sorry Smokey, you were over the line, that’s a foul.
SMOKEY Bullshit, mark it 8, Dude.
WALTER Excuse me? Mark it zero. Next frame.
SMOKEY Bullshit, Walter. Mark it 8, Dude.
WALTER Smokey, this is not Nam. This is bowling, there are rules.
THE DUDE Hey Walter, come on, hey man, it’s Smokey. So his toe slipped over a little? You know, it’s just a game man!
WALTER This is a league game. This determines who enters the next round robin. Am I wrong? Has the whole world gone CRAZY? AM I THE ONLY ONE AROUND HERE WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE RULES? MARK IT ZERO.
THE DUDE They’re calling the cops, man. Put the piece away.
WALTER MARK IT ZERO!
THE DUDE Walter, put the piece away.
WALTER You think I’m fucking around here? MARK IT ZERO!
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
HAITCH If we look at the reaction that we have for Walter, in some sense, you can think about him as being somewhat over the top and somewhat one note, but there definitely is like he is trying to figure out what are the rules, what is right and in a reaction to Vietnam and what’s happening, unfolding at the moment, with what’s going on in Iraq. So is that the sort of — and does that work for you in terms of his reactions and processing there?
CHRIS Well, I mean, he’s struggling with his own identity. Right? So he’s, I mean, he’s — [Chris laughs] — if you will, it is no dream. Right?
JASON It is no dream. [Chris laughs]
CHRIS Yeah. So like, he’s, he’s talking, he’s quoting, you know, Israeli leaders.
HAITCH Yeah, yeah.
CHRIS He we get into the whole Shomer Shabbos thing a little bit. Like he, he gives a shout out to Marty and Cynthia Ackerman, his ex wife. The guy is really struggling with his own identity. Right. His identity as a veteran.
JASON Do you think he really served? Do you think he was in country?
CHRIS Yeah, that’s a big, that’s a big point of discussion.
HAITCH Ohhh.
CHRIS Right.
JASON I mean, I think he’s a veteran, but I don’t know if he was in the shit.
HAITCH Why do we have any reason not to assume that?
JASON Because he’s talks so much about it. Like he talks so much about it.
CHRIS John Goodman doesn’t — John Goodman is not convinced that he served.
JASON That he served.
HAITCH Ohh, shit.
JASON Yeah, like, I mean, the general shorthand is that like, the guys who talked about being in the shit so much weren’t the ones who were actually in the shit.
CHRIS So what — where I’ve come to on that is that he was in the military, but he wasn’t on the front.
JASON I think that’s right. That’s what I think. I think he may have been drafted and not been shipped over or he was shipped over. But like, it was a you know, it didn’t, nothing happened or whatever. Yeah.
HAITCH So do you think he’s carrying that guilt? Or do you think he’s full of shit? Like, it’s all put on?
JASON I think it’s like part of his identity crisis. He’s not really Jewish. He he wasn’t really toe to toe with the man in the black pajamas. Incidentally, like, that’s another, that’s like another point to the thing where he calls in, he calls in Lebowski about not using the word Chinaman. He also calls like, you know, he also calls like, Saddam a camel fucker, like and like, you know —
CHRIS Worthy the fucking adversary.
JASON Yeah. Yeah. [Jason laughs]
HAITCH Fig eaters trying to find reverse on a Russian tank. [Jason & Chris laugh] That was the line.
JASON Great movie. It’s a great movie.
CHRIS Yeah. So yeah, so sorry. We’re at Smokey’s over the line.
JASON Smokey’s over the line.
HAITCH Yeah, so he pulls a gun on him.
CHRIS This is not Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.
JASON There’s rules. [Haitch laughs] I feel that’s top five most quotable lines of the movie and in a movie with that in which the entire script is quotable. I feel ‘this isn’t Nam, there are rules’ is like in the top five.
HAITCH Very strong. Very strong.
CHRIS I just I love the fact that they calmly go out, they finish the round.
HAITCH Yeah, yeah. [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS They calmly go out to the car. In which case there is a response from LAPD with guns drawn. Like rolling into the bowling alley. [Chris laughs] Like, I don’t know if that was a comment on how long it takes LA cops to get involved or what, but.
HAITCH Right, in ’98. Yeah.
CHRIS So anyway, I just love that. How they’re just like, you know, the guy would face charges. But uh, but how the cops just roll in and they’re ready to go.
JASON Yeah, it’s so great.
CHRIS They’re just 45 minutes to an hour late. [Haitch laughs]
JASON Yeah, they finished the whole thing. It doesn’t matter.
HAITCH That’s right. So we cut from there back to The Dude’s. Can we just talk about the Nixon bowling poster?
JASON Loved it. Really strong.
HAITCH Was that a real thing?
JASON I don’t know for a fact where that bowling alley is. I will say that I have bowled at the White House.
CHRIS That wasn’t the White House bowling alley during Nixon’s term?
JASON I mean, it’s certainly not what it looked like, then. It’s certainly not how it looked like eight years ago or six years ago or whatever. But like, it’s possible that it was — it’s possible that’s what it was. I mean, he certainly looks like it’s, it looks like he was president then. Because he’s, he’s kind of of that age in that photo.
HAITCH Mhmm.
CHRIS I believe that was at the White House at the time.
JASON Nice.
HAITCH Impressive.
CHRIS Yeah. Because I think he was the one who added it, apparently.
HAITCH Hmm!
JASON Okay, interesting.
CHRIS I count on you for this kind of knowledge.
JASON I wish I did know that. There’s actually two bowling alleys. There’s one an Eisenhower Executive Office Building one in the Residence. And so I don’t know —
HAITCH Wait what score did you get bowling in the White House?
JASON I’m not very good. I think, you know, I’m like, I’m like a solid 100, 110. I don’t remember what my score was.
CHRIS I googled it really quick. And there’s other pictures of him in that alley behind the White House. As well as, yeah, White House facts.
JASON White House facts. [Jason laughs]
CHRIS There’s Nixon in different clothes bowling there.
JASON Okay, so that is the same bowling alley that I bowled in, but they changed the wallpaper, which is a shame because it looks dope. [Chris laughs]
CHRIS Alright, so he’s back at his house.
HAITCH He’s back at the house and he gets a call, I think from Brandt. And he gets called back to the Big Lebowski’s house. And so he comes in, he’s met by Brett and he’s ushered in. So I just want to call out this was like Deakins is like really revved up now. So it’s just the fire light in that scene, the glowing orange. All of that looked really fantastic. And David Huddleston, who I sort of thought is like a poor man’s Charles Durning, but I think he’s been in, he’s been at some other some other films as well, but I thought he was great. The whole ‘strong men also cry’ and some of that stuff, I thought was, I that was awesome.
JASON Fuckin’ A man.
CHRIS I mean, I’m okay that we skipped by Crane Jackson’s Fountain Street Theatre.
JASON Ohhh.
HAITCH No, no that’s later.
CHRIS Is it?
JASON We didn’t get the performance. We just skipped the —
CHRIS No, no, no, no, we just skipped get the mention of it.
HAITCH That’s right.
CHRIS What a hardcore LA shout out. What I loved about your synopsis in the beginning was how it really sets it in LA. And I think that’s one of the —
JASON A key factor.
CHRIS One of the times I’ve seen this movie come up —
HAITCH Los An-ga-les.
CHRIS Yeah, Los An-ga-les. Is in lists of best LA movies of all time. Right? And so you know, people throw LaLa Land and LA story up there and stuff like that. But this is an unapologetic LA movie.
HAITCH Mhmm.
JASON Yep. And I think this is a kind of important point, actually, like when I saw this movie, for the first time, I was living on the East Coast, I had never been to California. And so I did not know that things like Ralph’s and In and Out Burger were actually real. [Chris laughs] I had never heard of In and Out Burger until this movie. And so —
CHRIS It’s on Radford. [Haitch & Jason laugh]
JASON And so it was really wild, like when I saw this movie later, and I realized, like, oh, the how, and I’ve been to LA and like, how, you know how much of LA this movie really is.
HAITCH So the plan is Brandt and The Big Lebowski want The Dude to deliver $1 million to the kidnappers. They give him a briefcase, the scene of him reading that kidnappers note, and you get The Dude’s inner monologue, it just awesome. Bummer, man. But we cut from there — anything else on this scene?
CHRIS I mean, I just love that he sparks a J.
HAITCH Yeah.
JASON You mind if I do a J? [Chris laughs]
CHRIS Yeah. That’s kind of amazing. Like, just first, he’s got a pre roll on his pocket. I respect that. And then he just finds this is the appropriate time to break one out. And there’s just no objection because of the Kabuki that’s going on from the millionaire Lebowski. Who’s got this whole speech prepared.
JASON Do you feel like the — do you feel The Dude post legalization of weed in California still buys his weed from a guy? [Chris laughs] Like he doesn’t go to a dispensary just out of loyalty? [Haitch laughs]
HAITCH Good question.
CHRIS Comes in baggies. Yeah.
JASON I think so. I like to believe that.
CHRIS It’s too corporate now man. You know?
HAITCH Alright. So we cut back to the bowling alley and we finally have the Jesus.
[Hotel California by The Gipsy Kings plays]
CHRIS I mean, when you said that, I assume you all heard that guitar in your head, right?
HAITCH Oh 100%.
CHRIS But just saying it, like cues that music. God they nailed that.
HAITCH So I saw Do The Right Thing in ’89 in the theater in Florida, which was a tense viewing in a very diverse audience. But I remember seeing him and being so blown away by his performance, Turturro. And then a year later, two years later, in Miller’s Crossing, which I thought was incredible, and then Barton Fink for me was like too over the top. I felt like they did Miller’s Crossing, which was like the perfect movie, but David Lynch won the Palme d’Or for Wild at Heart. And they were like, alright, we just got to go fucking crazy. And that was what Barton Fink became. But for me, I thought his performance here is so like staggeringly good for the whatever six minutes that he’s on screen.
CHRIS Yeah, but he’s a sex offender man, with a record. [Jason & Haitch laugh]
JASON It’s so good.
CHRIS He did eight months in Chino for exposing himself to an eight year old.
JASON In the subtitles, when the Gypsy Kings drops the subtitles, just like “Latino music plays” or something like that. Like it doesn’t — [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS I love watch that you watch it with the subtitles on, that’s a great move. I haven’t done.
HAITCH All the time.
JASON I have to watch it with the subtitles on, with the babies. That’s only move. That’s a, I think one of the other transcendent scenes of the movies that John Turturro kisses the ball.
CHRIS Can I get into a parenting news? Like, what’s your policy on on profanity and your kids?
JASON It’s kind of early for us right now.
HAITCH Yeah, Sam’s three and my daughter’s 23. So it’s kinda like —
JASON The ship sailed on one of them. [Haitch laughs]
HAITCH But no, we don’t do any, we don’t like — I’m trying to even like not do any kind of violence and intensity with Sam. We’re keeping it very, very chill right now.
JASON But just language wise.
CHRIS So my kids, my kids are actually, I can’t even get them to watch Star Wars. They hate violence. Like they —
JASON Okay.
CHRIS I’ve offered those things to them. They don’t care. They’re just, they’re hippies. But we have no language filter in our house.
JASON Yeah, I don’t think we’ll have a language filter.
CHRIS I just, I’ve always worked from home and I can’t change who I am. And so. So it’s funny, I worry about violence and smoking and guns. But the language part and I mean, this is probably the time to point out, there are more F bombs in this movie than then I believe any other major motion picture.
JASON Oh, yeah. There’s a lot of F bombs.
CHRIS They beat —
HAITCH Scarface?
CHRIS Yeah, yeah, there’s more F bombs in this movie than Scarface, which is the prior record holder, I believe. And so it’s like 270 or something plus F bombs.
HAITCH Sam dropped the F bomb, like, a month or two ago, just like one time like he drops up and he’s like “oh, fuck” [Jason laughs] I was like ahh, shit. And you know, he hasn’t done it since.
JASON We haven’t done that yet. Although today, Griffin threw his shoes off the balcony into the trees. And so that —
HAITCH Not cool.
JASON That produced some swearing for me. [Chris & Haitch] As the person who had to go retrieve them.
HAITCH Alright, well, so through the midst of this discussion, The Dude’s kind of working it out with Walter and they basically come to the realization that Bunny has faked it. And he says —
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
THE DUDE It’s all a goddamn fake. Like Lenin said, look for the person who will benefit. And you will, uh, you know, you’ll, uh, you know what I’m trying to say —
DONNY I am the Walrus.
WALTER That fucking bitch!
THE DUDE Yeah.
DONNY I am the Walrus.
WALTER Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin! Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!
DONNY What the fuck is he talking about?
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
CHRIS Alright, can we talk about Donny for a second here?
HAITCH Please.
CHRIS Yeah, this isn’t really related to Dune. So I just wanted to ask permission.
JASON No, no.
HAITCH You don’t have to ask permission for anything, in any aspect of this movie.
CHRIS One theory that’s pretty pervasive, is that Donny is not a real person.
HAITCH Mmhmm.
JASON I love it.
CHRIS Is that Donny is actually either a figment of Walter’s imagination, or is a symptom of actual PTSD he suffered. And that because if you watch the movie through that lens, you’ll notice that there are very few interactions with Donny whatsoever by anybody. Except for a couple of small acknowledgments that The Dude gives him. But it could almost be like acknowledging your buddy’s imaginary friend. You know, or speaking to your kids imaginary friend a little bit. And so and so it’s interesting. I mean, I encourage a rewatch through that lens. But, but there is this argument that maybe the, you know, Donny doesn’t actually exist.
JASON I love it. I love all these metaphysical theories about these movies that we’re getting, that I’ve never even considered before. It’s great. What an amazing theory. That’s great.
HAITCH I am ready to go ahead and jump while we’re here. So we got an email at letters@dunepod.com. Subject line: Sacca. And the body: “Does Chris believe the ‘Donny is dead Big Lebowski theory?’” That was from Chris Kubica. President and Founder of Application Architects.
JASON What do you think? Do you believe this theory that you shared with our listeners?
HAITCH I read the Nerdist article that he included.
JASON Okay.
HAITCH I don’t go for it. But I am curious if you go for it.
CHRIS I believe it a lot more than the theory I saw once once, I don’t know read it a long time ago that Donny is actually a serial murderer, and each bowling shirt he wears is like a scalp he’s collected from his victims, because none of them ever bear his name. [Haitch & Jason laugh] So that one I just didn’t find enough evidence to support. You know, I that’s the thing about this movie, man is that, you know, the Coen brothers — I think like, the Coen brothers don’t enjoy this as much as the rest of us do. And you know what I’ve seen, like, they’re, they’re a little standoffish about it, because that I think they find that we all read into it more than they intended. But that’s the beautiful thing about putting a piece of art out there. And that, you know, it’s almost like remix culture. So without re-cutting it necessarily all of these people — and by the way, there are some amazing super cuts of like every fuck said in the movie, are just incredible. But I like the remix culture of it. I like the lens like, hey, look at it this way. And, and I think so, so no, I haven’t like stopped to figure out whether that’s one that I buy into, but that it exists, and it’s fun talking about is all that matters to me.
HAITCH Well, let’s just talk about his performance. Because like, for me again, I keep calling out Miller’s Crossing. In that movie, his dialogue is so fast.
[clip of Miller’s Crossing plays]
MINK Yeah, Tom, that’s right, but a guy can have more than one friend, can’t he? Not that I want the Dane to know about it, but the shmatte, he’s a right guy, Tommy. He’s a square shooter. He’s got a mixed reputation, but for a sheeny, he’s got a lot of good qualities.
[clip of Miller’s Crossing ends]
HAITCH And the way that he speaks, his delivery is so rapid fire. And in this, it’s such a more sublime performance. I actually thought it was a really kind of beautiful and vulnerable. You see moments where he’s just kind of like sitting there by himself thinking and kind of like feeling pain in his hands. And I don’t know, I just, I was quite impressed.
CHRIS There’s another idea. I think I read this in somebody’s term paper, actually, that Donny represents the viewer who is having trouble keeping up with the plot.
HAITCH Is out of our depth?
JASON That’s great.
CHRIS And I believe the Cohens have said if you’re trying to figure out the plot, you’re missing the point of this whole thing.
JASON Right. Right.
CHRIS And so that Donny in his constant confusion and trying to catch up is basically this recognition that look, this isn’t a plot movie. You know, these are just vignettes and fun characters and wild callbacks, and it’s just a vehicle for that kind of, like dance through nostalgia and Zeitgeist and anachronism.
JASON What does Turturro say about this performance? How does Turturro feel?
CHRIS I don’t actually know. Honestly, I don’t — I haven’t watched — sorry, that’s a hole in my knowledge. I’m exposed.
JASON I saw something I saw something recently with him or something like it some like review of his career, and he definitely talks about as one of the more important roles he’s ever played, like, in terms of like, what it meant for his career, but I don’t know. I don’t know how he feels about it.
CHRIS It’s amazing. That is two scenes.
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
JESUS Are you ready to be fucked, man? I see you rolled your way into the semis. Dios mio, man. Liam and me, we’re gonna fuck you up.
THE DUDE Yeah, well, you know, that’s just like your opinion, man.
JESUS Let me tell you something, bendeco. You pull any your crazy shit with us, you flash a piece out on the lanes, I’ll take it away from you and stick it up your ass and pull the fucking trigger til it goes “click”.
THE DUDE Jesus.
JESUS You said it, man. Nobody fucks with the Jesus.
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
JASON Yeah.
CHRIS Right?
JASON Yeah. [Chris & Jason laugh]
CHRIS I mean, he just — I mean, have you have you ever tried to emulate his little shuffle?
HAITCH Dancing?
JASON I don’t have, I don’t have the skills for that.
CHRIS He throws his finger up in the air. And then as he turns and faces them, and does a little shuffle back.
HAITCH Incredible.
CHRIS Ugh. Ugh. And the way it was, I mean, like —
JASON It’s beautiful.
CHRIS The slow mo on that.
HAITCH Absolutely gorgeous.
CHRIS And I mean, just fucking cantana man. [Haitch laughs]
JASON This is also where in his speech to them, where you get into the fact that some of this movie is like in like Iambic pentameter, like some of the dialogue has this very lyrical quality. You know, the like, ‘I’ll snatch it away from you, stick it up your ass and pull the trigger till it goes click’ like that is a very specific meter. And like, you know, there’s like my personal favorite line in the movie is the ‘Little Lebowski urban achievers yes and proud we are of all of them’ the line that Maude says to Lebowski later on, and I just like, I like both of those lines because they have this like, oh, it’s like, oh, they were writing, like they were writing poetry at this moment in the movie and like, yeah.
CHRIS That’s awesome.
JASON So those are — that’s a good thing about the scene too.
HAITCH Nice.
CHRIS I haven’t put words to this before. I want to play off what you’re saying. It’s one of those — there movies where the dialogue feels just not plausible. And it kind of takes you out of it. Here the implausible dialogue draws you in.
JASON Yeah, that’s great.
CHRIS Like, like just you’re like okay, no, like ‘competitors bested’ like nobody fucking talks like that. [Jason laughs] But it just makes the seed so much better!
HAITCH Like Sorkin can do that, doesn’t work for everybody, certainly works for me.
CHRIS Good point. Good point. Yes. Yeah.
HAITCH Well, so they after the showdown there with Jesus —
CHRIS Dude, come on, like, Jesus and Liam, like shining their balls.
HAITCH Oh, yeah.
CHRIS I mean, that just became a thing that everyone with a pair of rental shoes did for the rest of history at a bowling alley. If you go with your buddy, somebody’s grabbing a towel and doing that.
JASON You got to do it.
HAITCH For sure. So he heads back to his house and he’s kind of like having this peaceful time, he’s what? Listening to old bowling like challenges or whatever on tape. [Chris laughs]
CHRIS Yeah! It’s a tournament!
HAITCH Is that meant to be them? Or is that meant to be like —
CHRIS No, it’s a tournament!
JASON Side A is a tournament, side B is Bob Dylan. [Chris laughs]
HAITCH But is it their own tournament, like that they played in? Is that what it’s meant to be? Him reliving their own past glory? Or is it like a pro bowling thing?
CHRIS I’ve never considered that man. It’s fucking amazing though.
JASON He’s trying to manifest, he’s like, it’s like he’s training himself his mind for the bowling championship.
CHRIS Positive visualization, huh?
JASON Yeah, exactly. He’s manifesting.
HAITCH Totally.
CHRIS But I hadn’t, I hadn’t considered whether it’s a past game of his.
HAITCH Right?
JASON Sacca, this is what you need to do for your F1 fantasy league. Like, you just need to listen to the sound of the cars — [Chris makes engine revving sound] going around. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
CHRIS That’ll be my wave machine at night.
HAITCH Just loop that.
JASON Try that for next week. [Chris laughs]
HAITCH So he’s back at, he’s visualizing he opens his eyes, he sees Maude and two other goons, he gets punched in the face. And we have the first of the fantasy sequences with the flying scene. And getting chased by a bowling ball, the flying carpet metaphor there. And the rolling camera that that was tough. That’s that’s tough to watch.
CHRIS Yeah, I heard they put it on a spit, actually.
HAITCH Oh, really?
CHRIS And that’s how they rolled that thing, yeah.
HAITCH Huh.
CHRIS By the way, did you guys happen to see that drone operated video recently that went outside through the bowling alley?
JASON Yeah, we talked about it last week.
CHRIS Oh my God!
HAITCH And they got the Jesus shot in there.
JASON Yeah, there’s a Jesus homage in there, yeah.
HAITCH With the balls.
CHRIS Sorry when you said you talked about it last week, I feel like I’m in that David Cross. Mr. Show sketch the show. [Haitch & Jason laugh]
HAITCH There actually isn’t a podcast, this is just Jason and I putting you on. [Jason & Chris laugh]
JASON Right, exactly. The background behind me is going to disappear and it’s like a surprise party.
CHRIS We talked about that last week, where the episode we released next week.
HAITCH That’s right. Exactly.
JASON A friend of the pod Todd Vaziri put together a clip of that drone footage set to the speeder bikes from Return of the Jedi.
HAITCH Oh nice.
JASON We’ll put that in shownotes. [Jason & Haitch laugh]
HAITCH Okay, I’ll do it. Alright, so —
CHRIS [In Jesus voice] Are you ready to be fucked, man?! Sorry, I know I’m back in the other scene still, but —
HAITCH You’re good, you’re good.
CHRIS Dios mio, man. Me and Liam and me are gonna fuck you. [Haitch laughs]
HAITCH We have the money drop off scene. So Walter comes along —
CHRIS The ringer.
JASON The whites.
HAITCH Exactly. I love that he has his plan. And the ringer and that he says you know if you keep the plan simple, it can’t get fucked up. And then it immediately gets fucked up.
JASON Yeah, because they didn’t, there’s no handoff. They’re supposed to throw the ringer. It’s great.
CHRIS Her life is in your hands, dude.
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
WALTER Okay, Dude, your wheel. At fifteen mph I roll out! I double back, grab one of ’em and beat it out of him, the uzi!
THE DUDE Uzi?!
WALTER You didn’t think I was rolling out of here naked, did ya?!
THE DUDE Walter! [tire screeches, guns go off]
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
HAITCH 15 mph.
JASON He rolls out — how do you think, how did he end up not getting shot himself? Because Uzi like, you know, it’s just spraying bullets.
CHRIS Dude, he’s one of the chosen people in training.
JASON Oh, yeah. You know, he can like, he can dodge bullets. And it’s an Uzi. So it’s an Israeli weapon.
CHRIS It’s an Israeli weapon. Yeah. Not an accident.
HAITCH I did not connect those dots. So the key thing is, they have thrown a fake briefcase with money. Or a fake briefcase with Walters underwear, his whities, instead of the money.
CHRIS Do you know about how they shot the ringer scene though?
HAITCH No.
JASON Uh uh. How’d they shoot the ringer scene?
CHRIS So they tried multiple times to try and throw that briefcase from the car out of the window.
HAITCH It’s hard, right? How do you do that?
CHRIS They couldn’t do it, they couldn’t get enough wind up on it, etc. So that scene was actually shot in reverse. They throw the briefcase.
HAITCH Whaaaaaat!
JASON Woooaah.
CHRIS From up on the hill into the window of a vehicle moving backwards.
HAITCH What the hell!
JASON That seems harder.
CHRIS I promise you.
HAITCH That’s like Tenet, two weeks in a row! [Chris laughs]
JASON That’s crazy! That’s a good fact.
CHRIS That was the only way they could get it done, man. Yeah, try throwing something out of your car. I mean, look, you live in San Francisco. People do that shit all the time. No one will even notice if you just start throwing random shit out your car.
JASON My kid will throw shit out of the car, he loves his throwing. He hung out with his cousin for too long. He said his favorite thing right now is yeeting. He just likes going like “I’m going to yeet it! I yeeted it!”
HAITCH Incredible.
CHRIS We can’t do that Dude, it fucks up our plan. [Chris & Haitch laugh]
JASON Take that hill!
HAITCH So they get back into the bowling alley there. And we have the description. Donny rolls up, excitedly saying that they’re going to be in the semis against the Jesus and Liam, on Saturday, and we have —
CHRIS [in Walter’s voice] Shomer Shabbos!
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
SMOKEY How come you don’t roll on Saturday, Walter?
WALTER I’m Shomer Shabbos.
SMOKEY What’s that Walt?
THE DUDE Yeah, and in the meantime, what do I tell Lebowski?!
WALTER Saturday, Donny, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of Rest, that means I don’t work. I don’t drive a car. I don’t fucking ride in the car. Don’t handle money. I don’t turn on the oven. And I sure as shit DON’T FUCKING ROLL! Shomer Shabbos!
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
HAITCH Phenomenal.
JASON Yeah, don’t roll on Shabbos, is I think yeah, it’s again, it’s got to be top five. Gotta be top five for me.
CHRIS And I sure as shit don’t fucking roll!
HAITCH Yeah, so do you roll on Saturdays, Jason?
JASON I don’t — I’m not Shomer Shabbos. I do not observe the Sabbath day.
HAITCH Okay.
JASON I did have some motza today though, because it’s Passover. So happy, happy Pesach.
CHRIS Hey, Jason, tenuous connection to your white house career. In 2009 I was invited to the White House —
JASON For Passover?
CHRIS No. For for a collection of like young entrepreneurs and stuff like that to meet with, you know, new White House officials about Office of whatever engagement and shit like that, but among the group of attendees is like me and Ev and Tony Hsieh. And then we had Jared and Ivanka, were there.
HAITCH Oh, boy.
JASON Oh, yeah.
CHRIS On White House grounds in 2009.
JASON That was the mistake.
HAITCH The taste?
CHRIS Yeah, we gave them a taste, huh? The reason I bring it up is after the event, we had like a cocktail — there was like a cocktail party and dinner across town. But, but he’s an observant Jew.
JASON Right.
CHRIS So they would not get on the shuttle bus.
HAITCH Wow.
CHRIS And the two of them walked clear, like from the White House, like, you know up to like, I don’t know Dupont Circle or some shit, but just like multiple blocks in unnecessary heels. But that’s how fully committed they were.
JASON Yeah, they’re very, they’re very Jewish. They really follow the rules. On that only. [Chris & Jason laugh]
CHRIS On that only.
HAITCH Alright, so coming out of the Shomer Shabbos description, they find that the car has been stolen. So can we get a shout out to these two cops? We had excellent cops in Lost Highway, David Lynch’s Lost Highway. But these two cops were amazing.
JASON Yeah, they’re really good and clear.
CHRIS And the creedence.
JASON And the creedence. And he’s poking through the joints.
CHRIS Separate incidents.
HAITCH I guess case closed on that one.
CHRIS Yeah, by the way the car. So, the original script. They wrote it — any guess what the car was?
JASON I was wondering, I assumed it was just like a K car.
HAITCH Toyota Tercel or something?
CHRIS You’re so shockingly close. It was a little LeBaron.
JASON Okay, great.
CHRIS But Goodman couldn’t fit in it.
JASON Ohhhh.
CHRIS So they went with the Torino. Anyway.
JASON Ohhh. Alright.
HAITCH It’s a great car.
JASON That’s good, that’s good facts.
HAITCH Alright, so he gets a call after the cops leave or while the cops are there, he gets a call from Maude, and he heads to her apartment. So the shot of him walking in looking at the art in front of him and then the shots behind him where the light is making across. And then as the sound, there’s like a thump and sounds moving and actually the thump sounds like a bowling ball hitting the wood. But just it’s so everything about that scene is so effectively designed. [Volcano Songs: Duets: Walking Song by Meredith Monk and Katie Geissinger plays]
JASON What’s the soundtrack and that is that her chanting? It just sounds like it could be her.
CHRIS That’s not her?
HAITCH No.
CHRIS Oh, that’s wild. I did not know that.
JASON What’s the credit on that track?
HAITCH This is Meredith Monk and Katie Geissinger. Volcano Songs: Duets: Walking Song.
JASON Love it.
CHRIS That’s fantastic. I did not know that.
JASON That’s great. So great.
CHRIS My work has been commended to being strongly vaginal. [Haitch laughs]
HAITCH Oh my God.
JASON So Julianne Moore, absolute treasure doing like sort of, you know, like kind of a Katharine Hepburn screwball comedy, performance.
HAITCH Shortcuts, Boogie Nights, and Big Lebowski all within a period of like three or four years, like —
JASON Yeah, a legend.
HAITCH I could not have been more in love with her at this point.
JASON I agree. This is really, she was really on fire at this time.
HAITCH Yeah. So the whole discussion of ‘do you like sex?’ which, obviously, as the as her plot points unfold is good. But she also shows —
CHRIS Coitus. [Haitch laughs] I mean, so like, the whole movie has callbacks, but this is one of the fastest ones ever.
JASON Yeah, yeah.
CHRIS That’s one of my favorite ones. Like, she’s like ‘Sex, like the act of love. Coitus. Do you like it?’ And he’s like ‘I was talking about my rug.’ She’s like, like, ‘Sex. You know, like, you don’t like sex?’ He’s like, ‘you mean coitus?’ [Chris laughs] I just fucking love that callback dude. ‘It’s a natural, zesty enterprise!’
JASON Zesty enterprises strong. Maybe the fact that he had such a quick call back from him indicates that they’re falling in love. Like they’re so close. They’re closely aligned.
HAITCH Ohh.
CHRIS By the way, that accent of hers. So I learned something during the pandemic I didn’t know.
JASON The Mid Atlantic accent?
CHRIS Yes. I think I texted you about this. I got really into reading George Plimpton old Paris Reviews and stuff.
JASON Yeah.
CHRIS And I grew up assuming he was British. But dude was not. The Mid Atlantic accent. And so I love how Maude plays a version of that off. Like it just I mean, there were a bunch of kids. I went to college with who had that fancy fake accent. It was amazing.
JASON Really? I don’t know if — I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who talks that way for real. But I love it. I absolutely love that she’s doing that accent in this movie.
HAITCH I think Joel and Ethan might have said that it was like a Swedish finishing school that would have produced that.
JASON Ohh, oh okay.
HAITCH Which is wild.
CHRIS Good fact. We should — can I just suggest for future episodes you guys have a belly ring [sound of a bell rings] when a great fact gets dropped?
JASON That’s great. Matt can do anything is post. Yeah.
HAITCH That’s easily added in post.
CHRIS I mean, like, you gotta there’s like some kind of high five recognition for a good fact.
JASON Yeah, that’s great.
HAITCH Alright, you get the shout out every time it happens. And well, we’ll figure out ringing the bell.
JASON That’s great. And then you have to go back and go back and listen to all previous 37 episodes and Matt will —
HAITCH Re-edit them. [Jason laughs] Alright, so can we talk, we finally arrived at performance in Logjammin’.
JASON The beaver picture.
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
BUNNY Hi.
KARL HUNGUS Hello. Mein dispatcher says there’s something wrong with dein Kable.
BUNNY Yeah, come on in. I’m not really sure exactly what’s really wrong with the cable.
KARL HUNGUS That’s why they sent me, I’m expert.
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
JASON [In German accent] I’m here to fix dein Kable.
CHRIS [In German accent] I’m expert.
JASON [In German accent] Elga, bring my tools.
CHRIS Was that Tia Carrere by the way?
HAITCH Yes, yes! ‘Here’s my friend, she’s taking a shower.’ So let’s see. So he heads out, interesting, so there’s exposition with Maude, but she’s definitely not laying it all on the table. And so —
JASON This also, sorry, this also has one of my favorite lines which is —
[clip of the Big Lebowski plays]
MAUDE He’s a good man, and thorough.
[clip of the Big Lebowski ends]
JASON He’s a good man, and thorough.
CHRIS And thorough.
JASON Which I love. Maude’s pronunciation of thorough is, like, everything for me in this movie.
CHRIS Yes!
HAITCH Very good.
CHRIS I mean, you also, you can’t literally, you can’t skip over ‘in the parlance of our times’
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
MAUDE Little matter to me this woman chose to pursue a career in pornography, nor that she has been banging Jackie Treehorn to use the parlance of our times.
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
JASON In the parlance of our times. [Chris laughs]
HAITCH And both right? Call back by Lebowski like, one minute later in the limo.
CHRIS Yeah, you know, in the parlance of our times, but like that, that’s what’s — I hate to keep interrupting the flow that thing, but this is a movie that’s defined by lines.
HAITCH Yes, yes.
CHRIS And so whereas other scenes, you know, where it’s like, okay, what are rewatchable scenes or you know, what’s compelling about this moment or resolving as part of the plot. This is just a vehicle for just some of the most insane, insanely quotable one liners ever. I mean, so the old Lebowski Fest site — and by the way, I went to visit it to see the next one, it looks like they’ve, like, taken a lot of the site down and I got worried. I don’t know. I would love a Lebowski Fest update. And if somebody needs to throw them a lifeline, I’m available.
JASON That’s great.
CHRIS Because they had incredible merch. They’re a great outlet for fan art. But they’re bumper stickers are always fantastic. And think of how many bumper stickers you can create from this.
HAITCH Infinite, yeah.
CHRIS Yeah, yeah, I mean, just everything from ‘mark it 8’ to ‘in the parlance of our times’. But anyway, it’s I just think there are these moments where it’s not even, i’s just, it’s just the line.
JASON So great.
HAITCH Incredible. So in the limo —
JASON I got a rash, man. [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS Yeah, yeah, he’s like listening, but not listening. And again, these people who hold him out as a Zen character, like, I would like this to be true, because, if you can be prone to being enraged, like a pretty consistent recreational drug user, and narcissistically not paying attention to other people while you shuffle through life and still be considered a Zen master, sign me the fuck up. [Haitch laughs] I mean, hashtag goals.
JASON Some really good, some really good drink acting in these scenes —
CHRIS Hey man, there’s a beverage here!
JASON The beverage manages to survive the throw into the car, which is pretty impressive.
HAITCH Alright, so they give him, he is confronted by Brandt and Lebowski, who now obviously they’re running their own game, right? So they are continuing to push their narrative of what is going on here and they give him the toe that has been mailed to them.
CHRIS Okay, I need to talk about something here that just doesn’t come up enough in conversation.
JASON Let’s do it.
CHRIS There’s a lot of chatter and the back of that limousine, before Brant pulls an envelope from his breast pocket that contains a human toe. I mean, it’s not chilled down. [Jason laughs] It’s not on ice in any way. Like it’s not being preserved in even any kind of like sanitary wrapping at all. The guy just has a fucking manila envelope with a toe and some gauze in his breast pocket. [Haitch chuckles]
HAITCH Not good.
JASON It’s aggressive.
HAITCH It’s not an industry best practice for getting that thing reattached.
CHRIS By the way, sorry, that’s one more scene where it’s amazing. Just if you get a chance to rewatch it, just watch Brandt’s face.
HAITCH Yeah.
CHRIS Watch his eyes. Watch how they react to Jeffrey Lebowski, the millionaire. And you see, I’m hesitant to call him The Big Lebowski because all these you know different, different potential angles, but just watch the way he reacts. It is masterful.
JASON I was thinking about that on the second watch or the movie today because he really is holding this like particular expression almost the entire time. And it’s, that’s fantastic.
HAITCH So, uh, let’s see. So we have the reaction of Walter and The Dude at the diner and they kind of have a little bit of a blow up right? The Dude is kind of sick of Walter’s shit. Do you think it’s justified or not?
JASON Oh, it’s totally justified, Walter’s being ridiculous. Like that’s obviously the situations fact. And Walter is trying to be like, you know — and he’s Walter’s not wrong but like he’s he’s being ridiculous and then he picks a fight with the waitress for no reason.
CHRIS ‘I can get you a tow by three o’clock this afternoon.’
HAITCH Painted.
CHRIS ‘Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint!’
JASON Roundly rejected prior restraint is important.
CHRIS Complete miss applicant — Neil is not here to weigh in on this but as I understand it, a complete misapplication of the concept. That said, it has been cited in an actual legal decision. Ring the fucking bell. [bell rings] Ring the bell.
JASON That’s amazing. Ring the bell! [Haitch laughs]
HAITCH Alright, so The Dude goes back to his apartment. He’s chilling in his tub, smoking a joint —
JASON Listening to whale songs.
HAITCH Listening to whale songs and listening to voicemail that the car has been recovered, which seems like great news far out. And then we have The Nihilists arrive and toss the Marmot into the tub. This is a great visceral scene and really well shot.
JASON I don’t know how they managed to get the ‘no animals were harmed’ tag on this movie, because it seems like they really did throw a weasel in a bathtub, which I don’t think, I don’t think —
CHRIS I don’t know. I think you could puppet the shit out of that. I bet you that’s how they got the weasel. But the scream, the pitch of the scream is really hard to replicate.
HAITCH And there’s something about when he’s trying to get out and the hand just on his shoulder to keep him down. Like you literally can’t, you cannot escape from this.
JASON It’s some real 1984 shit.
HAITCH Exactly. Yeah, that’s a bad, it’s a bad scene.
CHRIS I do think it’s important because this has been voted over and over again, it’s like the number one stoner movie and I don’t know how much of that your audience needs to hear this, but like, I do think it’s worth a shout out to the roach clip. That just — the roach clip has been left behind in the age of vapes and just abundant we more abundant weed.
JASON More abundant weed. You don’t know to —
HAITCH Right.
CHRIS But the way people used to just smoke that down to the nub with the little clip. Now in the bathtub, it might be more about like he has wet hands. And so —
JASON Oh that’s smart.
CHRIS You know, allowing that thing to burn down a little bit. But, I mean, I remember a buddy of mine in junior high, like he’d go to his medicine cabinet. And there was his mom’s roach clip. And, like, it’s just, it’s I feel like it’s been lost to history. It’s a relic. And so I like to shout.
HAITCH It’s a way of life, yeah.
JASON RIP to the roach clip.
CHRIS Jeff has said that he would, right before they rolled, he would always turn to the brothers and say, ‘do you think you think he burned one down on the way in here or not?’ And if they said yes, he would rub his knuckles over his eyes. And to try and look like he was a little faded. And then they’d roll camera.
JASON He does a great faded. He’s very believable.
HAITCH Yeah.
CHRIS Like even like back in the scene where he’s in the, in the second time he’s back in Jeffrey Lebowski’s study. You know, he’s in seclusion on the West Wing. And he when he says to Brandt —
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
THE DUDE He thinks the carpet-pissers did this?
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
CHRIS He’s saying that on the exhale, on the exhale of a toke. Like, that’s craftsmanship right there.
JASON It really is. The carpet-pissers. That’s a great line.
CHRIS I can’t even do it, obviously, but like, it’s not an exhale, fuckin a man. Like, that’s fucking fantastic.
JASON It’s really good acting.
HAITCH So I’m a sucker for for the cinematography kind of above everything else. And so this is one of my favorite shots in the entire film.
CHRIS It is. I have to say we skipped, I think we skipped where he gets his car.
HAITCH Ohh!
CHRIS The only reason it’s important to me —
HAITCH Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
CHRIS Is because one year we went to the Lebowski Fest, my friend’s and I went as the detectives with shifts. So we were like graveyard, night shift. ‘The got us working in shifts!’
JASON Yeah, so great.
CHRIS So anyway, I just had to give a shout out to my bros. Yeah.
HAITCH Back at the bowling alley. And we have the single long shot with the fight with Donny and Walter. And him basically not being consoled by Walter. Walter finally giving up and leaving, and then the arrival of The Stranger and their discussion, and I just absolutely — like that performance was incredible.
JASON It’s really beautiful.
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
THE STRANGER How you doing there, dude?
THE DUDE Not too good, man.
THE STRANGER One of those days, huh?
THE DUDE Yep.
THE STRANGER Well, a wiser fellow than myself once said, sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar will eat you.
THE DUDE Some kind of Eastern thing?
THE STARNGER Far from it.
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
JASON The Stranger is a great character. Again, it’s a tie, a spiritual tie to the Hudsucker Proxy, because there’s a extra narrative, like narrator in that movie as well, who like breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience structurally and appears in the movie and stuff like that. And it’s just like a thing. It’s a Coen — it’s like a thing. It’s a move that they had for a while.
HAITCH Alright, so we have our next pass at Maude and just Thewlis, as the video artist is just like insufferable in this scene. It gives me a headache just just having him be there. [Chris & Jason laugh]
JASON Friend with a cleft asshole?
CHRIS It’s Sandro about Biennale! [Chris laughs]
JASON Yeah, it’s great.
HAITCH Them on the phone, like especially her talking in Spanish and laughing on the phone. I thought it was —
CHRIS Que Ridiculo!
JASON I think it’s Italian.
HAITCH Oh, is it?
JASON Yeah.
HAITCH It felt like just a purely absurdist thing. So this is where I wanted to hit Maude. So now we can take that pin out. She says that Ollie is pretending and then she says ‘if Ollie doesn’t have the money who does?’ Which to me felt like Maude is basically the character that the Coen brothers are using to help the audience get back on track and figure out what’s going and that happens later as well. When she circles back around. Am I right on that Chris or missing out?
CHRIS That’s a good take, I think. I like the idea that mod is maybe help them figure it out.
JASON Yeah. And she reveals that Lebowski actually doesn’t have any money, like the millionaire by Lebowski is on you know —
HAITCH That’s the third — that’s on the third pass.
JASON Yeah, yeah.
HAITCH That’s the next time but yeah, she does. She’s so she is again serving that serving that function. Because I was rewatching and I was trying to remember what was happening. And it is in leaving Maude’s apartment this time that he has followed, he crashes his car. [Lookin’ Out My Back Door by Creedence plays]
CHRIS But again, music supervisor T Bone Burnett, it’s Creedence. But it’s also him saying, [Chris sings] doo, doo, doo, lookin’ out my back door. [Jason laughs]
JASON That’s amazing. That’s amazing. I had not — I had not thought of that. That’s a special tie in. I love it. I love it.
HAITCH I love that shot of him hitting that, hitting the ceiling. It’s an amazing shot.
CHRIS Yeah, he is right?
JASON Yeah, that’s great.
CHRIS I mean, he’s toking a J though, too.
HAITCH So between smokin’ a J, rocking out to Creedence and being followed by the VW. He crashes. He finds the homework in the seat and realizes, you know, who stole the car and
JASON Larry Sellers.
HAITCH Larry Sellers. So this is revealed now at the landlord’s dance recital.
JASON Yeah, my cycle.
HAITCH So what was the theater? What was the theater where the dance recital was happening?
CHRIS Crane Jackson’s Fountain Street Theater.
HAITCH Oh, Fountain Street, got it. That makes sense. Nice. I just love that actor. He’s a character actor, has been in a million movies but I just love his performance. The way he moves, the way he dances, but he’s like, got his hands on his on his legs as he’s moving.
JASON I wonder how much direction there was to him or if he was just like, kind of free balling it.
CHRIS At Lebowski Fest, Vegas and at Lebowski Fest, San Francisco, which by the way was a dud. Not great. But both times when they showed the movie at least one guy dressed up as you know, as the Landlord doing a cycle. Got up in front of the screen and acted out that dance. But I mentioned it because the genius of it was each of those guys had choreographed the moves that you don’t see. Because, like, because The Dude and Walter and Donnie are talking about next steps, you know? ‘Our fucking problems are over dude.’ You know, ‘few burgers, few beers, some laughs’ So, but when he cuts back, they were back in sync again. It was just it’s like some of the most amazing fan performance art I’ve ever seen.
HAITCH Wow.
CHRIS Like what would the other dance moves in that performance be, you know, off screen. Fabulous, fabulously inspired work.
HAITCH That is very cool. Alright, so we have established that this kid who stole the car is the son of the writer.
CHRIS The bulk of the series. The bulk of the series.
JASON The bulk of the series. [Haitch laughs]
HAITCH 156 episodes.
JASON Especially the early episodes.
HAITCH So they head out to the house and they attempt to intimidate Larry.
CHRIS He has health problems! [Haitch & Jason laugh] What is it like, “on a personal level, enormous fans” [Chris & Jason & Haitch laugh]
HAITCH That is killer. So he goes outside, he begins trashing what he thinks is Larry’s car, only to discover that it’s the neighbor’s car. And yes, that line that we had earlier, ‘I’ll kill your fucking car.’
JASON I kill your fucking car! Yeah. And ‘this is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass’ is also like as iconic.
CHRIS Okay, so a couple things. First of all, one of the most quotable lines of all times, yeah. ‘You see what happens, Larry, do you see what happens, Larry? This is what happens Larry.’ But um, okay, so we talked about how many F bombs are in this movie. Do you know about when they had to re-dub this one?
JASON No!
CHRIS So obviously Goodman can’t just be — you know, they can’t cut the scene. It’s important.
JASON I was wondering, I was wondering —
CHRIS But they have to dub it over. So they famously dubbed it —
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
WALTER You see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?!
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
JASON Find a stranger in the Alps? [Jason laughs]
CHRIS For the clean like you know, TBS version. Yeah, ring the bell. [bell rings] But yeah, this is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps. [Jason laughs]
JASON That’s great. There’s some funky, I was, I really wonder about the shooting the scene because it’s so physical from Goodman. Like I wonder how many takes he had to do of this. ’Cause he’s —
CHRIS He gives an interview where he said he was nervous because they didn’t tell him for the first two takes that they had bought out this street.
JASON Ohh. Ohh.
CHRIS And so he was really holding back and then ultimately — and by the way, I’ve never heard — does that mean there were multiple cars there for him to wail on? But he was really — and then when they explained to him on the third take that they had bought out the street and he could just go fucking haywire, he went, he went nuts. So but he was very bashful about it.
HAITCH This is like Ronin, we have a lot of destroyed cars in this, in the making of this film.
CHRIS Definitely.
HAITCH Alright, so let’s see, they leave, they’re basically just defeated. They they run out —
CHRIS Hold on, hold on. Just they — just visually, one of the most beautiful things ever is that driving down the street with no window in the fucking car while eating In-N-Out burgers. [Chris laughs]
JASON Yeah, it’s so funny. It’s so — they still go get the hamburgers. It’s so funny.
CHRIS Like there’s things that you can communicate visually, they’re impossible to do otherwise, that one’s amazing.
HAITCH What do you think the lines were like at In-N-Out back in ‘98.
CHRIS Strong question. I’m not a California native. I can’t speak to that. I got there, I got there after that.
JASON I did notice that it wasn’t a legit In-N-Out cup that they have.
CHRIS Oh!
JASON I mean at least not any contemporary In-N-Out cup.
HAITCH They go back home, The Dude attempts to fortify his house. So Jason how do you how do you rate versus The Dude in terms of home construction capabilities?
JASON I would check which way the door open for sure. I mean, I at least would have, I would at least know that the door opened out.
HAITCH But the number of nails like what are we meant to infer there by the number of bent nails that are that are in place like is he just wasted?
JASON I think, yeah, I don’t think, I don’t think the white Russians are improving his handy skills.
HAITCH Alright, so we just get from there to, let’s just cut to Jackie Treehorn.
[Ataypura by Yma Sumac plays]
CHRIS [sings Ataypura]
HAITCH Yeah, hell yeah.
JASON Jackie Treehorn’s place. I have a lot of facts about Jackie Treehorn’s.
HAITCH Alright, well, so let’s just start with the slow motion blanket toss.
JASON The thing that sells it is the reaction shot of the guy —
HAITCH Yes! Who is that guy?!
JASON Holding the blanket.
HAITCH What is happening?!
JASON ’Cause he’s just so joyous. He’s just like, got his crazy curls. And he’s just like, so happy to be at Jackie Treehorn’s.
HAITCH How much ecstasy is that guy on?
JASON He’s rolling hard. He’s rolling deep. Yeah, it looks great.
HAITCH That was incredible.
CHRIS Is that Point Dume in Malibu?
JASON I don’t know where that, I don’t know where the party was shot. Because the house though, is famous. The house —
CHRIS That’s not on the beach though. Yeah, that’s up in the hills.
JASON No, the house is up in the hills. Yeah.
HAITCH What’s the — what’s the story?
JASON Okay. The house is James Goldstein’s house. James Goldstein, any NBA fan will know who James Goldstein is because he is the NBA super fan who sits courtside at like 87 games a year around the country. And this is a, this is his house which he is then going to donate to LACMA apparently, but he still lives there. And the reason I know they still lives there — and it’s in, it’s not in Malibu, or it overlooks the San Fernando Valley — and this house is this brutalist like concrete bunker thing. Anyway, so I have a friend who’s a filmmaker, and he shot there recently. And they had to be careful because Goldstein still lives there and sleeps in the nude. [fact bell rings] And there’s like parts of the house that they couldn’t like go to because they might walk in on him naked. The house also has a separate like Goldstein disco, which is like a place where he like has for part for entertaining and having parties. And it also has like a bunch of like custom art including like a, like a custom Turrell installation. [fact bell rings] That he has there. So it’s a real it’s a real situation, this house.
CHRIS Dude, ring the bell a couple times for that because that’s strong, dude.
JASON Yeah, yeah, I’ve got video shot by my friend of the inside of the house, but I can’t, I can’t share that.
CHRIS But the architects John Lautner, right and so yeah, it’s beautiful. I mean, I’ve been inspired by that house, like I love how the couches are actually concrete.
JASON Yeah.
HAITCH Those are amazing! With the red, with the red leather upholstery. Yeah, like that was so gorgeous.
JASON Very beautiful.
CHRIS Just truly fabulous stuff.
HAITCH Well, what about Ben Gazzara as Jackie?
JASON Very good.
CHRIS What a poll, man.
JASON Very believable as a pornographer.
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
JASONCKIE TREEHORN People forget that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone.
THE DUDE On you, maybe.
JASONCKIE TREEHORN Of course, you have to take the good with the bad. New technology permits us to do very exciting things and interactive erotic software. Way of the future, Dude. 100% electronic.
THE DUDE Well, I still jerk off manually.
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
HAITCH Yeah, so I just, I loved all that, I loved his reaction there. Again, The Dude for the first time taking some initiative to try and do something and I just laughed so hard when he revealed what was there. And then he is poisoned by Jackie!
JASON What is the — what do we think — Why? What’s Jackie’s motivation in like, slipping him the Mickey at this point? Because like, he’s trying to find out where the money is. He’s trying to find out where Bunny is. And like trying to get the money. Like why would he — why would he knock out the dude, except to allow them to do the musical number?
HAITCH Just to get rid of him.
JASON Yeah.
HAITCH I think he’s like, he’s planted the seed. He’s probably gonna have his guys watching him and see where it goes and then just get him out of there.
JASON I guess.
CHRIS It’s the way you do business man. [Jason laughs]
HAITCH Alright, give me some, give me some facts about Jackie Treehorn presents Gutterballs.
[Just Dropped In by Kenny Rogers plays]
CHRIS I mean, the whole thing is just a series of callbacks, like every single visual element from the black and white tiles going back to the house to like this beer is a callback to a statue in Jeffrey Lebowski’s home to the you know, the the scissors goes back to the nihilist. ‘I’ll cut off your Johnson’.
JASON There’s a painting in, Maude has a painting of scissors in her studio. That’s red with like black scissors. So that’s like, yeah — it’s like this is the whole sequence, besides being visually stunning, goes to like the idea that he’s, you know, this Zeighest character who’s just absorbing, like, everything in the world around him.
CHRIS It is kind of wild. They — again, I don’t know the history of the music supervision here. But the way that scene is cut, though, is like when they get to the Eight Mile High Line, that’s when he stares at the huge, huge, like infinitely high rack of rental bowling shoes, for instance. And so the scene was purpose built for that, for that song. It seems like.
HAITCH And what about Kenny? Amazing.
JASON Wait, who’s Kenny?
HAITCH Kenny Rogers!
JASON Oh, Kenny Rogers. Yeah, no great track. It doesn’t even sound like Kenny Rogers.
HAITCH It doesn’t sound like — well, but it’s him in like his, you know, late 60s or whatever. You know, psychedelic phase like it’s a crazy thing.
JASON Yeah. As we’ve covered repeatedly on Dune Pod, I’m not the biggest Bob Dylan fan. But I love this Kenny, I love this Kenny Rogers track that they throw in here. Yeah, really strong.
HAITCH So I do love, so Jeff’s shoulders did not fit, rolling between the women whose legs were open on the skateboard. So they had to digitally composite that in. They had to shrink Jeff slightly and then composite him going through the legs, which was cool.
CHRIS I mean, I got to be honest, that’s my least favorite part of the movie.
JASON The musical sequence.
CHRIS Yeah, maybe I’m not a musical guy. But that’s where I kind of lose, I lose interest. That’s skippable for me.
JASON They really wanted — it’s just like it’s clear they wanted to do like a genre like a Busby Berkeley musical. They’re just like, yeah, well now we’re gonna do this.
HAITCH Alright, so we have, I’m gonna start accelerating here as we get towards the end. But so we have, he gets kicked out. The great interaction with the sheriff of town who —
CHRIS Stay the fuck out out of my beach community.
HAITCH Yeah, hits him in the head with a coffee mug and kicks him and pushes him over. I thought that was great. But then he gets kicked out of a taxi cab because he’s complaining about the Eagles. But ultimately, as he’s standing on the side of the road, Bunny drives by 10 toes intact. So we know something’s going on.
CHRIS Her license plate by the way, Bunny’s license plate is Lapin. I don’t know if you ever saw that.
HAITCH Oh nice.
JASON Is it? That’s amazing.
CHRIS Yeah. French for bunny. [Fact bell rings]
JASON That’s a good one.
HAITCH Yeah. But he makes his way home and he finds Maude in his house. I do love the shot when he comes inside. And he trips over the piece that he nailed down. That shot of that piece is really gorgeous. It’s just a really well framed shot. But so we have The Dude’s backstory. The Port Huron statement. First draft.
CHRIS Not the compromise, later draft. [Haitch laughs] So okay, so probably the right point to mention that the character for The Dude is inspired by a real life guy named Jeff Dowd, who was kind of a knockabout producer in the film world storyteller bone vivante, but he was a true, he was 1/7 of the Seattle Seven. And actually was arrested when the protests that took over Seattle — or part of Seattle, Seattle City Hall — turned violent. And so he really was the real inspiration for this character. And Jeff Dowd used to go to all Lebowski Fests, like I have multiple pictures with this guy.
JASON Of course. [Jason laughs] What else did he have going on?
CHRIS Like he went in hard. Like he was a blast. Big fucking poofy curly hair. And you know, flush skin and just ready to go. I love that guy.
HAITCH So this is a pretty big deal for Maude to then reveal that millionaire Lebowski is actually poor. Doesn’t have any money and that she gives him a sizable allowance. Nice callback there. So that’s just an awesome turn. I think that I did not see coming.
JASON Yeah, I didn’t, I did not either when I first saw it. And it makes you know, makes you see the movie an entirely different way and realize that he’s, you know, he’s a total fraud.
CHRIS It increases the chances of conception. [Haitch & Jason laugh]
HAITCH That spit take was fantastic. So we cut from there. I’m going to skip Jon Polito and the VW even though I love Jon Polito.
JASON Jon Polito’s great.
HAITCH He’s fantastic.
CHRIS The missing daughter job, the Knutsen’s.
HAITCH Yeah, exactly.
CHRIS How you gonna keep them down on the farm when they’ve seen Karl Hungus? [Haitch & Jason & Chris laugh]
HAITCH That line is unreal! So we cut for there to the Nihilists in the dinner. The Nihilist in the diner. And it is Aimee Mann who is missing her toe. [Fact bell rings]
JASON That’s Aimee Mann?!
CHRIS Yes! Yes it is! Dude, give Matt the fact bing because like that, everyone talks about Flea, but they completely miss her with the lingonberry pancakes.
HAITCH Yeah, exactly.
JASON Wowww.
HAITCH Pannekoek.
CHRIS Pigs in blankets.
JASON Yeah, that’s great.
HAITCH So at this point, the dude puts it all together. And so there’s a great scene of him kind of figuring it out. There never was a million dollar, a ringer for a ringer. And he and Walter head out to the Lebowski mansion. Bunny’s back from Palm Springs, so is she just drunk? She just crashed her car on the way into the fountain?
JASON Yeah or just doesn’t give a fuck.
HAITCH That is wild.
JASON She’s a free spirit.
HAITCH So the symmetry of The Dude coming in and saying “where’s the fucking money Lebowski?” He does basically confess, but says he still got to blame The Dude. And I just love Walter his reaction through all of this, Achtung Baby when he picks him up.
JASON Achtung. That’s weird. That’s a weird thing to say. Like right before he picks him. I noticed that for the first time watching it the second time today. I never noticed until I had captions on that Walter says “Achtung Baby!” when he picks him up and throws him on the ground.
HAITCH That’s why U2 named that album that?
JASON Yeah, exactly. It’s a little aggressive. Like the throwing the disabled guy on the ground and the Pomeranian like licks his face. [Jason laughs] Like that parts a little…
CHRIS I’ve seen a lot of spinales. [Haitch & Jason laugh]
HAITCH He’s a faker. So we then have the Jesus part two.
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
JESUS Hey! What’s this Day of Rest shit?! What’s this bullshit?! I don’t fucking care. It don’t matter to Jesus. But you’re not fooling me, man. You might fool the fool the fucks in the league office, but you don’t fool Jesus. It’s bush league psych-out stuff! Laughable man. Ha ha! I would’ve fucked you in the ass Saturday. I fuck you in the ass next Wednesday instead. WOO! You got a day Wednesday, baby!
[clip of The Big Lebowski ends]
CHRIS ‘What’s this Day of Rest shit? What’s this bullshit? It don’t matter to me! It don’t matter to Jesus!
JASON ‘Was going to fuck you in the ass on Saturday! Now I fuck you in the ass next week!’
CHRIS ‘You might fool the fucks down on the league office! You don’t fool Jesus. It’s bush league psych-out stuff! Laughable man!’ [Haitch laughs]
JASON It’s all great. Oh my God, what a great performance.
HAITCH So then we have the Nihilist fight, which is basically over at that point. And this is just like a little bit of wrapping action. But the reaction to The Dude saying that Donny might have been shot and him saying there were no shots fired. Donny had a heart attack. And he dies. We cut from there to the mortuary.
CHRIS ‘That is our most modest receptacle.’ [Haitch & Jason laugh]
HAITCH Is there a Ralph’s around here? You know, the whole scattering piece, the ashes scattering on the on the ocean side. Where’s that location?
JASON Yeah, I don’t know where that is. But it looks like Big Sur almost.
HAITCH So it’s a very kind of simple from a humor perspective. Right, scattered ashes has been done a million times. But it’s more about that as the culmination and the and The Dude’s reaction to that.
CHRIS I don’t want to get this wrong. It’s like Donald… Theodore… Kerabatsos.
JASON Kerabatsos. Yeah. No it’s Theodore Donald Kerabatsos! His middle name is Donald.
CHRIS Like Goodman 30 years after the movie gets that line exactly right in that interview with him and Jeff and Buscemi. Just nails it.
JASON I’ve got that loaded up in a tab. I’m gonna watch that after.
CHRIS Yeah, that interviews worth every moment. Again for the sheer joy. Like I — because it kind of bums me out that the Coen brothers, this is not one they want to revisit. They don’t like sequels. It’s not their proudest work. And because this movie is just pure goodness. And so when I see that the principal cast members think about it that way, that makes me feel happy.
JASON Especially like Goodman who’s and Buscemi, both of them have been in many Coen brothers movies. Like Goodman especially.
CHRIS Buscemi’s been in like six, I think? Right? I don’t know how many Goodman’s been in.
HAITCH Goodman’s six.
CHRIS This is the only one that Frances McDormand’s not in.
JASON Ohhh.
HAITCH Huh!
CHRIS Even though she’s married to one of them.
HAITCH Yeah. Yeah, we gotta watch Macbeth soon. So at the end of the day, Walter needs a hug. Like I like that moment.
JASON I like that moment, too. I think that moment where Walter realizes that he’s gone too far and feels and like is sad. Like I That’s really — and like John Goodman’s whole body language like really kind of sells that so well.
CHRIS When he slumps over.
JASON Yeah, it’s just it’s just a big man slumping like he really sells it.
HAITCH And then he says —
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
WALTER Fuck it, man. Let’s go bowling.
[clip of The Big Lebowski fades out]
CHRIS I just, I just, that’s just one of those lines that permeates like every fucked up situation. It’s just like, I’ll usually just express it as “fuck dude, let’s go bowling.” Like that’s just how you have to laugh at the shit. You know, like I’ll say like, I mean Jason you’re changing diapers, like when our kid used to have a blowout diaper. I would just turn to Crystal and be like, “fuck it dude, let’s go bowling.” It’s just, I think that’s one of the most Zen things and to see Walter finally taking that on because normally Walter is the guy who is the most amped, you know, as much as he says ‘calmer than you are’ like he is the guys usually got all the edge, all the amp. All the frustration.
JASON Calmer than you are. [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS ‘Calmer than you are’ is a great bumper sticker.
HAITCH Back in the bowling alley, I just love the interaction between The Dude and Gary the Bartender.
[clip of The Big Lebowski fades in]
THE DUDE Two oat sodas, Gary.
GARY Good luck tomorrow.
THE DUDE Yeah, thanks, man.
GARY Sorry to hear about Donny.
[clip of The Big Lebowski fades out]
CHRIS Had you ever heard the phrase oat sodas before? I certainly haven’t.
JASON No. No.
CHRIS It’s stuck ever since but I love it.
HAITCH So The Stranger returns.
[clip of The Big Lebowski fades in]
THE DUDE Hey, man.
THE STRANGER How do ya do, Dude?
THE DUDE I wondered if I’d see ya again.
THE STRANGER Wouldn’t miss the semis. How have things been going?
THE DUDE Oh, you know, strikes and gutters, ups and downs.
THE STRANGER Sure, I getcha.
THE DUDE Yeah. Thanks, Gary. Well, take care, man. Gotta get back.
THE STRANGER Sure. Take it easy, Dude.
THE DUDE Oh, yeah.
THE STRANGER I know that you will.
THE DUDE Yeah, well, The Dude abides.
[clip of The Big Lebowski fades out]
HAITCH And we know that he has emerged. He’s made it, he’s made it to the other side. Just so good.
[clip of The Big Lebowski fades in]
THE STRANGER The Dude abides.
[clip of The Big Lebowski fades out]
CHRIS I think my favorite thing about that end scene is the way — wait is it in this one? Or is it in the earlier Stranger when he gets up to walk away and doesn’t know which way he’s walking? [Jason laughs] He goes one way and goes the other way.
JASON It’s amazing.
CHRIS It’s just such a tiny detail. But what a beautiful thing to put into movie.
JASON I think the fact that The Stranger says like —
[clip of The Big Lebowski plays]
THE STRANGER Well, that about does ‘er.
[clip of The Big Lebowski fades out]
JASON I think like that, I think you can an audience can easily have the reaction of like, wait what?! [Chris laughs]
CHRIS We have no resolution! I mean, I think the biggest thing was there was no resolution around the rug. And people constantly write about that and debate that like, you know, it really doesn’t put it together but still, it really never came back. It’s hard to wrap up the movie without the rug.
HAITCH All of this is playing out to the Townes Van Zandt cover of the Rolling Stones, Dead Flowers. Amazing.
CHRIS Do you know the the fact around that one?
HAITCH No.
CHRIS So he originally quoted $150,000 to to use the song. And then when he heard the part in the movie about ‘I hate the fucking Eagles man.’ He was so entertained by that, that he let him use this song for free. [Fact bell rings]
HAITCH Wow.
JASON That’s great. 150 doesn’t seem that bad, as a quote. Seems payable. Whatever. Great. That’s good fact. Ring the bell.
HAITCH I thought he was dead by that point. I didn’t realize he was still alive.
CHRIS No, it was this manager or something. It’s not him. It’s like, it’s like —
HAITCH Anyways, that’s a cool fucking thing to do.
CHRIS Whoever had the rights to it, but I think it was as manager.
HAITCH Yeah. Awesome.
CHRIS How did these guys become best friends? So like, we can debate whether Donny is real or not. But how did Walter and The Sude become besties? They’re obviously very different.
JASON I think they met at the bowling alley.
HAITCH Yep, that sounds right.
JASON I think they must have met at the bowling alley and sort of like hit it off that way. It strikes me, it strikes me as a sort of friendship that I would — I can identify only as like, oh yeah, that’s like a guy I would know from poker. Like there’s no way I would actually like hang out with that person like in my normal like exterior, normal life. But like, oh, yeah, he says he’s that bro from Colma and like, you know now like, we sort of talk now and then.
HAITCH I did a couple seasons in a bowling league at Presidio Bowl.
JASON Beautiful place.
HAITCH Back in 2013/2014. And our team was “Ow, my balls” from Idiocracy. [Chris laughs] But you could imagine like maybe they were on different teams, and then they ended up talking and ended up forming a team at some point, and who knows who brought Donny. Maybe Donny was the one who brought them together. Donny seemed to be a good bowler.
JASON Yeah, Donny was good.
CHRIS Donny was an excellent bowler. I mean, you know, in the movie, he strikes every time until right up before he dies
HAITCH Throwing rocks.
CHRIS That’s the first time he doesn’t really strike. But it’s just, it’s wild to me, because obviously, The Dude is a pacifist. And then, you know, we get we find out about Smokey, you know there’s Walter like, ‘I myself, dabbled in pacifism at one point, you know, Nam of course’ And then Dude’s, like, ‘you know, he’s got emotional problems.’ And Walter’s like
‘you mean beyond pacifism?’ [Haitch laughs] Like, they clearly are built of different stock and have different priorities. I think part of it is The Dude is not a good listener. And that’s one of the reasons why he regurgitates stuff is it’s like a crutch for not actually being an active listener. And so I think with somebody like Walter who just non stop is table pounding, a good compliment to him as somebody who’s kind of checked out. And only partially paying attention.
JASON That’s good.
HAITCH Totally. Alright. So final thoughts on The Big Lebowski. Chris, anything that we’ve missed, or anything you want to put a bow on?
CHRIS No, I’m just glad you guys are paying tribute.
HAITCH Nice.
HAITCH Jason, final thoughts?
JASON I agree. I agree with Chris. I’m really grateful we could have such an expert come to speak to us about it. Because it is the movie I think that like, I like I finished watching it today. And Crystal had come in for the last like the last 20 minutes. And she was like, “what is this?” I was like “Big Lebowski” she was like “I never seen it” I was like, “Oh, let’s just start it again.” And like we just like started, you know, just watch the whole movie again. And like I enjoyed it a second time, again. [Jason chuckles] And it really is just a, it’s just a delight. And I’m glad we have it.
HAITCH Yeah, well so now that brings us to the question, who would Tilda Swinton play if you had to recast one role in The Big Lebowski with Tilda Swinton, who would you cast?
JASON This is a perennial, this is a recurring segment on Dune Pod.
CHRIS Yeah, this is where it’s become clear. This is the Dune Pod for me.
HAITCH Tilda Swinton not associated with Dune in any way other than Dune Pod. This segment.
CHRIS The funeral director. [Haitch laughs] I think there’s an opportunity there.
JASON That’s good.That’s good
CHRIS I mean, it’s just there’s there’s a lot of room left there in the monastery price receptacle. I think that’s an area where you need someone with some talent who can be stern, who can be rigid, who can who can bring off an anachronistic level of formality.
HAITCH I like it.
CHRIS And, and I think Tilda might be able to deliver that.
HAITCH Nice. Nice. I like it. I think she could definitely chew that one up. Jason?
JASON This is a tough one. Like this is actually maybe one of the tougher ones because all the roles are so well cast in The Big Lebowski. It’s hard to imagine replacing her in any of the major roles or even like a role like, Brandt.
HAITCH Let me let me pop in. I’m gonna drop her into Jackie Treehorn.
JASON Yeah, that seems, that seems believable.
CHRIS Oh, she’s the pornographer?
HAITCH Yeah.
CHRIS I like it.
HAITCH Yeah, and her delivery of that would be great and kind of ethereal and weird. And so I think that would be like the perfect spot.
JASON I’m gonna go with the Sheriff of Malibu. [Chris laughs] I think she would be interesting in that role, so.
HAITCH He draws a lot of water, you don’t draw shit.
CHRIS Wait can I ask — because you asking the Tilda Swinton — like an alternative casting. Sure. So do you know who they were going after to play Jeffrey Lebowski The Millionaire? Do you know about that?
HAITCH No. No.
CHRIS Who they reached out to first?
JASON Orson Welles.
CHRIS Marlon Brando. [Fact bell rings]
HAITCH Hollyy shit.
CHRIS Yes. Yes.
JASON Good luck.
CHRIS And then like they went through a host of other people. Before Huddleston, who is perfect for it. But like they went through a dozen names. So, but Brando was number one. And while writing it, they would say lines —
JASON As Brando?
CHRIS As Brando.
JASON That just seems impossible. That just seems like so far fetched. I just saw a thing today of Terence Stamp talking about playing Zod in Superman. And because Marlon Brando was Jor-El. And he just shits on how unprepared Brando was. He’s just like, he’s like, he would like look at his — he like made them hold them on a card behind my head because he couldn’t even remember like one line. It was great. It was great. So yeah, I don’t think it would have worked.
CHRIS Any other alternative castings you would have seen in this movie?
HAITCH The only recasting lens I view in the world is just Tilda. So I don’t, like I’m blind to all other actors. [Chris laughs]
JASON Yeah.
CHRIS It’s definitely unique to your pod, I appreciate that, respect that. Way to plant the flag.
[interim sound bite plays]
HAITCH So that brings us to, we just have one bit of business left, which is our letter segment. We have a couple of letters from some of our listeners here. The first one is Nigel O’Connor, who writes “Gentlemen, thanks for the great show. It’s a running good time. I found the pod recently after reading the original Dune trilogy and needed to decompress by listening to some other people’s takes on the books themes. As a kid growing up in Australia in the 80s, my dad had the trilogy on his bookshelf, and I was captivated by the cover art. I found out recently they were the Bruce Pennington prints.” You know, Chris, the Bruce Pennington prints.
CHRIS Uh huh.
HAITCH “At age seven or eight, my parents told me I was too young to read the books, but I looked at the artworks often and imagine the worlds contained within. About 20 years ago, I hired the Lynch DVD but couldn’t get into it and switched it off. Despite being a fan of his work, I still can’t watch it. A few months back, I came across the trailer for the new film and it looks dope. I decided to finally read the books before it hit cinemas and they were great. Now living in Cyprus and unable to find anyone who’s got the books to discuss or get pumped for the new film. Anyway, just wanted to drop an email to say thanks. And also ask if you’re planning to do a pod on the Grimes tribute album Geidi Primes.”
JASON We’ve mentioned it.
HAITCH “It’s worth a good listen.”
JASON Yeah, we’ve mentioned it and talked about it a few times. I think we’ll have to talk about it again. Shout out to Cyprus. Always love to hear from our Cypriot listeners, that’s great.
CHRIS As well shout out to a running good time. [Haitch laughs]
JASON Running good time is good. Yeah.
HAITCH That is a Children of Dune reference of a particularly sexual moment.
JASON It’s very bad.
HAITCH Quite uncomfortable.
CHRIS Where do you start? So I — the odds of me moving forward on any of this are about 3%. But if I were going to start on this, do I go film? Do I go book? Where do I go?
HAITCH Have you seen Sicario?
CHRIS The Benicio del Toro thing?
HAITCH Yes. Yeah. Josh Brolin.
CHRIS Yeah, sure.
HAITCH Start there. [Jason laughs] Start start there. So that’s directed by Denis Villeneuve, who is directing the new Dune 2021 movie. That’s why we’re doing this, because the new Dune movie is coming out in October.
JASON I would hold off. Yeah. Don’t read the book. Don’t watch the old movie. Just wait and then see, watch the Villeneuve Dune when it comes out in October. And let that be your first experience.
CHRIS And is it going to be better? Is that your idea? Is that I mean, I know you guys — have you seen it? Has this podcast given you guys privileged access?
JASON No, we don’t have that kind of, we don’t have that kind of juice.
HAITCH We’re working on it. We’re working on it.
CHRIS Have you been recognized at all by the studio at all?
HAITCH I got an email thread going with a marketing person at Warner Brothers.
CHRIS Yes! Okay, this is what I’m talking about.
HAITCH We’re working on it.
CHRIS Okay. So will you get to a screening?
HAITCH That would be a goal. Yeah, that would be awesome.
JASON We’re gonna, we’re gonna, they’re gonna want the influence. They’re gonna want the clout. [Haitch laughs]
HAITCH The Dune Pod bump.
CHRIS I might be able to help you with that. So keep me posted.
HAITCH Okay.
JASON Alright. Let’s do right.
HAITCH Yeah, love it.
CHRIS Those things are hilarious.
HAITCH Alright, I will take you up on that.
CHRIS Have you ever been to a premiere screening by any chance?
HAITCH I have not. What’s your favorite?
CHRIS 95% of the people there are there out of sheer obligation. So they’re just doing email the whole time. [Haitch laughs] And at the end, they come up and issue just like unmitigated congratulations, even to absolut bombs. So, I don’t want to sell anybody out. But I had to, I had to meet somebody about, I had to do a business meeting with somebody who was an agent and representing somebody involved with 10,000 BC.
JASON Ohhh.
HAITCH Oh my God!
CHRIS So he’s like, look, the only time I have today to talk about this is that the 10,000 BC premiere. [Jason & Haitch laugh] We sat in the theater while 10,000 BC was running and actively negotiated a deal. [Jason laughs] When the movie was over, like he stood up and walked to the writer and the director like “oh my god, you guys, that was fantastic.” Yeah. We had literally inked a deal in the fucking theater.
HAITCH Good deal?
CHRIS Yeah, it worked out actually. Worked out.
JASON Was the movie good? Do you remember the movie at all?
CHRIS 10,000 BC, not at all. It could have been the Flintstones for all I care. I didn’t notice. So, I would I feel like that’s a goal though. Like you gotta, like you gotta be goal driven.
HAITCH We will go to the Dune premiere with you, Chris. Like that’s cool, we’re in.
CHRIS I think we should all just like literally, we should set that as a marker. We should all go to a premiere of this movie.
HAITCH Great. I’m gonna ring the bell. [Fact bell rings]
CHRIS The Villeneuve. Villeneuve?
JASON Villeneuve. Yeah.
CHRIS Oh, you say the ‘neuve’ part. Okay, the Villeneuve cut. Is this like the Snyder cut of Dune?
HAITCH Yeah, that’s right. The better one.
CHRIS The better one, alright, great.
HAITCH Alright, I have two quick voicemails, the first one is from Cory.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Dune Pod, it’s Cory from Austin, Texas. Alright, Tenet. What the fuck are you guys talking about? Lost Highway makes more sense than what Tenet sounded like. Ever though the action sequences sound really entertaining, I’ll probably end up checking it out. I’m not against it. But listen to you guys try to describe it was was, was really amusing. I do have a favorite, that’s not in my all time favorite, but a time travel movie that I really like, was a Spanish film. I want to say it was from mid 2000s called Time Crimes.
HAITCH Amazing.
VOICEMAIL I don’t know if you guys heard of it, I make it out really good, twisted fun, and it’s time travel. And then what’s to say about The Big Lebowski that everybody hasn’t already said? I’m curious to hear you guys talk about it. So I’ll just jump right to who would Tilda Swinton play and I would have liked to see her and a smaller part which might be maybe not what everyone’s choosing. I’d like to see her as Dusty. I think that would be really good, with the hair. And then my other choice would be Jackie Treehorn.
JASON Yeah, see, there you go.
VOICEMAIL Looking forward to the to the to the Big Lebowski episode because we want the money, Lebowski. Alright, bye guys.
[voicemail ends]
CHRIS He wants the money Lebowski if it cuts off your Johnson!
JASON We step on it and squish it.
CHRIS Hey man, this is a private residence. Sorry. We could just keep going.
JASON Your wiggly penis.
HAITCH Have you watched Tenet?
CHRIS No, no, I don’t, I don’t really watch things.
JASON You just listen to F1.
CHRIS No like when I agreed to do Shark Tank, I saw it on a in a hotel room like, you know, during that break between a couple things. Like we didn’t have a TV up in Truckee, we’ve got one now but so I’m not really a —
JASON A watcher.
CHRIS That’s the thing. I’m stuck in 80s and 90s movies anyway.
HAITCH Cory, thank you so much. Alright. final, final voicemail of the night. This is from the Lion City.
JASON Oh, Bryce Kelly’s back.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey guys, Bryce Kelly, Singapore. Lion City. I, so, hopefully, this will be my last message that I ever send.
JASON What?!
VOICEMAIL Concerning this particular four letter palindromic word, but on, so two things. One is I feel like every, every few episodes, there’s like a part where somebody’s like, ‘Oh, I love that line. Like I say that with me and my friends or my wife all the time, such as I lobos’ hopefully that’s a good enough reference. Anyways, when you were speculating about the what goes on in the shipping container, stays in the shipping container and the Tenet episode last week. It really reminds me of the only example that I think I have in my head that I don’t say out loud, which is Miranda July’s poop back and forth thing, which is a brother or two brothers who were like online chatting back when that was not new, but still relatively new. It’s like the youngest brother who’s like, inappropriately like five or six is saying something like —
[clip of You, Me, and Everyone We Know plays]
‘I want to poop back and forth’
What? What does that mean?
Like I’ll poop into her butthole, but then she’ll poop it back into my butthole. And then we’ll just keep doing back and forth. With the same poop
VOICEMAIL Forever. And you’re like, kind of horrified and then you see just her response, Miranda July’s characters response, just like, oh my god, you’re making me so hot. Anyways, it’s such a poignant scene. And it’s like, both inappropriate and cringe inducing, but also, like, adorable, like the brothers interactions together. Like the particularly the smaller kid is like, so just cute. Anyways, I will sign off. I’m no longer gonna mention that word again.
[voicemail ends]
JASON That’s great. That’s You, Me and Everyone we know.
HAITCH I’ve not seen that.
JASON It’s the Miranda one. It’s really good. Yeah. Sacca, Bryce Kelly was my first ever manager in product management in the year 2000.
CHRIS I was trying to follow that question. And I felt like that was the part where it gave away that you guys don’t really have a podcast and this was all just spoof to fuck with me. [Haitch laughs]
CHRIS I mean, it starts pretty dark dude, can we — can you go play the first like sentence of that question back again? Do you have the ability to do that?
JASON Yeah, the first sentence was like, “this is the last time you’ll hear from me” [Jason laughs]
CHRIS Yeah! It was like, like darkness washed over the dude. Darker than a black steer’s tookus. Darker than a black steer’s tookus on a moonless prairie night. There was no bottom.
HAITCH Tookus, yeah.
CHRIS That shit started dark, I worried whether you guys get mailed suicide voicemails.
HAITCH No no, I think it’s just it’s it’s us collectively having successfully processed Tenet and now we’re putting that aside.
JASON We’re done with Tenet.
HAITCH That was it. This was all Tenet talk from last week.
JASON Yeah, it’s David Cross bit again. You gotta watch last week’s episode for this week’s voicemail. [Haitch laughs]
HAITCH Exactly.
JASON It’s always great to hear from Bryce Kelly.
HAITCH Yes, thank you so much, Bryce. We really, we appreciate you.
JASON And all of our —
HAITCH As always, thank you, everybody for writing in. Chris, what do you have to plug? What are you excited about? What’s going on?
CHRIS Well, first, let me just say I think my favorite thing about your podcast was the reviews on iTunes or whatever, which I’ll make reference to the fact that it’s only tenuously connected to Dune. That’s, I’m glad, I think you guys should own that a little bit more. But, but it made me feel welcome. I really appreciate it.
HAITCH Dude, thank you so much for coming and shedding light.
CHRIS I mean, news should come to light and so that’s why you got to ring the bell, you know? [Haitch laughs] So, no, but plug wise. I mean, we’re working on climate.
HAITCH Yeah. Lower carbon.
CHRIS Yeah. So lowercarboncapital.com is where you can read all about what we’re doing to unfuck the planet right now.
[theme music fades in]
HAITCH Nice. Appreciate it. Much, much needed.
JASON We need that. Please do it.
CHRIS Guys. This is awesome. I love your tenuously connected to Dune podcast.
JASON Thank you so much.
HAITCH Dude, thank you.
CHRIS Thanks for having me.
HAITCH And that’s it for this episode of Dune Pod. I want to thank Jason and Sacca for an amazing conversation. This was one for the ages. Next week, Gurney Halleck himself, Josh Brolin makes his fourth appearance on the podcast with the Coen Brothers, Roger Deakins, and Jeff Bridges 2010, Big Lebowski follow up, True Grit. If you’re enjoying this podcast, follow us @dunepod on Instagram, Twitter and share our social media posts as it really helps new listeners find the show. Dune Pod is a production of Haitch Industries. Our artwork is by ctcher and our theme music was composed by Toby Forsman of Whipsaw music. The episode was produced and edited by me, Haitch. Thanks for listening. See everybody next week.
[Dune Pod theme plays alone, ends]
