Lebowski, Lee, and Life

This is totally random, but I recently saw a fun, quirky little TV interview with Jeff Bridges.  It put me in The Big Lebowski state of mind.  What a crazy-hilarious movie, and a treasure trove of great quotes:

• “Strikes and gutters, ups and downs, [but] the Dude abides.”
  
  
• “Well, sir, it's this rug I had.  It really tied the room together.”
  
  
• “Look, let me explain something to you.  I'm not Mr. Lebowski.  You're Mr. Lebowski.  I'm the Dude.  So that's what you call me.  That, or His Dudeness...Duder...or El Duderino if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing.
  
  
• “This is a very complicated case, Maude.  You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-you’s.  And, uh, lotta strands to keep in my head, man.  Lotta strands in old Duder’s head.  Luckily I'm adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug regimen to keep my mind limber."
   
•  “Careful, man, there's a beverage here!” 

 

From here, of course, it’s only a hop and skip into a Bruce Lee state of mind.  I loved his movies.  Growing up, my friends and I created and recreated fight scene after fight scene, videotaping and, once, accidentally knocking a huge 2x3' hole in the garage wall—right through sheetrock to the studs.  Years later, one of our sweet, beloved “stuntmen”—David Feagins—died, along with one of his young sons, in an absolutely tragic and gut-wrenching car accident near Red River, NM.  He and I had talked about philosophy often, for well over a decade during our formative years, and we just loved the ‘ol Brucester.  I can hear Feags’ laughter and see his bright, mischievous eyes light up just like it was yesterday:

• “Don't get set into one form; adapt it and build your own, and let it grow.  Be like water.  Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless—like water.  Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle; you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.  Now water can flow or it can crash.  Be water, my friend.”
  
  
• “Why, when I point to the moon, do you stare at my finger?”

Why stare at the finger, indeed. 

Look up.  This is life, and it ain’t no dress rehearsal, man.

 

* * *