“I wasn’t born Bad. My tombstone will have my real name on it, but until then I’m just gonna stay Bad.”
“I’m the Dude, man, so that’s what you call me, you know. That, or His Dudeness, ah, Duder, or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.”
From a nickname used as a first name to high consumption of a signature beverage to driving an old rust coloured beater with a ‘traveler’ tucked between their legs, Bad Blake and Jeff ‘the Dude’ Lebowski are two honest hombres cut from the same smoky, booze-soaked cloth. They appreciate modest comforts during simple daily endeavours, such as driving with your pants undone or hitting a Ralph’s in your bathrobe, and are joined at the musical hip by classic country and rock overtones. Since Crazy Heart writer/director Scott Cooper had never seen The Big Lebowski prior to filming, one can assume that executive producer and star Jeff Bridges had more than his fair share of dudeisms to scatter across the whole durned human comedy.
ARE WE GONNA SPLIT HAIRS HERE?
Strikes and gutters.
Bad pulls into the first gig of the movie at “a fucking bowling alley”, adorned with giant bowling pins reminiscent of the Dude’s Gutterballs dream sequence.
Not on the rug, man.
An immediate ‘urine association’ is made at the beginning of both films: in this case a piss jug from Bad’s truck is emptied into the parking lot. We all know what happened to the Dude’s rug.
Another Caucasian, Gary.
Bad’s first female encounter is with a sullen blond barmaid, in pigtails, who takes his money (no tabs) in exchange for his first drink. Duder’s first encounter is with a bored Ralph’s checkout girl, also sporting blond pigtails, while he’s purchasing cream for his inaugural White Russian of the film.
They’ve got us working in shifts!
Tony, the leader of Bad’s pickup band for the bowling alley gig, comes over to Bad’s motel room and asks him if he would mind coming by rehearsal a bit early so they can work on some leads. ‘Leads?’ exclaims Bad, in the same exasperated voice that the auto yard cop in Lebowski uses when the Dude asks him if he has any promising leads on his stolen car.
Mind if I do a J?
No explanation required.
It’s down there somewhere. Lemme take another look.
When Bad stumbles out the back door of the bowling alley to throw up in a garbage can, his glasses fall into the can during the process. He then reaches in, picks them out and shakes them off. The Dude’s sunglasses, as we all know, also fall into the can during the infamous first bungalo scene in Lebowski, and he reaches in and shakes them off with equal aplomb.
Wouldn’t hold out much hope for the tape deck, though. Or the Creedence.
Bad is first interviewed in his motel room by Jean, while he sits on the couch eating his steak. In a similar 'interrogation' type scene, the Dude is also sitting in his living room while being questioned by the police in regards to his stolen items.
Dude’s car got a little dinged up.
Bad’s truck swerving across the highway before rolling into the ditch is eerily reminiscent of the Dude’s dipsy-doodle crash into the dumpster.
You mix a helluva Caucasian, Jackie.
In what I would deem to be the most symmetric moments between the two films, each character passes out drunk/drugged, falling face down on the bed/floor, with the same camera angle shooting up from below. (see images below)
That rug really tied the room together, did it not?
Near the end of the film, when Bad is back from rehab and playing his regular Saturday night gig at Wayne’s bar, a camera shot moves forward from entrance to bar to stage, revealing a very Dude-like rug covering the stage. That rug really tied the film together, did it not?
THERE ISN’T A LITERAL CONNECTION, DUDE.
(unless you’ve been smoking a lot of Thai Stick)
Female prison fight on TV vs. Logjammin on TV; Played baseball vs. Sadaharu Oh baseball shirt; Playing gigs vs. Bowling tournaments; Son he didn’t know vs. Son he didn’t know he had conceived; Polishes guitar vs. Polishes bowling ball; Bad’s manager out front of bungalow in robe vs. The Dude out front of bungalow in robe; The song ‘Fallin’ and Flyin’ vs. The Dude falling, then flying! Catch ya further on down the trail.
As promised, after a long hiatus i am posting up a new top 5 for the lads to have a chuckle and bust some more balls after our what can only be deemed as epic stay at Joe Kools during the Canada/USA Gold Medal hockey game. A monster bill (see below), taps running dry, traitorous jerseys, free toques & beer cozys, beer-soaked swackets and lost voices can all be attributed to the glorious day. To anyone outside of our circle reading this, Gay, Vagina and Gerg are actual people. Killer and myself missed the list as we were completely out-gayed.
Top 5 Gayest Things Said During Gold Medal Game Day, Joseph Koolisky's, London ON, Feb. 28, 2010
- GAY (Vagina, referring to a ball hockey wager, states to Gay that he should but his hockey stick where his mouth is. Gay responds...) "Why don't i put my cock where your mouth is!"
- GAY "Do you want to know what the average midget penis size is?"
- VAGINA "Are you going to eat that celery?"
- VAGINA (As a soft aside to our server...) "Can i have a bunch of lime slices please?"
- VAGINA (Vag sees Brian Burke on the TV and states with all sincerity...) "That's a really nice haircut!"
Honourable Mentions - GERG: (Locating a toothpick-sized Canada flag within the shared wings, squeals out...) "Yay!"; GAY: (After Vag steals the second spare pickle of the day...) "That's my pickle!"; VAG (aside to Gerg, within what context i have no idea...) "I could grab your balls."
Monday, January 25, 2010
Stage time: 10:50 pm
1 Chinese Democracy
2 Welcome To The Jungle
3 It's So Easy
4 Mr Brownstone
Axl says you can drink vodka, rum, tequila etc as long as the headache is manageable....
5 Sorry
6 Better
7 Richard Fortus guitar solo
8 Live and Let Die
9 If the World
10 Dizzy piano solo
11 Street of Dreams
12 Jam ( a bit on ACDC's TNT )
13 Scraped
14 Rocket Queen
15 DJ Ashba guitar solo
16 Sweet Child O Mine
AXL: Are you having a pleasant evening?
17 Jam/Axl piano solo (asshole song/someone saved my life tonight)
18 November Rain
19 Bumblefoot solo
20 You Could Be Mine
21 Knockin On Heaven's Door (Dedicated to Mojo, Dougie and Eduardo)
Axl: Come On You Bitches Sing!
22 Shacklers Revenge
23.Acoustic Jam
24.Patience
25.Nighttrain
ENCORE
26.Madagascar
27.This I Love (Axls on the piano singing at the end and then jumps off for the final part.)
28.Paradise City
Shots are passed out to the crowd
"Thank you for coming out"
"Thank you to Danko and Sebastian and everybody else who made this possible"
Ron Thal: "Great show tonight in London. Don't know what came over me the end of the show - grabbed my junk & yelled THIS IS MY COCK!! into the mic."
Leave stage: 1:30 am
