Little Things....

Little Things...

Just a few things about my life, lately....

I wandered down to Chattaboogie the other night. For the last little while, the Bijou downtown has been taking a couple nights, and picking a movie from the past and throwing it up on the big screen. I've had the opportunity to catch a couple flicks I'd never seen up on the big screen (A Christmas Story, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail), and a couple that I saw in the theaters, but simply wanted to see again that way.

They showed The Big Lebowski this week. A few weeks back, Steve Silver ranked the Coens' movies in order from his favorite to his least favorite. In his comment section, I did the same, and ranked Lebowski as my favorite Coen Brother movie.

While No Country for Old Men gets better every time I see it, I think Lebowski will hold on to that One Spot for a while. It was great to see it up on the Big Screen again, this past week. The first time I saw it, my buddy Bill was watching it for a Reviewing and Criticism class he was taking. I'd tagged along for a lack of anything better to do, and have dug the flick ever since.....

What's cool, when the flick is shot up onto a big screen, is all the little things you don't see going on in the back ground...at least when you're watching on a small screen, or when you have the movie on mainly for the background noise.

Most, if not all, don't impact the plot in any particular way, except for further establishing a setting. My eye kept going to the other bowlers in the bowling alley, anytime a scene took place in. I dunno...there was something I liked about the folks in the bowling alley. They are characters with their own stories....maybe not so outlandish as The Dude's, but slightly off-kilter stories, nonetheless. The closest I can come to putting my finger on it is that The Dude, Walter and Donnie are at home in that particular venue, in a world where anyplace else they are, at best, askew. So, too, are the other folks....

The other thing my eyes are drawn to is John Goodman's performance as Walter Sobchak. I enjoy Walter, if only for his complete lack of self-consciousness as it pertains to his complete ineptitude.

There is something entertaining in his belief that he is a principled man....and while that's a discussion for another day, I got to thinking about Walter yesterday.

All kidding aside with the title of this blog, I really don't suffer fools well at all, in this world. I try. Lord knows I try. I'll be the first to tell you that I do my share of stupid things over the course of the week...hellfire, I probably do your share of stupid things, too.

But I do very little to trouble other people with it. Maybe I realize that you're busy doing your own stupid mistakes.....

I spent 45 minutes easily, and almost an hour, on the telephone yesterday. I won't get into specifics, but at the end of the day, the subject of the telephone call ended up being somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.80.

I guess that's the irritation. I like to believe that my time is worth more than that, and that there are people in this world who operate "on the principle" of matters, rather than operating under an umbrella of pragmatism.

All I'm saying is that there comes a point where you cut your losses, and you decide how to proceed.

That last part is the most important part of the sentence. You proceed.

And quit bothering other people.

Remember...there's no advantage in a business in this day and age trying to cheat you (unless they're a gas company). Most businesses will do everything in their power to make things right.....

Funny me saying this ten minutes after writing about watching a movie from the past....and being so entertained by a character whose personality is tenuously propped up by righteous indignation concerning damn near everything.....

But I'm a man of many contradictions. You're gonna have to learn to deal with that.

At the end of the day, my point is this...

I dig the Big Lebowski for the whole tumbleweed aspect. You've got The Dude, and you've got Walter, with their diametric opposite personalities. For that matter, you've got any number of personalities within the movie, whose lifepaths go on relatively unscathed or unchanged despite the events of the movie (exceptions granted, of course, for Donnie, who dies, and for the German chick who loses a toe...and who's to say her life changes much, lighter one little toe?).

My point here, other than the one at the top of my head, is that Big Lebowski is a personal favorite for its ability to center me. It's a rare flick that puts me in a better place philosophically, but The Big Lebowski is one of the very best at it, for my money.

I'm trying my damnedest here to keep away from the cheesy, to keep from saying "I shouldn't sweat the small stuff..."

But, there it is.

Sometimes, Big Stupid Tommy needs a reminder....

It's a constant process, but I think I'm getting better at it.

The Dude Abides....