INTRODUCTION

LOTTA INS, LOTTA OUTS, LOTTA WHAT-HAVE-YOUS

On a random week-end in June a few years back, we’d rented a booth to sell T-shirts at a tattoo convention. The convention was the worst kind: slow, but not slow enough to justify packing up and going home. It was held in a Holiday Inn conference room, and the entertainment consisted of two naked people hanging, suspended by their ass piercings*, from a contraption on the makeshift stage. Our booth happened to be the closest one to the stage. We were out of our element.

To pass the time, we engaged in our usual method of entertainment, quoting lines from The Big Lebowski. We’d had lots of practice. Whether breaking down gear after a show by our now-defunct band** or killing time vending at music festivals, we would always find ways to work in a line. One person would yell, “You want a toe?” and someone would automatically respond with, “I can get you a toe! There are ways, Dude. You don’t wanna know.” Sometimes we even had enough restraint to leave the follow-up line up for grabs so that the lucky recipient would get to finish it off with, “Hell, I can get you a toe by three o’clock—with nail polish!” The more we watched the movie, the more we found ourselves quoting it. We found it to be a natural, zesty enterprise.

That day at the tattoo convention, we’d been trading lines for a while when, it being Saturday, one of us said, “Shabbos, Donny, is the Jewish day of rest.”

And then a voice came out of nowhere: “That means I don’t work, I don’t drive a car, I don’t fucking ride in a car, I don’t handle money, I don’t turn on the oven, and I sure as shit don’t fucking roll!” We were befuddled. Had someone called Sobchak Security to take care of the ass-people?* But it turned out the voice belonged to a guy in the booth next to us.

We turned to look at him and one of us chimed in with the obvious: “Shomer Shabbos!”

He raised a fist, Black Panther–style, and nodded. “Shomer fucking Shabbos.”

As if we’d just completed a previously unknown ritual of initiation, we felt an instant bond. We began sharing quotes and trivia related to the movie. Eventually a few people walking by joined us. Soon we had a small group gathered around our booths, everyone trading lines and laughing. It was our first experience of spontaneous Lebowski, our first glimpse that there were others out there like us.

On Sunday afternoon we paused from packing up our booth to watch as they unhooked the ass-people for the final time. Confronted with that sight, a thought occurred to us: If these guys can have a tattoo convention, there’s no reason—there’s no fucking reason—why we can’t have a Big Lebowski convention. We rode that wave of inspiration for about ten more seconds. By the time we stopped to take a breath, we’d managed to piece together what would become the basic formula for Lebowski Fest.

The idea was simple: Get fans of The Big Lebowski together in a bowling alley, and then turn them loose to bowl, drink White Russians, dress in costume, watch the movie together, and celebrate all things Lebowski.

If You Will It, Dude, It Is No Dream

Having the idea was one thing. Backing it up with time and energy was another. Who knew if anyone would actually come? So, being good Americans, we took a poll. When our friends said, “Mark it!” we scoured Louisville for the cheapest bowling alley we could find and hit secondhand shops in search of old bowling trophies to use as prizes.

A beacon of virtue surrounded by a sea of strip clubs, liquor stores, and trailer parks, the Baptist-owned and -operated Fellowship Lanes opened its doors to the First Annual Big Lebowski What-Have-You Fest** on October 12, 2002. Giant signs at the entrance proclaimed, NO CUSSING and NO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES ALLOWED, and below these signs was a sign that stated, READ THE SIGNS!

Considering that the word fuck and its variations are spoken 281 times in the film and that “getting limber” is a central theme, it could not have been a stranger choice, but in true Dudelike fashion, the crowd largely ignored the rules and refused to let them spoil their fun. The dialogue quoting and bowling, and the trivia and costume contests gave the night the same sense of bonding we had felt at the tattoo convention. Although we’d expected a small crowd of about thirty friends, nearly 150 people showed up, including some who made the trek to Kentucky from as far away as Tucson and Buffalo.

Encouraged by that success, we opened the doors of LebowskiFest.com in December 2002. Word spread quickly as dedicated fans of The Big Lebowski began to realize they were not alone. These fans, who began to self-apply the name “Achievers,” connected around the globe, trading lines of dialogue on the forum, spending hours in chat, and spreading the word through T-shirts and bumper stickers.

Lebowski Fest celebrated its five-year anniversary in the fall of 2006, and the phenomenon continues to grow. Lebowski Fest now has a world headquarters in Louisville, complete with five time-zone clocks and a rug that really ties the room together.

And Proud We Are of All of Them

Over the past few years we’ve been stupefied to discover just how much love there is for the Dude and his buddies, the movie that celebrates them, and the brilliant guys who dreamed it all up. Few experiences compare to an evening of throwing strikes and gutters among a group of like-minded Achievers. The common love of the film transcends age and race, religious and social boundaries.

The term Achiever, as it applies to fans of the movie, has a relatively short history. The term is taken, of course, from the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers (and proud we are of all of them). It started as an informal nickname on the LebowskiFest.com forum and has now become the preferred nomenclature for Lebowski fans everywhere. Playboy officially added it to the parlance of our times when they included it in the Tip Sheet of their November 2004 issue, alongside the equally noteworthy terms Pole-pox (“a rare but documented pole dancer’s malady”) and Atkins Mouth (“halitosis caused by low-carb diets”). 

Again being good Americans, we decided to make a T-shirt. We emblazoned the word Achiever in bold letters across the front and have shipped them to all parts of the world. People have sent us pictures of themselves in their Achiever shirts from places as far-flung as the Colosseum in Rome, an air base from our current situation in Iraq, a palace in India, and a suburb of Toledo. The entire collection of Achiever photos can be seen at LebowskiFest.com.

Ever Thus to Deadbeats

So why all the fuss? What is it about The Big Lebowski that has inspired so much interest and affection?

Well, Dude, we just don’t know.

We interviewed the actors from the film, some of the real people who inspired the story, and fellow Achievers in search of the answer.

We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

* To save you the trouble, a search for “ass piercing” on Google image search does no justice to what we endured.

** The Blue Goat War, our science fiction nerd-rock concept band. We occasionally wowed crowds of up to four or five people in coffeehouses and church basements.

* No.

** Yes, we know it’s wrong to say “First Annual.” Inaugural, please.