A Serious Dude

Its 3AM at the Duder Bar. Ron and Nancy asked me to close up, so I'm sitting here alone in the back corner booth making some notes about a movie I saw recently...the Coen Bros. (as in Ringling Bros. ?) latest...A Serious Man . I am also expecting a knock on the door. Two old friends, Diego and Lucia, asked if they could stop by after closing and use the Duder dance floor for tango practice...big contest coming up. They are not practicing at home because she kicked him out the other night. Should make for an interesting session...

...anyhow...some Pin Dudeist thoughts on the movie...

As I mentioned in an review I wrote of Cathleen Falsani's The Dude Abides, I sometimes think the Coen brothers should be named the Koan brothers. Their movies, or at least parts of their movies have always seemed like zen koans to me. This is especially true of A Serious Man. Our hero, Larry Gopnik, a physics professor, is first seen, giving a lecture on Schrodinger's Paradox...the notorious alive/dead cat...presented, as is his proof of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, on an immense blackboard filled with scrawled equations. Riddles "clarified"...right? "Proofs"...right? Hilarious...visually overwhelming and baffling to most in the audience (and classroom) I think...at least to me...

I hear Diego and Lucia screaming at each other as they approach the rear door of the bar. There is not a knock on the door...there is a banging. I open the door. They both greet me in a perfunctory fashion, place a boom box on a table near the dance floor, turn it on...still engrossed in their arguing...and proceed to tango. As they move, the arguing becomes bickering, then ceases completely, replaced by intense looks into each others angry eyes. If they dance like this in the contest, how can they lose?

Back to the movie...let the cognitive dissonance work its magic...

Larry Gopnik is introduced "explaining" a famous paradox. Then he goes home to another set of riddles. Larry's wife wants to leave him for an unctuous, weasel-tongued new ("Is his poor wife cold yet? Three years?") widower and Larry has no idea why. His son Danny (a true Dude in the making, as we will see)...days away from his bar mitzvah, is lost in a pot fog. Larry's unemployed and very twisted brother, Arthur, is crashing on his couch. And...his next door neighbor, Mrs. Samsky, whose husband travels, is tormenting him with her nude backyard sunbathing...which he discovers while on the roof adjusting his TV antenna so that Danny can watch F Troop with clarity...the prelude to the devolution...

Are these the baroque machinations of a trickster God? A latter day replay of Job's soap opera? A bad, carnivalesque secondary theater production staged by Larry David and art directed by Diane Arbus?



Odd twists and turns...a lot of ins and outs and what-have-yous...crop up at Larry's university as things move along on down the road. He's up for tenure and the tenure committee is receiving letter after anonymous letter questioning Larry's moral turpitude. On top of that (here comes a dash of Asian thought to flavor the stew folks), one of his students, a Korean young man named Clive Park, apparently leaves an unmarked envelope containing three grand on Larry's desk in an attempt to bribe Larry not to fail him. When Larry questions this, Clive's father shows up at his house and threatens to sue...(from the screenplay)...

Larry turns to Mr. Park.
Larry:...I, uh...See, if it were defamation there would have to be someone I was defaming him to, or I...All right, I...let's keep it simple. I could pretend the money never appeared. That's not defaming anyone.
Mr. Park: Yes. And passing grade.
Larry: Passing grade.
Mr. Park: Yes.
Larry: Or you'll sue me.
Mr. Park: For taking money.
Larry: So...he did leave the money.
Mr. Park: This is defamation
Larry stares at him.
Larry: Look. It doesn't make sense. Either he left the money or he didn't...
Mr. Park: Please. Accept mystery.

Yes Larry...the mystery, indeed. Seeking answers to all of these doings, which are getting "curiouser and curiouser", as Wavy Gravy would say, Larry seeks the advice of his rabbi and winds up having to consult with the junior rabbi instead, who admonishes Larry to..."Look at the parking lot, Larry"...a phrase which may work its way into our lexicon in much the same way as...well...shush...listen to me going on...better not go there just yet...

Anyhow...what the rabbi means is that Larry is looking at his life, as he would the mundane parking lot outside, with tired, world weary eyes. He asks Larry to imagine himself a visitor (from a primitive tribe?), someone who isn't familiar with autos and such, "somebody still with a capacity to wonder, someone with a fresh perspective...Things aren't so bad. Look at the parking lot, Larry."

Larry finally gets to talk with a higher level rabbi who tells him the tale of a dentist's weird discovery in a patient's mouth...the letters spelling "help me" in Hebrew engraved on the inside of the patient's lower teeth...and its aftermath...after awhile the dentist stopped worrying about what it meant...shaggy dogs continue to bark. Still not satisfied with the answers he is getting to his "What the fuck is happening here?" question, he tries to talk to the wisest rabbi in town who refuses to see him because...as his snide, puffy and aged secretary informs him...the rabbi is busy...thinking.

Not wanting to be left out of the party, synchronicity now comes stumbling down the road in the form of simultaneous car crashes...one involving Larry, one involving his wife's lover. The other guy is killed and Larry's wife insists that Larry pay for the funeral. Onward...

Bar mitzvah day arrives and Larry's son, Danny, is stoned. He makes it through the ceremony and is escorted away for the final step in the process...an audience with the oldest and wisest of the rabbis...the one who refused to see Larry. The boy trembles as the old man looks up at him and speaks slowly..."When the truth is found to be lies/And all the joy within you dies/Don't you want somebody to love."...then turns on the portable tape recorder that had been confiscated from the boy in class at Hebrew school. Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane...Danny's favorite band (the young Dude's Creedence?)...fill the room and the old rabbi smiles. Wisdom has been passed, once again, from old to young...




And so...is the young, new Dude able to chill? Not quite over yet folks. Back at the university, Larry finds out that he probably has been granted tenure. He also decides to do things the Korean way and take the money Clive left...to pay a criminal attorney now needed to keep his brother out of jail, actually...but that's a part of the story I won't divulge. Don't want to ruin every surprise for those of you who haven't seen the movie yet. Things seem to be looking up. The phone rings. It is Larry's doctor telling him that he has gotten the X-rays back...another detail I left out...and can Larry come in for a personal consultation immediately. No, it cannot be dealt with over the phone. Larry stumbles out of his office...

In the meantime at young Dude's school a storm approaches. The teacher gets a tornado warning and is told to take the students to the storm shelter next door. Outside, we watch as the teacher cannot get the door to the storm shelter unlocked. The tornado bears down as Danny, oblivious, tries to pay off an old pot debt...

Fade to black...and more black? Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you pardner. Take comfort in knowing that young Danny, the designated new Dude, will probably be bounced around a little, but just as probably will roll on out of this OK...to eat the bear another day. And abide...

Diego and Lucia conclude their tango practice and disappear into the night. Once again, the Duder Bar is empty...except for me...

...and the Koans...

Duder Home & Garden

I posted another version of some of these Pin Dudeist garden pictures back in June. I just got these new ones from my Zen/Pin convert, cultural attache and garden architect in Kyoto...Gerry Kudaka...so I decided to put them up here as well as in the ever growing DudeArt Exhibition and Museum at the old Duder Bar. Hope you find them an enlightening and amusing inducement and enhancement as far as your usual Dudeist meditative mind limbering exercises are concerned.

That rug really kind of holds the garden together...don't you agree?




Those Japanese Pin Dudeists must really be into gardening, man.



Notice how the foreground object subtly changes one's perception of the entire garden.



Sitting quietly, doing nothing...



...the bowling ball abides...

Strange Days?

You would be watching this instead of reading about it if the fucking mall cops hadn’t confiscated my video camera. Maybe somebody captured it with their cell phone. Here’s what happened…

It is September 11...day of infamy. 23 Pin Dudeist monks and I are at The Duder Bar, along with the other usual suspects and the owners, Ron and Nancy, who have become intrigued by the re-tuned vibe, the heightened hum, which has suffused the bar in recent weeks. Ron, is circumspect, however, responding to the increased level of outlandish synchronicity and surrealism that seems to be finding its way to his door with his usual, "same shit, different day" admonition. Maybe he is the most awake of all...

...anyhow...we decide that the only thing to do is commemorate the Dude’s well known act of prophecy in the first sequence of The Big Lebowski...namely, writing a check for the half & half dated Sept. 11…the day his rug gets pissed on...


NOSTRADUDEMUS!

(Tabloid headlines want to know…”IS THE DUDE A NEW NOSTRADAMUS?”)

...by embarking on a pilgrimage (we call it a meditation) in full Dude/monk gear to the nearest supermarket, opening and taking a taste of the old half & half and then lining up at the checkout and writing 23 checks for our respective purchases, all dated Sept. 11. This phase of the operation is followed, of course, by returning…en masse via public transit…to the Duder and, with single pointed attention…think Zen tea ceremony…watch as Louise, our sacred bartender and White Russian Master…using the newly purchased half & half…prepares the White Russians, which we then contemplate for a respectful time before imbibing, thus consummating the solemnity.

(Several of the 23 have had interface with either the CACOPHONY SOCIETY or the URBAN PRANKSTER NETWORK or both and acknowledge the inspiration factor implied in the above maneuver, by the way…)



Be that as it may…how shall I put it?…our shopping expedition does not go well. The mall cops patrolling the store perceive the invasion of the dairy aisle of the supermarket by 23 fully robed Pin Dudeist monks as a potential threat to the business establishment, the municipality and, indeed, the nation. They call for reinforcements and attempt to round us up but we scatter and proceed to shop in other areas of the enormous store. The real cops are called and we elect to exit sans half & half and head back to the Duder…not embraced by a rainy afternoon of defeat and gloom but by a hurricane of whoops and laughter. The idea of converging upon public transit is abandoned and off we bound in all directions…robes flapping. Back at the bar, we proceed with the “tea” ceremony with complete composure and protocol. A couple of cops arrive…stride up and down the bar sizing up what’s transpiring…then leave, waving at Ron and Nancy as they go.

Educational way to remember September 11, wouldn’t you say? But the day has just begun…and we find ourselves in the midst of a string of Strange Day Occurrences. Are we all stuck inside of a living koan? Is that a whiff of Suntory-satori in the air...or something else?


FATHER GUIDO

All are hungry by this time, so pizza is ordered. Someone, remembering FATHER GUIDO SARDUCCI’S (a Duder Bar regular from days past) game…enshrined on SNL’s Weekend Update…of “Find The Popes In The Pizza”…suggests that we find the Dudes in the pizzas when they arrive. It is surmised that on a day such as this, surely a Dudeist Miracle will occur. Forget about finding the visage of Jesus or Elvis on a potato chip. A wide eyed "delivery associate" arrives and through the, by now, pea soup White Russian fog, the Dude is, indeed spotted on one of the pizzas...



(This holy pie will wind up framed and on the wall behind the bar...itself the object of pilgrimage and adoration. Some will say that gazing upon it cures hangovers and various STDs, hence the throng of aspirants wanting a look each morning when the sacred grotto opens its doors...across the cases of oat soda...down through the ages...)

...then…we hear a roar in the street outside. What now?…we collectively wonder out loud. A tall, skinny gentleman dressed in late 19th century chauffeur garb, complete with scarf and goggles swaggers into the bar and stops in front of Louise.

“Your car, madam,” He announces as he offers his arm to her. She hesitates at this high weirdness, but we all encourage her to take the chauffeur’s arm.

We follow them outside where an immense roadster shaped like a bowling pin is surrounded by the curious. The chauffeur helps Louise into the car and they thunder off down the street.



Elliott, one of the monks, says, “Don’t worry…he’s just taking her through the park and back…”

Turns out Elliot knows a guy who just bought a roadside attraction/bowling museum in the mid-west…including the Pinmobile…and couldn’t resist.

We all go back inside where a video is playing on both of the TV sets behind the bar…we get a video today after all. I will not describe the video…and still don’t know who put it up…but present it herewith for your enjoyment and edification…




I notice a Stranger at the end of the bar nearest the door. Did he just come in? Cowboy hat...handlebar mustache...no...couldn't be. He watches me, grinning, as I walk over...extends his hand. As I get closer I realize the he's not the Stranger I thought he might be after all. Same accent though.

"So what do you think of all this?" I inquire.

"All what?" he replies, taking it all in.

"Where're you from friend...haven't seen you in here before..."

"The Circus," he responds, lifting his glass of sarsaparilla in a toast.

We click glasses and drain our drinks. The Stranger stands, turns to walk out the door, then looks back at me and the crowd of costumed monks and other Duder Bar folk and grins again as he drawls...

"Pardon my language young feller...don't like cussing...but you know what they say...same shit, different day...that's all. Catch you a little further on down the trail."

He turns and disappears into the night.

The Duderino Groove

So I’m at the Duder Bar beating Bub and this 300 pound Chinese guy, name of Yang, who came in with one of those fancy, screw together pool cues, in a game of Fuck Your Buddy. As most of you probably know, Fuck Your Buddy is a sophisticated bar pool contest involving three players, each of whom has five balls to call their own…1-5, 6-10, 11-15. The object is to knock the other guys balls in while leaving the cue ball where the other guy can’t make your balls if you miss. The winner breaks. We are playing for a buck a game and, so far, I have run the table three times. I am about to break again when Yang speaks.

“You’re sure on a roll Hier…Hier…”

“Hier…ony…mus,” I state as I straighten up after another killer break. “Yeah…I’m in the Duderino Groove…”

“The what?” Yang queries.

Bub can’t resist, “Hieronymus is a Pin Dudeist, so I guess the…”

“Bub…you’re out of your element, Bub,” I interject. “The Duderino Groove is…”

“What the fuck is a Pin Dudeist…a DUDE who plays fucking PINBALL?” Yang interrogates, enunciating ‘pinball’ in such a way that it sounds like a case of the clap.

“Well, the Dude DOES just happen to play pinball…but the Pin in Pin Dudeist refers to the noble sport of tenpins,” I answer as I make another of Yang’s balls, “ …just think of Pin like you think of Zen…you know what Zen is don’t you Mr. Yang? And Dudeist, OF COURSE, refers to one who espouses and prolestizes Dudeism. If you don’t know what Dudeism is, Mr. Yang, look it up…”

“Yang is my FIRST name…bowling, huh? Obama bowls. So what is the point of Dudeism Mr. Hieronymus?”

I make a great combination shot on the seven.

“Reverand Moondog to you Yang…SIR. Point? No POINT. The Dude just ABIDES, man…and AS the Dude ABIDES…most of the time the Dude is in the Duderino Groove too, man. You know…the Dude is really comfortable in his own skin…in the zone, man. A great pinball artist once said…”

I love quoting stuff to assholes like Yang.


PINBALL WORLD CHAMPION KEITH ELWIN

“…’one can enter a groove where there is no physical break between thought, action, and consequence. There is a zen of pinball, when the paddles become direct extensions of your brain, and you no longer feel the little buttons on the side of the machine, nor the spring as you let loose another ball.’…that’s the “His Dudeness Groove-ness” he’s speaking of, man. Same thing with pool…”

I smack in another ball.


ART BLAKEY

“…the cue is alive…part of your arm…you are not shooting pool, man…pool is shooting you. Same with music…the drums play you…the guitar plays you…and El Duderino Groove-O can be like a contact high, man. I was lucky enough to be on the same stage…not playing music, but shooting film, with Art Blakey once…and also Jerry Garcia…and these Dudes were ALWAYS in the groove, man…in the pocket…and looking through the viewfinder…after awhile there was no separation. I was not shooting the music. The music and my shooting it were not two. Just like now and the six ball…”


GARCIA

Whack! The six…three rails into the corner.

“So, you’re stoned all the time?” REVERAND Moondog. What's the REVERAND bullshit all about anyhow?

“Fuck no the Dude is not stoned all the time. But there is a Dudeist State of Consciousness, or DSC, that the Dude abides in MOST of the time…if not interrupted by assholes who piss on his rug…that I like to call the Duderino Groove…like I keep saying, man. You know…flow like a fucking river. The universe plays the Dude, man…the Dude is the instrument that Doctor Universe wails on at three in the morning. Do I make myself clear…YANG…what’s your last name Yang?

“Yang,” says Yang.

“Yang Yang?”

“Si, El Duderino…or is it El Padre Duderino?”

“Oh…a linguist! Well, do you dance Mr. Yang Yang?”

“But of course…every well educated gentleman knows how to da…”

“Can we see you dance Mr. Yang Yang?”

“Here? Now?”

“As they say…if not here…where? If not now…when?

I put some money in the jukebox. Creedence. I put down my cue and begin to weave…way inside the old Duderino Groove-O now… around the table, down the bar and back. I continue to sway and grin as I circle Yang.

“Since you’re a well educated gentleman, you know what Fred Nietzsche said don’t you Yang Yang?”

“Well, I…”

“I would believe only in a god who could dance…said Fred. Dance Yang Yang…for god’s sake…dance!”



I grab Yang and whirl him around. By now, everybody else in the Duder Bar is moving…looking like one giant many armed, many legged single Duderino Grooving creature…holy rolling to Creedence…

Finally, Yang drops his bullshit and spins, dervish style, down the length of the bar and into the street, laughing uproariously the whole way…looking for all the world like some marvelously crazed dancing Buddha.

We hear wild applause and cheers from the assembled passersby in the street outside…

Welcome to the DUDER BAR...man...

Ever since my “Laughing Buddha Trout Fishing In Mountain Stream Tattoo On Bald Biker Named Buddha” Suntory-satori, the North Beach bar I have been a regular at for decades has taken on a whole new shine. Now it seems like some kind of exotic, spellbinding power spot instead of a local dive. I have been to the Buddha Bar in Paris…and it can really dial you down to mellow while blowing your mind alright…but nothing compared to the hit I now get just walking into what I have re-named the Duder Bar.


The BUDDHA BAR, Paris

So in I go…for the first time since the “Suntory-satori” occurrence. A blast of some kind of weird energy hits me in the face as I go through the door and knocks me back a step. Down the bar in the shadowy light a number of people are crowded around a tall, bald guy in Buddhist robes. Looks from a distance like the Dalai Lama, but how could that be?


The DUDER BAR, North Beach

The bartender’s voice booms out, “Hey Heironymus…get you ass down here…somebody you gotta meet!”

I squint as my eyes adjust to the darkness and stumble down the bar toward Louise the bartender. Couldn’t be the Dalai Lama…the Dudely Lama?…naaa…the ultra-reclusive, mythical Dudely here? The group of people part and a grinning from ear to ear Bruce Willis looking guy sets what looks like a double bourbon on the bar, puts his hands together and bows.

“Say hello to Chogyam Dada,” says Louise. “He knew you were coming and has he got a tale to tell…been hanging out with The Dude…”

I return this guy’s bow and give him a good look up and down. He drains his bourbon.

“…and Walter and Donny”…says Chogyam, finishing the thought in a deep Mississippi accent.

Louise shoves my usual double Caucasian across the bar and pours Chogyam another bourbon.

“So, are they down the street at the motel waiting for your ass, man…?” I reply sarcastically. “Where you from anyway…Chogyam? You don’t talk like Tibet…”

“Don’t be such a hard-ass Hieronymous…he was just telling us about all this far out stuff,” chimes in the ever present and always enthusiastic ‘Bub’.

“Well, please continue then, man,” I insist as I take a heavy pull upon the Russian.

Chogyam does so, “I’ll back up a little bit…the Cliffs Notes version is this…fictitious characters in books, plays and movies…are thought forms which actually exist and become more and more independent…and stronger the more they are ‘exercised’…the more attention is paid to them. For example, Hamlet has been exercised a lot because he has been played over and over in all the productions of the play.

“These characters, and other thought forms, exist in what I call the Imaginal Realm…the ‘Otherworld’…which interacts with what we call reality all the time. One way these characters show up and hang out in our world is in dreams…now pay attention because this is the important part. We interact with them all the time but usually don’t recognize these folks for who they are…unless we have a lucid dream…a dream where we realize we’re dreaming, then can take the time to talk to these strangely familiar ‘people’ who turn up, or we invite in…then remember it later.

“Tibetan Buddhism has a practice called Dream Yoga that we use to play around with lucid dreams for all sorts of reasons. With a little practice we can get several people in on the same lucid dream, and they can talk to each other in the dream…and talk to the thought form beings they find there, or bring there with their group intention to do so…

I begin to see where Chogyam is going with this, “So Chogyam, now you’re going to tell us…”

“Let him fucking finish Hieronymus,” Louise insists, so I shut up.



“Thank you sir,” Chogyam intones graciously in my direction. “Anyhow, a group of us at the Dream Yoga Institute are huge fans of The Big Lebowski…go to Lebowskifests…get ordained…so now I’m a Buddhist Dudeist…and so on, and what not…so we figure…we do all this dream yoga practice for spiritual reasons…let’s see if we can contact the Dude and Walter and Donny…they must be really chillin’ INTENSLY out there somewhere because of all the energy they get from the fans…people “getting into character” and all. So we did. Kinda strange…THEY don’t quite know what to make of us, or who the fuck we are wandering into the bowling alley looking lost…

“You just said fuck, man…” I have to point out. “I didn’t think a Tibetan Buddhist priest would cuss like that…and drink one straight bourbon after another, either.”

“You obviously aren’t familiar with the work of my teacher…Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, man…” Chogyam grins.


CHOGYAM TRUNGPA RINPOCHE

“Far out,” I offer….being familiar with the doings of Chogyam Trungpa, This guy may be OK after all. Full of shit maybe, but OK.

“I’m not ‘full of shit’ Mr. Moondog…as you were just thinking. I can take you to meet the Dude ‘in person’ if you’re willing to work at it a little. May take some time, but it will be worth it.”

Did this guy just read my mind? Maybe he’s not completely full of shit after all. I am familiar with the stuff he was talking about…just never experienced it. I decide to take him up on his offer. I will fill you in about who this guy is, how he wound up in the Duder Bar, and the results of my experiments at the Dream Yoga Bowling Alley with the Dude and company as time goes along.

On a final note for this installment, I’m including an image of the business card Chogyam Dada, who also calls himself the Salvador Dali Lama, gave me as we parted…

ARE YOU SERIOUS?...man...

A Pin Dudeist goes into a bar…

*****

“Are you SERIOUS Hieronymus?” I get this question a lot lately. “Are you FUCKING SERIOUS…how can a REAL religion be based on a made-up character…in a MOVIE…in a COMEDY?”

“Just cracking the cosmic joke man,” I reply, with a grave look upon my face.

“Oh…so it’s a joke then?”

“Fuck no, its not a joke…” here I do my best Walter Sobchak impersonation, ”it’s the COSMIC joke…the BIG PRANK…am I wrong?…don’t you GET IT you idiot? A little CRAZY fucking WISDOM, you pederast!”

“Pederast?…So the next thing you’re going to tell me is that Jesus and the Buddha were stand-up comics. What’s a pederast?”

I ignore the question. “Hmmm…not a bad image Bub…Jesus…not “The Jesus” Quintana…the OTHER Jesus…and the Buddha doing stand-up on stage at God’s Big TOE…”

“God’s Big TOE?”

“God’s Big Theater of Everything, Bub. So what if The Dude’s a ‘made-up character’ as you pointed out in such a shitty and dismissive fashion…so what if ‘The Big Lebowski’ IS a movie…a COMEDY? Movies now are like telling tall tales around the fire used to be thousands of years ago…Bub…where do you think your high sounding MYTHS came from…huh? Besides…haven’t you heard “professor”…the universe is made of stories, not atoms….YOU are a ‘made-up character’ yourself. Better watch out…you can be re-written you know…”

Smelling blood, the crowd moves to our end of the bar. I order another double White Russian.

“You’re losing it Hieronymous…”

“Quite the contrary…” I reply, adopting a haughty and superior tone, “You call yourself educated…you MUST know that what you think of as “reality” is a construction…a fabrication…YOU are a fabrication…an illusion, man…” I lunge at the crowd…”POOF!…you’re GONE!…

They jump back.


LAO TZU

“…and talk about basing spiritual stuff on highly suspect yarns…what about Lao Tzu?…I really dig his stuff but he never existed…poor Lao Tzu was put together from bits and pieces of several guys in 4th or 6th century B.C. China…your “experts” don’t know which…concocted by those venerable SAGES to give their new Taoism thing a hook to hang its hat on. Doesn’t make Taoism any less powerful does it? And what about Don Juan Mateus?…Castaneda’s coyote man who helped blow the mind of a generation?



HOAX! Whole thing was made-up…still strong stuff though…STILL TRUE like LAO TZU…not to mention the doings of the inimitable Mullah Nasruddin, who is still hanging out somewhere on the other side of history…


NASRUDDIN

...and we can’t leave out JA-HEESUS”

“Jesus?” The crowd mutters with one voice.

“Check it out…‘The Laughing Jesus’ by Tim Freke …if you really want to have you rug pissed on folks. After those guys in Rome converted back in the day, they could not find any real, historical Jesus at all, at all in their hip new religion…just allegorical fables…so they decided to just TELL people that he was a real guy…and make that the official reality…the “you better believe it or be fed to the lions” Emperor’s Reality…to make it different from all the other mystery religion parables and legends JUST LIKE IT that were floating around The Empire…just needed a real dude to tie the room together…you know…so don’t talk to me about made-up characters!”



The bar falls strangely silent. I look around. Did I go too far? Then someone in the back loudly whispers, “Uhhh…far out…man…”

As I head for the john I mumble resoundingly…“As George Carlin once said…I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it…”

Someone in the audience yells back, “And as Paul Krassner once said…Pope John Paul would have been more popular if he had called himself Pope John Paul George and Ringo…”

“Abide, my brother…” I reply quietly as I wander off into the shadows.

*****

When I return to the bar everyone is crowded around a bald biker looking guy, name of Buddha, who was not there when I left. My buddy, “Bub”, waves me over.

“You gotta check this out Hieronymus. You gotta get one of these…”

Buddha grins from ear to ear as he holds up his arm for me to admire. Tattoed upon it is the image of a laughing Buddha fly fishing for rainbow trout in a mountain stream. I immediately attain Suntory…which is what satori is called when it happens while drinking in a bar.

Bodhidharma and Pin Dudeism

Legendary Buddhist monk Bodhidharma who traveled to China around 495 AD is generally credited with the founding of Chan Buddhism...the original Chinese expression of Zen. Bodhidharma, as the tale is told, set up shop at the northern Shaolin Temple, got the unhealthy monks in shape, invented Kung Fu and Zen and then wandered off into the misty valleys of myth and tall tale.

I suspect that Bodhidharma's accomplishments were not limited to the brilliant ministrations outlined above. In a shop near the entrance of the Forest of Steles in Xian many years ago I purchased a rubbing depicting Bodhidharma made from one of the centuries old steles that I had noticed inside. A photograph of the rubbing is presented above for your perusal, analysis, edification and amusement. Since the image clearly...to my admittedly untrained eye...shows the fabled monk holding a bowling ball, not a begging bowl, I am going to jump to the unprecedented conclusion that Bodhidharma...undoubetedly a dude to the core...also was an early contributor to the Dudeist creed...the Pin Dudeist form in particular.

Alternative interpretations entertained...