In the spring of 2003 I got a call from Will Russell and Scott Shuffitt (that's them below) inviting me to the 2nd Annual Lebowski Fest in Louisville, Kentucky. They described it as a two-night affair, the first at a movie theater and a bar and the second at a bowling alley.
They were thrilled that 150 people actually came to the first take -- an idea they hatched when they ran into each other standing in line at a tattoo convention and started trading lines from “The Big Lebowski” to pass the time.
They hoped if “The Dude” showed up for Round 2, and they added a few fun activities throughout the weekend, they might be able to draw hundreds more.
I instantly flashed on that classic William Shatner, aka Captain Kirk, skit on “Saturday Night Live,” when he appears at a “Star Trek” convention and the Trekkies (all in costume and socially ill-at-ease) ask him one question after another as if “Star Trek” were real.
Shocked by this parallel universe, Shatner asks the mostly male audience if any of them have ever gone out with a girl -- to be answered with dumbfounded stares. Exasperated he says, “Get a life.”
So I was a tres dubious about being surrounded at Holiday Inn in Louisville by a bunch of “Achievers” -- as Scott and Will referred to themselves and their cohorts.
Let’s flashback for a little back story with the help of Roger Ebert:
“Everybody knows somebody like the Dude -- and so do the Coen brothers,” Roger wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times. “They based the character ‘The Dude,’ played by Jeff Bridges in ‘The Big Lebowski’ on a movie producer and distributor named Jeff Dowd, a familiar figure at film festivals, who is tall, large, and shaggy and a boil with enthusiasm. Dowd is much more successful than Lebowski (he has played an important role in the Coens’ careers as indie filmmakers), but no less a creature of the moment. Both dudes depend on improvisation and inspiration.” 
I picked up the moniker “The Dude” when I was in sixth grade, and my friends Dave and Danny riffed on Dowd and turned it into Dude -- a nickname that others would apply wherever I moved, without any hint of its past use.
When I helped Robert Redford start the Sundance Institute in 1981, something happened that first June that was either by chance, destiny or both. A man from Minnesota, who supported some of Redford’s environmental causes, dropped by Sundance and mentioned that he had invested some money in a little indie picture by a couple of whacked-out, yet brilliant intellectual brothers, who hailed from the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
He asked Bob if he had any advice, and Redford brought him over to meet me. The two brothers were Joel and Ethan Coen. He said that he would put them in touch with me when they completed the film.
