One of our roommates just moved out with no notice. He wasn’t really a good fit in the house anyway. He always complained about the piles of dishes in the kitchen. Well guess what, dude, those were there when you moved in, and they’ll still be there long after the next guy moves out. They are part of the ambiance we’re trying to keep up and we never learned how to clean them anyways.
One big problem is that we really can’t afford this place without a fourth person splitting the rent. Our search for a new roommate led us to scour the 1998 cult classic “The Big Lebowski” for potential replacements. What follows is our list of candidates, in the order of how tolerable they would be to live with:
37. Jesus Quintana
Absolutely not. This man is a convicted sex offender. What would the neighbors think if your new roommate had to go door to door to tell them all that he served time for exposing himself to an 8-year-old? Is it possible that The Jesus had some sort of back story in his spinoff that explained this away as a misunderstanding? Maybe. We didn’t watch it because some guy on reddit said it wasn’t very good.
36. Uli Kunkel (Nihilist #1)
Uli is one of Bunny’s costars in the porn industry. He is the leader of the gang of nihilists she hired to help fake her kidnapping. As a nihilist, Uli believes in nothing, and is loyal to no one. We wouldn’t be able to keep track of who he was scheming with or who he was double crossing on any given day. This ferret-wielding thug is only a slightly better option than the sex-offender bowler. And that’s not saying much.
35. Woo (Treehorn Thug #1)
This is the rug-pisser who started the completely avoidable series of events in “The Big Lebowski.” Everything that happens to The Dude and the unfortunate saps around him can be traced back to Woo’s inability to handle conflict without resorting to waterworks. Imagine forgetting to pay the electric bill and he decides to micturate on something of yours instead of writing a passive aggressive note like a normal roommate.
34. Blonde Thug (Treehorn Thug #2)
As confident as he is incompetent, this is another hired goon bringing chaos to The Dude’s life. This unnamed thug slightly beats Woo on our list because at least he only destroys property that belongs to the landlord, whereas Woo went out of his way to destroy The Dude’s personal property. And that rug really tied the room together. We’re going to pass on this one because he seems to be a package deal with Woo.
32. Nihilist #3
Nobody wants an incompetent criminal living in their house. Especially not one that would blast German techno-pop and trash the house with a cricket bat. We get it, you were in a band in the ‘70s. Good for you. How are the royalties on that uninspired Kraftwerk ripoff treating you after splitting them three ways? Maybe you should focus some of this energy on finding a real job? Or at least harassing someone for money that isn’t unemployed?
33. Flea
Ok, this character’s name in the credits is “Nihilist #2,” but that’s fucking Flea! It would be kind of cool to have a celebrity roommate, right? And as far as the nihilists go, he doesn’t seem to be very influential in their decision making. He mostly just agrees with Uli and provides comedic relief. We were seriously considering Flea until we remembered the strict “no bass players” policy in our house. And unlike the nihilists, we believe strongly in some things.
31. Maude’s Thugs
Let’s just get all the nameless thugs out of the way. No matter which millionaire they work for, whether or not they practice nihilism, and even if they are in the film so briefly that they don’t merit being considered as individual characters, we’re not interested in any of their bullshit being brought into our house. These two merely perpetuate the ongoing problem of rug violence in The Dude’s life.
30. Cab Driver
What kind of response was that? Your fare asked you to change the radio station and you physically threw him from the cab? Over the Eagles? This aggression will not stand. That’s why this cab driver is the lowest ranked character who isn’t a hired goon or pederast. We need a roommate who won’t try to fight us while blasting “Hotel California” when we get home from a long day. We hate the fuckin’ Eagles, man.
29. Malibu Police Chief
With behavior like this, the Chief of Police might as well be another thug working for Treehorn. The Dude begins their interaction by asking for a lawyer. We’ve seen enough “Law & Order: SVU” to know that the conversation that ensues would be inadmissible in court if the chief had wanted to arrest The Dude rather than beat the shit out of him at the station. This NiMBY police chief needs to worry more about his own behavior than the beach community he claims to protect if he wants to rent from us.
28. Liam (Quintana’s Partner)
We don’t really know much about this guy except that he’s willing to ignore The Jesus’s sex crimes to stay competitive in their bowling league. Maybe he also has a backstory in “The Jesus Rolls” that would help us make a more informed decision about his worthiness of renting out our extra room. But we still haven’t watched it because our friend Trevor called it a shitty attempt to cash in on the original movie’s cult appeal.
27. Bunny Lebowski
This seemingly carefree woman is the connection between every character in “The Big Lebowski.” It was her debt that led Jackie Treehorne to send thugs after the wrong Jeffrey Lebowski in the first place. We don’t want a roommate that has to fake her kidnapping to get ransom money from her own husband just to pay the rent. We’ve got enough of our own problems to deal with.
26. Older Cop
What a compassionless prick. Our expectations are low for the personality of an LAPD detective investigating the theft of a stoner’s car, and this guy still wouldn’t meet them. If this stoic cop moved in with us, there would be nothing but judgmental looks from him across the room. Ok, maybe we should have put away that bowling pin-shaped pipe before the cops came over, but weed isn’t illegal anymore, man. Doesn’t he have some real crime to worry about? There’s been a kidnapping!
25. Lebowski’s Chauffeur
To simply call this man a chauffeur would be to ignore the fact that he’s willing to resort to violence and, ironically, kidnapping on behalf of his employer, the fake millionaire Jeffrey Lebowski. We don’t want a roommate that will throw us into a car and drive off while we’re interrogated in the back just because he was too impatient to stop and ask WHY we got high and ate the leftover pizza he was going to take for lunch.
24. Arthur Digby Sellers
We don’t have room for an iron lung in our living room. Even if he wrote the bulk of the series “Branded,” of which we’re enormous fans, it just wouldn’t work with our aesthetic to have a comatose man hooked up to a machine in here. While we’re on the subject, how does this man have a teenage son? We’re to assume he’s been in this iron lung for decades. Is Arthur even Larry’s real father? This man needs to get his own life in order before we’d consider sharing a house with all that drama.
23. The Big Lebowski
The only positive about the millionaire Jeffrey Lebowski as a potential roommate would be his wealth. But even that was all a farce. His mansion and all of his plaques and trophies conceal he fact that his daughter controls the family trust. The Big Lebowski would just be another old capitalist screaming about how the working class deserves to be poor for not working harder. And he’s not above having you kidnapped if you don’t return his calls.
22. Auto Circus Cop
We get it, it’s a thankless job hunting down the owner of a stolen car and meeting him at the junkyard to fill out paperwork. But at least wait until after the car’s owner leaves to make jokes about his poor car being used as a toilet. The Dude asked a serious question, are there any leads in this case? And this cop’s response was to laugh in his face? This man would not be an ideal addition to our house, but at least he’s not violent.
21. Jackie Treehorn
While we think Jackie Treehorn would throw one hell of a party, this is probably going to be a pass from us. He’s rich, but he’ll drug your drink and throw you out of the house if he doesn’t like you. He’ll lend you money, but he’ll send thugs to piss in your house if he doesn’t get it back. How this man makes his money is none of our concern, but this pornographer’s lifestyle is more than we can handle.
20. Walter Sobchak
Walter is too out of control for our liking. He’s a loyal friend but he escalates every situation he’s involved in, or invents his own problems when he can’t find them organically. We acknowledge the severe PTSD that Walter suffers from as a result of his time in Vietnam, but we’ve got enough trouble keeping the peace around here without a lunatic trying to win an argument by threatening to shoot a man over a bowling match, even if it is a league game.
19. Doctor
Sure, he’s a good man, and thorough, but there is a limit to what we will tolerate from a tenant in our house. It’s not just that he colluded with Maude to surreptitiously determine if The Dude was a good candidate to have a child with. It’s this doctor’s violation of privacy that bothers us so much. Has this man not heard of HIPAA? This flagrant dissemination of The Dude’s protected health information goes against a number of laws.
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