What would the Dude read?

[Kanantus]

I'm thinking of fiction here. But what genres do you think the Dude would read when it comes to novels? Crime, horror, romance, comedy, SF, fantasy or what?

The reason why I ask is because recently I have been contemplating what Oliver has written about heroism and how we dudeist need to take it easy and not be so aggressive. In "The Dao of the Dude"  he points out that Campbell talked about The Hero's Journey and for us dudeists that's kind of a bummer because heroes are often an idealized version of us humans and are often quite aggressive and quick to judge and condemn "the bad guys". Oliver also quoted Vonnegut in The Abide Guide about why so many people fuck up their lives is because they seen to many faery tales. In other words they create fake drama in their lives because that's what they've seen on TV or read in books that our lives must be full of drama.

I love reading all genres from the highbrow like Kerouac, Ginsberg, Bukowski, Pirsig, to the more lowbrow like King, Rice, Rowling, Martin etc. But many of these authors write books that are about heroism and adventure or horror or drama. But now I have my doubts about reading such material as a dudeist. So fellow dudeist: What genres of books do you think the Dude would read and what genres should we dudeist read, and finally what genres of books do you read as a dudeist?

[Dudov]

Good question Dude.

I am a big fan of Pirsig myself. The Dude would definitely dig his style. If you like Fiction, another author I discovered this year who could be a Dudeist is Lionel Shriver. We Need to Talk about Kevin is the best novel I've read in years. I like Paul Auster a lot too.

I think the Dude is definitely a reader. Probably keeps a caucasian by his side while reading though Don't think he would have a problem with any particular genres, as long as the writer knows how to take er' easy and doesn't take life too seriously!

[DigitalBuddha]

My Dinner with Audre - the screen play...........

My Dinner with Andre is a passionate, volatile, and humorous encounter between two friends who have not seen each other for a long time, and decide to catch up on each others' lives over dinner. Andre Gregory is an intense, highly experimental theater director and playwright in search of life's meanings and spiritual revelations. His friend, Wally Shawn, is an actor and playwright living in New York who is more preoccupied with the search for his next meal. As Andre recounts his global journeys involving esoteric theatrical experiments and mystical adventures, Wally listens with more than skepticism, as his attitudes shift among wonder, puzzlement, admiration, and anger. What finally emerges is a sensitive portrait of a friendship that survives and transcends contransting assumptions about love, death, art, and man's continuing quest for self-fulfillment.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-dinner-with-andr-wallace-shawn/1110887885;jsessionid=4CD17AD329561BD6E17DBB355C0618CB.prodny_store02-atgap02?ean=2900802130630&pcta=u&st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_Core%20Shopping%20Textbooks_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP62423

[BikerDude]

Everything is about balance.
What I remember about heroism in the Tao of The Dude is nuanced.
As I recall it celebrates a seldom celebrated type of heroism. Individualism. A worthy endevour and it seems an answer to a frustratingly popular definition that is about conformity. I'd almost say it's the exact shadow cast by "The Unsung Hero's" that Reagan conservatism loves to celebrate. The conformist glorified. Basically the Big Lebowski. The version seems to have an appeal to those who traffic in fake heroism. Chest beating. Gun culture, false patriotism etc. As I see it both extremes cheapen genuine heroism. It almost strikes as a sales pitch.
Everyone can be a hero? No they can't! Hero's are rare and idealizing them is a good thing.
The solution to "fake heroism" does not lie in diminishing the importance of heroism in my opinion. Or a whole sale redefinition of it. Inaction is not the solution to misplaced aggression or wrong courses of action. Or even powerlessness.
It is probably true that people create a lot of unnecessary drama in their lives. I call it "shadow boxing".
The drama is real but the way people express it and deal with it is misguided and often self destructive.
"The Hero" as an archetype is an idealized version of humanity but individual hero's are real.
Unfortunately idealization often leads to cheap stereotypes.
False heroism, false patriotism, jingoism these are all ascendant but diminishing the role of courage and selflessness is not IMO a worthy fucking endeavor. Suggesting otherwise is throwing out the bulk of the series.
Great literature, music, poetry. On and on. The way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin' it-self, down through the generations, westward the wagons, across the sands a time until-- aw, look at me, I'm ramblin.
Far be it from me to take on the holy writ but I'm on record as being an outlier. There's a lot of Dudeism that I dig but I'm not down with the inaction as a principle or any redefinition of heroism. Am I a Dude? Who the fuck knows. I try to be as Dude as I can be but I refuse to devalue my Walter. And for all his bluster would anyone suggest that in the end Walter is not a hero? Yeah I know Donny. Shut the fuck up Donny! I'm staying. Finishing my coffee. Enjoying my coffee.

IMO the greatest sin of this day and age is that it supplants the greatest things with cheap half ass versions.
Every side is at war with false stereotypes. A fake image of liberalism, conservatism, patriotism on and on.
Creating false drama for sure. But the solution isn't to suggest that real drama isn't real. It's fine to stop hating on imagined "bad guys" but perhaps more now than ever in my lifetime there are real "bad guys".
It's not because of any underlying fault of our ideals. It's because the legitimate version has been supplanted by some pale soundbite fueled cardboard cutout. People have lost track of what's important.
I'd caution contributing another comfortable stereotype to the mix. Is the slacker hero really necessary? And how is he different from your average Ted Nugent apostle?  The bottom line is most people are not hero's. That is the fucking point! It's not enough IMO to find your inner dude to be a hero. Any more than it is to fill your basement full of guns and take up a watch against imagined foes.

Fuck it? Yes that's your answer to everything.

Oh fuck.
Lost my train of thought.
What would the dude read.
I'd say in terms of authors a few are obvious.
I'd say Vonnegut is a good bet.
Ken Kesey for sure. One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest being the story of an anti hero.
Tom Robbins. Still Life With Woodpecker.
Persig for sure.
Joseph Heller catch 22
Bukowski
Nikos Kazantzakis. Particularly Zorba the Greek.
Marshall McCluhan- The Media is the Message
Allvin Toffler Future Shock way out of date but it was the shit back in the 70's
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36675260
Doug Coupland is great. Not really the Dude's generation but I think he'd be down with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1l-gJ1qM1U
The part of "Polaroids From the Dead" about the hippies and the Grateful Dead concert captures the Hippie spirit a couple decades on. It ran as a serial version in spin magazine. I can remember working night shift and reading the one part about the old hippie couple. I went out and bought Gen X and a Couple others right away.

How Douglas Coupland's Polaroids from the Dead continues to be a touchstone 20 years later
http://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/book-reviews/how-douglas-couplands-polaroids-from-the-dead-continues-to-be-a-touchstone-20-years-later/wcm/f7db6a82-b64f-4acb-906a-ec59d9131480

[Kanantus]

Thanks dudes for all the great feedback and reading suggestions. Will definitely check out those great books! 

BD: I dig your style, man! Just like you I don't think pacifism is something to hide behind when people that are not bowlers dunk your (shit)head in the toilet. And I agree that it's the fake heroism and chest pumping that's at fault here and not an idea of a genuine hero. Sadly it seems that "fake" is the new black these days: fake news, fake outrage, fake orgasms, fake ID's and what have ya. But there is something to that: In this age of postmodernism where everything is "liquid" fake becomes just another word for reality (alternative facts). So yes I agree that Dudeism is about balance or yin/yang. Ironically I find it harder to find balance after a few white russians or oat sodas so there is that. 

Take er easy, dudes. 

[BikerDude]

Yes indeed.
I'm a miserable old bastard for the most part.
But at some point it seems like everything changed.
It was like a jumping off point. Everything went up for sale.
I think it's grown with mass media. The power of propaganda. I'm a child of the 70's and I grew up with 3 TV stations and so I have a sort of long arc to call upon.
The populace became consumers and everything was advertising.
Even the stuff that should be above it.
I have a vague recollection of the first time that lawyers began advertising on TV.
Next doctors. These were once seen as above crass consumerism. It was nothing stated outright.
But somehow there was an awareness of "class" being somewhat synonymous with quality.
Next reality TV. Morton Downey is the first that I remember.
It felt like some small Waterloo had been crossed and their was a meager outcry at the time but of course money wins. The first Season of Survivor was seen as a new low. Compare that to now.
Somewhere later we get "Prosperity theology" and mega churches. Super PAC's. On and on.
Nothing is the province of humility any more. Can it be any surprise that we get heroism as a brand or political party? A product. It's all slogan. The value of the real thing is a pale memory.
It's the dim tide. Not the one thing. Just a general feeling of a sort of pollution of the spirit.
Degradation.
I hate that I'm constantly recoiling in horror at how prescient Marxist observations seem to be.
I'm not a Marxist but lord his observations about capitalism seem to be playing out spot on.
Including his belief that "decadence" is unavoidable. (Decadence being sort of a notion of trading long term stability for short term profit. A society eating it's self alive.)

http://libcom.org/library/decadence-aufheben-2

Essentially the theory suggests that capitalism as a system emerged, grew to maturity and has now entered its decline. The crises of capitalism are seen as evidence of a more severe underlying condition - the sickness of the capitalist system. Capitalist development brings about steadily increasing socialisation of the productive forces and at a certain point the capitalist forces of production are said to have moved into conflict with the relations of production. The concept of the decline of capitalism is bound up with a theory of the primacy of the productive forces. The driving force of history is seen as the contradiction with the relations of production. It is 'quintessentially' a marxist theory taking its understanding of the basic marxist position from the Preface to the Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy2.

For most versions of the theory the change from mature to declining capitalism is said to have occurred at a time around the First World War. The present form of capitalism is then characterised by declining or decaying features. Features identified with this change are the shift from laissez faire to monopoly capitalism, the dominance of finance capital, the increase in state planning, war production and imperialism. Monopoly capitalism indicates the growth of monopolies, cartels and the concentration of capital which has now reached the point of giant multinationals disposing of more wealth than small countries. At the same time in the phenomenon of finance capital, large amounts of capital are seen to escape linkage to particular labour processes and to move about in search of short term profits. In the increase in state planning the state becomes interpenetrated with the monopolies in various ways such as nationalisation and defence spending - this is capital getting organised. This planning is the state trying to regulate the workings of capitalism in the interests of the big firms/monopolies. Statification is seen as evidence of decay because it shows the objective socialisation of the economy snarling at the bit of capitalist appropriation; it is seen as capitalism in the age of its decline desperately trying to maintain itself by socialistic methods. The state spending and intervention is seen as a doomed attempt to avert crises which constantly threaten the system. War production is a particularly destructive form of state spending, where large amounts of the economy are seen to be taken up by essentially unproductive expenditure. This is closely related to imperialism which is seen as the characteristic of capitalism in the age of its decline. The 'epoch' is in fact said to be initiated by the division of the world between the great powers who have since fought two world wars to redistribute the world market. Wars and the threat of war are seen as evidence that capitalism's only way of continuing to exist is by destruction, it is suggested that if it can not save itself by other methods capitalism will plunge us into a war.

Oh well.
Fuck it.
I'm an old prick.
Might as well have our fun on the way down.

[DigitalBuddha]

I'm wondering if the Dude would be the kind of dude that would read Playboy Magazine? Perhaps looking for advice on bedding your favorite lady fried...for purposes of conception of course.



Was it not the Dude himself, in typically Dudely wisdom, who said "I'm just helping her conceive, man!"?



Which brings up another issue; is Hugh Hefner a dude?

[BikerDude]

You mean coitus?

[DigitalBuddha]

You mean coitus?

I mean, you know these guys?

[BikerDude]

You think the rug pissers did this?

[DigitalBuddha]

You think the rug pissers did this?

Well, dude, we just don't know.

[Kanantus]

I guess both coitus and Dudeism can be seen as a natural zesty enterprise.

[DigitalBuddha]

I guess both coitus and Dudeism can be seen as a natural zesty enterprise.

Fuckin' eh!!

[BikerDude]

Wave of the future.
100% electronic.

[Kanantus]

Well, I still read manually.