Accessing the Dude within

To Hollywood, to interview leonine movie star Jeff Bridges! As if sensing that I hadn't been back to LA in a while, and wanted someone to spot my rising star, Budget rent-a-car rented me their most quantifiably hilarious vehicle they had on their books: a lime green cube of Japanese origin. It looked less like a car and more like the winner of an Origami competition. I had better luck with the hotel, Shutters in Santa Monica, but I'd forgotten about the ersatz formality of the Californians, constantly trying to find new ways to compliment those with money. "Welcome and thank you for entrusting us with your stay" read the paper wallet holding the keys to my room. Really? But I wasn't entrusting them with my stay, merely their ability to provide me with a room. Were they saying that their rooms were so nice they thought it unlikely I would leave? They were pretty swanky. Mr Bridges was great: a big sprawling bearhug of a man who manages the impossible task of being both wildly exuberant and totally zen at one and the same time. He referred a lot to "the Dude side of me," and "the Dude in me." I sensed a fair amount of Dude, together with a dash of Lightfoot. I told him Hollywood was the least zen place on earth. He said, that's why it's so fun to be zen in it. I had to admit that had a certain koanlike sense to it and tried to remember that on the drive back to the airport, via my old nemesis, the San Diego Freeway. You don't feel very zen driving a lime green cube in seven lanes of speeding traffic on the San Diego Freeway at night. But I remembered what the Dude had told me, put my faith in my GPS system and lived to tell the tale. (Interview to come.)