“Man, I’ve had a really rough night and I hate the f*ckin’ Eagles” – The Dude

This line from the movie, The Big Lebowski, uttered by the film’s central character, was a seminal moment in pop culture, as was the passing of Glenn Frey, one of the Eagles co-founders, songwriters, singers, guitarists and pianists on January 18^th 2016.

What made this scene in the film so poignant are two things:  first, what the Dude said out loud is what so many thought, but not dare even think for fear of being ostracized by their neighbors and being sued by Glenn Frey and/or Don Henley. Second, and perhaps somewhat overlooked, is the seriousness in which the cab driver in this scene takes his music. On this topic, I feel for and can relate to both of these characters.  

The folksy ballad Peaceful Easy Feeling, which every man, woman and child has had to endure now for as long as most of us can remember, is what finally made the Dude snap. El Duderino (if you’re not into the whole brevity thing) ended up getting tossed out of a cab for voicing his disdain for the Eagles. See what happens when you go against popular opinion. You are tossed into the street like a bag of rocks.

Both the Dude and the cab driver are two different versions of the everyman. One man has his own damn cab, the other had a rug that tied the entire room together. The dude, as we know, had a rough night. I’m guessing that cab driver had a few of those as well. Maybe it was the overly familiar two, three, and sometimes four, part harmonies of the Eagles that soothed over those tough times for the cabbie. I would imagine it is hard to take it easy while driving a cab in the city. In Los Angeles it has got to be particularly difficult. Maybe what was perhaps destined to be permanent background music, Eagles songs, might be a good traveling companion for this tough job. Who knows?

What we do know is that the Dude, like the Eagles, is a manufactured icon of what it means to be a Southern Californian. The Dude is the poster boy for slackers. The Eagles on the other hand and Glenn Frey in particular are/were entertainment moguls. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine Glenn Frey hanging out at one of Jackie Treehorn’s garden parties.

I know, I know, the Dude abides, but even that ethos only goes so far and the Eagles is where this very sympathetic, agreeable character draws a line in the sand. So what is it about the Eagles that would make the Dude utter such a heretical statement in the first place?

It could be a great many things, but most of these are likely tied to the notion that familiarity breeds contempt. The Eagles recorded six studio albums in the decade of the 70’s. By the time that the Dude got in that cab, which was around the time of our (first) conflict with Sadaam, the band had been broken up for a little more than a decade, but remained in constant rotation on the new classic-rock radio format. So by then, it had been twenty years of constant bombardment of Eagles music. Starting in the 80s came cable television, MTV, Entertainment Tonight and People Magazine. Now everyone can learn about the litigious nature and public in-fighting which revealed a pettiness that appeared to be born of greed, insecurity and an unseemly sense of entitlement. This left many, including the Dude, with a less than peaceful, very uneasy feeling toward the Eagles.

The Dude’s hatred of the f*cking Eagles preceded hell freezing over and the band returning and charging $100.00 a ticket to see them get back together on stage. This changed the concert ticket pricing structure forever. Up until the time of the Eagles first album, rock was youth oriented, iconoclastic, outsider music. As the big business of arena rock began to take hold in the 70s that notion was being obliterated right before our eyes. Now the Eagles made it official; rock music was just another mainstream corporate money grab. It seemed entirely appropriate that these middle aged, multi-millionaire curmudgeons would lead this charge.

The Dude even hated the f*cking Eagles before their 2013 documentary film entitled “The History of the Eagles” aired on Showtime. I thought this film was very well done. As it turned out it was a gigantic infomercial to sell tickets for an upcoming tour of the same name. Even this marvelous documentary, in which every band member participated, couldn’t keep Frey from coming across as an utterly humorless, self-absorbed, bitter, ego-maniacal human with a nasty, vindictive, mean streak. It seemed as if he spent a great deal of time and energy being very un-dude.  

The real story behind the Dude’s hatred of the Eagles may be that they were the band of the 70’s. They became the public face of that of which they sang. Brilliant, in a kind of sick, creepy, calculating sort of way... 

So the Eagles represented a time, the 70’s, and a place, and that place is my hometown, Los Angeles. Frey himself said about the Eagles, “The Beach Boys were the pioneers and we are the settlers.” So in essence, Frey declared his band the permanent torchbearers of the Southern California sound?

However, the Southern California sound is many things to many people. In a place that is so large and so diverse the Southern California sound just might also be the flip side of the Eagles and the city that can be looked down upon from one of their lofty perches in the Hollywood Hills. The California sound is also made in places like Downey (The Blasters) East L.A. and the San Gabriel Valley (Los Lobos / Los Fabulocos)

The Southern California sound was made on Central Avenue by transplants from Oklahoma, Kansas City, Louisiana and primarily Texas. The music of T-Bone Walker, Charles Brown, Lowell Fulson, Floyd Dixon, Pee Wee Crayton, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Amos MiIburn, Joe Houston and so many others made blues with such elegance and sophistication that it had a distinct sound.

They made music with native Californians and long time Los Angelenos like Big Jay McNeely, Etta James, Johnny Otis and a cadre of others. What is now generally referred to as West Coast blues could also be called the Southern California sound. They created a blues sound that had its roots in jazz or was it the other way around. It doesn’t matter. It was dance music, an activity that would be hard to imagine doing to an Eagles song. This music was described as race music or rhythm & blues.

Whatever you called it, it morphed into rock & roll. Next thing you know the Eagles come along and became the public face of a musical movement whose practitioners removed the “roll” added the pre-fix “soft” and you have everyone’s favorite oxymoron “soft-rock.” For a guy like the Dude, who was mired in 60’s era radicalism, soft-rock couldn’t have been very appealing music.

As for that other Southern California sound, West Coast blues, a wonderful thing happened. These generous musicians, who actually passed the torch to another generation of blues devotees, should be commended. The musicians became mentors.George “Harmonica” Smith, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Jay McShann, Roy Brown, Big Joe Turner and others helped to guide the music and careers of The Hollywood Fats Band, William Clarke, Rod Piazza, James Harman, Lynwood Slim and Junior Watson just to name a few. This other California sound and the tradition of generosity and sense of community continues to this day.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Southern California sound also encompasses Bakersfield country and goes all the way to the Pacific Ocean and surf music made by countless instrumental bands who played up and down the coast. However, for the general public, Southern California is the sound of the 70’s era Eagles. Yet after all the success of the band, Glenn Frey still acted like the new kid in town.

The New York based behemoth of the rock press, Rolling Stone and their San Francisco based editor Ben Fong Torres could kill two birds with one Rolling Stone and deride both the Eagles and the Southern California sound by morphing the two in the minds of the general public. It was hard to say who these writers despised more the Eagles or Los Angeles.

This seemed to chap the hide of Frey who was, by virtually all accounts, an arrogant, loud mouthed, quick tempered bully.  He was also the band’s unofficial spokesman. It was a role he seemed to relish and was perfectly suited for, as it is doubtful that anybody could shut him up anyway.  

For the laid back Dude, the Eagles were a tough act to swallow. Part of the comic irony of The Big Lebowski is that our favorite pot smoking, white Russian (Caucasian) drinking character is the least suited man on the planet to be thrust into the circumstances in which he finds himself. This Raymond Chandler like modern noir reveals a universal truth which is that The Dude, like most of us, is never quite in control of events that can overwhelm his life. In other words someone is always pissing on our rug and/or playing an Eagles tune.

The Eagles music certainly was nothing like the Dude’s beloved Creedence Clearwater Revival. Their music was sung and performed with real conviction. It had the urgency, drive and the grease completely lacking in the Eagles music. John Fogerty’s material and delivery never sounded like it was sent to a focus group before being waxed.

The members of Creedence, who were in fact native Californians, were somehow able to inhabit the music of Americana, while the Eagles hovered over that landscape, without ever finding a comfortable perch.

It’s kind of like the Eagles making public appearances discussing their concerns for the environment before jumping into separate limos and private jets. To many, myself included, their music feels the same way. No real commitment. It was for the most part well crafted material that seemed overly calculated and therefore lacking soul. The Eagles prove that even they can’t buy that precious commodity at any price.

However, it is also hard not to admire this Detroit native, Glenn Frey, whose old fashioned, mid-west work ethic drove the band to unprecedented success in the music business. A lot of people were throwing a lot of money at a lot of aspiring rock stars in the early 70’s. Most crash landed upon take off. Not the Eagles; they knew how to make a return on an investment. Inside and outside the studio, it was Frey’s unrelenting drive to come to California and make it in the music business. Just like throngs of aspiring rock-stars. Most rode the bus back with their tails between their legs. Again, not the Eagles...

So the question remains, do I hate the fucking Eagles? No, I don’t hate anybody. If I’m not being entirely honest with myself on that score, I’m surely not going to start by hating musicians, even the f*ckin’ Eagles. Their music doesn’t move me nor is it interesting enough to engender any strong feelings either way.

I give kudos to the Dude for speaking his mind without regard to popular opinion or the consequences. I would also like to say “kudos” to the man from Detroit, who checked into the Hotel California and arranged things so that he would never have to leave. Well played Mr. Frey....well played.     

- David Mac