In The Big Lebowski, when the Dude meets the narrator, the latter says to the Dude:
A wiser fella once said, sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well, the bar eats you
and then the Dude asks if this is some kind of eastern thing.
This phrase seems to appear only in this movie, so I’m wondering what was the inspiration for it, and what is the meaning in the context of The Big Lebowski?
Bar is an antiquated variation of bear. Frontiersman Daniel Boone, for instance, famously carved on a tree once, after killing a bear:
D. Boon Cilled a Bar on [this] tree in the year 1760.
It makes sense that The Stranger would use such a colloquialism, as he’s a sort of personification of the Old West (which is what he means when he says it’s “far from” being Eastern). The saying is attributed to baseball pitcher Preacher Roe (though it was possibly older):
After being taken out of a game in the second inning, Roe commented that, “Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.”
The phrase’s general meaning is: You win some, you lose some; There are good days and bad. The Stranger says it to the dispirited Dude to try and make him feel a little better.