Evidence of Expiration: Lessons Anyone?

Ever seen anyone get a bowling lesson? Me neither, and I'm a USBC coach.

That is a touch misleading. I have given lessons here and there. Maybe twenty-five total in the six years that I have been a Bronze level coach. That is absurdly low for a skill sport that relies on technique, skill, and repetition.

Worse yet, not many bowlers even ask about lessons. Somehow success in this activity is just supposed to fall from the sky? Gifted to you by the deity of your choosing? Just a matter of doing it enough? WTF?

Go to any golf course or driving range and you will find someone qualified to teach you. You know what else you'll find? At least one other person who wants a lesson as well. Golf, because it has not cowed to its participants, is supposed to be hard. It mandates that you ask someone for assistance to get better. Golfers expect to work hard to improve. And they sure as hell don't complain about the difficulty of the course to the front desk.

Bowlers? They pull off the unthinkable hat trick -- most never practice, most never even ask for a lesson, and the majority will complain endlessly about not having the tools necessary to compete. and god forbid you tweak the oil pattern.

(...and, deep breath.)

Thank you for your tolerance, I've been holding that one in for a while.

There is another side to this, that those who would be teachers in this sport have not stepped up to the plate, ever. As long as I have been around bowling, unless you live next to a pro, are a child in a youth league, or close to a state-of-the-art training center, you are on your own. Most pro shops are not coaches nor are they particularly interested. My opinion is most good bowlers are not interested in making anyone else better because it's too costly in the long run. Make a bowler better and they will kill you on league night or in the brackets.

You may think this a vain reason but trust me, it sucks to help out a low-average bowler, only to have that same bowler destroy your team a week later. This usually happens after I drill someone a new ball and has spawned what I call the "Team 8 Rule", which states that I have the right to not drill your ball if my team bowls your team within twenty-four hours of the act. It is obviously named after a team whose members did exactly what I described many times. They can also burn in hell.

(By the way, is anybody else irritated by teams that can't get their creative shit together to name themselves? Drives me crazy. If I ran the USBC, unnamed teams would have names decided for them, such as "The Lady-men" and "Ball Bag Sniffers".)

Wow, I am angry today. Good thing I don't feel like writing about the handicapping system.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Bowling's not the only thing that's dead. Music is zombie-walking through the last phase of decomposition. Hence, the title of today's missive. I will not link to the viral video it alludes to, but will link to a "real" song done by some chick on iCarly. This is "legitimate" songwriting and singing? No, this is as big an AutoTuned steaming turd as "Friday" is. Music is now done, and those who don't believe me live in the Matrix.

I've posted this a bunch in my various blog attempts, but it still remains a convincing rebuttal:



Or how about this:



Or these geezers:



Have a good weekend. I'm going to bed.

Remember when I opined yesterday about the amount of bowling-related things one might write about, and questioning whether there is enough to sustain a daily bowling blog? Well, lookie here, Jason Belmonte pissed someone off with some bottle crinkling. This is just the sort of fodder that would make a blogger jump for joy. Think of all the angles the story can be approached from, the controversy that can be generated, the comments and traffic!

One problem, I couldn't care less. I didn't care the first time this subject came up, and I don't give a shit now. I couldn't even be bothered to search for video of either incident. I have two conflicting reasons for this:

1. Gamesmanship is a laughable, if annoying, activity people who do not deserve my respect engage in. Thus, if Belmo did crinkle with malice, then I do not want to waste my time watching it.

2. Conversely, champions overcome this, preferably with cold precision followed by a cold stare. If you let games get to you I don't feel like watching your weak ass. Why don't you complain about the lousy oil pattern while you're at it.

You can see how the two opinions might clash. The net result is boredom.

Not helping my cynical take on the "bottle bitch" incident is the fact that it took place during a Silly Season event in which a bunch of pros make an easy payday bowling to promote their sponsors (in this case, ball manufacturers). More of my biases are exposed in this context - I don't care about team bowling unless I'm bowling on one, I don't need any more ball awareness than I already possess, and the outcome of the competition is ultimately only of relevance to the participants and their bank accounts. None of them will be recounting their win in the "Summer Series" to their grandchildren, so why should I care?

Yes I sound like a killjoy. I don't care. If I had a DVR I wouldn't take the time to record it because I don't care if Norm Duke strikes in the tenth to sew up a win for Hank Boomershine Intl. I' d rather spend my time teaching my girlfriend how to pick up a 7-pin.

A Day Off

That would be yesterday, reason being my regular work was inundated with workers from other companies/countries, taking what free time I might have to scribble a quick note here. In a way that was fine with me due to my inability to sleep the night previous and the resulting noodle-headedness left me with nothing to think, much less write.

My thought today is, how does one blog about bowling every day? Is there enough fodder for a daily commentary? Why are there no daily blogs about the sport? Why has no one sustained a blog even weekly for any period of time? (I am prepared to be wrong on the last two; it's entirely possible that someone is writing one with great endurance that I have not come upon. God knows no one read any of my previous attempts to do so.)

I worry that there isn't enough to write about and not enough readers to give a damn. The most sustained writing I've ever seen on the subject happens over at the forums section of the PBA website. This is a horrible, horrible place that, while linking to, I do not in any way encourage you to peruse. If you do, you will soon notice the same arguments made by the same posters in a semi-literate dance of the dead. As much as I love zombies, that den of iniquity is a bridge too far.

Well, here's to trying to charge at windmills.

Fourth of July

How am I working on the Fourth? Oh yeah, because my regular job offers insane amounts of flexibility with regard to hours and vacation, in exchange for which I am expected to work the occasional holiday.

As much as I'd like to work on this blog entry, my efforts must be used elsewhere today. However, I was alerted through the NFC North blog on ESPN that a certain Super Bowl MVP made a cameo appearance in a video that just happens to take place in a bowling alley:



A few things to know:

- I bleed Green & Gold and Orange & Blue, in that order.

- As such, Aaron Rodgers can do no wrong in my book, including financing a video in which he attempts to dance while wearing a satin jacket and a fake mustache.

- In that same vein, I can overlook the bowling sacrilege of using bowling lanes for anything other than bowling, even as parts of my brain are screaming bloody murder at the sight of dancers on the arrows.

Enjoy your holiday.

Your Friday Zombie

And for some musical accompaniment:

A Cooler Head Prevailing?

All right, all right. Maybe I was a little brash with my comments of yesterday. I might have been a wee bit over the top when I compared the state of the game today to the undead roaming the globe in search of live human flesh. I possibly could have stretched the metaphor a tad.

That said, I am in no mood to think of another name for this blog. I have made my literary bed and will now sleep in it. Armed. With one eye open.

It is most likely that bowling's spirit, its fundamental spark, is indeed still "alive", that its heart still beats in the same manner as when Earl Anthony took in oxygen. Looking from my shop out onto the concourse last night I saw the ripples of that beat in the happy faces of the lousy bowlers league. This particular league is composed of one very extended family, many of whom have dove in head-first into the deep end of the pool - reactive balls, spare balls, lessons, and multiple days of practice per week. As an pro shop owner, they couldn't be better customers.

Along with that, however, I do sense the seeds of a virus that was (mostly) unheard of in Earl's time, but has flourished in the post-reactive ball explosion. That, of course, being the idea that the lanes are somehow unyielding to the ball-operator and his inherent genius, that to bowl well one must only swipe a valid credit card at the pro shop, that the score one makes should be result of merely showing up and buying a few things, rather than an amalgam of smart choices, concerted effort and accumulated skill.

My question is how did we get here? How did bowling evolve from recognized skill sport into (as far as I know) the only sport/recreational pastime that fosters, and even accepts as fact, the idea that conditions for play are not just difficult, but intolerable or flat out wrong, based on the score of its participants. Do golfers complain to the clubhouse when it is windy or wet? Do tennis players yell and scream about the grass, clay or concrete they compete on? (Well, maybe a little.) Do football players threaten to leave the field if it is deemed by them too hard or soft or slippery?

When did the concept of "player adjustment" die? And could we reanimate that?

Maybe it is not bowling itself that is dead, more like the rapidly-aging (and shrinking) mob of established league bowlers have turned to complainiac zombies lusting for the blood of the lane man. I see them every day peering through the pro shop window looking for the latest fix. Want to know how many of them ask for a lesson? Zero. They want to buy their way out of a lousy score or eat the head of whoever is manning the front desk.

I think I see the reanimated body of Bill Taylor shuffling towards us from the horizon, arms pointed forward, mouthing the words, "I told you so." And as much as I hate to agree with a zombie asshole, Bill, you might have a point. Now, where did I put my shotgun?



As always, there's an app for that...