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...

Eureka!

I have started this blog many times, under many names. I wanted to capture both my love for and disgust with the activity that has, in many ways, come to rule my life. None of them have been satisfactory, mostly because I refused, until this morning, to face the fact that has been staring me in the face all along -

BOWLING IS INDEED DEAD.

I'm not talking about just the rubber and plastic ball eras, the wood lanes and lacquer era, the bowling-on-TV era, or the regular-people-giving-a-shit-about-bowling-on-TV era. I mean all of it, right up to the present day. House shot vs. sport shot, reactive balls vs. vis-a-balls, ugly dudes in modified bass-fishing jerseys quixotically attempting to make a living vs. ugly everyday folks passing the time on a rainy weekend - every sign that bowling is anything resembling what it once was is, in fact, the reanimated corpse of a sport/pastime that has long ago shuffled off this mortal coil.

In this recognition, I have finally found a space to revel in the good things about our deceased good friend (much as one might toast a companion lost too soon) while simultaneously trashing the remnants of his legacy (much as one would aim a bullet through a zombie's non-functioning brain to stop it from eating your skin).

I'm saying that what is now considered bowling is not, in fact, bowling. Just as living with the flesh-eating remains of your neighbors is not the same as the town you lived in before the zombie apocalypse, "bowling" is now just different enough that my encapsulating the word in quotes doesn't seem any weirder to me than boarding up my windows to stop the undead from eating my brain.

(My sincerest apologies for all the zombie references. I'll try to limit myself to one per post.)

Does this mean I am cynical, that I am packing up my multi-ball roller and my replaceable sole shoes and going home? HELL NO.

You see, I have come to this transcendent moment by applying an idea to bowling that I have found useful in other parts of my life. That is, I am naming that which is actually happening, or as I have become fond of saying, acknowledging what is. I am not trying to rationalize what has happened to bowling, nor am I trying to theorize what the past might portend for the future, or even expressing the-system-is-broken-and-we-need-to-do-thus-and-such-to-fix-it proclamations that bowling people have made since the dodo ball was invented, outlawed, and now finally, somewhat regulated.

This is a truly liberating moment. Any innovation is possible (though not necessarily advisable) short of changing the lane dimensions or oiling the approaches. Radically revamped handicapping systems? Colored (and perhaps flavored) lane conditioner? 50-frame games? Checkerboard oil patterns? Wood balls on plastic lanes? Why not try them all? Bowling doesn't care, it's dead!

I will elucidate these thoughts and theories as they come to me. I also invite the community of ball-rollers to rip me a new one, because lord knows I won't hesitate to do the same.