Bowling

If it were more like this, there would be no blog tonight.

There’s a popular song that the kids love these days. Perhaps you’ve heard of it; it’s called “Crank That (Soulja Boy)”, and rather than being about the act of cranking things or soulja boys themselves, it deals with prevalent social issues of the day – namely masturbating all over your lover. It seems there’s a whole dance that goes along with this song, and if you’re stupid I’m sure you’re doing it right now. Up until last night, I had never heard “Soulja Boy” in its entirety – I avoided listening to it for the same reason most people avoid bludgeoning themselves in the head with a sock full of batteries. However, last night I went bowling, and oh, I heard Soulja Boy.

Fun fact: Bowling was originally a family friendly activity. In the 1960s, bowling alleys sprung up all across the country so happy parents and children could go fling heavy pieces of plastic at carefully arranged pins, all in a safe and nurturing environment rife with cigarette smoke and beer. However, somewhere in the early 1990s, bowling alley owners took a look at the wholesome environment they’d created and said a collective, “That shit’s for fags, yo!”

Bowling alleys today have taken all the worst elements of nightclubs and combined them with the sport that has the most inherent chance of disaster (Exhibit A, There Will Be Blood). Your average bowling alley is now an affront to the senses – blacklights making every stain on your clothes glow, laser light shows dancing every which way, and alcohol – while still being a place where people chuck 15 pound bludgeons around. I’m honestly shocked that more people haven’t died in bowling alley related incidents. Big crowds of people, most of them intoxicated, everybody’s wearing smooth soled shoes (not to mention that there’s grease everywhere) – one bowling ball goes the wrong way and it’s like throwing bowling balls at fish in a barrel.

I bowled a lot in high school, thanks mainly to the enthusiasm of my friend Alexander, who once cut his arm open on barbed wire and didn’t notice for 20 minutes. Whenever we got tired of shooting Diet Coke cans with an air rifle, Alexander would suggest that we go bowling, and every time I’d say yes because I sort of expected to get good at it after spending so much money and time. In Salem, our combination rave/bowling alley was hidden behind a hive of low rent apartments in the sketchiest part of town, isolated in a gigantic and poorly lit parking lot that practically screams “My internal organs, if harvested and sold, will fund your meth habit for weeks.” Once inside, standard bowling alley rules applied. It was in Salem’s bowling alley that I heard “Get Low” for the first time, another highly socially conscious rap song that extols the virtues of masturbating all over your lover.

What was the case back home, and what is still the case now, is that I’m just a really horrible bowler. My top score last night was 72, a disappointment not just because it’s an abysmal failure compared to even a mediocre bowler but also, on a personal level, because I overshot my dream score of 69 by just three points. Alexander was pretty good at bowling (in addition to tracking, stick-based combat, and animal handling – the 21st century Huckleberry Finn to my Tom Sawyer, if you will) and would offer me advice on my game ranging from “Try not pulling your arm to the left so much on the follow through” to “Try not being so god damn ugly”. None of it worked, though, and inevitably my ball would wind up drifting across the lane and into the gutter. I could’ve saved everybody a lot of time if I’d just put the ball in the gutter to begin with and kicked it, or, better yet, stayed at home and made a ham sandwich, because that way I’d still have $10, plus a ham sandwich.

I don’t know why bowling is so expensive. Sure, it probably costs tens of thousands of dollars to keep a bowling alley in pristine condition, but every bowling alley I’ve been to has made a point of not doing that. The money doesn’t go to purchase of decent food, or paying the platoon of heavily tattooed carnies who diligently and drunkily go about the business of keeping the alley (barely) running, like a monastic order with no concept of shampoo. I can only expect that maybe all bowling alleys in this fine country of ours are run by Halliburton, and the $10 I spent to bowl last night will, in the long run, go to the purchase of Dick Cheney’s next glass of puppy blood.

Of course, I guess bowling isn’t so much about winning, or eating decent food, or not touching things so coated in grease that you can’t even grip a doorknob afterwards. Bowling, on the casual level, is really just an excuse to hang out with your friends. Although I think it’d be a lot easier to hang out with my friends if I was able to hear what they were saying over the sound of masturbationally conscious rap artists, or see them without being blinded by errant laser beams. As it is right now, bowling, with its drunk horny people and its loud music, is more or less a school dance, and as social interaction goes a school dance is barely a cut above butt sniffing or reading my blog.

I’d prefer it if bowling could decide what it wanted to be – a wholesome and friendly activity or a good place to get Hepatitis. As a child, I’d go bowling on my friends’ birthdays, and the experience was generally more fun. Inflatable bumpers ensured that I always hit at least one pin, Soulja Boy had not yet been written, and I was too young to understand any of the “ball grabbing” jokes my parents were making.

Truman Capps is still eager to find a sport he’s good at – just not eager enough to actually start playing sports.