This weekend ushers in the biggest cultural event to hit Los Angeles since the King riots of 1992. Sure I know what you’re thinking “Harry Potter Opens Up”. Well that’s not it, Carmageddon approaches, at press time it is a scant few hours away. Angelenos are going apeshit bananas over this Carmageddon rigamarole. My local foodstore has been hit by looters and survivalists big time. I could barely find a jar of capers for my world famous spinach salad. Also due to the looting I’ve had to switch from my usual brand of stilton cheese to a lesser quality sharp cheddar. But we all make sacrifices in the name of progress.
If I may labor a point here on the construction over the weekend; LA would have you believe that the bridge they are re-building is just that; a rebuilt bridge. In fact it’s actually a bridge that will lead to the brand new “Bowling Wallendas Science of Bowling and Awesome Shit Center for the Blind and Everyone Else”. It’s going to be a 27 building campus totally devoted to awesome crap and the science of fucking shit up on the lanes. With a staff of 1200 dedicated educators the center, or as we have affectionately dubbed it “Awesome Knowledge-land”, is going to be the greatest and most comprehensive institute of learning ever built by man or aliens.
Some of the staff you’ll see at our campus:
Guest Lecturer Dynamite Chris Parish – How to leech off your teams’ success and still father a child. Enrollment for this lecture has already met capacity.
Guest lecturer Shot Boy Clint Tabon – Identify the El Presidente in your league. Enrollment for this lecture has already met capacity.
Guest Lecturer El Presidente- Fomenting corruption and propaganda among your peers. Lecture cancelled due to lack of interest. Seriously I didn’t even want to offer him a spot but Guv said it was “the right thing to do.”
Classes offered will range from the standard:
Strikes and you, a symbiotic relationship
Splits- Why they suck and how to avoid them
Spares- It’s like kissing your cousin but they get the job done
To the arcane:
The Star Wars Trilogy, why we pretend the prequels didn’t happen.
Harry Potter and how it enabled same sex marriage in Iowa
The Perfect Pasta sauce and world peace, it’s real and it’s happening now
The problem is though, that in the golden light of a new school opening the Wallendas are suffering through the worst season in their professional careers. This season started out with much promise; the re-building of the long dormant Wallendas farm system*, the introduction of shirts that both shame and praise player performance, and a renewed interest in beer has been slowly denigrating into a nightmare of epic proportions. I lose sleep daily at work over how to improve our lot in TNT. Sadly I think my only option is to either improve my game or let it sink so low that my handicap becomes a 110.
Personally I have faith the rest of the team can turn it around. Just this week we jumped four spots from 9th to 5th. Team quiet man Adam “We May Have To Start Calling Him Brooklyn” Gard said:
“Yeah right now we’re terrible and it’s kind of
all my fault. I just had to go to a wedding and
fishing trip. Maybe I should consider the team
more, because this whole “lone wolf” thing?
Yeah I don’t know about that.”
Other teams point out that we have been inconsistent. In fact four teams pointed it out to us via e-mail during the week. Attendees of TNT will note that those four teams were not present last night. TNT Propaganda Czar, and all around shady character, Tony “Il Padrino” Cortese would have you believe it’s due to Bayshore Lanes construction. I’m here to tell you the truth, those teams are dead. I’m not saying how they died all I’m saying is that if you see any members of those teams bowling they were replaced by automatons that I created out of cow shit and dreams.
Actually at a team meeting held late last night in the Australian Outback…. Steakhouse in Torrance** the team discussed many reasons why they may not be performing as well as they usually do. It all came down to handicap. TBW doesn’t have one, except for me of course. But how well would you bowl if you lost both your arms in a gator attack and were forced to bowl using a jerry-rigged system of twine and promises? Probably not as well as I do so BACK THE FUCK OFF MOTHERFUCKERS!!! But handicap has become an increasingly tense issue for the squad. Team beanstalk and snappy dresser Chris “Trashman” Jones offered this opinion:
“We face teams lately with 700, 1200,
and 13,000,000 pin handicaps. Sure we end
every game within 70 pins, but how in
the hell are we supposed to overcome that
defecit with only 10 frames? And me with
these old and outdated metal legs?”
What he says rings true. It seems as if the handicap debate has reached new heights of annoyance. Bowlers with subpar teams like El Presidente (pttueey***) and Il Padrino (a thousand curse on your family sir) are in favor of what has been dubbed the “Precious Snowflake” handicap system. Fervent John Birch Society member and proud gun owner Heather “Doc, Doc, Goose” Krull put her two cents in:
“This system goes against the tenets of the
constitution and it’s downright communist.
What gets me most is I’m pretty sure they’ve
tied this bullshit handicap system somehow
into Obamacare. Fucking commies, always
fornicating all over the bill of rights.
Fuck this I’m going duck hunting.”
When Adam told her he was pretty sure it isn’t duck season, Heather stared him down and called him a “giant pussy”. I personally saw Adam cry and when I pointed out that by crying he was pretty much proving her right he fucking karate chopped my neck and round house kicked me to the ground. Standing over me he then proclaimed:
“Who’s the pussy now you bitch?!?!”
The karate chop to my throat hampered my ability to point out that getting suckered punched, while does go miles in making me a bitch, doesn’t really mean I’m a pussy.
The meeting fell apart amid squabbles, tipping discrepancies, and everyone wanting to eat the blooming onion**** but no one besides me wanting to pay for it. It’s no matter as Carmageddon approaches the team will be going into seclusion in our mountain top retreat. It’s the only place in the world that allows us the time and space to reach bowling zen. Maybe it’s because it’s 900 million square miles big and contains 4000 bowling alleys simulating all types of weather and sociological conditions. One alley is solely dedicated to what I like to call “The Glass Wall” effect. For 3 full games the rest of the lanes are filled with Glass Wall Clones (grown from his sweat and a pair of discarded suit pants he left in the men’s room) these clones duplicate the annoyance of bowling next to Glass Wall perfectly. Lesser bowlers have lost their minds in that room, TBW utilized that room extensively prior to their match-up and took 4 points from THWR. So we’ll prepare for our battle with Super Friends next week. For my part I’ll be spending the weekend learning how to bowl with a 30 frame boner. BDS backbone and prime client Hacksaw is loaning me some of the beautiful waitresses employed on the Hack-o-Whirl to entice me while I struggle to hit my incredibly low and ridiculous average of 135. Adam is going to watch 9000 hours of footage of every strike he’s ever made in a 72 hour span. Chris Jones has decided to remove one of his kidneys in order to give himself more mobility on his throw. He’ll do this on his own using nothing more than the power of his mind. Heather Krull is going to spend the weekend laying down some phat ass beats for her upcoming solo album “Thrill Killa”.
*Left dormant because former captain and all around jerk Heather “Doc” Krull didn’t have foresight enough to see that athletes age, even the good ones like me.
**Thanks for the use of the Hack-o-Whirl Hacksaw, we owe you. Or better yet I’ll just shave 3 hours off of my billable hours.
***That’s a spitting sound, I’ve decided to go all Eastern European and spit whenever EP’s (pttueey) name is mentioned.
****Yes at Outback it’s called a Bloomin Onion, Applebee’s has the Awesome Blossom. Don’t fuck with me son, I’ll take you down.
