Guttersnipe

The list of “greatest” bowling movies is a very short one. I know of only two films that are either based on or feature a significant amount of bowling. Those, of course, are The Big Lebowski and Kingpin.

The first and only list I looked at, from a reputable source, had Kingpin at #2. In first? The Dreamer, a 1979 flick (in colour) featuring three minor character actors and. It is, I’m sure, complete garbage.

Lebowski, meanwhile, was somehow placed fifth. This wonderful bowling-centric send up of “The Big Sleep” was behind a 1934 short titled “Strikes and Spares” but just ahead of “Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama”. Clearly, this list was made by a true fan of the cinema.

This past week the good gals and guys of the Gutterfingers took on the appropriately named Golden Girls. Interestingly, they are a team of only three ladies and one vacant spot. Apparently their fourth member was unable to play due to a medical issue so they get a 150 score per game from this missing teammate. No confirmation but it seems likely this “medical issue” is death.

These ladies could bowl pretty darn good based on their previous game scores but they had another teammate out just for the game (allegedly) so had to take her average of 140 as well. This may or may not have helped us out but the main benefit was a much faster game.

In the opener our own Lily Liver came through with his best game of the year, marking down a 189 to lead the way. With a couple 135s, including from yours truly, and a 111 we managed to take the first game by over 75 points.

We probably thought we had a good thing going but these blue hairs have staying power. Well, half of them did at least. Game two we fell flat on our faces. My 122 led the way and two ‘Fingers barely scraped over 100. They had a down game too but managed to take it, 822 to 804 with the handicaps added.

The rubber match was close, as well. We scuffled our way to an 822 this time but the very nice ladies across the ball return did just enough to squeak out a 6 point win. While they managed to take 4 points in the standings from those two wins, we took 2 points for our game win and 1 point for the overall score, 2555-2502.

It was a small consolation but we still ended up dropping to 15th out of 18 teams. The gutter just gets deeper for these fingers and we’ll need to scrape and claw our way out with everything we’ve got. Or, more likely, get loaded up on beer and whisky and lose a lot more bowling games. Now get down to your local motion picture rental outlet and make your own damn list of bowling movies.