Last night at Chelseas Piers in Manhattan was the ninth annual Knicks Bowl, the ballclub's charity bowling event. I was not there. And, not because I don't like bowling. Or, the prospect of hanging around with Mardy Collins. I was not there because the price for an individual ticket for this affair was $1,250. Yipes. That ticket price gained you entrance to the lanes, the chance to bowl with undisclosed Knickerbockers and "celebrities." You're also entitled to dinner, drinks and a gift bag. Hopefully the gift bag is just filled with some of the money you paid to get in.
Of course, if you couldn't scrape together that sort of scratch for a solo ticket then you could get together a group of eight to reserve your own lane for the night. You and your seven richest friends would also get to bowl with undisclosed Knicks and "celebrities" while eating, drinking and complaining about the crappy gift bags. All of this could be yours (and your seven friends') for the price of $10,000.
But, this is a charity event so I guess there is no complaining about the ticket price. And, since this is the ninth time that they've held this event they must be able to round up enough dough so that it is fiscally feasible for Chelsea Piers to push off Thursday's League Night for one week. The money raised goes to benefit the Garden of Dreams Foundation. This is a non-profit that uses the money it raises to put on "make-a-wish" sort of things for impoverished or terminally ill kids in the New York City area. The fact that it is run by the Garden makes me a tad bit suspicious that they do much good but you can't really take any shots at a group pledged to helping kids who need help.
In the past the "celebrities" have included Jay-Z, Dave Chappelle and Spike Lee. David Blaine and Matthew Modine have knocked down a few pins and likely a few cocktails with well-heeled Knicks fans too.
Based on the few pics I saw there were Knicks players, their wayward, smiling coach, DJ Clue, D'Brick of the Jets 
and a lot of models and Knicks Dancers in attendance last night. I guess bowling with leggy models and limber dancers is probably way better than doing the same with David Blaine and Matthew Modine. Although I guess we could have all had blast remembering our favorite scenes from Modine’s HBO movie And the Band Played On. Or not. And, then in the middle of all of this is charity and model-y goodness is Isiah Thomas smiling his chesire cat smile. I think seeing him smile that smile makes me want him gone even more. Even when the team was winning 50 games you were never going to see Jeff Van Gundy smile like that. He would look like he had just been robbed and bludgeoned with Karl Malone's ill-gotten 1997 MVP trophy. I guess Billy Shakespeare was thinking of Isiah when he wrote, "One may smile and smile and be a villian." And, doesn't Nate look like he knows it here?
Robinson has the look on his face of a guy getting caught at the local movie theater on a week night with the fat chick from high school during that first Christmas break at home during freshman year of college. Fatty, in this case Isiah, is totally psyched and having a great time, while Nate doesn't want to make eye contact with anyone. He was never even going to tell his friends that he went out with this girl. He just wants the conversation to end so that everyone can go there separate ways and he can act like this didn't happen. 
And, lastly, it would seem like a missed opportunity to actually write about bowling and not mention Big Ern. Right?
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