Are you a *gasp* Pinzer?
Written by Joe Ciaravino, pictures by Rick Brewster
Let me start out by firmly stating: I’m all for positivity in pinball. Making pinball inclusive, friendly, and fun for everyone should be one of the top goals for all pinball organizers and players alike. We all want to be part of a big happy pinball family, right?
When someone is a highly skilled pinball player, it’s easy enough to talk about how good they are. Same deal if someone is relatively inexperienced. But - we’re missing a crucial naming convention, a key piece of banter for the folks that are good, but they’re either full of shit, and/or they’re a friend you need to send a chirp or five toward. Pinball has some of the most colorful and evocative language in any competitive sport, or activity, or hobby, or whatever you want to call whatever the hell it is we do. If a straggler bargoer overheard a discussion of soft plunging to Insanity Falls in order to light your next whirlpool and advance toward Wet Willie’s, they might think they’re in another dimension, or overhearing a conversation in a game of the Sims.
Palookas, Hosers… and Pinzers?
So - what do we call those people? Those players acting like they’re hot shit and talking smack? We need a term to take them down a notch, let them know they’re actually not about to hit the wizard mode on Ghostbusters on ball one, and call their asses out. (Editor’s note: I searched high and low through the New Pinball Dictionary for a similar term to no avail. Once this article goes live, this is the formal submission to said dictionary.)
This kind of derogatory slang, currently missing in pinball, exists in pretty much all other more established sports/activities when referring to subpar competitors. In the sport of boxing, calling another boxer a palooka is a way of saying that boxer is uncoordinated, undertrained and has inferior boxing skills. (This could also be said about the copy of Palooka at D82.) Chess players refer to opponents as a patzer, derived from the German verb “verpatzen” - in practice, a guy at the chess club whose ego is way too big. There’s a fish at the poker table, describing that grinning bastard who doesn’t know he’s about to lose a truckload of money.
In my own native land of Canada, the term hoser was an insult back in the day which was hurled around the hockey rink to call another player a loser. The origins are said to come from before the Zamboni was created, where the losing team was tasked with hosing down the ice following the game. However, the word has somewhat been reclaimed by popular culture as sort of a term of endearment.
Without further ado, may I humbly submit to the pinball community another linguistic tool to help shape the character of this strange hobby/game/obsession/lifestyle choice… I suggest the defamatory colloquialism pinzer.
Pinzer — just the right amount of sauce to be a good diss without going nuclear
My reasoning for concluding on the term pinzer is somewhat logical - it’s a mashup of pinball, patzer, and hoser. The term feels right. It sounds right. It’s easy enough to remember, as it sounds vaguely similar to insults you’ve probably used before. “Don’t worry about their IFPA rank, that player’s still just a fuckin’ PINZER, man! You can definitely beat them!” I can already see myself whispering these words in a fellow competitor’s ear. Let’s face it, we talk a lot of shit about each other’s pinball skills anyway. (At least I do.) But now, we have a specific term that we can speak in our own pinball language! So this is my gift to all you smarmy-ass pinzers out there… get ready to be called on your shit. How do I know you’re a pinzer?
Because I’m the biggest fuckin’ PINZER you will ever meet!
What’s your pinzer?
Look, whether you embrace pinzer or not, there has to be some way to talk some trash without going straight for the intense stuff that can get you kicked out of league night. So what is it? What do you call your friend when he laughs at your two house balls in a row? We need that outlet. This feels geographically based, so I’m here to call out all you pinzers in Cali, the East Coast, and the mecca (Chicago) what do you call a medium-talent in pinball? We, at Nudge, need to know. Drop us a line at nudgepinballmagazine@gmail.com
Sincerely,
Pinzer #1
