The Pinball Awards Get Nudged

Greg Bone farts, flippers, and some good old-fashioned day drinkin’: Pinball goes Hollywood via Indiana

For such a niche hobby, there sure are a ton of Awards to be won in the pinball industry. This weekend we have the Degenies, an award show featuring Joe Ciaravino and his group of Facebook weirdos. In March, we have arguably the biggest award, the completely fan-driven TWIPPYS (definitely the best named, though just by sheer dumb luck — This Week in Pinball = TWIP.)

That said, when the TWIPPYS announced that they wouldn’t be aired live, Zach Meny of Flippin’ Out Pinball, TPN, and any other number of pinball related acronyms, stepped up and created a pinball awards show to not only rival the TWIPPYs, but surpass them. He, and the other members of The Pinball Industry Awards rebranded their show, brought in some dope cameras, and gathered members of the pinball industry and media and and and

and to make a long story short, now there’s an awards show called the Pinball Awards.

The good news? It actually seemed fun. Sure, there were plenty of dad jokes and ultimately it was just Rush winning a ton of stuff because it’s kind of the only game that came out, but at a quick 80-ish minutes, it was still packed with interesting categories (Lighting, animation, etc) and didn’t feel bloated the way most of these awards shows usually do. And you know what? People were the right amount of liquored up. Held in Zach Meny’s frickin’ giant party barn somewhere in rural Indiana, there was a sort of old Rat Pack-style feeling to the first-ever Pinball Awards. And you know what ELSE? We can all say that we’re too cool for school and fuck awards and all that — but It DOES make pinball feel more important when there’s stuff like this going on.

And if sometimes that manifests in Canadians kissing a bird after a monthly tournament, or folks winning awards in a blinged out barn in Indiana, well, who are we to judge? Plus, the trophies DO look pretty dope.

And the best news of all? WE HAD A SPY THERE TO SOAK IT ALL UP. and by “spy” we mean our bud, Jason from Pinball Party. We armed him with some cameras and told him to go HAM. Did he? We believe, that yes, in this case, he did. He went HAM. So peep these HAM pics of your fave pinball personalities.

Who knew Dennis Kriesel would smolder so much IRL????

Greg Bone has increasingly become the avatar for the pinball-everyman since his early days on the Straight Down the Middle youtube series. He’s drawn to classic themes like Jurassic Park and frequently gets shit for constantly giving a B+ to every single game he rates. You know what? We fuck with a guy like that. Who doesn’t want to go through life thinking every game is a B+ or A? Like, that’s a good life. Anyway, people also said he farted a fucking LOT, which hey, relatable! Greg, me and you gotta mix in some salads, buddy! But people also said that Greg was so good looking in real life that, “he looked like CGI” so in that way, he’s not relatable at all. No one has ever said I was CGI. One time a girl said that the sound of my voice didn’t match my body. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.

Streaming live is hard. The Pinball Awards was smart in that they got George from Don’t Panic Flip to make that shit profesh. His streams always look good. Also, here’s a great pic of George running his ass off, playing some Junkyard during Pinball Olympics. Is there anything this fucker can’t do?

Yeah that’s right. Greg Bone AND Joel Engelberth of The Triple Drain podcast with dueling mics. There’s so much midwestern beef in this pic that I had to double-check to make sure it wasn’t a reststop Arby’s.

And the best part of this whole thing? We won an award. Hell yeah. Excellence in Photography. This coming the same week that we got the letter from the dude who called us “blurry, amateur porn style” while canceling his subscription. To be fair, when they did show our photos on the official Pinball Awards stream, one had a butt in the background, and the other was extremely out of focus. Hey! Shoot what you know!

This February we r gonna celebrate some frickin’ photogs bro

That award got me thinking. Nudge photographers exist everywhere, from the top of the professional ranks, all the way down to the goofballs like me. Sure, we put their bios on the about page, but like, other than that we don’t say much. So this February, we’re gonna feature some very dope photo essays from new and old Nudge contributors. The one thing they have in common? They’re all gonna be GOOD AS HELL. I’m especially pumped for what we have to show you next week. Pumped beyond belief.

Next week? Gina Collecchia and Gene X collab???

Yeah, you heard it here first. MY FAVE Nudge photog + one of the coolest photogs in the game. Sheeeeeesh.