Ted's Polish-Mexican Page

Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

One of the things I discovered was that it is a heck of a lot easier to take pictures of fans than of people actually, I dunno, skating.

I saw people taking pictures with their camera phones. Given that I was using an actual camera and couldn't do it, who knows how good those came out.

Anyhow, this guy's name is Kostas, he's a fan of the Gotham City Roller Derby. Earlier this year, he drove 2000 miles to Austin to see his team compete. He told me that in five years, Roller Derby will be on ESPN and be bigger than the Super Bowl.


Earlier, I mentioned Holly Caust of the Heavy Metal Hookers (Philly Roller Girls) as the most tasteless roller girl name. Here she is. Philly didn't compete, but she promises that they will be here next year. And no, she didn't do that because I pissed her off.

Oh yeah, she insisted I take this, um, alternative portrait, and she insisted that I post it. Really. I am not making that up. I told her that I wanted to take a picture of her face, but she said no...this first.

Martiza Lopez complains when I have roller girl pics up. She'll really complain about this one. She also complains that I never mention her. Hi, Maritza. Get back to work.


By the way, I missed another great name for the big list, Tara Hymen. I never found out what league she competes in.



On the right is Texas announcer Julio Eyeglasses, and on the left is a hard core Texas fan. Julio sang an impromptu number with Mariachi Reyes. Yes, Mariachi Reyes played the roller derby, along with Knockout Pills. Not at the same time though.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

Actor and environmental activist Dennis Weaver died today at the age of 81. He had also been past president of the Screen Actors Guild.

I met him at the 1992 Democratic Convention when I was the doorman for a suite rented by him and Mario Van Peebles. At one point, I said "McCloud!" in my best impression of J. D. Cannon. He turned to me and smiled.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

The final was, as expected, between Texas and Tucson. Goofy sport, New York got bounced out early, and Los Angeles didn't even field a team, but the powerhouses are Austin and Tucson. Go figure.

Texas eked out a small lead early in the first half. Tucson's jammers were often able to break out and get the lead position, but were often unable to score due to Texas's tight defense. They fought to the very end though, and Texas had to work for every point.


I'll be posting more pictures over the next few days. Heck, I'm tired, and all I did was watch.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

It looks like fans have picked their least favorite team at the tournament: the Minnesota Rollergirls. They have been roundly condemned as hacks by the other teams (teams they've beaten, of course) and the fans seem to agree. As a fan, I can tell that they are definitely more agressive, but I am having a hard time seeing what they do that is dirty. I've talked to players, and they say that there are some subtle moves that are hard for fans (and refs!) to see that are below the belt.

Yesterday, they played against the Kansas City Roller Warriors. The crowd was for KCRW, at first because of their hatred of Minnesota. As the bout progressed, KCRW's jammer Snot Rag managed huge jams, sometimes accumulating double digit scores on a single jam. It wasn't enough for them, and Minnesota clawed their way to a 120-79 victory.

Kansas City's Dirty Britches was knocked down in the second period, and sat on the bench. She wobbled over to the bench, with some help, and sat for a minute to settle herself. As the next jam started, the Kansas City and Minnesota players nearly started a brawl over the hit that sent Dirty Britches down. Then, she started having convulsions and the game had to be stopped for several minutes while she was treated by paramedics.

Of course, this just got the crowd angrier at Minnesota. They exited after their victory, and camped in the locker room for fifteen minutes, then two security guards escorted them out the back door. Most of the teams have stayed to watch other matches (especially when they would be playing the winner of the next one), but apparently, they didn't think that they could do that.


There are two skaters with soccer themed names: Mia Hammer of Assassination City Derby and Lexi Lawless of Atomic Bombshells/Minnesota Roller Girls.


Today is the "final four," and there are no suprises, Texas Roller Girls, Tucson Saddletramps, Minnesota Roller Derby and Arizona Roller Derby were all top seeds after the first round.

Tucson plays Minnesota. Minnesota has been able to hack their way up against what was, to be blunt, weak, inexperienced competition. Kansas City, despite their loss, was able to get the best of them on some jams and a more consistent team, like Tucson, should be able to rise above the hooliganism and sratch out another twenty or thirty point victory.

AzRD will be up against Texas. Texas has been the best team in the country, at least judging from the results of other teams playing one off games against them. How do they do after a gruelling three days of competition? AzRD used to be really amazing, but their form hasn't been good as of late (they got blown out by Tucson last season). They have done well in this tournament, but the lack of experience of the other teams has helped them. They played an excellent match against Rat City, but they also blew a huge lead and almost lost against a relatively novice squad.


Biggest blowout: Rat City Rollergirls 208 - Sin City Neanderdolls 67. Who knew that Bladeworld's scoreboard went that high?

Sin City was founded by several members of AzRD who left in one of their many split ups.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

Well, I went to the Dust Devil Tournament last night...and TRD kicked serious ass. They have ended up in second place in the knockout round, which starts today. As expected, the number one team is the Texas Roller Girls. Both TRD and Texas were undefeated in the round robin, but Texas was able to pile on more points in their matches so made it on point differential.


But never mind that, who are the best named girls of the tournament? Here they are, with their club squad (when available), travel team name and league (TRD not included):

• Molotov Cocktease - Big House Brawlers, Muñecas Muertas (Duke City Roller Girls - Albuquerque, NM)
• Pia Mess - Rat City All-Stars (Rat City Roller Girls - Seattle, WA)
• Ivanna S. Pankin - Neander Dolls (Sin City Roller Girls - Las Vegas, NV)
• Sheriff Shutyerpaio - Tent City Terrors (Arizona Roller Derby - Phoenix, AZ)
• Mary Lou Threaten - Truth and the American Way, ACD Special Ops (Assassination CIty Roller Derby - Dallas, TX)
• Pocahotass - Dairyland Dolls (Mad Rollin' Dolls - Madison, WI)
• Drew Blood - Rat City All-Stars (Rat City Roller Girls - Seattle, WA)
• Paine Mansfield - Dairyland Dolls (Mad Rollin' Dolls - Madison, WI)
• Waylon Anya - Truth and the American Way, ACD Special Ops (Assassination City Roller Derby - Dallas, TX)
• Tawdry Hepburn - HaRD Knocks (Houston Roller Derby - Houston, TX)
• Ginger Vitus - DDD Travel Team (Dallas Derby Devils - Dallas, TX)
• Demi Gore - ARG Travel Team (Atlanta Roller Girls - Atlanta, GA)
• Ana Mission From God - WCR Travel Team (Windy City Rollers - Chicago, IL)
• Athena de Crime - WCR Travel Team (Windy City Rollers - Chicago, IL)
  

Best Named Skater Not to Make It to the Tournament: Pain Gretzky - Rockits (Minnesota Roller Girls, Minneapolis, MN)
Most Tastelessly Named Skater: Holly Caust - Heavy Metal Hookers (Philly Roller Girls)


At the end of TRD's last match, Tombstone Teri/Dirty Teri was knocked against the boards by a player from the Rhode Island Riveters, and sustained some neck and back injuries that were serious enough that she required hospitalization. Keep her in your thoughts.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

The commentators had so much trouble with Finnish Curling Skip Markku Uusipaavalniemi's last name that they refered to him only by his first name.

This means that Uusipaavalniemi is the first Curling personality to be as big as Madonna or Elvis.


The Johnson sisters of the US Curling team are apparently somehow related to Henry Jaastad, Tucson's mayor in the thirties and fourties. Jaastad is remembered now as the man who spearheaded an attempt to annex South Tucson.


The Swedish Women's curling team kissed each other after winning their Gold medal match against Switzerland. On the lips even.

Shh...don't tell Rick Santorum.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

When I wrote the last post, I remembered a post that John Lorio made to FallNet a while back about Trustifarians. The post was brilliant. John went ahead and sent me another copy of the post:

here in Amurrica, 98% of all reggae music is listened to by hopelessly-overprivileged white college kids, usually frat guys, who are culturally .0001% black and/or Rastafarian (and i'm giving them credit there, too). as The Onion helpfully pointed out, 98% of that reggae music is Bob Marley's Legend comp. this affectation of Brotherly Hipness -- somewhat mirrored by white kids who like gangsta rap, even though there's something different going on there -- often leads to hilarious results. let's watch!

i spent a semester at ________ State ("your high school after high school!"), having followed my girlfriend, who was going to law school there. she had a group of friends who were heavily into reggae (probably as an extension of their being heavily into pot), which was quite ludicrous, as these guys were all upper-middle-class white kids, and members of the Future BMW Owners Of America Club. well, these friends all got an apartment together, which they tricked out rasta-stylee -- they painted a three-foot-wide red yellow and green band around the living room walls, and there were bongs and candles everywhere, and Bob Marley posters all over the walls, as well as posters and bumper stickers calling for the immediate freedom of herb from the strictures of The Man, and one of the guys favored a (wait for it, wait for it) rasta knit cap, which i have to tell you looked pretty funny on a guy wearing khakis and a white button-down. anyway, the guys took off a week to go somewhere (maybe it was fall break or something), and when they came back, they found that their place had been broken into, and was being occupied by . . .

a bunch of Rastafarians.

or at the very least, a bunch of black guys who liked reggae, and smoking an awful lot of dope. i never did find out which.

anyway, the white kids were very indignant about this, and called the cops, who came and arrested the black guys, who for their part didn't see why they had to leave. IIRC the cops asked one of the guys why they broken into the place, and he said something on the lines of, "well, we thought they were rastas. we figured it would be okay."

this story is in no way meant to disparage our reggae-loving frenz on Fallnet, as it is much less about reggae than it is about a unique class of Amurrican youth who are now identified as Trustafarians. among the ranks of those coddled, spoiled children of the wealthy, who may never actually have to work, and who are free to do pretty much whatever their daily trust fund allowance lets them do, Trustafarians are the ones who have decided to become bedreaded, patchouli-soaked hippie and/or rasta types -- driving the same Jeep, pulling the same pitifully-stoned black lab with bandanna around neck, listening to the same Bob Marley CD, living in Boulder / Aspen / Charlottesville / Chapel Hill / anywhere in Oregon / someplace you can't afford, and more likely than not moving to Florida at some point in the future. i suppose there's an Engerlish equivalent, but it's probably not as noxious as the Amurrican variety (who has a beautiful girlfriend, spends more money on pot than you'll ever make, and will become aggressively conservative and intolerant the moment he gets all of his money).

okay, i'll go now. c's wise injunction not to listen to reggae in a room full of nodding students who have UB40 queued up on the turntable just reminded me of this story, which i don't believe i've ever told before. and it happened 13 years ago.

damn, i'm getting old. maybe i should get all my good stories out while my brain is still working reasonably well.

other john, waiting for someone to ask him what _he's_ been smoking
:) <---his bonged-up mark

Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

There is an excellent article in Slate about saving Bob Marley's legacy from cheeseball trustafarians and ignorant frat boys. Check it out.

Sometimes I forget why the frat guys like him so much. I mean, when the guy sings about revolution and liberation, it isn't exactly geared toward upper middle class white guys. Then, you hear the next song where he causally mentions smoking a joint, then I remember. Good to know they understand his message.


I went to a private school with the children of our local scraper and blader crowd. To a person, they all had a copy of Legend which they listened to religiously. If you asked them why they liked it, it would go like this:

Other guy: He sings about freedom and stuff.
Me: Yeah, but he's singing about freedom for third world people, not about the fact that your dad won't pay for the next ski trip.
Other guy: No, he sings about freedom to smoke ganja!

-sigh-


Is there any point to it all? I mean, take Midnight Oil, for example. They became huge when I was in college. They sang about a variety of issues, from aboriginal rights to thanking veterans. Only thing anyone could tell you: "That's the band with the bald guy..."

I totally gave up on politics in Rock'n'Roll when Rage Against the Machine was huge. To anyone who even casually listened to the lyrics, it was obvious the guys were unabashed lefties. Still, fans missed the point. I actually saw a guy with a Rage bumper sticker and a Limbaugh bumper sticker next to each other. Dude, you can't possibly be paying attention.


Hasta la vista. Do zobaczenia.

Our boy Smiff is at is again. He apparently became angry at a post on what was termed the Official Fall Website and pulled "official" support from it last Tuesday. At first he demanded that the fan forum be taken down, then that the whole site would be taken down. The settlement reached was that the site would be "unofficial" and editor Clayton Hayward would run the "official site," which doesn't seem to be up yet.

The offending post is rumored to be this one, at least webmaster Conway Patton thinks so. I don't see what is offensive about it. This is a guy that has fired band members during gigs though, so I can believe anything.



The most interesting thing about the forum is that many of the posters are ex-band members. The Fall has had enough ex-members to keep an internet forum going. I wonder if Marcia Schofield posts, and if she can call me...



By the way, Schofield was featured (not playing keyboards, but dancing...) in Barry Adamson's 1988 video for "Man With the Golden Arm".



Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

I spotted Sal Quijada this morning buying cigarettes at the Circle K on Speedway and Camilla. He was wearing shorts and a olive drab t-shirt.


Do zobaczenia. Hasta la proxima.

Grumble.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.