Ted's Polish-Mexican Page

RWN wanted to know where I was. I was in Portland, one of her old stomping grounds, actually.

Anyway, I have a couple of pictures that I will post later, along with commentary that none of you will read before you write your responses.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

I'll be out for a couple of days, so we have another TPMP pop culture survey.

Who is kicks more ass: DCI Jane Tennison or Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson?

Please discuss.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

Official scores are out for this weekend's triple bout:

Surly Gurlies: 50
Iron Curtain: 20
Penalties: Surly Gurlies: 32 (7 Major) - Iron Curtain: 27 (4 major)

Bad News Beaters: 9
Vice Squad: 111
Penalties: Bad News Beaters: 35 (1 major) - Vice Squad: 26 (2 major)

Bruisers: 8
Furious Truckstop Waitresses: 91
Penalties: Bruisers: 36 (0 major) - Furious Truckstop Waitresses: 18 (2 major)

There is a bit of post match controversy. Iron Curtain fans are claiming that Denise Lightning, the leading scorer for the Surly Gurlies was a ringer. Helen Wheels, one of the leaders of Arizona Roller Derby, posted a long explanation of Lightning's career, and claims that although she has played for several teams, she is was recently moved to the Surly Gurlies for league balance. Or moved to the Brawlarinas, I can't tell from the explanation. (Another Brawlarina, French Lyck, played this weekend for a different team as well)

From Wheels's letter to TRD fans:

I would also like to take this opportunity to clear up some misinformation in regards to Denise Lightning being a "ringer" for the Surlies and AZRD having "confusion with our rosters".

Denise Lightning was not set on the Surley roster as a ringer. Lightning was on the Surlies roster the entire season. Denise did miss a game last season due to being out of town, and then managed one other bout for the Surlies because she was unable to skate. AZRD really doesn't appreciate the portrayal of Denise as a ringer since the Surlies do have many options to chose from as far as jammers go and did rotate through their jammer string quite effectively.

AZRD had ABSOLUTELY SET rosters for the 3rd season, with no borrowing from other rosters throughout the entire season. We were fortunate to have an influx of skaters last year, to the point of the need to create a new team for season 4, thus the advent of the Brawalrinas. Several veteran skaters, including Denise Lightning were recruited for this new team to ensure competitive bouts for all teams.

It is true that Denise Lightning was a Bruiser her first season with AZRD (as am I). During our 2nd season, in order to keep skills and talent balanced, AZRD decided that having Denise Lightning and Helen Wheels as jammers on the same roster was an imbalance, therefore Lightning became a Surley for her 2nd season. As you saw last Saturday, the Surlies have several jammers, thus when the Brawlarinas were formed, it was a logical decision for our league that Lightning be moved to the new team. I think it is important TRD understand that these roster moves were at the turn of each season, and not roster inconsistencies.

If I were an Iron Curtain fan, I'd be more ticked off at the unsporting game killing that the Surly Gurlies engaged in than who was a ringer or not.


It can be confusing for fans down here to keep track, since our teams have been relatively stable. The only time that skaters have left one team to join another is when VICE Squad was formed. That was also the only major line-up shift in the history of the league. Skaters have quit or retired, but they rarely, if ever, switch teams. AzRD has some rather unstable line-ups. Heck, the Bruisers at one time included members of the Furious Truckstop Waitresses during a lull in their season.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

Michael Richards had a disturbing racist rant at an appearance at a comedy club in LA after some African Americans heckled him. I've liked the guy's work, but I'm not sure I can ever watch him the same way again. This wasn't just a word slipping out; this wasn't a word used in some context that could justify it. This was a full blown, thought out three-minute long tirade. It is hard for me to buy that this comes from anywhere except from, at the least, a strong dislike of African Americans.

To the audience's credit, many of them walked out. At one point, Richards seems to be angry at them for their reaction to his tantrum.


Tonight on The Late Show with David Letterman, Richards apologizes for the incident, but apparently he slips in and out of the Cosmo Kramer character and some are questioning the sincerity of the mea culpa.


George Lopez seems to be willing to give Richards the benefit of the doubt. Richards is a good comedy writer and actor and has experience with improv, but that does not necessarily mean that he is in any way prepared for the rigors of stand-up comedy. A television interview with him was quoted in the AP:

Comedian George Lopez told Los Angeles television station KTLA that he thought Richards' lack of stand-up experience may have been a factor.

"The question is you have an actor who is trying to be a comedian who doesn't know what to do when an audience is disruptive," Lopez said. "He's an actor whose show has been off the air, he shouldn't ever be on a stand-up gig.

The best handling of a heckler I ever saw was at a Comedy Corner gig years and years ago. A fella named Brett Scott, who was a good writer and actor, gave what I think even he would admit was a poor stand up performance. Finally, an audience member (not me, I promise!) said "You aren't very good." Scott turned to him and said, "Oh yeah, that's not what your girlfriend said when I f****d her."

We found it funny, anyway.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

Last night, the three Tucson Roller Derby teams played the three Arizona Roller Derby teams in half hour bouts. I still would like to see full blown matches between these teams scattered throughout the season, but hey, I don't run the league.


The first match was between Iron Curtain and the Surly Gurlies. Neither is regarded as the best team in the league, but they are the only two teams that have flag bearers. Surly Gurlies had an early lead and managed to kill the game. Their tactics to some of us fans seemed to cross that line between defensive play and bad roller derby. The final portion of the match resulted in few points from either side.

There were also problems with the refereeing, with the crew being a combined Tucson-Phoenix crew that rarely works together. The communication problems resulted in numerous false starts, strange penalties and confusion over lead jammers. The false start and penalty problem was worked through by the second game, but the problem of lead jammer being declared and then recinded plagued the other bouts and led to confusion on the part of players.

The "anti-derby" style on the part of the Surly Gurlies was tactically smart, but it made for a boring match to watch. Iron Curtain players regarded it as unsporting and their frustration came through with a couple of strong hits from the normally measured Bolshe Vixen near the end of the game. I hate to give the Phoenicians credit for anything, but they used the clock to their advantage. I doubt that such a thing could have been carried out for a full hour without wearing a team's own players down. Iron Curtain could have won a full length match.


VICE Squad had a solution to this, they simply never gave the Bad News Beaters a chance to have a lead. To give you an indication about how different the game was, I looked up at the scoreboard halfway through and realized that VICE Squad's lead alone was greater than the combined scores of the two teams in the first bout. The Bad News Beaters went for seven and eight minute chunks without scoring a point. Near the end, VICE Squad put Barbicide in as a jammer, she's usually a blocker, and the fans knew that it was over. Barb never got lead jammer status, (confusion among the refs, it seems) but piled on more points for the team. Final score, 111-8. My memory may be a bit off there, but it was that bad, or good, depending on which side of the Gila you are on.


The last match was going to be the best, the TRD champion Furious Truckstop Waitresses versus the Bruisers. The Bruisers form the core of the AzRD travel squad, Tent City Terrors, who came in third place in the last Dust Devil tournament. This was going to be good.

Well, they didn't manage to break into double digits either, only scoring 9 points. Their defense was able to keep FTW from piling on the ridiculous margin that VICE Squad was able to, however.


One player that impressed was Peaches Rodriguez, who despite her size can give and take hits as well as the larger players do. She also has great speed, which she used on a jam or two where she was assigned to be jammer. She can be a little rusty (it is her first season), such as the jam where she managed to run head long into two Bruisers blockers when she neglected to lift her head while accelerating through a turn. This gal turns the whole "best defense is a good offense" thing on its head, when she's a jammer, her motto is "the best offense is knocking the other woman on her ass." I've think I've seen few jammers who are as agressive towards the opposing team as she is. She's Wayne Gretzky and Marty McSorley at once.


This was the last match for Fisti Cuffs, at least in a FTW uniform. We gave each other a big hug afterward.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

I hardly watch Numb3rs, mostly because I usually have a game at that time, not because of a busy social life. I watch the show when I can, but it ain't "destination television." Last night, my game was early, so I managed to catch it.


Let me get this right, first thing, I'm supposed to buy Rob Morrow as a badass FBI agent. Okay, once I buy that, I am supposed to buy that Morrow's character, Agent Don Eppes, needs to go to his brother, Dr. Charlie Eppes, for help on every darned case. Yes, I know that mathematics and an understanding of logic is helpful in big criminal investigations ("We use numbers every day..."), but puhleese. Despite the references to Fourier analysis and Bayesian search theory, most of the mathematics on the show could be accomplished by one of a dozen or so forensic accountants that work at the FBI's Los Angeles field office. Maybe Agent Eppes is trying to steer some money his brother's way, I don't know.

Last night's episode involved a sinkhole that spontaneously appeared in a school yard that injured several children. So, who do they call to investigate? The mathematician, his cosmologist buddy, and his dad. Well, the father, Alan Eppes, is supposed to be a retired planner, so I guess he'd know something. But why, get Dr. Fleinhart, who knows more about wormholes than sinkholes? Yeah, he's a brilliant astronomer (and dragonslayer); I'd get it if he was a planetary scientist, but, he's a theoretician for God's sake. Doesn't that CalSci University have any geologists on staff?

Somehow, Fleinhart uses seismology to find out what is going on. The guy knows the fine points of seismology. Geez, it's like he's Reed Richards or something.


One interesting touch: Dr. Eppes's girlfriend is named Amita Ramanujan. She's his graduate assistant. As we all know from television and movies, all male professors have a bevy of hot graduate students who they are allowed to date with no consequences. The interesting part though is that she is apparently named in honor of brilliant Indian mathematician Srinivāsa Rāmānujan, who like the character was a Tamil.

Rāmānujan was a self-taught and invited to study at Cambridge in 1914. His career there was short lived because of his work schedule and the poor diet he maintained while in England (insert joke about English cooking here, but as a Tamil Brahmin, it was hard "keep kosher," so to speak, with war time food shortages). He returned to India where he died of turberculosis exacerbated by a vitamin deficiency.

Since he was self-trained, he was never shown how to write a proper proof. Many of his formulae had no proofs at all. An entire journal, the Ramanujan Journal, is dedicated to proving his theorems and finding applications for them in other fields.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

In addition to this weekend's triple header between all three Tucson teams and three of the Phoenix teams, Tucson Roller Derby has also announced bouts for the Saddletramps, their "all star" travel team. All home games are at Bladeword on West Grant Road.

Dec. 2 - Saddletramps at Texecutioners (Texas Rollergirls, Austin)
Dec. 16 - Muñecas Muertas (Duke City Derby, Albuquerque) at Saddletramps
Jan. (Date TBA) - Saddletramps at Kansas City Roller Warriors


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

So, the critics are going off on the Killers' new album, Sam's Town. One guy with Rolling Stone said that it "leave[s] no pompous arena cliché untweaked" and another critic said that the album is "a classic case of a young band overreaching to assert its significance." To which I say, so what?

What I've heard of the album, which I haven't bought yet, seems to have much stronger songwriting than the last one does. (The phrase "I've got soul, but I ain't a soldier" seems clever the first time you hear it, but after he repeats it a dozen times it just sounds like he doesn't have any other ideas.) The complaints about "arena rock clichés" would be more palatable if printed in magazines that have not featured U2 or Mick Jagger on the cover. The funniest complaints have been about this young band doing Springsteenish songs when they are only putting out their second album. Considering Bruce Springsteen himself was pretty Springsteenish on his first album, I don't know what the problem is.


In all the comparisons, I don't know why the critics are missing the obvious one: the band dresses and sounds a little like western suited bands of the late 1980's, like Rank and File and the Unforgiven. There was sort of a mini-movement of this in the mid-1980's, which only I remember, apparently.

The most stark example of this is the name of the album, Sam's Town. A string tie and boot sporting Wall of Voodoo had an album called Seven Days in Sammy's Town, named, apparenly, after an actual place near the California-Nevada border (not far from the Killers home in Las Vegas). Wall of Voodoo, by that time, had a different lead singer (Stan Ridgway of "Mexican Radio" fame had left).


I don't see the complaints about the band. They aren't the "let's play distorted barre chords and bitch about life" thing that people are confusing with rock these days, nor are they the ultra boring self-referential slop that shoe gazers like My Chemical Romance are.

As for the relentless self promotion of lead singer Brendan Flowers, another so what. That's rock and roll. If you don't believe me, check out some early interviews with Bono. If he doesn't live up to his own self generated hype, we can make fun of him later like we do Kevin Federline.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

Sunday, it's the Revs versus the Houston Dynamo. What sucks is, I don't have any way of twisting the name "Houston Dynamo" into some other profane name, like I could with, say Red Bulls or DC United. Darnit.

Actually, I like the Houston Dynamo. I can't gin up hatred against these guys. I can't even do it on nationality, since their markee internationals are Canadian. How does one generate bile against Canadians? I guess I should ask Dennis Leary.

Plus, they wear orange. They are just like Johann Cruijff.


Anyway, I predict a Revolution victory. It will be 1-0, low scoring because both Matt Reis and Pat Onstad are incredible goalkeepers. Unlike the Revs playoff oponents (Chicago and DC United), they don't have any sort of intense rivalry that will result in the sort of on-field outrage that we condemn but all secretly love to see. It will be a clean low scoring match.


Khano Smith will score. Why? Because he seems to be trashed by many Revs fans, and there seems to be a tradition of the not-so-bad-but-hated-by-the-fans player scoring the big goal in an MLS Cup. Remember, the Galaxy's winning goal against the Revs in last year's MLS Cup was scored by Pando Ramirez. Not only was Ramirez disliked by the fans, but he was traded before the opening of the next season.


Besides, the Revs can win this on diet alone.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

I was watching TV last night and the new Mitsubishi ad came on. I thought, naw...that can't be the bass line to "Blindness," which is on the Fall's latest album, Fall Heads Roll. The song kept going, and there was Mark E. Smith's voice saying, "I was walking down the street..."



This is probably the first time in the US that the Fall's music has shown up in an ad, but not the first time ever. A couple of years ago, the song "Touch Sensitive" was used in a UK Vauxhall advertisement.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

I went to a screening of Lalo Guerrero, the Origninal Chicano at the Fox Theater the other night. The movie features interviews with Guerrero as well as Linda Ronstadt, Cheech Marin, Dolores Huerta, Ry Cooder and Louie Perez of Los Lobos. Most importantly, it features his ecclectic and all-syles conquering music and details about his young life here in Tucson.

It also features an amusing animated segment about the inspiration for the song "There's No Tortillas."

The documentary will be shown on PBS stations, and is scheduled to be here on KUAT in December. Anyone who wants to learn more about our border culture (which few embodied more than Guerrero), Latino culture in general or who just loves music should seek it out. In case you miss it, a DVD will eventually be available at the website originalchicano.com.




The movie was followed by a short concert with Lalo's sons, Mark and Dan, doing Lalo's songs, including the best swing song ever, "Los Chucos Suaves." The song's use of the cale slang of the pachucos helped drive the movie Zoot Suit and serves as a sort of theme song for the documentary.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.