Congratulations to our Philly Roller Girls (aka the Liberty Belles), third ranked nationally with a victory over the Texas Rollergirls who kick-restarted it all! This is woman-walks-on-fucking-moon territory in local roller derby terms. Well, maybe woman-orbits-fucking-moon. Let's reserve walks-on-moon for the year they win all the marbles.

Congratulations also to their surly-but-sort-of-loving big sisters, the Gotham Girls, who won the whole goddam WFTDA national championship shooting match.

Second place went to the Windy City Rollers, home of statistician Scorey Feldman, aka Eamon... a man the talk.bizarre contingent will recognize in this slickly produced professional dance video.

The results were reported here.

For those with no idea what the hell I'm talking about, this video explains it all to you and also features a rockabilly song about the sport:



But of course that's not quite as much fun as a highlights reel of an actual bout (not one of ours, just one I could find):



Go PRG!

Tags: philly, philly roller girls, roller derby, sports

I caught the Broad Street Butchers-Dutchland Rollers roller derby bout (the Butchers chopped 'em into leetle amish bacon strips) and the first half of the champeenship Hookers-Britches bout (the Hookers were holding the Britches down to a non-embarrassing score, but the Britches were still beating them 2-1 when I left). Elle Viento, new to the Butchers this season, impressed me with both her jamming skillz and the sheer size of her fan club. vixenvangogo jammed up a storm, which is always a blast to see. And I totally failed to recognize a friend of solestria's who has become a ref, even though he said hello to me special. D'oh!

(His SO is a newly minted Hooker. I lurv typing that. I never did spot her for certain.)

Zipped back to the city on the R3 in hopes of bumping into noisefootprint, which did not happen, but also with plans to hit Brasils and engage in my own crazy beautiful sport, which very definitely did happen. Boy did it evah.

One of DJ Jay Rockwell's frequent utterances:

"Gentlemen, I see a lot of beautiful ladies in the house. Now, get to work."

I just spent two wonderful hours in the office. Now I gotta sleep, seeing as I have a two-hour performance class in the morning... and a movie date after that... and every intention of dancing tomorrow night as well. Rock.

Tags: dance, philly roller girls, roller derby, salsa

Philly roller derby champeenship, this Saturday, 5pm- at the Sportsplex in Feasterville. Shuttle service available from SEPTA trail! So you have no excuse for being lame, other than being lame, of course.

Lawdy, they even scheduled the bouts for earlier in the day... I can still salsa my ass off afterwards. So there.

Click through for deets.

Tags: philly, roller derby

Attended the latest art opening at Benna's for about ten minutes. Zipped to Market East Station at the Speed of Tom. Made my train at 7:29. The train was late. Skidded into the theatahhh the precise millisecond ladyandromeda's performance in Going to See the Elephant began.

Loved the play— the acting was definitely the strongest part. The script wasn't bad but had some outline-y moments in the second act. Loved seeing Moriah as a tomboyish character almost entirely unlike Dunyasha, her part in The Cherry Orchard. Her portrayal of Dunyasha and the skill with which that whole production interpreted Chekhov hooked me on her entire ouevre. Though there is the problem that I tend to come away from all of her other plays saying "I wonder what this plot would be like if it were written by Chekhov."

The cast was entirely female, apart from the voice of one ailing, never-seen man. That had interesting consequences.

Afterwards hit Brasils for an hour or so. Saw a few folks I'm friendly with, danced with some talented people, danced with some nice people, danced with some who were both. Also danced with someone clueless but kinda hot and troublesome with a great attitude, which was entirely okay with me.

Still, it was a bit of a swordfight and I ran through the available femininity pretty quickly. So I found my way over to Cuba Libre (no cover, no harm checking it out). Had one nice dance, watched the amazing Natalya for a bit, said hello to Kevin, realized it was Time for Bed. Got out of Dodge.

Tomorrow: take my daughter to a ceramics class which one of her best friends will also be attending. Try to get myself to a new intermediate salsa class in the afternoon. Try to remember to relax for a while. If my body doesn't flat-out insist, that is. And find my way back to the train station to hit the roller derby. I haven't seen a Broad Street Butchers bout yet this year and that is unacceptable.

Tags: dance, eleanor, philly, roller derby, salsa

2007 is nearly over and I still have no calendar for 2008.

My Gotham Girls Roller Derby 2007 calendar has been very awesome (is Sugar Smacks adorable or what?), but I see no sign of a 2008 calendar appearing. The Philly Roller Girls don't have one either.

Fortunately, at least three other teams have stepped up to the plate. I call your attention to the Windy City Rollers, the Memphis Roller Derby (they used frames, sigh— click on merch manually), and the Big Easy Roller Girls.

Spoiled for choice! So what to buy? Well... the Windy City Rollers calendar is all full-team shots, I'm not sure how much fun that would be. It's hard to tell from the tiny images in the brochure.

The Memphis Roller Derby seems to go to the other extreme with single-rollergirl shots. Which could be awesome, judging from the samples.

The Big Easy Roller Girls I'd love to support on principle. But it's a "16-month 2007-2008 calendar" and I don't know what that means... ah, but they had a release party in July of this year. So I suspect it includes all of 2008. Rock.

This would be so much easier if someone wanted to buy all three of them for me.

Tags: calendars, roller derby

This weekend solestria finally experienced the glory that is Roller Derby.

We caught the Warrior Cup championship doubleheader— if you're going to miss a whole slew of bouts, go to a good one.

I hadn't realized until the day before that the Broad Street Butchers were up for the title, which was a pleasant surprise. (Keep in mind, folks, we don't have 28 media outlets blaring nonstop meta-commentary on this sport... although we should... so it's easy to be surprised.)

The Heavy Metal Hookers / Hostile City Honeys consolation-prize bout was a good time, the Hookers unfortunately got housed. We were rooting for them, they have only won one bout ever. Against the Butchers, actually, which is why I didn't expect to see my beloved Butchers in the champeenship. Fortunately the math wasn't that simple.

But never mind that, what about the battle for all the marbles? Welll... the Butchers put up a hell of a fight. But the Philthy Britches, undefeated last year, are also undefeated this year and the title bout didn't change that.

The Britches have Violet Temper and Mo Pain, geddahellouttamyway-fast jammers who are more or less unblockable. Against this the Butchers have Joy Collision, who is definitely in that class as well. And Shenita Stretcher, who is almost that effective and I get the feeling she's one more season from putting on that kind of show.

Alas, the Britches have more great jammers almost that fast... and painfully efficient blockers. Henceforth to be known as the Iron Cervix. Says me.

So the bad girls won (don't they always?). Now it's time to take off my Butchers-fan apron and point out that the best players on all four intraleague teams will now dock their respective modes of transportation... like the spunky, adorable, mutant children of G-Force... to form the Liberty Belles ultradestroyermatic and stomp the rest of the country in 2008. I can't wait for Christmas morning the East Coast Derby Extravaganza.

But what did solestria think? Well, she didn't dump me on the spot, but she's in no hurry to take up roller derby. Or as she put it, "I'm not going to be quite the fangirl that you are... uh, the fanboy..."

However, she does have an alternative idea involving roller skates and theatrics— but not so much with the knocking-down of self and others. And that should be interesting.

Tags: philly roller girls, roller derby

Four women who make Philly a more awesome place to live every time they get out of bed in the morning:

Bobbi Block, goddess of all things improvisational. Most recently I saw her long-form troupe Tongue & Groove. That's only the tip of the iceberg, she's also been a head honcho of Philly's Comedysportz and a part of many other long-form groups.

Sonya Elmore has taught salsa every Wednesday at Brasils for six years. Every two weeks she teaches us the joy of being alive... and on the alternate weeks, she teaches it again for those of us who were drunk. Oh yeah, she also has her own studio out in Bensalem.

Vixen Van Go-Go is co-captain of the Broad Street Butchers and a vital part of the Philly Roller Girls organization. She's on LJ as vixenvangogo. As trishylicious she's also a disturbingly good DJ, the sort who pulls something out of your youth that you can't quite place and mixes it with something you've never heard... then discovers roller derby and then stops spinning for a dozen years or three. That's her prerogative.

Nancy Trachtenberg owns and operates Benna's Cafe, pretty much the best "third place" (er, in my case, second place) anyone could ask for. At least, at hours inappropriate for drinking. Where else can I fail to finish the crossword while seated between two beautiful women much, much smarter than me who have already finished the puzzle by the time I finish my maté?

Meme:: post about four remarkable women (or men, or whatever you care to mix up) where you live.

Tags: benna's, cafe culture, improv, philly, roller derby, salsa, south philly, theater

Dear SEPTA,

If you're going to:

1. Move a train to another track;
2. Not bother to change the displays;
3. Not bother to make an announcement; and
4. Not bother to change the route number ON the train ITSELF,

Then you might at least

5. Have the freaking conductor step out on the platform and say something. Instead of pulling in for 30 seconds on the next track over, out of sight of the location where passengers were supposed to wait for you... then pulling out again, leaving some poor bastard in passenger Services to apologize for your general lameness.


Okay, so at this point it was too goddam late for roller derby, considering we would have arrived halfway through the second bout of a doubleheader, only to leave on the last train an hour later. No thanks.

So we hit the Peekaboo Revue's comeback show at National Mechanics. And it was freaking awesome. Best Peekaboo show I've ever seen. All new material, super-tight ensemble performances, the humor that has always been their trademark and oh yah hot chyxx0rs in varying stages of undress. solestria was particularly blown away by the well-rehearsed ensemble numbers.

In the past they've done a lot of Broadway parodies. Those were fun but I'm glad they've moved on to new ideas. Last night's show included two brilliant "80's music videos gone horribly wrong" reenactments.

The Peekaboo Revue is a "neo-burlesque" troupe here in Philly, emceed by Joey Martini and Scott Johnston, aka Count Scotchula. Scott Johnston as in the Philly 48-hour film festival and Fancypants Cinema. Scott is a renaissance man. They had a lot of hot chicks without pants in the renaissance too, I hear.

A+++ comeback to my evening. And I get to see a derby doubleheader in NYC two weeks from now. So my will go on.

Tonight is my ludicrously overpriced, nigh-wedding-like, never-to-be-repeated dance showcase performance. I bit the bullet and found a ticket for solestria too. Wish me luck!

Tags: burlesque, peekaboo revue, roller derby, septa, transit

w00t!

I'll be arriving about halfway through the first bout with any luck. (Dress rehearsal vs. roller derby... arhgh!) This will limit my Broad Street Butchers exposure which I'm not happy about but the overall Derby dosage will be excellently high. And on November 3rd I'm catching another doubleheader, mixed local NYC and Long Island teams.

Tags: philly, roller derby, sports

1. dawn_guy squees about Elctro-Luminx Light Tape. It's tape! It's a lamp! Welcome to the future!

2. I watch the Flash intro on that page to see what it looks like in use

3. I say "wait a damn minute!" and watch it again

4. Hey, that's a roller derby bout! But what team is it dammit?

5. Watch it AGAIN, hit printscreen this time, copy to Gimp

6. Hmm, I can just about read the sign... "Legendary Roy Wilkins Auditorium"

7. Google Google Google

8. It's the Minnesota Rollergirls!



The Minnesota Rollergirls lined up on their awesome luminescent blue line.

They also have a very fine bruise gallery (some images too cheeky for work, so to speak).

Tags: roller derby