Weekly Rollup and Open Thread, 3/12/2010
It's official (according to the event experts who run Seattle's Key Arena): roller derby fans drink more beer than fans of any other sport.
Want to be in Uncle Leon's next video? He and The Alibis are looking for your roller derby footage. Better hurry, though - the deadline is Monday.
It's a few weeks old, but this UK Guardian article is worth a read just for Dr. Victor Thompson's money quote near the end.
Even Roller Derby Has a Rule About Hits to the Head.
Michael J. Mooney of the Miami New Times penned an extensive article about the the road not taken, in the form of Lingerie Football League. A cautionary tale.
AND WHEREAS, the Oly Rollers are awesome;
The U.S. Army's website recently profiled three Red Dirt Rebellion skaters who also serve in the Oklahoma Army National Guard.
Finally, artist Cory Obendorfer, who you may remember for his roller derby inspired art and installations, has been invited to spend three weeks as artist in residence at Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, SC. He's looking forward to drawing inspiration from Charleston's Lowcountry High Rollers, if he can raise the necessary funds.
Comments
Groundbreaking
From the sound of the shot descriptions from Uncle Leon, it sounds like the video could end up pretty similar to this one from years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyCRjaczWsI
Lacing the skates, putting on the fishnets, etc
Wow. Summer 2004.
Wow. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Summer 2004. Wore the ref stripes for the first time because the shirt fit and I was hanging out at 3am. A few of the skaters are still playing, though they hadn't played their first game yet, then. Those days, it was about the "fun", and a few months later when they began playing games, fighting was completely banished. They were still using a rented "old school" track. The drummer didn't know he was gonna get hit either. Every once in awhile a police helicopter would hover over the track and shine its spotlight for a few minutes while they watched the skaters practice.
And the editor put an ouytake reel together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOvXSprmiJA&feature=related
Didn't stop shooting until the sun came up. Because the track was still on the roof of the pillow factor, stored outside. That fence you see clearly at 1:55 in the outtake video was 2 1/2 feet from the track, and was put up by the Dolls to keep them from flying off the roof of the building if they flew off the track.
Lingerie football...
God that article made me depressed....
Definitely drives home the point of why we play by the skater and for the skater. Shame some of those women are so obsessed with football, they might love playing derby instead.
That's exactly what I thought
That's exactly what I thought when I read that article. They could also join the Independent Women's Football League - http://www.iwflsports.com - I wonder why more of them haven't...
I actually attended a game in the LFL!
And thought the exact same thing, those girls loved football and contact athletics, they took their jobs very seriously, they were not there to flaunt T and A even if their 'uniforms' said differently (if you went to see the equivalent of a sexy pillow fight you would have been sorely disappointed, as most fans were), it was a shame to see them out on the Astroturf and not on skates or in the IWFL because many of those women were obviously athletes dying for full contact competition.