One of the things Sonja, the Hammer and I wanted to do this summer was better acquaint ourselves with the Dope City neighbourhoods beyond those close to the racetrack. This past weekend we stopped by Kerrisdale. That's where the rich motherfuckers live.
Everywhere we looked, as we strolled the busy sidewalks, and rested in the parks we saw the rich shits driving by in their overpriced yuppie cars made in countries other than our own. But when they got out of their leather clad seats they all stopped to say hello and pet the Hammer. If it was not for dogs rich motherfuckers and motherfuckers like me would not socialize at all.
When we skirted the old hockey arena, where my mom saw Bill Haley and the Comets and I saw Motorhead, the Hammer played in the great piles of snow left outside by the Zamboni. It is only April and she cannot wait for next winter.
That was when I spotted the two young ladies in their Roller Derby team jerseys. It was like the world stopped spinning. I walked up to them and droolingly told them how much I thought roller derby fucking rocked. Sonja got a shot of the two them giving old Beer a roller derby girl hug. I was beside myself. Before we left they asked us, "Are you coming to the show April 12th at the Kerrisdale Arena?"
You better believe it.
9 comments:
I know a young roller derby girl. Not only is she great her boyfriend is the most ferocious looking young biker I've seen in years, with lots of crazy looking tattoos on his neck. They're clean and sober and big fans of Fang. Fang fans might take the story of their fave band as a cautionary tale, hence the clean and sober deal. I'd also imagine that roller derbying requires the utmost mental acuity. Keep the beer in the stand where it belongs, I say. Anyhow, I am, in theory, a big roller derby fan, but the long promised local league never quite gets started as another season passes with naught but empty promises and practice sessions.
I hope the team which is preparing to play in my local arena turns gets a match or two in soon instead of just talking about it.
Fang was a notorious Berkeley punk band. The leader, Mr. Fang, or whatever he called himself, killed his girlfriend. He was a junkie, she was a dealer and she refused to front him any dope on the cuff.
He was genuinely contrite about the whole thing and got a white boy with a good lawyer sentence. He did about six years. He is a friend of a friend, sort of. I never met him.
The whole thing had a devastating effect on some parts of the Bay Area punk scene. I know a few clean and sober elderly punks (though younger than my elderly punk self)who were part of the Fang scene. Those darn kids took things to extremes that my generation never would have thought of. Darn kids. Took it all the way down to street prostitution and violent crime and serious prison time, not to mention the whole filthy and covered in running sores and abcesses thing.
So a few of them made it out the other side and became roller girls and truck drivers and fierce looking biker dudes. Those two still dig Fang the most, The truck driver hates them. She drives dirt haulers in construction. She has never forgiven Mr. Fang.
The friend of a friend guy is still a Fang loyalist, but he is such a fuck up that he tends to piss me off. I'm also friends with his Mom. He managed to cost his mom her run down but charming home. He had a little slip and ended up losing his job and getting two incredibly stupid felony convictions so that he is looking at the wrong end of California's three strike law. He's not having much luck finding work and his mom needs him to live with her after she was forced to sell the house, pick up the tab for his lawyers and move into a mobile home.
And that, dude, is the Fang scene.
Another good poem by Mr. Beer N. Hockey, internet poet and man about town.
PS: The local television idiots covered the Mr Fang murder trial as, "A real life Sid and Nancy story." Also Roller Derby is apparently thriving in Texas and Arizona. I have cool t shirt from the Tucson Furious Truckstop Waitresses.
Thanks Jon. Soon as I saw the word Fang I started typing. California hardcore could sure fuck shit up. Those Fang folk sound like my old neighbours in Sliverville. If it ain't broke, break it!
Yeah, I spent my seriously punk years, both of 'em, in the Midwest. Bay Area punks scared the shit out of me. Took that shit way too serious. My little crew was about breaking out of the Midwestern mold, including the laid back hippie mold, just doing something different and having some kind of fun, fucking with the squares, meeting groovy girls in terse skirts. Some of us were really self destructive (like yrs. trly.)but you didn't have to hate yourself to get into a show or anything.
The thing I don't get, really, is how that couple of years came to define so much about the next 25 or more years. That seems pretty common too. Spend a couple, at most five, years chasing the scene and totally identifying with the subculture, then move on to other stuff, but you keep coming back to the themes from back then.
A friend of a friend is a professor of Biblical Archeology, a world class Bible scholar and a resident of New Orleans. He testified before congress about insurance rip offs after Katrina. He has two kids and a wife and a house and a tenured gig and alla that, but when the call went out for an Omaha, Nebraska hard-core reunion he loaded the family up in the minivan and headed North to meet up with his old bandmates for one more show.
What this has to do with roller derby I do not know. Something though, I'm sure of that.
Everything has to do with Roller Derby, my friend.
If you're in Vancouver, your local teams are about to have their first game of their second season.
Saturday, April 12
Kerrisdale Arena
Doors at 5:30, pre-game at 6:30
Tickets are $15 in advance or $20 at the door
www.terminalcityrollergirls.com
TCRG's been playing in and around Vancouver since May 2007.
A real life roller derby girl writes the D.C. Free Press!! I feel like one of those sick kids at Canuck Place when Trevor Linden drops by. Yah hey!
Something good for a change! Looking forward to complete roller derby reports.
We have four games this season, so come and support us! We practice all year round, and setting this sport up takes alot of work and finances. It's not easy. However, Vancouver is slowly embracing us, and we are recieving more support. We need a year round rollersport arena, to be shared with other rollersports, and you'll get to see us play even more. Slugs and kisses - Dorothy Hammer
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