I usually write about roller derby the day after the show. I am taking advantage of not having any motherfucking deadlines. Want to know what I have been doing besides entertaining the screen in front of me? Yard shit. There are a lot of things that need doing in my yard that did not get done last year because of the oppressive heat. I am getting everything done now because I have a feeling I am going to have to drink as much beer as I did last spring, summer and fall to keep from overheating again.
Kitty and Sonja joined Hunky and I for the Dope City Roller Girls' opening night. We arrived early, parking right beside the fart smell old hockey arena. No tickets were even on sale yet. "I got an idea," said Hunky. I was thirsty too. We found a restaurant and started drinking.
Beer was $4.91. This pissed Hunky off. "Who the fuck charges $4.91 for a beer? I bet the Moonies run this joint. Four bucks for the owner - 91 cents for Reverend Moon."
Ever since I told Hunky the Moonies have got the raw fish market sewn up tighter than the Sedins he has not looked at sushi the same way again. Sort of like the way things changed back in the '70s when the oil cartel starting flexing their muscle - the friendly neighbourhood garage owner began to look more like a dope pusher than fix-it-man.
I eat cooked Jap food. Fuck the Moonie shit.
Sonja and Kitty hit the sake. One or both of them was going to be painting a flame down the side of the car on the way home. Sonja was telling Kitty about the first Japanese joint we used to go to when we began dating. "The dirty Japs had Japanese kiddie porn mixed in with all their other Jap magazines. Tons of it. Just sitting there like it was Yellow People magazine. Do you think the Moonies control the Japanese porn industry too?"
We were in agreement about the Moonies probably controlling just about everything in Japan. How else can you explain the heaps of shit Toyota is trying to sell. The Japanese would never fuck up like that. Must be the Moonies.
Luckily, the Moonies have not yet taken a controlling interest in roller derby. By the time we made it back to the arena there was a long line to wait in before we got in and found ourselves a seat. There were many more people in attendance than any previous show, it looked like more than two thousand crazier than Lillian van der Zalm's headbands roller derby fans. Hunky and I headed for the beer garden as Kitty and Sonja struggled with the sake, which was giving them visual challenges.
It was a different crowd than previous shows. There were more couples in their early twenties, less little kids and even more lesbians than ever before. I had not been in a crowd of lesbians this big since Sonja and I accidentally attended an International Lesbian Day festival on the Drive many years ago. We got some beer and we started drinking it as fast as we could.
Before long Hunky and I were surrounded by pretty young lesbians. It was like being an LA Kings fan at a Canuck party. We yacked about roller derby. One of the girls told me Andi Struction was a no-show because she broke an ankle up in Anchorage. These girls knew more about the players than do and I have been following the Dope City Roller Girls for years. I do not know much about lesbians either but I learned something about them April 1oth - they smell delicious, like fresh picked apples.
On the floor the derby girls circled the track. I could not see fuck all from the beer garden but I did see Suzy Shameless get decked. It was the biggest derby hit I have seen yet. Looked like she did an end over end before her sweaty, fresh picked apple smelling body was pulled by gravity onto the cement floor with a cartoonish thud.
"Beer," Hunky shouted over the announcers' attempts to encourage a riot, "we have to take the girls on a cruise to Lesbos. This is the best fucking derby ever!" No shit. The Irish Rovers could not handle a party like this.
After the first bout, the Faster Pussycats ground up their Hanford-bred opponents like the Moonies grind up free-thinking, we gathered up Sonja and Kitty and went outside. They told us, "We need more sake now!" so we ran back to the restaurant where Hunky and I had a couple more Asahis as the girls knocked back a pot of sake. "Too bad none of those girls you were talking to in the beer garden will ever fuck you two motherfuckers," Sonja jeered. We drank up and, staggering a little now, went back to the arena.
In the beer garden during the second show Hunky and I got to meet one of the first bout's referees, Law 'n' Whore-der, formerly known as Ruby Round Heel of Andi's Faster Pussycats. Ruby is one of the people who contribute to what some say is the best part of the Dope City Free Press - the comment section. I had seen Ruby from a distance before, so I already knew she was real pretty but it turns out she is even prettier up close. We chatted long enough for me to come away thinking I had just met a remarkable young woman, a remarkable young woman with eyes the same colour as mine. Intelligent, fun - I did not ask what she does for a living (since just about everybody in Dope City makes their money from the marijuana industry there is no use asking what people do - everybody lies about that) but I hope she is a nurse or a doctor or something like that.
It was right about then beer sales got cut off - at 8:30! I had to talk one of the beer sellers into fetching Hunky and I another half a dozen. "If you don't get me some more beer I am going to have to take some pills and my behaviour can get a little erratic when I have more than beer in my belly." I asked how many beer they had sold. "1800," is what they would admit to. I think they may have sold a little more than that but their licence probably only allows them to sell about 1800 so that was all they were admitting to.
I do not know what else I can add except I can still hear the screams of the roller derby loving lesbians I was in the crowd with. Their supportive cries made me glad to be alive in the roller derby century; glad to be helping pay for the 2010 Olympics; glad to sign Bill van der Zalm's anti-HST petition; glad to keep on keeping on.
4 comments:
"...Luckily, the Moonies have not yet taken a controlling interest in roller derby...."
Crumplestiltskins Beer!
That line represents the kind of business reporting that would make even Maria Bartiromo weep.
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I love sushi. My son loves sushi.
We are the only ons in the house who get a kick out of eating as much of that kind of shit as is available.
Of course. Our taste is limited by our our pockets. What got us into sushi in the first place was the low grade supermarket crap only masquerading as sushi. Tasty enough but not really the genuine article.
For a while I tried making my own sushi. I even got the little bamboo mat and the mirin to bind the rice. The fresh salmon was not too pricey since much of Scotland has been turned over to farming vast shoals of the stuff.
The rolling of the sushi defeated me.
Huge gobs of fish and rice spilled out of the seaweed like meat from an overstuffed sausage. It tasted fine but it was certainly as far from finger food as one might imagine. I draw the line at using chopsticks under my own roof.
That was that. Until they opened a "Yo Sushi" franchise within walking distance.
Only marginally more expensive than a McDonald's, now we can sit and watch freshly made bowls of all manner of neatly origami'd shit endlessly circle on the conveyor belt.
I have never been a model train enthusiast, but I have definitely acquired a fascination for fast food on a track.
When I bought Joey's posthumous solo record, the one with "Maria Bartiromo" on it, I did not know who this Maria woman was. That is the great thing about the presently fractured media market, when there are a million channels to choose from some pretty famous people can remain anonymous to a lot of people.
The Dope City Free Press' scooping the no Moonie control (yet) of roller derby story is one of many such scoops we hope to bring you more of in the future.
I'll see you there Juvie. I'll be the old guy with the tight jeans and look of pain in his eyes.
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