The Derby Comes To Lotusland.....

Makin'TheirOwn
BigScenesVille



Well, Richmond, to be more precise.

And the "Bukowski of the Backwoods", Mr. Beer 'N Hockey, was there:

Soon as I got in the arena I found the beer garden. A couple roller girls were pouring pints of Russell ale. I was impressed. Usually you have to drink sh*t beer when there is a beer garden. I opened up my beer hole and filled up.

The first period of the bout was some great derby. It was a much more violent bout than the first one of the season. The Riot Girls and the Bad Reputations were all going home with big ass bruises tonight.

On my way to the beer garden at the first intermission I asked for and was granted an autograph by Andi Struction of the Faster Pussycats. My first roller girl autograph. She drew a little heart on it. (I keep it under my pillow.) Then I got myself some more Russell.

As I was drinking my beer I asked some of the people I was drinking with why it was they liked roller derby. One biker who was there about summed up what everybody else told me. "I like watching girls fall on their can." There is something just a little Clockwork Orange about the whole spectacle.

In the second period the derby's intensity increased even more. The crowd was getting wilder with each can that landed on the cement floor. The girls and the crowd were rocking like Bo Diddley.

It's good stuff, but a little over the top, so be forewarned if you are going to go there because it is not for faint of heart and/or those that didn't spend a good part of their misspent youth watching the Bay Area Bombers when the Puget Sound Loggers weren't on the bad/scratchy late night, almost local, not quite cable, TeeVee.

But Beer's kicker is bigger than the Derby.

Because it's what everybody whose worth anything is always looking for, from Jack Kerouac to Julia Nunes to Joe Keithley.

And it goes like this:

The people I look up to the most in this world are the people who create a scene; the people who make a scene out of nothing. The people who give you the opportunity to raise the motherf***ing roof on Saturday night. That is what the Terminal City Roller Girls are doing.


And, come to think of it, that is what Jim Croce did during the short time we had him raising the roof before he followed Bo Diddley 40, or maybe even 50, years too soon.....





OK?

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