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Overview
When most Americans hear the words “roller derby” today, they think of the kitschy sport once popular on weekend television during the seventies and eighties. Originally an endurance competition where skaters traveled the equivalent of a trip between Los Angeles and New York, roller derby gradually evolved into a violent contact sport often involving fake fighting, and a kitschy weekend-television staple during the seventies and eighties. But in recent decades it’s come back strong, with more than 17,000 skaters in more than four hundred leagues around the world, and countless die-hard fans. Down and Derby will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the sport. Written by veteran skaters as both a history and a how-to, it’s a brassy celebration of every aspect of the sport, from its origins in the late 1800s, to the rules of a modern bout, to the science of picking an alias, to the many ways you can get involved off skates.
Informative, entertaining, and executed with the same tough, sassy, DIY attitude—leavened with plenty of humor—that the sport is known for, Down and Derby is a great read for both skaters and spectators.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781593763725 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Catapult |
| Publication date: | 08/10/2010 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 8 MB |
About the Author
Jennifer Barbee joined the LA Derby Dolls in October 2003, rechristened herself Kasey Bomber, and became the co-captain of the fun-loving Trust Fund Terrors. Since roller derby was still the early days of its revival, Jennifer made it her mission to unite the Dolls in spirit with all the other leagues across the country. Many airline miles, toasts to success, and skating-induced blisters later, she took that mission one step further by helping to organize the first national roller derby convention, Rollercon, in Las Vegas in 2005. After several exciting seasons, Jennifer retired from team skating in 2008 to focus on coaching, and refocus on writing for publications such as Blood and Thunder Magazine. In 2009, she was hired to help train actresses Ellen Page, Juliette Lewis, and Drew Barrymore for the derby-inspired film Whip It! Her co-trainer, and good friend was Alex "Axles of Evil" Cohen. The seeds of Down & Derby: An Insider's Guide to Roller Derby were planted during the many hours of down time on the film's set in Michigan, and the friends became writing partners.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
What's It All A ... Bout?
It's a saturda y night in a neighborhood just west of downtown L.A. known as Historic Filipinotown or Hi-Fi. Nearly two thousand fans have traveled to a fifty-five-thousand-square-foot warehouse that once cranked out ice-cream cones — a place affectionately dubbed The Doll Factory. This is the home of the Los Angeles Derby Dolls — the city's all-girl, banked track, quad skate roller derby league.
Outside in the parking lot, gals in a red, yellow, and blue Hot Dog on a Stick truck sell corn dogs and lemonade. A local pizza parlor dishes out slices as a ska/punk band plays on a makeshift stage underneath a canopy of tall palm trees.
Among this crowd is just about every type of person you could hope to meet in Southern California. Heavily tattooed biker boys and hipster girls with bright blue hair mingle with grandmas in wheelchairs and young high-powered Hollywood types. There are die-hard muscle-bound sports fans and folks so un-athletically inclined they'd likely guess Yogi Berra was a cartoon character.
Stepping inside The Doll Factory is almost like that first color frame in The Wizard of Oz — where Dorothy finds herself transported to a marvelous world of Technicolor fantasy Derby Dolls are everywhere — working the door, selling merch, wandering through the bleachers with raffle tickets. True to their name, many of these women are dolled up — in team uniforms or other costumes, in bustiers and hot pants, in wigs or face paint. There is no shortage of fishnet stockings.
As a DJ plays thumping electro-punk in the background, vendors hawk necklaces made out of old soda caps, paintings of pin-up girls with skulls for faces, and t-shirts that read I'M NOT GAY, BUT MY DERBY WIFE is. Bartenders do brisk sales out of rolling coolers filled with tall cans of Tecate beer, all bathed in the pink light of a four-foot-tall roller skate made of neon that hangs on the wall.
Suddenly, the lights dim and everyone flocks to the track, a beautiful one-hundred-by-sixty-foot wooden beast designed and built by skaters, friends, and family. It's shaped like the sort of track you likely ran on in school, but in this case the outer edges have been raised anywhere between three and five feet and propped up by a series of vertical rails and posts.
Fans crowd around every inch of the track and fill up bleachers and stands on all sides of it. Perched in a corner high above the track is a booth where two announcers introduce the two teams skating. On this night, the police-themed Sirens are facing off against the team that pays tongue-in-cheek homage to the Girl Scouts, the Tough Cookies.
The Sirens are dressed in dark blue skintight numbers no LAPD officer would dream of wearing while on patrol. The Tough Cookies are clad in short, pleated skirts and button-down uniform shirts adorned with badges for busting heads and breaking hearts.
Skaters have names like Paris Killton and Feara Nightly, Gori Spelling and Venus De Maul'r. They're fully covered in protective gear: helmets, mouth guards, elbow pads, wrist guards, knee pads ... some even wear shin guards. They all move on roller skates as if they were born with wheels on their feet.
The crowd stands for the national anthem. At The Doll Factory, "The Star-Spangled Banner" has been performed by everyone from transgendered celebrity Alexis Arquette to a band of female kazoo players to Gene Simmons. Tonight it's an adorable local singer named Audra Mae with a sparkly smile and a voice like velvet. She belts the patriotic tune out like a modern day Bessie Smith.
VENUS DE MAUL'S FACES OFF AGAINST MAGGIE MAYHEM
By the time we get to "and the hoooooooooooooooome of the braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave" the crowd is bouncing with excitement. The announcer, Evil E, ducks her head down to the microphone and asks the crowd, "Are you ready ... for ... roller derby action?" The audience explodes with wild screams as the moment they've all been waiting for finally arrives. Game on.
On a stretch of the track about six feet long, eight women — four from each team — position themselves in a group. They're crouched low, eyeing each other malevolently, bodies pressed together tightly — as if they're in an elevator built to fit only four. A whistle blows, and they take off together. As they skate, they slam their bodies against their opponents trying to knock each other over. This fierce and violent throng of women is called a pack.
Moments later, a second whistle blows and two skaters poised behind the pack take off in a quick sprint. These skaters are the point scorers called jammers. The jammers charge toward the pack and do their best to skate through it. They try to juke and jive past hip-checks and through human walls of skaters lined shoulder to shoulder. Once the jammers make it out of the pack, they race around the track and approach the pack again — this time for points.
A jammer earns a point for each member of the opposite team she skates by after the first pass. That's why skaters in the pack try desperately to beat the living crap out of the jammer from the opposing team. They'll do just about anything to make sure she doesn't pick up any points. There are huge wallops, big spills, pile-ups, and collisions that make hockey look as tame as a round of nursing home shuffleboard.
And, there are points scored. Without any balls, bats, sticks, or nets, bouts are won and lost by the ability of women to pass each other on the track. Each time a jammer scores, the crowd goes insane.
At this Sirens/Cookies game, tension quickly mounts as each team takes turns eking out a small lead over the other. Finally, with just twenty-six seconds left on the clock, the Sirens are leading with a score of fifty-one to forty-eight. A guy dressed in a full body Cookie Monster suit runs back and forth in front of the bleachers — desperately trying to rally fans of his beloved namesake team.
And then, in the last few seconds of the game, the Tough Cookies pull it off, scoring enough points to win the game. The crowd rushes in, arms outstretched over the lip of the track, offering high-fives to skaters taking victory laps. The Sirens take a few laps too and the crowd is just as excited to cheer them on despite their defeat.
Afterward, skaters exit the track to give sweaty hugs to friends, family, and fans. Then it's off to the bar for the after-party, where derby girls prove they take their celebrating just as seriously as they do their skating.
This is the sport of roller derby. And despite the carnival-like atmosphere, it's an incredibly serious endeavor. There are countless adrenaline-filled moments. Strategies are beautifully executed by teams that have spent hours tirelessly training. Skaters execute breathtaking, eight-wheeled leaps; they fall thunderously and collide in ways that sometimes take them to the emergency room.
For those of us who skate, there are many reasons to love roller derby — the amazing friends, the outlet for creativity and aggression, the cardio-intensive exercise. But it's the bouts where all these amazing things come together, and that's what keeps us pouring so much of our time and energy into this sport year after year.
Nowadays, bouts are happening every weekend in just about every corner of the U.S. In New Orleans, the Big Easy Rollergirls have skated at Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World, competing amidst ginormous King Kong and Mr. Bill parade floats. In the northern hills of New Mexico, the ladies of Duke City Derby skate at a community center in front of the majestic backdrop of the snow-covered mountains of Taos.
Derby has even gone global, with leagues sprouting up everywhere from Edmonton to Zurich and from Abu Dhabi to Copenhagen. Roller derby, as we know it today, is a distinctly twenty-first-century phenomenon. But the roots of this sport actually date back more than 125 years.
PROFiLE: Jackie Daniels
There are people who find roller derby like a long lost friend. There are those who fall in love with the sport like they were dosed with Spanish Fly. And then there are those like Rachel Bocheim, a.k.a Jackie Daniels In many ways, she's hte quintessential derby girl-committed, tireless, talented, and well loved by her teammates and competitors alike. And when we say teammates, she sure does have a lot of those. In addition to skating with the Windy City Rollers in Chicago, she's also an original member of the Grand Raggidy Roller Girls of Grand Rapids, Michigan, as well as a part-time member of Team Awesome, Team Legit, and Michigan's Mitten Kittens. Like yellow and blue make green, combining Jackie and derby creates a new, magically kick-ass whole from the sum of its parts.
Q:When did you start skating?
Jackie Daniel s: At our Catholic school annual outings. I think I went once since high school, and it was like riding a bike coming back. I operate better with skates on.
Q: Did this kind of thing always appeal to you, or was roller derby a surprise?
JD: Kinda both. I read an article about it, I knew it was for me, but at that point, I was living in Grand Rapids and didn't know the town was just starting a team. I knew Chicago was just starting and I honestly considered moving to Chicago back then so I could play. As soon as I knew about derby, I knew I was going to play no matter what.
Q: What are some of the things besides the skating that you really enjoy about derby?
JD: I love the people, I love the parties, and I love learning new things. I have met my best friends here, I have had the time of my life so many times at roller derby events, and I have grown as a person and professional by the things I've learned and challenges I've overcome. I couldn't imagine my life without this.
Q: What are some of the advantages of playing on teams like Team Awesome and Team Legit, which are made up of skaters from multiple leagues?
JD: Learning, travel, and fun with friends are the huge draws for me. Every time I would play with one of these teams, I could bring back valuable lessons for myself and my home league. When my home league isn't able to travel as much as I would like, I can fulfill that desire on other teams. And, it's such a blast being surrounded by exciting new people that have the same obsession, passion, and drive for roller derby. All have the same goal, no drama, and an overwhelming desire to play more — it creates an unbelievable environment of excitement.
Q: Over the past year, how many times have you traveled for derby?
JD: I played, attended, or coached at twenty events outside of my base camp in 2009.
Q: How exactly do you maintain the energy to be involved with so many teams?
JD: I create busy. If I don't have something to work on (even for like five minutes), I'll make a project, a task. I'll decide something our league needs to perfect or change and start working on that. I am firm believer that you can do anything you put your mind to, and I never give up. I truly want to see roller derby, my league, and myself succeed. So I keep doing anything and everything I can to keep pushing us all forward. I am a perfectionist who is never satisfied ... just ask my exes.
Q: Who is your roller derby idol or derby crush?
JD: Teflon Donna from Philly Roller Girls, she hip-whipped off me early on (it was my first) and I've loved her ever since!
Q: When the day to retire comes, what do you think will be the most valuable thing you'll take away from your experience with derby?
JD: If I don't skate, how could I justify eating and drinking like this?! To be honest, I am really not sure retirement will come for me. I'll be playing in the Grandma Games 2050. Or, perhaps I'll transition to coaching. I think I will continually be involved in derby in some capacity, to continue learning and having the time of my life.
CHAPTER 2The First Whistle
roller derby is like the cat of the sports' animal kingdom. No matter how hard the sport falls, it always seems to land on its feet. Every time it appears derby is dead — it somehow pounces back into claw-bearing action. It's already been through several lives and we're fairly certain there are quite a few more ahead of it. We've trolled the archives of many newspapers, magazines, and Frank Deford's incredible book Five Strides on the Banked Track: The Life and Times of the Roller Derby to help compile this lesson in our beloved sport's early origin.
The first recognized incarnation of this multi-lived minx dates back nearly eighty years, to the Great Depression. Yes, if there was anything remotely "great" about the Depression, it's that it was an era when roller derby as we know it took its first tentative lap.
In the 1930s, an American had to be creative in order to earn a buck or two. People were poor, and they were desperate. And where there is desperation, there are always crafty people ready to capitalize on it.
These were the days of dance marathons, where promoters pushed contestants to their physical limits. Couples would clutch and sway for days at a time in an attempt to outlast their rivals and earn just enough money to feed their families.
At the same time, a new and happier pastime's popularity was booming: roller skating. For mere cents on the dollar, the youth of the world could woo each other wearing high-laced boots fitted with screechy metal or, slightly preferable, scratchy wood wheels, skating counterclockwise around rinks to the most popular pipe organ music of the day. Along with other such sinful activities as walking in parks and attending those new talking pictures at the movie house, roller skating rinks took off as the hub of teenage activity.
It didn't take long before someone put two and two together and realized the marathon dancing fad and the roller skating craze could work well together. That man was a former film distributor named Leo Seltzer.
Seltzer started by promoting "derbies" — marathon races with partners trading off laps on a banked track until they either successfully skated the equivalent of the distance between New York, and Los Angeles or collapsed from bloody feet and/or exhaustion.
But these early incarnations of Seltzer's brand of roller derby were not entirely original. In fact, they were actually a more extreme incarnation of roller skating races that had been creating controversy in New York as early as 1885.
NINETEENTH CENTURY SKATING: ROLLER RACES
On March 2, 1885, Madison Square Garden played host to the debut of an unprecedented six-day skating marathon. Men arrived from all over the world to strap on skates and test their endurance to the limit — or well beyond it. Stories that month in The New York Times revealed the public zeal throughout the race as nineteen-year old William Donovan of Elmira, New York, pulled into a handy lead to win. It was a remarkable feat for a young man who almost missed the contest altogether when his skates were stolen. In six days, he skated a record-breaking 1,092 miles, covering up to 204 miles in a single day!
But a week later, Donovan would be dead.
Against the advice of both his trainer and doctor, Donovan's father removed him from bed rest only two days after the tournament in order to make some extra money on public appearances. Donovan showed signs of strain, and was soon too sick to stand. While he struggled for his life, the public was shocked and saddened by the death of another young race entrant — Joseph Cohen. Officials ruled that Cohen's death was caused by "meningitis, aggravated, if not induced, by prolonged excitement of body and mind, and also by exposure consequent upon his participation in a six-day roller-skating match."
In Donovan's case reports suggested that he left his sick bed to watch the passing of the P.T. Barnum Circus parade outside his window and moments later, succumbed to "acute pericarditis" exacerbated by the exertions of the race.
Suddenly the early excitement for the sport had turned into a tide of anger and public outrage. Roller skating, it seemed, was a killer of vital young men — a wheeled devil sent to tempt the young into vice, with fatal consequences. After a follow-up race failed to attract a crowd, one New York Times editorialist described the dire gravity of the entire skating pastime in a piece on May 18 of that year. "Elopements, betrayals, bigamous marriages, and other social transgressions," the writer suggested, "were traced to the association of the innocent with the vicious upon the skating floor." Furthermore, the writer asserted, "the rink is too often a place where good-looking scoundrels do a great deal of harm."
Many predicted that such bad press would spell the end of not just derbies, but roller skating itself.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Down and Derby"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Jennifer Barbee and Alex Cohen.
Excerpted by permission of Counterpoint.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Title Page,
Dedication,
Introduction,
Chapter 1 - What's It All A ... Bout?,
Chapter 2 - The First Whistle,
Chapter 3 - The spandex years,
Chapter 4 - Deep in the Heart of Texas: Roller Derby Resurrected,
Chapter 5 - meanwhile, in the rest of the country,
Chapter 6 - Rules of the Game,
Chapter 7 - Am I a Derby Girl?,
Chapter 8 - I Am a Derby Girl!,
Chapter 9 - If you Can't Be an Athlete, Be an Athletic supporter !,
Chapter 10 - A Few Final laps,
Appendix: Derby in Film and Television,
Acknowledgments,
Copyright Page,