An Evening at the Roller Derby

Mike and I went with S and C to go see the Los Angeles Derby Dolls last night. It’s a phenomenon you can only believe in the seeing — one might very well say “Roller Derby? Why on earth would you — ?” But that would only be if one had never attended an event in an enormous airplane hangar-looking structure in downtown L.A., an event filled with perhaps 4,000 screaming, often bewigged and besotted fans, an event in which 2 teams named, say, the Sirens and Flight Crew, each made up of a dozen or so short-shorted, fishnet-stockinged, pigtailed women of the toughest variety, women with names like “Eva Destruction” and “Crystal Death,” chased each other around an elevated wooden track at lightning speed while eighties rock music blasted in the background, often colliding with amazing ferocity, only to immediately rise to their…skates…and continue their endeavors. Once one had seen this, one would only wonder what had taken them so long to get there…

This was my second trip to see the Derby Dolls. After my first one, a few months back, a trip, I might add, embarked upon with serious skepticism, I was such a convert by night’s end that I seriously considered auditioning for the team. Until I remembered that I a) can’t skate b) cry when I get a papercut and c) am probably old enough to be these girls’ mother. Thus endeth my fantasy. Sigh.

Still, this is women’s lib in its purest form, and these girls are my idols.