Bout 6 Pix!

Here are a few pix I pulled from the set pdxsharkey took during last weekend's bout. (Mouse over images to enlarge.)

I forgot to mention in the last post that RollaReina also jams:

Reina jams.

© pdxsharkey (aka Steve Mancini) masonite.burn@gmail.com
Used by kind permission.

She hits too:

Reina hits.

© pdxsharkey (aka Steve Mancini) masonite.burn@gmail.com
Used by kind permission.

Smack Ya tears it up:

Smack Ya tears it up.

© pdxsharkey (aka Steve Mancini) masonite.burn@gmail.com
Used by kind permission.

Hard Knox gets ready to pass the star to Smack Ya:

Passing the star.

© pdxsharkey (aka Steve Mancini) masonite.burn@gmail.com
Used by kind permission.

I trust that Rhea's wheels aren't touching the track infield. Blocking while out of play like that would be cheating, wouldn't it? :P

Blocking while out of play?

© pdxsharkey (aka Steve Mancini) masonite.burn@gmail.com
Used by kind permission.

My current derby crush, Guts & Bolts, works her way through the pack:

Guts & Bolts.

Chicks wearing mouth guards are sexy.

© pdxsharkey (aka Steve Mancini) masonite.burn@gmail.com
Used by kind permission.

Aurora Brutalis and Smack Ya open the lane for Blood Clottia (who thanks Brutes with a quick squeeze). Meanwhile, Cher The Pain appears to enjoy a relaxing afternoon at the Oaks Park hangar. (jokes, sheeesh)

Blood Clottia keeps in touch with her blockers.

© pdxsharkey (aka Steve Mancini) masonite.burn@gmail.com
Used by kind permission.

Now you want to look at the rest of the pix? They're here. Enjoy!

Thanks again, pdxsharkey!

Bout 6: GNR Rock Betties, Score Fewer Points

The Guns N Rollers expected to spend Saturday night at the Oaks Park Hangar trading off wailing guitar riffs and extended drum solos. What they found, unfortunately, was that they'd crashed a cotillion hosted by the Breakneck Betties. And despite their best rock-and-roll efforts, they couldn't do more than shake up the Betties' party a bit.

The Betties broke out early with thirty-plus unanswered points—nothing gives away points like sitting your jammer in the naughty box. But GNR rallied hard during the middle of the first period, and they came close enough I thought they might bite the Betties on their pretty red-pantied asses.

And then the second period.

No matter how GNR muscled and sweat their way through every jam, not enough points went on the board, often because they were skating without a jammer. And demon-from-hell Rhea DeRange picked up points as easy as buttercups. [Note]Hey. When Rhea skates for the Wheels of Justice, I cheer as loud as anyone for her, but when she skates against GNR, she's a demon from hell. Alright?[Note] It seemed as though they couldn't get a break, that every call was against them, and that their jammer sat in the box simply for not being nice. It was as though cosmic disturbances, unseasonal sunspot activity, and the clandestine efforts of disgruntled hotel managers throughout the United States (fed up with years of humiliation at the hands of head-banging rockers) all conspired to keep GNR from scoring as many points as the Breakneck Betties.

(Maybe it's time now for GNR to review their contract with Satan?)

The Good Stuff:

GNR did bring the Rock.

It's just that "rock" ≠ "points." (I do believe that a petition is being circulated to fix this).

It's no surprise that Blood Clottia brought another Monsters-of-Rock performance jamming as well as blocking. Aurora Brutalis

© pdxsharkey (aka Steve Mancini) masonite.burn@gmail.com
Used by kind permission.

Aurora Brutalis lit up the Hangar with several of her own brilliant jams. Punchkin

Editor's Pick: Favorite Derby Names

(Profile)

Punchkin, November Pain, and Smack Ya Sideways all put points on the board, I think. (If not, recall rock ≠ points.) But, to me, the bright spot jamming was Guts & Bolts

© pdxsharkey (aka Steve Mancini) masonite.burn@gmail.com
Used by kind permission.

Guts & Bolts, who took a shot to the nose in the first jam she put on the star; then she kept coming back for more and more abuse and looked like she was lovin' every minute of it.

Axl Blows, Hard Knox, Smack Ya, and Napalm Beth

© pdxsharkey (aka Steve Mancini) masonite.burn@gmail.com
Used by kind permission.

Napalm Beth all hit hard and hit often, and when things weren't coming together for Pain as jammer, she joined them in the pack. To further show that GNR is willing to mix things up and respond to the other team, Knox put on the star for a jam (and passed it to Smack Ya), and A.Wrench gave up checking Betties right out of their skates for a jam and scored a few points herself.

And nothing really shows better that the Earth had fallen out of its orbit on Saturday evening and had begun spiralling dangerously toward the sun: Napalm Beth fouled out and Smack Ya Sideways did not. (To be fair, Beth picked up her last penalty as a sort of two-for-one deal when she was "insubordinate" on her way to the penalty box. Always showing her concern for the objectivity of the officials, that Beth is.)

So what did we learn today?

We learned that no matter the fate of the universe, rock-and-roll will go on. We learned that GNR will always be plucky and (mostly) gay. And we learned that sometimes the cheerleaders win.

Anyone else learn something? Comments are open....

Scrimmage Friday 8 May

The scrimmage last night between GNR and an assortment of Washington State skaters was lots of awesome.

Grace Lightning—who's been out with a broken foot—is back in her own skates and is knocking other chicks out of theirs.

Both of GNR's newly drafted skaters were on the track: Sugar & Vice blocked in several jams, and Guts & Bolts took several spins as jammer.(And if they aren't Fresh Meat anymore, just what sort of meat are they?)

Cherry Lipsmacker's campaign to get Vixen Mary back into a GNR jersey was a short one with Vixen also skating last night. (Derby's a hard habit to kick. Didn't November Pain "retire" once?)

GNR also fielded a skater who—aside from pink spats and a jet black dye job—bore a striking resemblance to that Cadillac who skates with those pretty Breakneck Betties. The similarity was a coincidence, I'm sure.

And anyone who missed the scrimmage also missed the skating of some robot-sent-from-the-future-to-destroy-us-all that they brought down from north of the Columbia. She sped, skipped, juked, hopped, slipped, skidded, and twisted through the pack like she was born with wheels for feet. I think at one point the GNR blockers threw Axl Blows at her just to knock the derby-bot out of bounds.

Uh-may-zing.

And only five bucks. (Which is cheap. Axl's fifty.)

Injury Updates

GNR skaters currently out with injuries:

• Itzo EZ will be out for the rest of the season after ACL surgery.

  Her physical therapy is going well, and if she doesn't think anyone's watching, she might mope a little while everyone else skates.

• Mullet (sans Bullet mais toujours avec le mullet) has had surgery on a ruptured achilles tendon, so she'll be wearing a cast for the next few weeks.

  Doctors have refused to integrate a skate (or even just a wheel) into her cast, and she won't be able to get back into skates until it comes off. Expect 3-4 months recovery time.

  On the other hand, she has got herself a new moped, so bonus points for sightings of Mullet-in-cast-on-moped.

• Gwen'nich Mean Time is also out while her back is "all messed up." (No, I couldn't find a Wikipedia link to that. Sorry.)

Please do what you can to prevent these skaters from suffering excessively while they watch their other teammates skate. (Experiencing some discomfort is unfortunately an expected part of the recovery process.)

New Skaters Drafted

Congratulations to the two skaters that GNR drafted earlier this week!

Joining GNR from Fresh Meat are Sugar & Vice and Guts & Bolts. These two promise to add a little more butt and a lot more rock to the GNR line up.

Sugar & Vice comes on primarily to add more blocking to the GNR pack.

I've also heard that she likes long walks on the beach, kittens, and pie. (Okay. I haven't really heard any of that.)

Guts & Bolts was also drafted, and we should look for her to start stepping up to the jammer line soon.

She has a degree in Interdimensionsal Relations. And she likes pie. (Lying again. Sorry.)

I trust that GNR isn't choosing its draft picks based on how closely the skaters' names follow the "Guns & Rollers" model like both "Sugar & Vice" and "Guts & Bolts" here do.

I'm fine with them liking pie though.