ROLLERCON: Day Three

*Our matching friendship tattoos

It is 5 am and my BFF and I have not slept. Nicole, who I have named Nikita Knockabitch, and I decide to go to Margaritaville for breakfast. We are the first people there so we get the best balcony seats and the freshest Bloody Mary's. The streets of Vegas are mostly dead and a semi-cool breeze make the entire scene perfect. I look across the street and see Pure, the nightclub of the rich and famous. Nicole is frantically looking for her wallet and we realize that we lost my camera too. Fuckin' a! Nicole shortly finds her wallet under a napkin but the camera is lost forever. All those memories, gone. No, they will stay with us forever and become another one of those stories we laugh about the next time we see eachother. FUCKIT! I had so many plans for this day, WFTDA workshops, skating at some point, but the fatigue is hitting us softly. After our meal I convince Nicole to walk over to Pure with me. "If they let Kevin Federline in, they'll have to let me in", I say to Nicole. She really does not want to go over there but I drag her. We find a security guard who tells us that the line starts at 4 pm and doors open at 10. He asks if we were planning on waiting all day. Yeah right!! "I just thought rich people partied into the morning", I mumble. Oh well, guess it's time to go to bed. Nicole's husband will be here soon and we have to get some shut eye before he comes to take us out to eat again. We get to my room and I crash hard only to have to wake up in an hour and a half. Poor Nicole was too tired to sleep. Once again, the message comes, I'm here.

We drag ourselves downstairs and there is Gary waiting for us. Nicole and I try to act normal but my act will soon fall apart without some coffee. We follow Gary to an uber swanky restaurant and at this point I think I start muttering to myself because Gary and Nicole are laughing at me and I'm not sure why. More Bloody Mary's, more food, more coffee, uhhggg...I feel like I am going to explode. I have decided to ditch RollerCon for sleep and head to my room to start packing. It takes me FOREVER to pack because my stuff is scattered all over the place. Finally I meet Nicole and Gary at the bar and they are swilling drinks. The bartender offers me a drink and I beg for water. We decide to head for their hotel. I am not sure what it is called but it is shaped like a huge pyramid and is decorated in Egyptian style. Oddly enough I run into my girl Andy Nihilate from Pioneer Valley Roller Derby at their hotel on the other side of town. Andy and I first met about a year ago when our league played hers. She ended up staying at my house and we bonded over our sons who are about the same age. Andy and her boyfriend Jay, from the band The Prozacs got married while at RollerCon this year. I guess that's what Vegas is for. I talk to Andy and Jay for a little while and introduce them to Gary and Nicole. "It is so cool how you have this derby community and know people from everywhere", Nicole says to me. I had never really thought about it but now that I do it is pretty kickass to know that I have derby girls all over the world.

Roller Derby is such a bigger community than your own league. RollerCon helped me to see this and put it all in context. It is not just you as a single skater, or you as a league, it is all of us in this together. New Hampshire Roller Derby has helped me to see this too. We have skaters from other leagues come and teach us stuff I never knew and we form friendships with our would be opponents. It is a family, a family I am happy to be a part of.

This is pretty much where my adventure ended. I caught my plane on time and came home to my other family, with thoughts of skating still lingering in my head. I am so happy that I never gave up all the times I wanted to. Thank you Joanie Weston, Leo Seltzer, Ann Calvello, WFTDA, Texas Rollergirls, and all of you who brought Roller Derby to life, you know who you are.

Signing out,
Vivala SLAM

RollerCon: Day Two

THE CHALLENGE:

Wake up with a hangover but nothing some greasy food and a cup of coffee can't handle. My teammates and I are suppose to meet at the coffee shop at 10:30a so that is perfect. I get to the coffee shop and no fucking greasy food, just muffins and shit. Damn, plan foiled. The majority of my team is already there and we pretty much stare into space until eventually we decide to talk strategy. Lesson #1: Every league does things differently. I have my ideas and everyone else has theirs. Although I am the Captain I am too tired to argue. It's just for fun, one girl says, we'll just figure it out as we go, chimes in another. Keep in mind, we have NEVER skated together before and although the "Birth Control Betties" claim to be a thrown together group of girls from Denver's Oil City, I know that will not be the case. I prepare for the worst and nurse my hangover with some nasty coffee. Alright ladies, let's do this. We head for the shuttle stop and I watch Mel Practice roll around in the dirt. I already love this girl. She is so fuckin' "I don't give a shit". My type a chick. And, she's a clown for a living. I so hate clowns but that IS dope. Anyway, the double decker bus pulls up and we all load on. Driving through Vegas on a double decker bus is definitely the way to go. Soon enough we pull up to the indoor hockey arena and head inside. Oh God, I feel like I need to shit or puke. I smoke a butt in hopes of bringing on whatever is coming but nothing helps. So I head for the water machine (THANK GOD) gets tons of water and start pounding it until my lips no longer stick together and I can swallow without chocking on my tongue.

As soon as I see our opponents and their bench coach I'm like, Oh fuck. These girls are huge. We quickly recruit or own bench coach and I thank the lord for Sadistic Sadie of the Cincinnati Ohio Roller Girls. She jams with the best of them and doesn't even want help from our blockers. We all jam at some point but she scores the most points. I have never seen girls play like Oil City. I get an elbow to the lip and it splits open. Mel Practice has the entire left side of her face swollen. Those who shall remain unmentioned spend the majority of the bout in the penalty box but when she is released her elbows are EVERYWHERE!! I have never been so angry playing roller derby. I really want to kick some ass and later that night when I saw one of the Refs out drinking I corner her and I'm all "what the fuck"? She responds with, I'm new, I don't really know. According to WFTDA 4 majors or 5 trips to the penalty box, per period, for a two period game are considered ecxessive and exsessive penalities result in expulsion. Now I know this was all for fun, but shit!! We only played for 30 minutes and she was in the box more than 5 times. Meanwhile we're getting our faces smashed in. Anyway, moving on.

I go back to my room and take a nap after picking up some Merch. I don't get too much. My best purchase is 4 issues of Blood and Thunder and some frilly pink panties. Ya never know when you'll need frilly pink panties and since my new league's colors are pink it seems like a good idea. Well I wake up from napping like three hours later, look at my watch and almost shit myself. FUCK!! How could I sleep so long. My BFF Nicole is going to be here any second. I jump up at the same moment my phone rings, "Mamas? I'm here".

From here it all becomes a blur. Let me just say that we lost the camera from that night, woke up with new tattoos and there was some spin the bottle and tittie action in there somewhere. It's just like they say "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". Until those pictures end up on the internet.

Personal Disclaimer: I think the worst thing I did was trying to teach the bartender how to do the Plank in a very tight pencil skirt. I cannot speak for those who will remain unmentioned.

THE ROLLERCON TRILOGY: IN PICTURES

ROLLERCON THE TRILOGY

*KISS AT HARD ROCK CAFE

DAY ONE

I step out of my blissfully air conditioned hotel room to be molested by a wave of heat. I almost turn around and go right back in my room but the knowledge of what's waiting for me keeps me moving. Ok, first stop, registration. First off I must say that the Imperial Palace is one big maze and the fact that I found registration in under 20 minutes is beyond amazing. I approach a corridor filled with derby girls of all different shapes, sizes, accents, and hair styles. Plain and simple, it is a derby girls dream. I pull out my USARS and ID and I am promptly handed a bright orange RollerCon sticker and told to put it on my helmet. DONE!

Next stop: Back to my room, if I can ever find it, to get my skate gear for the next skate workshop. Where the fuck is my room? I wander endlessly. Soon it's almost 1:30pm and I locate the piece of crap and gather all my gear for some beatings from Bonnie D. Stroir. For those of you not knowing, Bonnie is one ill ass skater. She is the founder of the San Diego Derby Dolls and to take a class with her was more than I could have hoped for. The lesson for the day was Tricky Whips and a lot of backwards skating. I loved it and learned some sneakiness that I will use on you one day. All of the girls skating were loving it and falling all over the place. It was too awesome.

After class I was beat from the heat and decided to try to find my room, AGAIN!! Ten years later I dropped my gear off and decided to try to find someone with some authority. Word had been spreading that our challenge bout had been rescheduled for who knows when or where. By the time I got to the lobby I was so beat I decided to sit in a comfy seat by the bar and treat myself to a Margarita. Relaxation, finally. Oddly enough a posse of the girls from my team, TEAM MILF, all ended up in the same bar and we took over for a while. The word on the street was that our challenge against the Birth Control Betties had been rescheduled for the following day at 12:30pm. Fine, whatever, what was my next move. Hmmnnn...

After some pondering and finishing my drink I decided to head for Iron Horse Tattoo and get some ink. I decided on a flying roller skate designed by "Sexy Rick" (seriously, that is what his card says), who is not too sexy but super nice. Chris is the true sexiness but we will have to get into that later as that is an entire different story. Moving on. For some obscene reason I thought it would be an awesome idea to walk all the way back to the hotel. DUMB!!! The heat must have gone to my head because the strip looked close but it was just a mirage, and I'm no talking about the Hotel.

At the room again and I decide to take a bath because my shin splints are killing me from walking 50 million miles in 110 degree heat. God I'ma dumbass. After my bath and some lie down time I pick myself up again and head down to the bar. The minute I get down there I run into my Mamas from back in the day, JO MAMA of Jo Show Promotions and a retired Derby Doll. Anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting Jo Mama knows she is completely off the friggin' chain. From the moment I saw her it was pure chaos. Jo Mama and I go WAY back. We use to tour with the Grateful Dead and then she lived in my apartment in San Francisco for awhile. So she's introducing me to everyone and their Mother as friggin' Blossom from Dead Tour. I swear I wanted to kick her ass so bad. Then, let's not forget dear little Pippy, Jo Show's BFF but I stole her and now she's my BFF. She tried to corrupt me all night but I was good and went to bed by 2am. Oh dear. Stay tuned for day 2.