"This movie will haunt your future ... because it's almost here!" And now it is, in DC's National Guard Armory, but without the motorbikes or death, and with considerably greater representation of the local LGBT community than I remember in the film. Oh, and it's called Roller Derby, not Rollerball.
Roller Derby has two packs of four blockers whipping round a circular track in the kitchest costumes they can find pursued by “jammers”. The jammers have to force their way through the pack and then score points by lapping the opposition. You can see the scope for a few falls. The first row of seated trackside fans were read a legal disclaimer before having several players land skates up in their midst.
Saturday’s double bill opened with a bout (bouts are games, jams are plays...stay with me) between the Cherry Blossom Bombshells and the DC Demon Cats. After which league champions Scare Force One gave the Secretaries of Hate a helmet denting, knee pad scraping, micro skirt tearing sixty-plus point pasting. It writes itself really.
Actually, the afternoon opened with the national anthem, the entire hall standing silently with their eyes raised to a star spangled banner hung high above the gymnasium floor. Even the counter culture is patriotic I mused, struggling to take a photo with one hand on my heart.
There were also a surprising number of US servicemen amongst the students, bohos, hipsters, Ls, Gs, Bs and Ts. I thought maybe they were there for the same reason the devil and I were: the prospect of violence, kitch violence, but violence nonetheless. But I am told sports venues often resort to ticket bombing the military when paying audiences are scarce. WWF survived several lean years on the fatigued when the pubescent were in uncommonly short supply.
I suspect the other good thing about military audiences is that they can be relied upon to stand when required, cheer when appropriate, and not boo unless you set fire to a flag. In other words, the kind of reliability that President Bush might have enjoyed as he threw the first pitch of the baseball season on Sunday night.
Of course, it may have been that the crowd, gathered for the inaugural game in the country's newest stadium dedicated to the national sport right in the heart of its capitol were simply too excited to chant the second half of the President's name. And perhaps if there had been enough servicemen chanting "Shhhh!" at the right time no-one would have noticed.
Roller Derby has two packs of four blockers whipping round a circular track in the kitchest costumes they can find pursued by “jammers”. The jammers have to force their way through the pack and then score points by lapping the opposition. You can see the scope for a few falls. The first row of seated trackside fans were read a legal disclaimer before having several players land skates up in their midst.
Saturday’s double bill opened with a bout (bouts are games, jams are plays...stay with me) between the Cherry Blossom Bombshells and the DC Demon Cats. After which league champions Scare Force One gave the Secretaries of Hate a helmet denting, knee pad scraping, micro skirt tearing sixty-plus point pasting. It writes itself really.Actually, the afternoon opened with the national anthem, the entire hall standing silently with their eyes raised to a star spangled banner hung high above the gymnasium floor. Even the counter culture is patriotic I mused, struggling to take a photo with one hand on my heart.
There were also a surprising number of US servicemen amongst the students, bohos, hipsters, Ls, Gs, Bs and Ts. I thought maybe they were there for the same reason the devil and I were: the prospect of violence, kitch violence, but violence nonetheless. But I am told sports venues often resort to ticket bombing the military when paying audiences are scarce. WWF survived several lean years on the fatigued when the pubescent were in uncommonly short supply.
I suspect the other good thing about military audiences is that they can be relied upon to stand when required, cheer when appropriate, and not boo unless you set fire to a flag. In other words, the kind of reliability that President Bush might have enjoyed as he threw the first pitch of the baseball season on Sunday night.
Of course, it may have been that the crowd, gathered for the inaugural game in the country's newest stadium dedicated to the national sport right in the heart of its capitol were simply too excited to chant the second half of the President's name. And perhaps if there had been enough servicemen chanting "Shhhh!" at the right time no-one would have noticed.
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