So, this weekend, a friend invited me to go to the roller derby at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds. Now, when I was a kid, you could often find me sitting Indian-style in my parents bedroom, my head upturned to their television watching the roller derby every Saturday night. Nothing could tear my eyes away from those taut and tawny purveyors of pain. Those beautiful women on roller skates and in tight shorts were even tantalizing to a ten year old boy who was probably supposed to think girls were disgusting. But no. That roller derby fanaticism was in my blood. But as the years went by, the games faded and soon disappeared from cable television and I had all but forgotten those dangerous, thrill-seeking vixens who had intrigued me so.
I went last night, eager to see if the thrill I once got from watching the roller derby would return. And return it did.
Let me start by mentioning the only con of the evening, and that was the venue. The derby took place on the fairgrounds in what would be the equivalent of a stuffy, claustrophobic high school gym. I am one of those people who goes to an event and immediately looks for the nearest exit in case any shit goes down. Unfortunately for me, the nearest exit was several feet away and I would have to crawl over several people to get there. But that was a minor negative in my book, especially after the game begun.
I am not totally aware of all the rules to roller derby, and to tell you the truth, I really don’t care. I know that the woman with a star on her helmet has to get ahead of all the other women on the other team to score points. The women on the other team try to keep the woman with the star on her helmet from passing them by bumping, elbowing or steering her into a crowd of onlookers. And all this is done while speeding dangerously around an oval on roller skates.
The women who raced in this derby were not your typical lipstick and high-heels type of chicks. Instead, there were tattoos a plenty, face and body piercings and a few scars and bruises to complete the set. And I hate to admit it, but I found these women mighty hot. I think this is partly due to the fact that I am completely against having any part of my body pierced or painted and to the fact that I am on blood thinners, so bumps and bruises of any kind could make me an instant DOA. In the hood, I believe fellows like myself are called marks, pussies. I prefer to call myself indescribably gifted and ambiguously gifted.
I think that the one thing that really got me hot under the collar was the way these women, jumped and dashed, pulled and pummeled each other and seemed to do it with a certain relish. There were no crybabies, no, “Oh, I broke a nail” types skating around that circle. Nope. Just a bunch of tatted chicks with gruff exteriors, holey fish net stockings, crazy names like LeeAnn Crimes and Bootsy Brawlins, and a taste for blood. How hot is that? And the cheerleaders?? Knee high converse, with mini-skirts, the aforementioned fish nets, loud, brash voices and many that showed enough cleavage crack to make any straight man or gay woman want to dive right in.
My favorite roller girl was a short-haired firecracker with the unfortunate moniker of Rambo Sambo. Short skirts, garters and fishnets and a definite spunk shot Rambo Sambo right to the number one spot in my heart. In between racing with ferocity around the track, Ms. Rambo could be seen on the sidelines dancing, gyrating her hips and thrusting her head quickly to and fro. I was instantly smitten. Especially when I watched her dismiss her rivals with a quick hip thrust that would send them flying across the floor and into the sideline seats. If only she could change that name! Rambo I’m cool with. But Sambo? My one hope is that she is referring to the martial art of Sambo which has been used by the Soviets/Russians since the early part of the 20th century and she is not in someway embracing the negative, racist image that has existed in this country since the late 1890’s. Seems to me the image of an ex-Vietnam vet and a Russian martial art makes a much more logical combination, so we will go with that.
Apparently, the roller derby matches last from now until the end of summer. My hope is that sometime between now and then, I can catch Rambo Sambo’s (perhaps blackened) eye and drop to a knee and propose. I’m quite sure the marriage would be a short one, as I can only imagine that within the first week or so of wedded bliss, I will find myself being admitted to the emergency room with a knife wound and an anal abrasion due to a roller skate wheel being jammed up my…those girls are so touchy. But that’s all a part of the appeal. Sex and violence, my friends. Definitely worth the price of admission.
I imagine Rambo’s man probably wrestles manic depressive pitbulls and can only pleasure himself if he has sandpaper attached to his hand. I could never measure up to that! But I am willing to try!
Rambo! I love you, girl…..don’t hurt me.
Earlier this week, my mother and I got into an argument over the electability of Barack Obama. Well…it wasn’t really an argument so much as a heated discussion. I never feel comfortable arguing with the woman who gave me life. Anyway, my mother stated that she did not think Obama could win the general election because “They would not let him win.” When I asked who “they” were, my mother stated, “The same people who wouldn’t let Gore win.” Hmm. Touché, mommy.
Still, I found myself refuting this opinion of mom’s. Idealistic me. Deep in my heart I still believed that, despite the debacle of eight years ago, the people would still decide who the next leader of the free world would be. I believed that our country may have learned our lesson during the Bush/Gore campaigns and that we would not only be on the lookout for blatant corruption, but we would also not stand for it. It would be especially railed against by those who have always stood up for the forgotten and disenfranchised. Right?
In the New York Times today, there is an article written by Sam Roberts that may indeed give credence to the words spoken by my dear, old mother. It seems that a number of African-American districts in New York that showed an overwhelming amount of support for Hillary Clinton on the night of the primaries are now giving indication that the amount of votes for Clinton may not have been as great as first stated.
In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116.
Now, am I suggesting that the same “they” who stole the election away from Al Gore as well as from the majority of Americans who voted for him also had a hand in the obvious gross miscalculations made in New York? No. Do I think that the Clinton campaign is above committing somewhat shady acts in order to get a better grip on the lead? Um, definitely not. But that isn’t because I think the Clinton’s are absolutely corrupt. I think they are professional politicians. They know the game. They know it better than Obama does, that’s for sure. As a result, they know how to play it. Give Obama a few more years under the searing heat of politics and all the machinations that come with it, and he may know how to play the game too. Right now, he is wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, and while some are turned off by this greenhorn from Illinois, others seem to revel in and embrace the fact that he hasn’t been tainted yet.
But my concern here isn’t so much on the campaign or those people in New York who obviously jacked up some of the results. According to the article, New York has been doing that for years, so what else is new? No, my eyes this time are focused in the direction of Mr. Julian Bond, the head of the NAACP.
I have an insurmountable of respect for Julian Bond and all he has done in respects to his fight for civil rights and equality among all men. He has been a frequent critic of the Bush administration and has done more in his lifetime for civil rights than I will ever do. However, he stated earlier this week that he thought that the votes from the Michigan and Florida primaries should be counted because if they were not, millions of minority voters would be disenfranchised.
He stated that:
Refusing to seat the states’ delegations could remind voters of the “sordid history of racially discriminatory primaries.
I’m not arguing with him there. Perhaps millions of voters were disenfranchised by the exclusion of the Michigan and Florida votes. But pushing up the primaries in these two states was the decision of the states, knowing that this was a violation of party rules. What I want to know, however, is if Mr. Bond will have any reaction to the news coming out of New York? While Michigan and Florida do not seem like exclusions due to “them”, the discrepancies encountered in New York seem to be imbued with a darker shade of gray.
What say you, Sir Bond? Was your concern based strictly on the rights of the disenfranchised or are your arguments based more on a bias for a particular candidate? It seems to me that when votes of 118 to 0 magically turn into 118 to 116, someone needs to sound the alarm. Don’t you agree? Or in this particular case, are you siding with “them”?
This is so wrong, but it made me laugh. If my mom finds out, I’m toast.
Today was not a good day for me. It started out okay, but sometime during the day things began to sour. I began to waver between morosity and seething anger. I tried to put a finger on what was making me feel so unstable, but I was unable to. I found myself becoming increasingly annoyed with my coworkers. I felt that at any moment I was going to say something I didn’t mean to someone I cared about. In fact, by the end of the day I think I was looking for a fight. I wanted to argue just to get this indefinable frustration off my chest.
If I think about it hard enough, I think I can point to a combination of things that drove me to the precipice of insanity.
1) People kept bugging me at work. One after another. The phone would ring. Three people would instant message me at once. It just became too much. I fear I am too nice at times because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But I am starting to see how much of a nuisance I used to be towards certain people. And I regret it now. I’ve apologized to them because I finally see the anxiety it can cause.
2) Thursday night is my bowling night. I used to love to go bowling on Thursdays. Now, I look for ways to get out of it. It is no longer the release that it used to be. Instead, it fills me with a tension, and for reasons I do not wish to go into here. I had drinks before going bowling and if I wasn’t filled with an incredible sense of guilt for not going, I would have stayed at that bar and drank myself into a warm, tingly stupor.
3) While at the bar I had a conversation with two young women who were bemoaning the fact that another woman, an older woman was miserable in her marriage but wouldn’t leave. For some reason this really got under my skin. I always hear people on the outside looking in make statements such as, “Why doesn’t she just leave if she’s so unhappy?” But it ain’t that easy. It’s never that easy, especially when you have a long history with someone. At the point of matrimony, you and me becomes we. And the longer you’re together, the tighter and more f’ed up that bond can become. You don’t even have to be married to experience that. And maybe these ladies were right. Maybe she can just leave. But there are always consequences, no matter what choice you make. Maybe this woman could leave and in the long run be happier on her own. Then again, maybe she could leave and realize that as bad as things were or seemed to be, they just got much worse. What good is changing your position, your situation if you’re still imprisoned by the same mentality?
4) A friend of mine is upset because a guy she was really crazy about, a guy that never gave her a chance is now with a former coworker. It bugged me. What bugged me was that she said she was over him, but obviously there are still some lingering feelings. What bugged me was that as much as I wanted to be more critical of her and tell her to seriously move on, I couldn’t. Because I know exactly how she feels. What is it about certain people that inch under your skin like a tiny sliver of wood and refuse to go away. That feeling won’t budge. And when you finally think that you are able to prod and push and extract that painful sliver from your life, something happens and when you glance down, there it is again. It never really went away. And in some cases, I have to wonder if it ever will.
5) It’s Valentine’s Day. And while I am actually relieved to be single again during this time of the year, I have to wonder if true love will ever come my way. Being single has its perks, but there are a lot of f**ked up people out there. A lot! And when you reach my age, I know that you’re going to have baggage. Baggage I’m fine with. But clinically insane? That’s something altogether different. There are women I know who I once found attractive or intriguing. Things never happened or things went awry between us and they ended up in the arms of someone else. And all I can do when that happens is think, “Thank God! Better you than me, buddy!” I don’t do crazy. Eccentric? Sure. A little weird? I dig weird. But crazy, conniving and self-destructive? Keep walking, sister.
All in all this was not my day. I keep my fingers crossed for tomorrow and hope that the sun shines at my back door — just for a while.