I have learned that one of the important keys to my life happiness is knowing which bits of reality to choose to ignore. One of those bits is the unbelievable loss of privacy, both legally and technologically, that has occurred in just the last ten years of our lives. It's almost overwhelming if you really sit down and think about the depth and implications of it ... so I just try not to think about it.

I had one of those moments today, though, where it sort of smacked me in the face with a blunt reminder.

I was having an email conversation on Gmail with this photographer named Rich to set up terms for using one of his images in a print ad for DNN. Said conversation contained the following elements (among others):

----
(Rich): For efficiency sake lets talk over the phone so we can get all the details out at once rather than through multiple emails.I'm going to be booked for most of the morning and mid afternoon tomorrow. Shoot me your phone number and good time to reach you. Tomorrow evening would most likely be best for me. But, if I happen to have a free moment I can call you before then.

(Me): Excellent! My number is [my number], and I'm free until 6pm Eastern Time on Tuesday.
----

Sure enough, the next time I log in Gmail, there's a new widget in my sidebar with a link to Google calendar, asking:

Would you like to...
Add to calendar
talk to Rich evening.
Wed Jul 30, 2008

Dude. Seriously, DUDE. Not cool. Granted, they got the day off by one, but I imagine the only reason that happened was because Rich referred to Tuesday evening as being "tomorrow" even though he sent the message after midnight on Monday.

This makes me very concerned about all the heroin and child-pornography rings I run from my Gmail.

In happier news, I am making my yearly roller derby pilgrimage to Las Vegas tomorrow, where I will once again get to play roller derby right smack dab in the middle of Fremont Street. Sweet. Also, this time I think I'll finally get the better of those video poker machines. I've been practicing.

Current Location: Baltimore, MD
Music: Curve -- Horror Head

I got an email from Frenzy Lohan recently, and I will directly quote it here:

Derby,

Derby, derby derby. Derby derby. Derby? Derby.

Derby,

Derby

That pretty much says it all.

Charm City Roller Radio: Episode Four

Baltimore's Charm City Roller Girls are back for their sophomore season, and Justice Feelgood Marshall and Dirty Marty are back to tell you all about it in Episode Four of the derby world's second-finest podcast! Featuring a recap of the season opener, a look ahead at this Sunday's doubleheader, and interviews with some of the newest Charm City Roller Girls, including Reckless Ndangerment of the Speed Regime, Marzipain of the Night Terrors, Penaltyna of the Mobtown Mods and Cherrylicious of the Junkyard Dolls.

Music: Like Honey - Let It Pass

Apparently, this happened at some point in the past:



I've been leaning very heavily on the friends filter options recently, because life is ridiculously complicated. If you don't have an LJ login, you probably haven't seen anything here for quite a while. Feel free to comment if you would like to be added, because I don't see my life getting any less complicated anytime soon and any future public posts will probably be a variation on "Hey, come to this upcoming roller derby event!" Because I am involved in roller derby. Did you know that? I am.

Music: Skid Row - Makin' A Mess

After two months and countless spare beds, couches, recliners, air mattresses, back seats and floors, my homelessness is finally coming to a blessed end. I'll be moving back to Charles Village for the fourth time, into a one-bedroom place at the corner of 25th and Calvert. It is moderately sized, but the mere fact that it has more than one room makes it HUGE in comparison to my last apartment. It has three rooms AND a real kitchen AND a nice bathtub AND a washer & dryer! It's a nice location, and by "nice location" I mean "I can walk to the Ottobar." I am moving in on November 1st, and this week seriously cannot pass fast enough. I find myself scribbling floor plans on the back of bar napkins.

The rent is fairly cheap for the size of the place, but on the other hand I am fairly poor, so I am going to be seriously impoverished for a while. Less sushi, more ramen. The tradeoff is fully worth it, though. The longer it's been since I lived alone (back in April of this year), the more I realize it was a pretty serious mistake to stop doing that. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed having that space until it ceased to exist, and missing it really put a serious strain on my relationship with Cara. I can't know for sure if we would have stayed together if I hadn't moved in with her, but it probably wouldn't have gotten quite that difficult at the end. I imagine that at some point in my life I might be ready to live with a significant other, but 2006 was apparently not that time.

My landlord is a totally nice guy, very smart and well-read, and also a sad, sad bastard. I went over to his place on Guilford to sign the lease, and he spent a lot of time talking about Proust, which is always a warning sign because I associate Proust with this completely insane chick (I love her, but she's still insane.) He had a lot to say about how Proust held that unhappiness was the most important emotion because it taught you the most about yourself. I would have agreed with him for most of my life, but I eventually found that the big problem with unhappiness is that it MAKES YOU FEEL REALLY BAD AND THAT SUCKS, so fuck that noise.

I didn't want to attempt the frontal assault, so I tried to change the subject by saying "I really like your place. Lots of space, nice and big."

"Oh, it's a lot of empty space, since my wife left me."

Oops, that didn't work. "Oh, I'm sorry. Um... how long ago was that?"

"A few months."

"Does she still live around here?"

"Oh, yes. Just four blocks up, actually. I still see her all the time. She's a lovely dancer. She used to dance with me. Sometimes I see her down at the Belvedere doing ballroom dancing, and she's still so beautiful, still attractive. She aged much better than I did, you see."

"Oh. That's, um, really rough. I'm sorry."

"She's like George Sand. Absolutely brilliant. But an absolute heartbreaker. Are you familiar with George Sand?"

"She, um, wrote books?"

He thought this was pretty funny. "Ha! Yes! And she broke hearts! De Musset wrote a book AND a play about how she broke his heart." Then he suddenly got very sad again. "I don't supppose anybody will write a book about my broken heart."

Man. That was the toughest lease-signing ever.

---

On a completely different note, if you don't have plans for this Friday, come to this:



For some unknown reason, I signed up to MC this event with Jules Burn of the Speed Regime. Come watch us make drunken attempts at witty banter. It'll be great.

Also, I have a downright brilliant costume idea. Unfortunately, to pull it off I need to get my hands on a fursuit, like, immediately. I don't suppose there are any retired fur enthusiasts in the audience that can help a brother out?

Music: Yo La Tengo - Sugarcube

Ok, so in the last week I have gotten two offers to fly cross-country to referee roller derby. Of course, they're not paying gigs. Derby gives you a weird mindset where it seems perfectly reasonable to drop $300 on airfare for the privilege of working for free.

The first one makes me the head referee of Rollercon 2007 in July in Las Vegas. I must say that I am pretty stoked about that. Last Rollercon my referee duties were primarily scorekeeping and timekeeping, which is unquestionably important but not that challenging. I imagine that being nominally in charge of 50+ national refs who are used to being the final authority on referee matters will be quite a bit more challenging. Plus, I'm sure my status as head ref will make it less likely that the Arizona Derby Dames will try to beat me up in an elevator again.

The second one has me going to Tucson, AZ to referee in the western regional Dust Devil tournament in February. Also a pretty huge deal because 2007 is the first year that a national tournament will determine the national champion - it's roughly analogous to the NCAA college basketball tournament. Also highly flattering because I didn't actually apply for this gig, the head ref of the tournament contacted me based on my reputation (really, my reputation has primarily been built by running my mouth on derby boards all year, but still.) Also pretty exciting because Tucson is where elf_owl lairs, and it has been Entirely Too Long.

However, here's the thing: the Dust Devil head ref made it very clear that I would not be allowed to wear my normal skirt-and-tights attire because it would be distracting and unprofessional and that referees are not to be part of the show. I was kind of nonplussed and vaguely insulted by this. First of all, I thought the entire idea behind derby was to marry sport and spectacle. Second of all, there is no way that one dude in a dress is going to distract anybody from 28 hot girls in tight revealing clothing for more than an nanosecond. Third of all, I REALLY did not like the insinuation that I have been unprofessional at CCRG bouts. I have worked and studied my ass off to make sure that CCRG bouts are officiated as well as is humanly possible. Fourth of all, a big part of the idea behind derby is remixing traditional notions of gender roles. It seems to me that the primary authority figure being a male in a skirt is supportive of that, not undermining of it.

I responded with all of these points to his offer, but I accepted his terms anyway because I'm a strong believer in the your house / your rules policy (in life, as in derby). Plus, I REALLY wanted to go to the first Dust Devil earlier this year and long regretted not having done so, and refereeing gives you the absolute best seat in the house guaranteed. But it's weird, I feel simultaneously flattered and offended by the offer and its condition. That's a combination you don't get too often.

Music: Beat Happening - Our Secret

A meme from redlightpress via wowbagger. I do love music games.

"Open up your music program and play 15 songs on random. Alter the name by turning it into a convoluted, wordy synonym. For example: Silent Night = Nocturnal Time Completely Lacking Noise. When someone guesses the title correctly, strike out the convoluted one and put down the real title and the person who figured it out."

This isn't totally random, because some of the stuff that came up would have been completely impossible. So in the interest of fair play:

1. In This Location, My Subconscious Created a Belief That My Career Dealt With The Construction Of Buildings The Decemberists - Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect (hannahchan)
2. From This Moment On, Do Not Act In A Manner That Is Disappointing Or Unsatisfactory To Me Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again (wowbagger)
3. Medieval Weaponry Favored By Knights Made Of Matter That Is Neither Solid Nor Gaseous GZA - Liquid Swords (doctah_ignazio)
4. A Series Of Romantic Encounters Occuring During A Historical Age That Saw Explosive Growth In Science, Religion and General Culture Hooverphonic - Renaissance Affair (redlightpress)
5. An Official Designated To Preside Over An Organization and/or Government Who Exudes An Offensive Odor James Brown - Funky President (hannahchan)
6. It Is Impossible that Precipitation Will Continue In Perpetuity Jane Siberry - It Can't Rain All the Time (faerydusted1)
7. The Unique Scent That Arises From Rhythmic Gyrations In A Chamber Dedicated To Rest
8. It Is Vitally Important To Remember That One Must Engage In Activity That Is Not Specifically Related To Completing The Task At Hand
9. It Is Incomprehensible To Me That You Have Indeed Expired The Microphones - I Can't Believe You Actually Died (wowbagger)
10. The Time In Question Is The One In Which I Extend My Arm In The Direction Of My Firearm Mission of Burma - That's When I Reach For My Revolver (katsby)
11. Provide Sustenance And Nourishment By Placing Your Lips On Mine My Bloody Valentine - Feed Me With Your Kiss (katsby)
12. The Powerful Emotion of Romantic Affection Is Sure To Cause Both You And I To Be Utterly Ripped Asunder Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart (katsby)
13. I Have Been Verbally Directed By My Maternal Parent To Render You Unconscious LL Cool J - Mama Said Knock You Out (faerydusted1 and hannahchan - date stamp tie!)
14. Leaping Upon Rail Transportation Which Belongs To A Person Other Than Oneself The Cure - Jumping Someone Else's Train (hannahchan)
15. A Outpost That Orbits The Group Of Stars That In Part Comprise The Big Dipper Catherine Wheel - Ursa Major Space Station (hackwerks)

Weird - I just realized that the above kinda looks like the track listing to a Smiths album. Anyway, have at it.

Music: Working For A Nuclear Free City - Troubled Son

The D-list celebrity life continues as I appear with some of the CCRG ladies this evening on AM sports talk radio to talk about that wild new craze that's sweeping the nation. (It's roller derby!) This should be very interesting, as I have no idea if the host is going to take us seriously or whether the audience callers are going to be geniunely curious about the sport or geniunely curious about what the girls are wearing. Believe it or not, I listen to a fair amount of sports talk radio, and I must admit that the level of discourse is often not very high. I'm trying to come up with a few talking points about the rules and my responsibilities, just so I don't lock up and say something stupid and then say "Shit" because I have just said something stupid and then say "Shit" again because I just said "Shit" on the radio. Plus, according to the host's biography, his dream is to someday become a stand-up comedian. I feel confident that he will take at least one shot at my dress and I'll have to be ready for it. You can't let your rhetorical guard down around those fucks.

Anyway, if you live in the Baltimore area, tune into AM 1570 WNST at 7pm tonight. If you don't live in the Baltimore area, you can attempt to stream directly from their website (the stream does not appear to be Mac-friendly, but maybe you'll have better luck than I did.) If you want to be really nice, try calling in and lobbing us a nice softball question along the lines of "Isn't it difficult being so incredibly awesome all the time?" I can hit that one out of the park. (See, that's a sports metaphor! Talk radio fans love that kind of stuff.)

Music: Missing Persons - Mental Hopscotch

I'm thinking of writing up rules for a drinking game to be played whether one finds a mainstream-press article on flat track derby. Here's what I've got off the top of my head:

+ Variation on the phrase "The names may be fake, but the action is real"
+ Variation on the phrase "This isn't your mother's roller derby"
+ Mention of Leo Seltzer
+ Mention of fishnets and/or tattoos
+ Variation on the phrase "[Accountant/Waitress/Hairdresser/Secretary] by day, rollergirl by night"
+ Use of the phrase "hell on wheels"
+ Mention of the fact that rollergirls enjoy beer

The CCRG is in the Baltimore Sun today, and while the article about us is pretty similar to every other article about us, the Flash slideshow photo gallery that accompanies the article is HOLY SHIT amazing. The pictures are fantastic and the accompanying audio is extremely well put together.

Apparently there's an anthropologist from the Discovery Channel coming to film our practice tonight? This is going to be interesting.

Music: Swan Lake - All Fires

My minor-celebrity status seems to have increased drastically this week, which is weird. There was my star turn at the bout on Sunday, and in addition to the many total strangers who came up that night to tell me how awesome I am, I think the Internet videos of my two jams have had a not-insignificant effect on people's perceptions of male derby. Not necessarily how well we were skating - both teams definitely looked a little amateurish, mainly because we were amateurs - but the response of the crowd. Together, the videos are up to like 500 views, and while a large portion of those are probably people I know, I'm sure there were many derby obsessers in various cities who saw it and mentioned it. After I wrote about it on the national referee board, the ref crews from Chicago, Milwaukee and Minnesota started talking about organizing their own ref bout later in their season. I am very pleased that it's gotten such a positive response.

Locally, I finally reached the level of Baltimore scenesterdom required to get an invite to City Paper's yearly Best of Baltimore party (the CCRG won an award for "Best Girl Power," and their writeup was as nice as alt-weekly scribes are willing to get.) It was a weird mix of people - award winners, sponsors and advertisers, CP staff, and completely random people who just Knew The Right People. It was also totally packed, which made skating around a little tricky, but I've gotten pretty good at skating in dark bars with wet floors over the course of this year. I felt awkward for a while, but it's hard to feel awkward for too long with an open bar. Near the end of the night, the band that was playing - Spankrock - had all the rollergirls come on stage to dance. Since I've finally gotten to the point where I fail to make distinctions between myself and rollergirls, I went up there and got all Roll Bounce in the corner. It was ridiculously fun, I pulled off some decent moves and I did not fall off the stage, which was great.

We decided that since we were the only Best of Baltimore winners to get invited on stage, it meant that we were the Best of the Best of Baltimore. The crowd really really liked us and everybody was coming up to us after we got off stage to congratulate us on being the coolest thing ever. I met some dude who was at the championship game on Sunday, and he told me that he lived in Germany and was visiting for the summer, and that he'd ended up delaying his return home in part so he could see the last game of our season. I was completely nonplussed. There was not a single plus in me. Every time I think CCRG has reached a plateau in its popularity, we have an event that demonstrates that we are becoming a bigger and bigger deal every month. Before our season started, I was genuinely worried that our first game was going to be a big deal but that interest would plummet after the novelty was gone and that we'd be begging friends and family to show up by the end of the season. I have rarely been this happy to be wrong. I hope we can keep the momentum going during the off-season.

The next Big Event is tomorrow, when we get to play two scrimmages at Virgin Fest, which is going to be amazing because a) there are going to be 60,000 people there, and while the majority of people are probably going to be doing something other than watching us play, 60,000 is over 60 times the capacity of Skateland, so holy shit and b) tickets are totally $100 and we are totally getting in for free because we are Just That Cool.

It is odd being a Personality, but I'm not going to pretend I don't enjoy it. I've definitely noticed times at bouts and in public where somebody is hovering just near me and nervously trying to get my attention so they can tell me I rule and ask if I will take a picture with them. I am much more used to be being on the other side of that relationship. I used to be really self-conscious when I'd wear my signature referee dress and fishnets out in public, but I've come to regard it as something of a superhero outfit now, especially with skates on. Justice Feelgood Marshall is not concerned about the baffled looks of strangers. Justice Feelgood Marshall is here to run the show, and he is going to drink a lot of alcohol while running said show, and he is going to skate very quickly through very tiny gaps in the crowd, and he is going to dance on an extremely crowded floor, and he is not going to lose his balance no matter how many people run into him or how many beers have been spilled on the floor, because he is Justice Feelgood Fucking Marshall. And in addition to being the shit, he rolls with an army of 50 equally badass superheroines. Of course it's all quite self-aggrandizing and silly, but damn if it isn't a lot of fun.

Life is pretty good right now. I hope it continues to be good for awhile.

Music: Baby Dayliner - At Least

Ok. So if you weren't at the CCRG championship bout yesterday, you really ought to commit ritual suicide. I hardly have words to explain how amazing it was, but this is Livejournal, so I guess I have to try.

The Night Terrors went into the championship game with a 2-3 record, playing a 5-0 Speed Regime that had beaten them by 41 points in June, and although the crowd was totally behind them (even to the point of booing the Speed Regime's entrance, which was pretty harsh), I think most people thought it was going to be another blowout. It was quickly obvious that it wouldn't be after the first few jams. It was back-and-forth and forth for all of the first half, which in and of itself was amazing because throughout the season, Speed Regime had never trailed after the third jam. The Terrors kept the lead for the first five jams before relinquishing it on the sixth jam, when Betty Beatdown got 6 points to Mexican Fury's 0 and made it Speed Regime 20, Night Terrors 17. The Terrors kept it extremely close for the rest of the half, and then Mexican Fury beat Buzz Kill 3-0 on the last jam of the half to make it Night Terrors 32, Speed Regime 31.

The second half had a much different dynamic - the Speed Regime took the lead back on the second jam of the second half, making it 39-38 Speed Regime, and then their defense just smothered the Terrors. On the following 8 jams, the Terrors were shut out 7 times while the Speed Regime kept adding one or two points almost every jam and slowly pulling further and further away. With three minutes to play, it pretty much looked like it was over, with Speed Regime up by eleven points, 53-42, and the Terrors only having scored 10 points all half long. But on the second-to-last jam, Mexican Fury put up 5 points to Buzz Kill's 0, and that made it 53-47 with a minute to go. Every single person in the whole place was on their feet and screaming their heads off when the last jam started - and then was immediately whistled dead because the Terrors had too many skaters on the floor. We took a ref timeout to straighten it out, and the last jam started with just three Terrors and four Speed Regime girls on the floor. Joy Collision for the Terrors was going up against Pistol Whip for the Speed Regime, and this is what happened (courtesy of neodorian):

She fucking did it! 10 points for Joy Collision (which almost never happens against the Speed Regime) while Pistol Whip only got 2 (which also never happens in a 2 minute jam.) In a literally last-minute comeback, the Terrors beat the previously undefeated Speed Regime to win the championship 57-55. I know it is a stupid sports cliche, but you could not possibly write a more dramatic conclusion to the game or to the season. Joy was FLYING, and the Terrors' Pixie Rocket was doing an amazing one-on-one blocking job against Pistol Whip, holding her back almost all by herself for about a lap and a half. I really feel for the Speed Regime, as it's got to absolutely make them sick to lose by that little that late with so much at stake, but I've also got to totally hand it to the Night Terrors. Privately, I was expecting a 20 point win for Speed Regime, although I didn't tell that to any of the Night Terrors. I am amazed they pulled it off, and they so earned it.

As you can see in that clip, the place absolutely exploded after I delivered the score. Fans rushed the Terrors' bench, the announcers were freaking out screaming "The Terrors win the championship! The Terrors win the championship!" and everybody on skates was falling down from getting tackle-hugged. Joy Collision got hoisted on somebody's shoulders. It was utter pandemonium.

(photocredit: globalglenn -- much larger version here)

The event would have been amazing enough if that was the only thing that happened, but just to make things even more awesome, I played in my first derby exhibition of my life and the CCRG refs squeaked past the boys from Pioneer Valley Roller Derby 33 to 30 in a 15-minute halftime game. It was the first-ever interleague flat track exhibition featuring an all-male team. I became quite uncertain about our chances when they showed up after having made a 6 hour drive down from Northampton, Massachusetts. I was used to playing the CCRG girls, who are a wide variety of body types, but all those dudes were bigger than I was, and definitely considerably bigger than the two female refs that were playing on our team. They were hitting damned hard, but they weren't quite as fast as I'd thought they'd be, they weren't working together very well on defense and some of them were never looking behind them, so jamming was actually easier than blocking.  Both times I jammed, I got lead jammer and was able to break the pack twice without too much resistance, scoring 7 points on each of my jams and calling it off before the other jammer could get through twice. It is very exciting to hear the crowd react when you're busting out of the pack as lead jammer. I'd told myself that I was going to eschew theatrics in favor of skating as hard as I could, but I couldn't help beating my chest and pointing to myself in a distinctly self-aggrandizing way when I got lead. The crowd seemed to dig it.

(The extremely wonderful Zak got pretty good footage of my two jams, which will fuel my narcissism for weeks to come - Livejournal doesn't seem to like embedding iFilm video, but you can check them out here and here. )

Oh - there was one jam in which I was pivoting and successfully got my team to employ a much-hated strategy known as Runaway Pussy amongst people who are obsessed with derby. For you non-derby obsessers (and why have you gotten this far in the post, anyway?), it refers to a situation in which one team's jammer is in the penalty box and the team's blockers speed up to skate as fast as they can so the opposing jammer can't catch up and score. (Usually, the blockers keep a moderate pace while trying to set up a situation that lets their jammer through while holding back the opposing one.) Anyway, the point is that my team picked up on what I was telling them, it worked beautifully, and therefore may have been a historic moment -- the very first occurence of Runaway Penis.

I haven't mentioned too much about the Junkyard Dolls / Mobtown Mods game, because the other two games were really close and exciting and that one was a flat-out slaughter. The Mods absolutely killed the Dolls 90 to 50, and by the end of the game the Dolls seemed so resigned to losing that they'd call off jams at 0-0 just to keep the deficit from getting larger. The Dolls have had a rough season, and it sort of seems like some of them go into games expecting to lose, which is usually self-fulfilling. The energy level in the crowd seemed pretty low for that one, but it definitely increased soon afterwards.

So many people came up to congratulate me after the scrimmage! All night long, both at the bout and at the two afterparties, total strangers were coming up to me to tell me how amazingly I was skating and how exciting it was to watch me jam. It felt really, really good. That bout couldn't have gone any better than it did. Every referee played better than we'd ever done at practice, and we actually stuck to our rickety but effective gameplan We had the crowd totally into it, and they were almost totally behind us, and I really really didn't want to let them down. All month long, the rollergirls had been telling us that we were defending Baltimore's honor, and while it was mostly tongue-in-cheek, they kind of meant it too. I would have felt pretty bad if we'd lost, and the fact that we won and the fact that we won in large part because I RULED is very pleasing to me. The dudes from Pioneer Valley were exceptionally cool, too, which was great. They were friendly before the game, in-between jams, and after the game. That is a stand-up league, yes sir, and I think we really did a lot to advance the cause of male derby last night, as we had a lot of rollergirls visiting from nearby leagues and all them seemed to really enjoy it. More than a few guys expressed interest in joining a start-up male league in Baltimore. I really have to sit down and think about how hard it would be to get this off the ground. I would love to do it, but I don't know if I have the mental capacity to devote the amount of time required to get it off the ground and successful.

All in all, last night was by far the best event we've ever had. I really don't know how we can possibly top the drama of last night's conclusion - there will never again be a first season, and there will never again be an undefeated team, so those two storylines are automatically retired. But I've got a feeling this is just the beginning of the CCRG story and I am seriously psyched to see how it continues.

Music: Sufjan Stevens - That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!