EVENT: Roller Derby (May 24th)

First Game of the Toronto Roller Derby 2008 Season!

Gore-Gore Rollergirls vs. Smoke City Betties (May 24th, 2008)

By Emily Taylor

Sometime in the 1970's the roller derby (a "true American pastime", apparently) suffered an unfortunate fade into the background – not for the first time, mind you – the roller derby has had its fair share of both popularity and obscurity in the last century or so.

But it's back in a big way in Toronto: and it's pushy, filled with tattooed girls in short skirts, leopard print "jerseys", and extreme makeup. They're mean, and they want to win. Toronto has the largest all-female flat-track roller derby league in North America. Who knew?

On May 24th a friend of mine and I went to see the kickoff game for the 2008 Toronto Roller Derby season, the Gore-Gore Rollergirls vs. the Smoke City Betties. I had no idea how the game was played when I got there, but luckily my friend got me up to speed and there was a handy program that outlined specifics. On a very elementary level: two teams place five players onto a circuit track (three blockers (defense), one pivot (last line of defense), and one jammer (scorer)), and helmet covers differentiate these players. Points are scored by the jammers, who attempt to pass the pack and lap as many times as possible in the 2-minute "jam". At the end of each "jam", players re-form and continue with the next jam. Players can attempt to block jammers by using body parts above the hips (excluding head, hands, and forearms).

The girls bashing and crashing into each other, or even better, falling, was clearly the most interesting aspect of this sport to most of the attendees to the first game (outside of the outfits, which were really ornate and cute): the players bash each other around, some fall, some trip and take out other players and this can result in a mess of skates, hair, smeared makeup, and fishnets on the hard floor of the arena.

That being said, the first game of the season seemed a little lackluster: the Gore-Gore Rollergirls smoked the Smoke City Betties (pun intended). The Smoke City Betties put up a little bit of a fight at the beginning but seemed to lose a lot of drive as the second and third periods rolled by (and again, pun intended). Though the girls made it look easy, they were working hard, and as for any sport if the score had been more consistently even throughout the game it would have made for a more entertaining experience. The next game is June 7th at George Bell Arena in Toronto and surely as the season progresses so will the intensity of the games and the players.

It seems there is a bit of an underground movement in North America with respect to reviving the roller derby into a more mainstream sport: it's got a ways to go, but rest assured this mish mash of punk, roller skates, and athleticism will carve out a niche for itself in Toronto.

For 2008 season games and more information, check out:
http://www.torontorollerderby.com/

WEB: An GOOD Toronto-centric Blog.

I'd like to give a shout out to one of the best Toronto Orientated Bogs out there BLOG TO (www.blogto.com) They have all the interesting news we're too lazy to learn because we're too busy finding new walls for our box houses. It's the only way to protect ourselves from the dogs!

BOOK: Penny Arcade - Attack of the Bacon Robots

By Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik

Surrealistic funny, snobbishly self referential (but not as bad as it is now) and wrong for all the right reasons, Penny Arcade has been entertaining ‘The living in their parent’s basement’ gamer masses since the year 2000 and this collection of comic strips is their first foray into the world of Web. The strip deals with gamer room-mate friends Tycho and Gabe as they go through their daily life of summoning the devil, fellating the dreamcast and being frightened by bears. There aren’t many laughs out loud strips on display here but the eggs of the insanity that was yet to come are being nestled in your lower intestine. It wasn’t until 2003 (Book 3: The War Sun Chronicles) that the creature reached full strength and burst through your ribcage and ate your eyes. It was then they reached a nice balance between making gaming references and flat out weirdness.

The real question here is ‘Why the hell would I spend my money on something I could get free on the internet?” The answer: BECAUSE I SAID SO! Or if I’m in more polite company, because each strip has its own commentary on its inception and is usually funnier than the strip itself. Jerry Holkins (Tycho) is very talented writer when he sets his mind to it and he’s on his A-Game the whole way through. It’s designed for maximum rip-off value (I don’t want pages and pages of pin-ups. Choke on them instead) but at 11 dollars from most comic shops you can’t go wrong if you must have a physical copy in case the internet disappears and the world markets collapses. We could all be cannibalistic roamers in a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland but you’d have the advantage because you know jokes about Tribes 2!
Or you could borrow my copy.

THE PENNY ARCADE PAGE (THE FREE VERSION!)

COMIX: Jellyfist By Jhohen Vasquez and Jenny Goldberg REVIEW

From the mind that brought you Johnny The Homocidal Maniac (In 1997! Time sure fly when your chopping up people crazily) come the completely out there and beyond (And oddly arousing - I mean - disturbing) comic strips JELLYFIST. Drawn in cartoonishly grotestque detail by Jenny Goldberg, each one of these completely unrelated strips will get one of three reaction "W-h-a-t?", "Hahahahaha!" and "GODMYEYESMUSTDIE!" Half of the time I wasn't quite sure which one was building up inside of me. Then I discovered it was really the cyclops cat fetus that was trying to claw it's way out of my belly. It sure beast the hell out of some of the atrocities you'll find between these pages: Giant Babies being hit by explosive giant salmon, intestine eating best friend parrots and an abusive pair of scrambled eggs. That's the tame stuff. Don't get me started on a lesson about reproduction that involves giant zombie jelly blobs crawling back into the womb.

Printed on a a dirty looking brown paper stock and adorned with muted colours. The book is WAY too pricey at 9 smackeroos for 54 pages, but the commentary by the writer and artist that accompanies each page make up for it a little bit (Hey! I'm cheap allright!) I'd even go as far to say it was more entertaining then the strips themselves. The rambling prose is tiny, dense and mostly composed of redbull fuelled bouts of name-calling, but in the end there's tons of tidbits to be learned. I'm always a sucker for a look into any creative process, even one as scarring as this.

You can pick up a copy of Jelly Fist at all fine Comic Book Store (Grab it at the Beguiling. Right off of BATHHURST!) "TAKE IT LIKE A BITCH!"

WEB: TTC Efficency Guide

For everyone that wants to shave 10 seconds off when stepping onto the subway platform. TTCRIDER.CA provides their "SUBWAY RIDER EFFICIENCY GUIDE" , a nifty little pocket guide that shows you exactly where the stairs, escalators and exits are in each station on the TTC. It's the cheat book all those those lazy sods, victims being chased by werewolves and people that only have a certain amount of steps left before they explode are looking for!

CHECK IT OUT HERE

WEIRD: Cold Water. A national concern.

I spotted this weirdo advertisement a few times while walking through the Sheppard subway station. when did this become a big enough problem that it needs the public attention? I think it was all the mongoose that died in the horrible cold water incidient of '03

FALLING INTO COLD WATER! ARGHHHH!

BOOK: "Night in Lonsome October" By Richard Laymon REVIEW

NON-TORONTO/NON-CANADIAN REVIEW (BOO! HISS!)

The written word will always fail to viscerally scare. Your imagination runs at its own speed and the classic stand-by of the cat JUMPING OUT from behind the garbage can will never have the same sound blasting film effect on the page. Authors have to a throw a prickly blanket over the shivering reader’s body made up of an uneasy sense of dread over to make any kind of impact. The best tales are the ones that keep you up at night, staring at the dancing shadows on the wall, mentally re-enacting the horrifying events you’ve read on the page. Not many writers can do it. Most rely on the cheap grue and gore routine to get the “HORROR” label stamped on the front cover. At first glance that’s how I would categorize Richard Laymon. He’s written over 40 novels filled with all manners of rape, dismemberment and oogly creatures of the night. It’s not a good sign only recently (After his death) he’s started being published in North America after being in circulation for years in Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia. Does this man deserve all the slavish praise from writer luminaries like Stephen King and Jack Ketchum that’s printed on the inside cover? Or is he just another dime store hack that’s better kept in the dusty bargain bin bookstores?

Laymon's hero Ed Logan is brimming with anticipation for his second year at Willmington University. He's been missing Holly, whom he fell in love with the previous year. But when Ed returns to campus, Holly doesn't. He receives a letter that destroys his hopes; she has fallen in love with another man and won't be coming back. Virtually destroyed by the news, Ed struggles to study and even to sleep. Leaving his apartment one night for a walk, he finds that he has moved into what might almost be a different world. There are others out on the streets; are they human, these figures who hide in the shadows? Certainly, the prey they seek is marked for a grisly end. Needless to say, Ed becomes involved with these sinister figures, particularly a mystery girl who will change his life.

Night of Lonesome October is strictly an episodic affair. Ed Logan wanders the night looking for his mystery, sees something odd, and runs away yelping. Repeat. He meet all manner of oddballs, from Cannibals to chuckling old clown things but none of it really impact the story in any kind of way. It’s just there. And weird. It’s actually a little jarring to have the novel END by bringing in one of the many macabre sights we witnessed in the novel. It’s not satisfactory and doesn’t give insight on anything that came before. It feels like Laymon was too busy dreaming up his next novel filled with cyborg-cannibal-rape-jugglers that prey on innocent young school girls then to actual tie any of the threads of his gallery of horrors together.

The font is small, the sentences on the nose, and Laymon loves to describe every single detail: From the CRUNH a potato chip makes to the heat of coffee before someone drinks it. It’s a little annoying at first but once the groove gets going it isn’t that bad a pet peeve. His first person technique of having the Ed argue his actions is also an impressive literary technique. Otherwise, the stalker-ish habits exhibited throughout the novel would rub us even worse than they do now. The side character scream, jump into bed for graphically detailed sexual exploits and confidently fall into over the top hostage situations whenever the plot asks them too. One character may be an evil repressed deviant one page then come to the rescue the next. That’s just lazy writing.

Laymon can craft a creepy scene and put a sympathetic character in the middle of it, but that’s about it. I’d read another novel by Laymon out of sheer macabre interest for a breezy gory read, but I wouldn’t active seek his stuff out.

BUY IT: The books available at most fine and expensive box store book places. Pick it up for the cheapest at Chapters.ca HEEEEEEEEEEEREEEEEE