BENCHPRESS

BENCHPRESS

Billy Altman

by

UNDER MY WHEELS

A veteran of far too many seasons of New York bodychecks, brushback pitches and clothesline tackles, CREEM’s longtime Record Review Editor Billy Altman inaugurates, with this issue, Benchpress—a regular column devoted to the always wide, sometimes wonderful world of sports.

The Editors

The portrait is one of an attractive brunette named Rena LaMaestra. Set against a stark white background and shot in fashionable soft focus, the picture finds its subject standing sideways, facing the viewer with a sly, come-hither smile—a look underscored by her attire, which consists primarily of a simple jersey-styled top and a pair of chic high heeled shoes revealing, in the distance between them, a set of sleek, supple legs. But remember, I said primarily. Because, though she’s not wearing them, the most vital parts of this woman’s ensemble are visible in the portrait, slung over her shoulder. They are skates. More precisely, roller skates. And the caption beneath the picture, with the emphasis-intended quotation marks placed there by the author, not by me, reads thusly: Rena LaMaestra proves “Amazons are out!”

The fetching photo of Miss LaMaestra mentipned here is to be found to the left of the staples in the centerfold of the program sold by concessionaires at appearances by her team, the infamous roller skating lassies and lads known collectively as the L.A. Thunderbirds. The T-Birds barnstormed their way across the country recently, stopping off at Madison Square Garden at the end of February for what was hailed in promotional material (a seemingly unending stream of 30 second television spots during the graveyard shift on local channels) as the first real roller “exhibition” to be held in New York in some 10 years—although, in the interest of accuracy, I should say that what the T-Birds are engaged in is defined by their own literature as “Roller Games,” this particular term used so as to distinguish the

Thunderbird shenanigans from those of the International Roller Skating League, a rival ball-bearing propelled concern that is also out there on the circuit these days competing for the hallowed Yankee entertainment dollar. Still, no matter what legally-bound appellation they’re playing it under, or, for that matter, what rules (more on that later), what the 7,000 or so fun-seekers who paraded through the Garden turnstiles a few months back vyere treated to was a sorely missed eight periods of roller derby, that

bizarre team “sport” best described as a kind of multiple tag team wrestling battle royale, except on wheels.

If all .you know about roller derby is Raquel Welch in Kansas City Bomber, then you probably already know enough, since the ’80s version relies rather heavily for its,

er, charm, on the kind of hubba-hubba with ' helmets and flying elbows exuded by the likes of Miss LaMaestra and blonde cohorts Debbie Garvey and Darlene Langlois del la Chapelle (a mouthful both to say and to see) as opposed to the, um, well, as T-Birds owner Bill Griffiths himself would put it, “The old cement mixer broads of the old days.” Not that the T-Birds aren’t aware of their roots. This year’s edition features one female member whose appearance does indeed hearken back to the derbydom of yesteryear in the somewhat nebulous form of Nancy Grand—nicknamed “Baby”—but she is always refered to as the team’s “B.B.W.” Which, of course, stands for “Big Beautiful Woman,” a description which may or may not be totally correct long about the second word but I wouldn’t want to be the one to argue about it with her, that’s for sure. Suffice to say that all of the T-Bird women, from Our Miss Rena to “Baby” to Gwen “Skinny Minnie” Miller (“Ninety eight pounds soaking wet— with her skates on!”), are treated as authentic beauties, attended to lovingly by the team’s official cosmeticians—two diminutive make-up artists outfitted in tight yellow t-shirts and tighter black spandex pants—whose solemn duty is to unsmudge the mascara and retease the lock between rounds, I mean, jams.

Ah, yes, the jam. This nifty little term— would one expect less from a game whose origins lay in the Windy City, where blues is king?—is used to denote roller derby’s version of the scrimmage. Each team, you see, sends out five skaters, and, in no time, the 10 participants are circling the track pushing and shoving each other until they’re lined up all opposite like into what’s know as the “pack” (Chicago...meat...get it?), with the one designated potential point scorer for each team, ingeniously dubbed the “jammer,” skating at the rear of the pack wearing the official jamming helmet. (Used to be that everybody wore helmets; this,.the promoters have determined, ultimately serves only ’ to confuse the paying customers. Besides, what’s the point of hiring all these B.B.W.’s and cosmeticians if one cannot fully appreciate the radiance evident on the ladies’ faces as they cheerfully crash elbows into each other’s chests or rip out the hair of their rivals, 'clumpful by clumpful?)

Now then, after a few seconds more of spirited pushing and shoving in the pack, the jammers miraculously wind up ahead of everyone and, as they lap the remaining eight players, the real fun begins. Each jam takes about 60 seconds, during which time one of the jammers wipes out his counterpart using any and all means necessary, then tallies points by passing members of the other team at the rate of one point per player passed. A jam most often ends with the jammer placing both hands on hips, the official signal to “cut off the jam,” but it can also end if a player deliberately takes off the jamming helmet, which is how Miller, who has perfected a swift spike-like maneuver, always, signifies the finale to her scoring sprees. Should a helmet become dislodged accidentally, though, then the question of whether or not the jam is still in progress is up to the judgment of the referees, two guys in striped shirts whose main tasks include counting up the points—either accurately or inaccurately, depending on who’s supposed to be ahead at any given moment—and also making sure that at least once during the eight 10 minute periods (four each for the girls and the boys) they get slugged in the puss while attempting to intervene during one of the many bench-clearing brawls which occur with clock-setting regularity!.

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At the Garden match, the T-Birds were pitted in a bitter struggle against the notorious Detroit Devils—whom, I would wager, Motor City residents will not find listed in either the white or yellow pages— a squad apparently connected to the T-Birds as the Washington Generals are to the Harlem Globetrotters, i.e., you can’t have heroes if you ain’t got no villains. To that end, chief Devil ne’er do well turned out to be little Leroy Gonzalez, a wizard at all manner of dirty pool, most notably a Yubiwazatype death grip that nearly sent main male T-Bird Danny Reilly to an early oiling before Reilly eventually recovered to slam and pound Leroy within an inch of his nasty life, while the winner of the boo-hiss award on the female side is *22, a gal named Vicki something-or-other (the blaring announcer didn’t dwell much on the Devils, so I didn’t catch her last name), who was as adept at shaking her fists angrily at the crowd as she was at flying over the railing and flailing her fair gams angrily at the crowd. Though the game itself was fairly predictable after awhile, what with each female segment beginning and ending with Miller racking up much pointage and the guys’ portions of the show consisting mainly of Reilly bashing heads and Ralphie “the Guatelmalan Flyer” Valladeras scooting past the limp enemy bodies, I had a fine time. For one thing, I kept noticing that the scoreboard totals kept changing in mysterious ways—at the end of period six, the score was posted as 80-75 T-Birds but by the conclusion of the very next jam, it had been transformed to 78-77 Devils. For another, it was fairly obvious that, as the afternoon, the game, and the drinks wore on, more and more of the spectatorship began to drift towards the Devils’ camp.

Not the guy in front of me, though. He was rooting for neither team, and didn’t seem to be enjoying himself very much, even though he clearly knew all about the game, the rules and most of the individual players. While his two little sons practiced whiplashes on each other and fought over the Cracker Jack prizes, he explained that he only came because the kids insisted. “They know I used to be a fan,” he said. “I went to a whole lot of games back in the ’60s and early ’70s. Even went out of town sometimes to see the teams play—Buffalo, New Haven, lotsa places. Saw lotsa games. Spent lotsa money. And then 1 finally wised up. All those fights, and never a drop of blood anywhere. Oh, yeah, it took me awhile( but I finally wised up.” ©