Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. This is Josh Clark. Charles W. Bryant is
Speaker 1: clearing his nose out across from me. I was laughing
Speaker 1: up boogers because you were singing Dolly Parton before we
Speaker 1: went on air. Yeah, I was. I Love Dolly. I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that was never recorded by Jerry secretly surreptitiously. We
Speaker 1: had a little out takes in a while. It's been
Speaker 1: a while, Jared get on that we haven't said anything
Speaker 1: funny in a really long time. I think that's the problem. Hey, Chuck,
Speaker 1: Hey dude, did you know that we are smack dab
Speaker 1: in the middle of roller derby playoff season? Yeah? Oh
Speaker 1: you did? Did you know that prior to nine? In
Speaker 1: this more now? But I would say we're smack dab
Speaker 1: in the middle of a roller derby revolution. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: We're smack dab in the in the middle of a
Speaker 1: roller derby playoffs season that is situated within a larger
Speaker 1: roller derby revolution. Can we agree to that one? Okay? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right. Um, roller derby it's kind of everywhere.
Speaker 1: If you are not into it, I'm sure you've at
Speaker 1: least seen some cool posters or stickers on cars supporting
Speaker 1: roller derby leagues all of a sudden. Um, and if
Speaker 1: you notice that there really weren't any prior to two
Speaker 1: thousand one, you're a pretty sharp person, I would say. So. Um,
Speaker 1: we have our own roller derby league here in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: The Atlanta roller Girls have been I have not. I've
Speaker 1: seen him on cable access though, is that your Tuesday
Speaker 1: night just watching? I know, I actually don't remember where
Speaker 1: I would have seen him because I don't even have
Speaker 1: cable access or cable or anything. Right now, we need
Speaker 1: to go. We need to make a point to go.
Speaker 1: It's like right down from my house. It's on Ponds right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the europe shriner Um Temple. Yeah, oddly, all right, we'll
Speaker 1: go Kauds, you know, Saturday, September twenty, which is probably
Speaker 1: before this will come out. Um, that's the that's the
Speaker 1: next playoff. I bet if we took Jerry, she'd know
Speaker 1: like a third of the people there, you know, the Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Chuck. The Atlanta roller Girls are one of UM
Speaker 1: sanctioned leagues. Yeah, because when did Tracy write this article,
Speaker 1: Like maybe two thousand six. Yeah, I think that the
Speaker 1: the w f t d A, the Woman's Flat Track
Speaker 1: Derby Association, has been around since two thousand four. She
Speaker 1: did not acknowledge that in this so it was probably
Speaker 1: two thousand three. Okay, So since two thousand three h
Speaker 1: Tracy cited there's about thirty leagues. Now there's ninety eight
Speaker 1: sanctioned and another forty three that are apprentice leagues. They're
Speaker 1: up and coming. Yeah, right, so there's a boatload of
Speaker 1: roller derby going on around this country. I was looking
Speaker 1: on the UM Flat Track Derby Association site and they
Speaker 1: have like the you know, links to all the different
Speaker 1: teams pages, so they have the logos of each one,
Speaker 1: and I found the best one, which one my favorite
Speaker 1: was the Dutch land Rollers out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They
Speaker 1: have like an Irish woman with the head kerchief on
Speaker 1: with a black eye Amish or Irish amishka. Did I
Speaker 1: say Irish? Yeah? She might have been Irish too. Did
Speaker 1: I say Irish? He did? Stinks because I really meant Amish.
Speaker 1: That's right? So is that their whole get up they
Speaker 1: all wear amish gear. I don't know, I just saw
Speaker 1: the logo. They probably do because they go with the
Speaker 1: themes generally. Yeah, but that's that's for later, right, So Chuck,
Speaker 1: let's talk about this. Let's talk about roller derby and
Speaker 1: by let's talk about it. Let's talk about its history. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from what I can tell, Josh, Um, in the mid
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, there was a sports promoter named Leo Seltzo.
Speaker 1: Sounds very like sports promoter from the thirties, dedn'ty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we need a roller derby c and that's basically what
Speaker 1: he said. But initially it was um, you know, they
Speaker 1: used to have all these endurance competitions back in the day,
Speaker 1: like the dance fons and all those silly things you
Speaker 1: did before television. His was initially a roller skating endurance competition.
Speaker 1: It was called the Transcontinental Roller Derby. Yeah it was.
Speaker 1: And the idea was to do fifty seven thousand laps,
Speaker 1: which is about the distance across the US. It's about
Speaker 1: three thousand miles. It's a long way to scape. But
Speaker 1: they all kind of realized this kind of stinks and
Speaker 1: it's not very fun. It does. Plus, skaters were skating
Speaker 1: about eleven and a half hours a day. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not fun, right, And I'm sure there's a pretty sizeable
Speaker 1: cash processes during the depression, so you could make people
Speaker 1: like wrestle bears and tutus and all sorts of crazy
Speaker 1: stuff to you know, feed their family. Um, so I'm
Speaker 1: sure that's why people skated eleven and a half hours
Speaker 1: a day for these things. Um. The problem wasn't that
Speaker 1: it was is too much for human constitution. It was
Speaker 1: that it was boring. It's just people going around the
Speaker 1: track again and again and again, and then ultimately it's like, Wow,
Speaker 1: they just skated across the US. But in the meantime
Speaker 1: it's boring. And there was a sports writer, a very
Speaker 1: famous sportswriter named Damon Runyon, who in nineteen thirty seven
Speaker 1: came to sell term. Was like, look, dude, this is
Speaker 1: a good idea. But the coolest part is when people
Speaker 1: run into each other. Why don't you make something like
Speaker 1: that really emphasizes that. And apparently Selter was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it seems kind of rough, and we'll give
Speaker 1: it a shot. And all of a sudden, the next
Speaker 1: thing you know, you have like nineteen thirties ladies just
Speaker 1: beating the tar out of each other. And have you
Speaker 1: seen footage of it? It's pretty awesome, it is. I
Speaker 1: mean back in the thirties too, I think of everyone
Speaker 1: is so genteel and everything. No, it was just as
Speaker 1: rough and tumble as it is. And he only had
Speaker 1: the endurance version for a couple of years. I think
Speaker 1: before he was like, you know, you may be onto something,
Speaker 1: right and and from that point on that's roller Derby, yes, Josh.
Speaker 1: And it grew, uh, you know, it was very popular
Speaker 1: during the forties and fifties and uh, clearly if you remember,
Speaker 1: like Happy Days, I think there was a roller Derby
Speaker 1: Unhappy Days. At what point didn't Pinky Tesscadera participate. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I was wondering that earlier. See it seems
Speaker 1: like she'd be too cool for that, but she would
Speaker 1: like beat up the girls after the match. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: pretty bad. I don't know. Well, we'll have to look
Speaker 1: that up. Leather tuscan Arra wouldn't or was that her sister? There?
Speaker 1: Two of them was Leather nickname I don't know that off,
Speaker 1: but they they It did grow in popularity up until
Speaker 1: about the seventies. I think a lot of things declined
Speaker 1: in the seventies because of this stinking economy in the
Speaker 1: gas crisis, and so people weren't going out and spending
Speaker 1: money on things like roller Derby anymore or skateboards. Skateboarding.
Speaker 1: It went. It had an opposite effect, that didn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it boomed, I think because that awesome documentary, The dog
Speaker 1: Lords of Dogtown. Is that a doc Well, there was
Speaker 1: a documentary and then a feature film based on the documentary.
Speaker 1: But the documentary is better. But yeah, swims, they couldn't have.
Speaker 1: People couldn't afford to like fill up their pools to
Speaker 1: the polls right out. They skated skateboards in the pools,
Speaker 1: and that Stacy Perelta was one of those who would
Speaker 1: go on to phone how Pelta Skateboards a skateboard company
Speaker 1: of all time? Who would sponsor the greatest group of
Speaker 1: skaters of all time? The Bones Brigade. Yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with roller Derby except for
Speaker 1: the wheels. Well, it does actually have something to do
Speaker 1: with roller Derby in this case. That the dock is
Speaker 1: always better than the feature film. You just hang onto
Speaker 1: that one. Sure, put that on your back pocket. Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting though, and that roller Derby did decline in
Speaker 1: the seventies, but that's when it was actually probably most
Speaker 1: visible because they had those televised I remember when I
Speaker 1: was a kid. Oh yeah, they televised it on like
Speaker 1: a year old kids with five and nights seventy five
Speaker 1: And um, I sent you the link earlier and we
Speaker 1: watched a little bit of his clips. If you YouTube
Speaker 1: like nineteen seventies roller Derby, you can see some of
Speaker 1: this stuff, you can, and you can hear the commentators. Um.
Speaker 1: When when they tried to revive it in the seventies
Speaker 1: after its decline, Uh, there was kind of an artificial
Speaker 1: revival where roller Derbut toured the country in civic centers
Speaker 1: and small towns like an exhibition, right, But there was
Speaker 1: like different there are different teams, but like the the
Speaker 1: announcers were the same, and the announcers used a lot
Speaker 1: of colorful language, Like there was one womansoyn. There was
Speaker 1: a woman who was like I think they cited or
Speaker 1: waited about two hundred pounds. She's like a big blocker, um,
Speaker 1: and she the announcer said that she was roughly the
Speaker 1: size of the state of Rhode Island. And it was
Speaker 1: just kind of like even on the YouTube club, the
Speaker 1: person who posted it said, I apologize for the announcer
Speaker 1: saying that one of the skaters is the size of
Speaker 1: Rhode Island. It was anything went back there in the
Speaker 1: seventies pretty much. But um, even that didn't didn't keep
Speaker 1: er Derby into the eighties. Like that kind of um
Speaker 1: fantastic misogyny and the kind of um world wrestling look
Speaker 1: and feel that it had to it. Yeah, they took
Speaker 1: it sort of over the edge to where they would
Speaker 1: like fake hit each other and stuff like that. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: but that that that didn't that didn't keep it alive. Right,
Speaker 1: And we should say also that that revival is significant
Speaker 1: and that it foreshadows the century revival because it was
Speaker 1: all women prior to that in their forties, the fifties
Speaker 1: and the sixties win Like during the heyday of roller Derby,
Speaker 1: it was co ed. Yeah, well not co ed on
Speaker 1: the same team they would have like them. The teams
Speaker 1: were co ed. I think periods were not co ed.
Speaker 1: Oh see, I thought it was women competed in the
Speaker 1: same night as men, but only against each other. I
Speaker 1: think teams were originally co ed, which is which uh
Speaker 1: has grown from the the first roller Derby where they
Speaker 1: were twenty five teams of one man and one woman,
Speaker 1: and then that carried on. So I think the teams
Speaker 1: are coed, but different periods it would be the male
Speaker 1: team or the women's gotcha, I think, but the men
Speaker 1: kind of went away for the most part, and now
Speaker 1: the modern revival is all ladies. Right in Austin, Texas
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one, a group of women got
Speaker 1: together and basically single handedly revived roller Derby into this
Speaker 1: really huge incarnation that we're seeing now right. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and like we said in two thousand and four, just
Speaker 1: a few years later, the Women's Flat Track Derby Association
Speaker 1: was formed and they pretty much run the show. And
Speaker 1: we should mention that, you know, flat track means that well,
Speaker 1: it's clearly not a roller rank at the Shriner's Auditorium
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, but a lot of them use roller ranks.
Speaker 1: And uh, instead of the curved bowls, the banked, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the bank bowls that they used to use, but they
Speaker 1: still have those in some places. And I get the
Speaker 1: impression that flat track and banked kind of go head
Speaker 1: to head. Well, yeah, the one lady they interviewed some
Speaker 1: women trace she did for this article, and she said
Speaker 1: that they'll they'll debate that, of course, but it's really
Speaker 1: all in the spirit of the sport. They're still like sisters.
Speaker 1: And there's a I should say, there's a documentary about
Speaker 1: that UM formation in two thousand one in Austin called
Speaker 1: Hell on Wheels. Huh, And that's that's where I saw
Speaker 1: footage of UM, the old timey nineteen thirties roller derby
Speaker 1: people just beating the cramp out of each other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty awesome. But then there's a feature film based
Speaker 1: on that. Yeah, that Chuck. I don't know if you remember,
Speaker 1: but on the way back from Guatemala, you were watching it,
Speaker 1: and I was watching you watch it and like every
Speaker 1: once and I will just be like, yeah, Ellen, Paige
Speaker 1: Andrew Barrymore in the same movie It's that's a rough one.
Speaker 1: Drew Barrymore directed that, I believe, and produced it and
Speaker 1: basically paid for it. Yeah. It was called Whippet and
Speaker 1: it was said in Austin and um oh, I hesitate
Speaker 1: to say I didn't like it very much because you
Speaker 1: never know Drew Barrymore as a listener. But I thought
Speaker 1: about that too. It was good, true. I think it
Speaker 1: put it on the map Fox Show. Definitely, it brought
Speaker 1: it into the mainstream. How about that? Yes? Okay, and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Fallon was just terrific as the announcer, and isn't
Speaker 1: he always Future Man was the coach Class Act. So
Speaker 1: that was whip it. Let's talk about the spirit of
Speaker 1: roller Derby, Chuck. Okay, Um it is fishnet stockings and
Speaker 1: two twos and knee socks and black eyes, big elbows. Um,
Speaker 1: all kinds of costumes, awesome names. Oh yeah, right, so
Speaker 1: just in this article alone, Atlanta roller girls. Um, Susan
Speaker 1: b Agony, that's my favorite. It's pretty good. Um, let's
Speaker 1: see who else is there, Chuck, While I saw Jackie Daniels,
Speaker 1: which is kind of good. Some of them play off
Speaker 1: the tough like liquor bottle thing like our friend. Well,
Speaker 1: we should also say to our friend Debbie freak Girl.
Speaker 1: Freak Girl dot com is her blog and she's a
Speaker 1: freelance writer. She did not write this, but she is
Speaker 1: new to Roller Derby and I post some questions for
Speaker 1: her and we'll get to those throughout. But her name Tobe.
Speaker 1: We can't have her doing voice whatever it would be cool.
Speaker 1: Her name is Molotov cupcake and she makes she's really
Speaker 1: good cupcake baker. So she's incorporating her love of liquor
Speaker 1: and explosives and cupcakes into one. And I should also
Speaker 1: mention too, my favorite name of all time. This is
Speaker 1: from a listener about a year ago, wrote in and
Speaker 1: her name was sudden Beth. I thought, just sometimes the
Speaker 1: simplicity of a name like that, Sudden Beth. There was
Speaker 1: in the um Helen Wheels doc one of the original
Speaker 1: roller girls was um Betty Ragette. I like that one too. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently beyond According to Molotov, cop Cupcake is uh the
Speaker 1: worst biggest blocker you've ever heard of. Yes, history of
Speaker 1: big girl, and she is uh like size. That's one
Speaker 1: of the cool things about roller Derby that Debbie points
Speaker 1: out and that the league points out, is that physique
Speaker 1: does not matter you you have a skill set you
Speaker 1: can bring whether you are a two and fifty pound
Speaker 1: blocker or you're like Juno and you can just zip
Speaker 1: through people real fast. Page I know, Okay, sorry, you
Speaker 1: look stupefied. No, I know, but it's you know, that's
Speaker 1: part of the fun of it all. It's picking out
Speaker 1: your name and and designing your uniform and your look
Speaker 1: as a team. The one from New York is they
Speaker 1: have one that's really cool. They're all have like a
Speaker 1: checker cab theme, so they have like checkered hose on
Speaker 1: and like a yellow cab skirts and shirts like bowling shirts.
Speaker 1: It's cool. I think that the one the common theme. Uh.
Speaker 1: If not, it's not physique like you said, It's basically
Speaker 1: just cheer, guts and and an ability to stand up
Speaker 1: to torture, including self torture, right, which is um, pretty
Speaker 1: much the basis of training. Yeah. Like Debbie was telling
Speaker 1: you in in that little mini interview you conduct did
Speaker 1: with her that, Um, she had to do plank positions, squats,
Speaker 1: push ups, what else? Um, well all of this is
Speaker 1: in skates, by the way. Well I was going to
Speaker 1: add that at the end that's like the sucker. Okay,
Speaker 1: you can't put the kicker in the middle. She did.
Speaker 1: They cover basic she said, it was boot camp on
Speaker 1: wheels and squats and all sorts of like physical training,
Speaker 1: all on skates. There you go. Which, Um, she's in
Speaker 1: the new in the on the New Jersey Hell Razors
Speaker 1: with a Z team and they practiced two hours twice
Speaker 1: a week, and she's been training for four and a
Speaker 1: half months and just finished her basic skills tests, right,
Speaker 1: And so when you're when you're training, like she was
Speaker 1: just talking about basically um calisthenics, but there's like training
Speaker 1: as well, like you throw yourself on the ground to
Speaker 1: learn how to roll and get up really quick. Because
Speaker 1: it's not just getting up, like you're getting up with
Speaker 1: four wheels on each foot and people zipping by you.
Speaker 1: That you have to learn how to jump over people.
Speaker 1: That's a tough one. I have ever tried to jump
Speaker 1: in skates? And have you ever done any disco boogie
Speaker 1: in or anything? Like I was an ice skater? Okay,
Speaker 1: role bouncing? No, all right, did you see that movie?
Speaker 1: I saw parts of it. Yeah, it looked pretty cool.
Speaker 1: They still do that in New York. Some in the
Speaker 1: seventies like Disgust skating and do everything in New York.
Speaker 1: Now that's off New York. Um. You also have to
Speaker 1: skate at high speeds, Chuck, I understand. Yes, there's a
Speaker 1: actually bullet in this Tracy Wilson article it says skate
Speaker 1: at high speeds. There's also one that says you need
Speaker 1: to stretch out beforehand. Yeah, that's a big one too, um.
Speaker 1: And you have to start and stop in skates, it's
Speaker 1: what Yeah, but I think to be fair, I think
Speaker 1: that means like you need to start and stop on
Speaker 1: a dime precision, high speed skating, dodging, jumping, balance control,
Speaker 1: all on four wheels, eight wheels, just alright to check.
Speaker 1: That's the training part and apparently it's not. Um. There's
Speaker 1: a a very um delineated process to it, and you
Speaker 1: keep the newer people away from the more experienced people
Speaker 1: according to Debbie fresh Meat. And then you actually have
Speaker 1: to pass a test to be calm, like in a
Speaker 1: sanctioned UM flat track derby association UM participant you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you, I guess you can't actually participating about until
Speaker 1: you're cleared by them, right, yeah, because it's dangerous. You know,
Speaker 1: they don't want you out there getting hurt. Um, although
Speaker 1: people do get hurt all the time, clearly, Uh should
Speaker 1: we talk about that and now we'll talk about that later. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about how to play. Yeah, Like, because even
Speaker 1: after reading this and understanding the rules, unless you really
Speaker 1: I think it's probably one of those ones where unless
Speaker 1: you're there or you're very familiar with the two teams,
Speaker 1: so you know who's who. It's tough to it just
Speaker 1: looks like a muddle of like elbows and fists and stuff.
Speaker 1: And in the More movie they handle that kind of
Speaker 1: clumsily just by having a segment where they explain the rules.
Speaker 1: Do that? That's like, did Ellen Page to explain the rules?
Speaker 1: Because that's what she did an Inception two. Remember like
Speaker 1: every every like thirty minute, she'd stop and look at
Speaker 1: the camera and be like, okay, everybody, it's refresher. She
Speaker 1: didn't explain the rules. I think Jimmy Fallon did. But
Speaker 1: it's necessary in a movie like that because when you
Speaker 1: look at a roller derby match, if you don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on, you might just think it's mayhem out
Speaker 1: there because it looks like mayhem. But there's actually, uh,
Speaker 1: not just rules, but there's also strategy to this as well,
Speaker 1: which makes it even more awesome. Right, let's hear it, Josh, Okay, Well, Chuck.
Speaker 1: First of all, let's talk about the different kinds of
Speaker 1: players on the team. You have two teams, and to
Speaker 1: these teams are going to play about five players each. Right,
Speaker 1: um about is a series of shorter races two minutes tops,
Speaker 1: but they can be shorter than that. They're called jams. Jams. Right.
Speaker 1: So you have a jammer and this person is delineated
Speaker 1: by a star on her helmet, right, the jammer. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a jammer on each team, and the jammer is
Speaker 1: the only person on these teams who can actually score
Speaker 1: a point, right, right, So here's the deal. You've got
Speaker 1: a jammer on each team. You have three blockers on
Speaker 1: each team, and the blockers don't have anything on their helmets.
Speaker 1: And then you have pivots on each team. So if
Speaker 1: you're looking at the starting line going back, you have
Speaker 1: the two pivots have stripes on their helmets. Yes, thank you, Chuck.
Speaker 1: And the pivots act is kind of like the you know,
Speaker 1: like a catcher in Major League Baseball is kind of
Speaker 1: managing what's going on on the field, same thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: Tracy also compared the pivots to like NASCAR NASCAR pace cars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they set the pace of the of the game base
Speaker 1: but they're also like calling moves out to the rest
Speaker 1: of the team. There they actually plays. Okay, thank you right, um, So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: going from the front back is the pivots, the blockers,
Speaker 1: and then the jammers and the pivots and the blockers
Speaker 1: all take off when the ref um blows his whistle
Speaker 1: the first time, and then after about twenty ft actually
Speaker 1: after exactly the ref blows his whistle again, and then
Speaker 1: the jammers take off, right, So their whole point is
Speaker 1: to sneak through the crowd and get ahead of them
Speaker 1: and come all the way back around, lap them and
Speaker 1: go through again. Yeah. I get the idea that the
Speaker 1: jammer is clearly the speediest and and probably most skilled
Speaker 1: skater and probably the most velt slinkiest person who can
Speaker 1: just kind of like get through. I would think so, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I would think you'd have to be extremely um
Speaker 1: skilled because you're you're probably having to jump the most. Like,
Speaker 1: your whole job is to go forward as fast as possible.
Speaker 1: There's many trying to keep you from going forward, right,
Speaker 1: So you get a point for every player as long
Speaker 1: as everything is above the boards an inbound and we'll
Speaker 1: get to some of the the um the rules and
Speaker 1: penalties in a second. But um, for every player the
Speaker 1: jammer passes after the first lap. Yeah, the first lap,
Speaker 1: there's no points, right, No, but that establishes the lead
Speaker 1: jammer and we'll get to why that's important in a second,
Speaker 1: but for every every opposing player the jammer passes that
Speaker 1: their team gets a point. Right, So the lead jammer
Speaker 1: is the one who comes out of the pack first
Speaker 1: through the first lap, no points are scored, but the
Speaker 1: lead jammer has the ability to actually stop the jam
Speaker 1: when you act that out right by and by putting
Speaker 1: her hands on her hips or touching her helmet and
Speaker 1: touching her hips a couple of times I've seen as well,
Speaker 1: and that means the jam is over and there's a
Speaker 1: break in between, and then you start another jam, which
Speaker 1: is a part of the overall about Is that right?
Speaker 1: That's right? And we were wondering, I wonder if Debi
Speaker 1: emailed me back, why you would call a jam before
Speaker 1: the period is over, the two minute period, And we
Speaker 1: both surmise that it's probably a strategy thing if you
Speaker 1: feel like like they're calling out the points. I believe
Speaker 1: if you're up on points, you can just go ahead
Speaker 1: and call the jam and you've won that jam. Right,
Speaker 1: You're you're locking the other team out of a comeback
Speaker 1: from that jam, right. I think that's probably why they
Speaker 1: would do it. Why else would they do it? So
Speaker 1: that's pretty much like a standard jam. Yeah, that's how
Speaker 1: it's scored. And there's actually there's a cool um flash
Speaker 1: animation on our site. Did you check it out? Now?
Speaker 1: I watched a YouTube thing in the article. It's um.
Speaker 1: You can just click and you make all these little
Speaker 1: people that you're seeing from overhead go around and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty nat. It's fun. It gets the point across
Speaker 1: very well. So Josh, there are some other rules, uh,
Speaker 1: specific rules, um, because it's not just a free for all,
Speaker 1: like you can't trip and stuff like that. So we'll
Speaker 1: read a few of these. Off. You have to be
Speaker 1: in bound. You can't go out of bounds to pass
Speaker 1: an opponent in order to score your point. UM, like
Speaker 1: you set, I believe you can pass the jam or
Speaker 1: responsibility over to your pivot. Is that right? You can
Speaker 1: match Apparently there's something on the helmet that you can
Speaker 1: I guess the star comes off, um, and you can
Speaker 1: pass it during the match, but the lead jammer status
Speaker 1: doesn't transfer. Oh, so you can't call the match or
Speaker 1: the jam. Sorry, it's more complex. In college football, UM,
Speaker 1: you do not receive additional points if you fall all
Speaker 1: to the back of the pack and then pass the
Speaker 1: same player. So you can't ZiT by everybody, then hang
Speaker 1: back and do it all over again. Once you pass
Speaker 1: that player, that's your point for that player, right, you
Speaker 1: have to come all the way around again and lap them, right,
Speaker 1: And if you actually lap the other jammer, that's more points.
Speaker 1: That's called the grand slam. That's called money in the bank,
Speaker 1: my friend. That's the big daddy move of all time. Okay,
Speaker 1: and I imagine that's pretty hard. I would say a
Speaker 1: jammer probably has to go down for that to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or your jammer just has to stink. Yeah, it could
Speaker 1: be a poor, poor jammer. So what what's the deal
Speaker 1: with the blocking, because obviously you're not just skating through
Speaker 1: each other. Your purpose as a blocker is to keep
Speaker 1: them from going by you. Okay, So I think the
Speaker 1: rules are the rules slightly very a little bit here
Speaker 1: there league the League. I get the impression, but some
Speaker 1: of the very common ones are you can't block with
Speaker 1: your armfully extended. Definitely, no clothes line. Yeah, that's stuff
Speaker 1: you've seen in the movies when they hook up together
Speaker 1: and clothesline. That's just that's not that's not right. Or
Speaker 1: they might do that to timid hand. You can I
Speaker 1: think you can hold hands, but neither person's arm can
Speaker 1: be um fully extended. Okay, um, you can't throw. You
Speaker 1: can throw elbows, but you can't throw elbows above the shoulder.
Speaker 1: Generally you can't throw block um actually blow mid thigh
Speaker 1: was at mid thy Now you can't fall on purpose
Speaker 1: in front of somebody, as awesome as that move is,
Speaker 1: especially to fall and the person jumps over you, because
Speaker 1: it's like burn. Uh And what happens if you break
Speaker 1: these rules? As you go to a penalty box just
Speaker 1: called the sinbin the sinbin, so like an ice hockey,
Speaker 1: you can spend like thirty seconds to a minute in there,
Speaker 1: which is you know, that's like half a jam. Or
Speaker 1: you can if you commit a major you can be
Speaker 1: completely uh like removed from the scene, like fighting, removed
Speaker 1: from the scene. The police come like you the you know,
Speaker 1: any kind of ding or I think deliberate falling is
Speaker 1: a major infraction unless the person jumps over and goes
Speaker 1: not true, or if you foul a skater while they're down,
Speaker 1: or if you give the referee too much guff, I
Speaker 1: think they can throw you out. Dramatic and subordination Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I know the roller girl's um sin been is a
Speaker 1: waiting pool and at least Circuit two thousand four, I
Speaker 1: just say, right, there's a there's a picture of m
Speaker 1: one of the roller girls in a in a waiting pool,
Speaker 1: and there's like a wheel of fortune that you spend
Speaker 1: to find out what your penalty is. I got a
Speaker 1: few more things here from Debbie. Okay, Chuck. She said
Speaker 1: that she had not been on roller skates since she
Speaker 1: was fifteen. Yeah, because that's a big deal. I don't
Speaker 1: think roller skating is like riding a bike necessarily. Uh No,
Speaker 1: it's like riding roller skates. And she is she's about
Speaker 1: my age now, which I'm not gonna say how old
Speaker 1: Debbie is because I just want to be nice. So um.
Speaker 1: She said that there are there are women that have
Speaker 1: never been on skates before though in her training. And
Speaker 1: I asked her about the bonding aspect of it, because
Speaker 1: I think Debbie did it because she was looking for
Speaker 1: something fun to do and an activity, a physical activity
Speaker 1: to you know, help her keep in shape and stuff
Speaker 1: like that and stuff. Well, she said it's the hardest
Speaker 1: thing she's ever had to do physically, but she said
Speaker 1: the bonding has been the most surprising and best part
Speaker 1: about it, she said that after feeling sort of awkward
Speaker 1: initially as being the new girl, she's all of a
Speaker 1: sudden has eighteen new girlfriends and they're real supportive of
Speaker 1: each other. I think, she said, one of the girls
Speaker 1: is in a band and they'll go and see her play.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure some of these uh ladies probably eat
Speaker 1: her cupcakes. You know, I'm sure too, So it's a
Speaker 1: it's a good you know, uh, it's a good supportive
Speaker 1: scene there. And I think part of it has to
Speaker 1: do with the fact that men aren't allowed and so
Speaker 1: it's uh women feel empowered to have a sport to
Speaker 1: call their own that's rough and tumble. And her niece
Speaker 1: even remarked she thought it was cool that there's a
Speaker 1: sport that boys aren't allowed to play. Yeah, it's very cute.
Speaker 1: And and another factor that Debbie likes, and I know
Speaker 1: that most of the women probably like, is that, you know,
Speaker 1: you it's fun. You get to dress up. She says,
Speaker 1: she gets to wear cute skirts and knee high socks
Speaker 1: and then go beat the crap onto somebody and then
Speaker 1: have a beer with her later on. So the sex
Speaker 1: and violence, I'll rolled into one. You gotta chuck. But
Speaker 1: I mean that's as American as it get. I think
Speaker 1: you just came up with the new slogan we should
Speaker 1: pitch that. Yeah. Uh, And there is tons of violence.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of injury, although from what I've seen
Speaker 1: of century roller derby compared to nineteen seventies roller derby,
Speaker 1: there's far far less violence, but I think it's um
Speaker 1: more frequently real. Um. Yeah, there's a lot of injury,
Speaker 1: a lot of soft tissue injury, contusions. One of the
Speaker 1: roller girls interviewed in this article broker tailbone twice. Have
Speaker 1: you ever fallen on your tailbone? You're just yeah, you've
Speaker 1: come nowhere near breaking it, but it's just like it's
Speaker 1: really jarring pain. It's awful breaking it twice. I can't
Speaker 1: so it happens. You couldn't catch me out there. Man,
Speaker 1: they're way tougher than I am. Yeah. What's the fish
Speaker 1: net injury? What's that called? Uh? It's called fish net burn.
Speaker 1: It's where you fall and slide while you're wearing fishnets
Speaker 1: and at least like the stippled burn on your on
Speaker 1: your leg. I got hit and I gotta tell you
Speaker 1: it's not nice. It's not nice. I got hit in
Speaker 1: the face with a baseball when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and I had like the baseball stitches embedded in my face.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I felt they need to tell
Speaker 1: you that, but it's swoll shut dude. I got hit
Speaker 1: in the face and dropped to the ground and pick
Speaker 1: my head up and my eye was already swollen. Shut.
Speaker 1: It looked like an Amish woman. I did, chuck, Josh.
Speaker 1: I guess that's about it, right, Well, we we should
Speaker 1: say if you want to support UM, we are coming
Speaker 1: into playoff season. Oh wait, hold on, let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: These leagues are. There's like pretty much no paid professional
Speaker 1: rollers roller girls. They're all They pay for their own equipment,
Speaker 1: They pay dues for the league, right, um. And a
Speaker 1: lot of times these leagues are pretty much de facto
Speaker 1: charitable organizations. Yeah, it's awesome, like they donate to um
Speaker 1: local charities in the community. UM. And even better, there's
Speaker 1: some corporate sponsors like PBR is a big corporate sponsor,
Speaker 1: which means that they just funnel money right to charities
Speaker 1: for these groups. So if you go pay to see
Speaker 1: a roller derby, you're going to um be helping people.
Speaker 1: Probably they have raffles and stuff and they sell swag,
Speaker 1: and I think there's comic books. Yeah, they sell swag,
Speaker 1: they have the it's just um. So, like I said,
Speaker 1: we were approaching tournament season. The w f t d
Speaker 1: A has a championship tournament in November seven in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and uh first and second and third place teams from
Speaker 1: each region if four regions East, North Central, South Central,
Speaker 1: and West earn a spot at the championship, and there
Speaker 1: are Big five tournaments in September and November to determine
Speaker 1: who goes to the ultimate Championship. Yeah. So the roller Girls,
Speaker 1: the Atlanta roller Girls playoffs are going to be in Lincoln,
Speaker 1: Nebraska from October. I was about to say, is that
Speaker 1: the closest one, but looking at these, that may be
Speaker 1: the closest one. Yeah. And if you're in Sacramento from
Speaker 1: October one third, check out the West Region playoffs. Yes,
Speaker 1: the East Region is in White Plains, New York September.
Speaker 1: And for all use Skannis out there, I know we
Speaker 1: have a lot of scanty fans. September through twelfth in
Speaker 1: Green Bay, you can go to the North Central playoffs
Speaker 1: and you should probably build a time machine to do that. Ah. Yeah, so, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I hope you went. You want to talk about Roller
Speaker 1: Derby in cinema? Yeah, I mean, whipp it. What else
Speaker 1: is there? Is that Roquell Welch movie, Yeah, Kansas City Bomb,
Speaker 1: and that's a very famous one. There is also The Jammer,
Speaker 1: which is a stage play by Roland Jones. It's about
Speaker 1: a love story between two members of a classic co
Speaker 1: ed team. Okay uh. And then there's an Any documentary
Speaker 1: called roller Girls. Yeah, that was in That was a
Speaker 1: one one year deal in two thousand and six, I think.
Speaker 1: And then there's also again there's Hell on Wheels, which
Speaker 1: if you don't like paying for your documentaries, you can
Speaker 1: go on to snag films dot com and watch it
Speaker 1: in its entirety for free. I bet Netflix has got
Speaker 1: that stuff too. I predict that, no matter what happens
Speaker 1: to his Chuck, we have at least careers as washed
Speaker 1: up sports commentators for Roller Derby in our future. Awesome. Okay,
Speaker 1: do you have you ever seen the Saturday Night Live
Speaker 1: skit with the seventies uh commentators? Sports commentators? And that's
Speaker 1: really good, A Saidakis? And what's his name? Will Will Arnett?
Speaker 1: Now Will Ferrell now the Wheaton. Well, what's the guy's name? Mcgrouber.
Speaker 1: Is that his name? He? Oh, he plays mcgrouber. I
Speaker 1: know who you're talking about. Nice, you pulled that out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. Yeah. He and Todekas do this sports commentary.
Speaker 1: But it's really off color and inappropriate, but it's very,
Speaker 1: very funny. It's awesome. All right. Well, if you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about roller Derby and play with the
Speaker 1: cool flash animation, we have um in this article typing
Speaker 1: roller Derby in the search bar at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com and that'll bring that article up and you
Speaker 1: will thank us a lot, I think so. So do
Speaker 1: we have any listener, ma'il Josh, We're gonna do what
Speaker 1: I like to call fan gift thank yous and what
Speaker 1: you'd like to call administrative. Yes, we have a list
Speaker 1: here of things that people send us that we're very
Speaker 1: thankful for. So Nicole, what Nicole from Ontario sent us
Speaker 1: Lego candies? What you didn't see those? Joe Garden, our
Speaker 1: buddy from The Onion. He's a writer at The Onion,
Speaker 1: Joe who has a terrific Facebook experiment going on his
Speaker 1: T shirt project. It's really cool. He wears a T
Speaker 1: shirt every day and says whether he should keep it
Speaker 1: or toss it. And he's on like his approaching his
Speaker 1: ninetieth T shirt and he you know, depending on what
Speaker 1: people vote, he will throw it away. That's really cool,
Speaker 1: it's funny, but that that's neither here nor there. But
Speaker 1: he did send us He and some other Onion writers,
Speaker 1: including his wife, I believe, wrote the New Vampire's Handbook,
Speaker 1: a guide for the recently turned creature of the Night,
Speaker 1: and he sent us that, and it's very funny. Kristen
Speaker 1: F's and his handmade candies from Dish Bistro and Bar
Speaker 1: in Pasadena. And I remember the homemade nougat. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was good. I didn't know I love nugat until
Speaker 1: I had this new gat. Oh yeah, it was amazing. Chuck,
Speaker 1: where you've been you ever had him? No? But this
Speaker 1: is unlike that kind of newgat. This is supreme nugat.
Speaker 1: And she got out, she got onto us because this
Speaker 1: was a while ago and she didn't make the last
Speaker 1: cut and she was like, thanks a lot, So she's
Speaker 1: getting more nugat. Yeah, well, what do you think she'll
Speaker 1: send us more newgat? Now? I hope. So Mark from
Speaker 1: the band Red Pete Senta s a CD with a
Speaker 1: song inspired by our Pontsi scheme show you wrote a
Speaker 1: song about it, Corey T of Massachusetts and it's a
Speaker 1: tick remover, which I didn't know they made a tick key.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth made a flower pen for Jerry, which is very sweet,
Speaker 1: and Jerry has it in her office. If I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1: Dr Diane Hamilton's we supplied her with a cover quote.
Speaker 1: And she wrote a book, Josh, about being an online student.
Speaker 1: And I read it and I gave her quote and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's actually on the book first cover quote. So if
Speaker 1: you want to read Dr Diane Hamilton's, it's called the
Speaker 1: Online Student Users Manual. If you're into online education, it's
Speaker 1: like really the whole deal there, Jim Sue and Peter
Speaker 1: Stephen and Lawrence Wait, I have a question for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you in your book? Did you read the inscription
Speaker 1: our cover quote? No, but did you read the inscription
Speaker 1: oh that she wrote to us? Yeah, well did you say,
Speaker 1: don't tell Josh, but you're my favorite? Yeah? Mind said
Speaker 1: that to Mindset, don't tell Chuck that your mind really
Speaker 1: just feels so be trade because she didn't say that
Speaker 1: in mine. Oh no, actually she said, I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to tell you this, but Josh is my favorite, um Jim, Sue, Peter,
Speaker 1: Stephen and Lawrence and is a postcard from Guatemala. They're
Speaker 1: doing volunteer work down there are those Jerry's friends, uh
Speaker 1: and custom inc dot Com sent as a real man
Speaker 1: way two bills T shirts. And you know what's funny
Speaker 1: is that he said in the email, like, you don't
Speaker 1: feel like you have to mention this. This isn't like
Speaker 1: a marketing point. We just wanted to do it. And
Speaker 1: then on the little packing slip it said marketing rush,
Speaker 1: send this quickly. Yeah that's hilarious. So custom inc dot
Speaker 1: com we do want to plug you for that. And finally,
Speaker 1: Pauline does custom photographic prints on homemade avoca paper. Yeah
Speaker 1: it's so cool. It is. I have a nice view
Speaker 1: of um A Lake in New York. I got the
Speaker 1: guy surfing at the Golden Gate Bridge and Jerry has
Speaker 1: one as well. And if you want to see this,
Speaker 1: she actually prints the stuff on how many paper I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if that's getting through. She makes paper. It
Speaker 1: got through to me, pal and they're very awesome and
Speaker 1: You can support her at www dot ps photo dot
Speaker 1: c A and as usual. Um, if you have sent
Speaker 1: us a nice gift and we thanked you for it,
Speaker 1: you should feel free to post it on our Facebook page, right, yes,
Speaker 1: please do? Okay, Um, we do have a Facebook page,
Speaker 1: which we should mention. Yes, www dot Facebook dot com
Speaker 1: slash stuff you should not. I can't wait for that movie.
Speaker 1: I know. I'm looking forward to it too. Looks awesome.
Speaker 1: I love the kid who's playing Zuckerberg in a zombie Land.
Speaker 1: Yeah he uh, he's been another stuff. He's good. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then we tweet yes you do s Y s
Speaker 1: K podcast uh. And then we also have a blog
Speaker 1: stuff you should know. It's at the blogs at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Yes, and we have our Atlanta
Speaker 1: trivia event coming up. Yes October that's a Wednesday from
Speaker 1: just block out six to eleven. And then there's gonna
Speaker 1: be trivia in there sometime. It's free. John Hodgeman and
Speaker 1: Joe Randazzo are gonna be playing with us, and Dave Willis,
Speaker 1: creator of Aquitine, Hunger Force and squid Billies. That's right
Speaker 1: on our team. We're going to be a team and
Speaker 1: we're gonna take all you Sucker is on and we're
Speaker 1: going to beat the tar out of you that If
Speaker 1: you want to come and play for free, yes, that
Speaker 1: is at the Five Seasons Brewery West Side in Atlanta
Speaker 1: on October and come one, come on, It's gonna be fun.
Speaker 1: So that's it, man, that's plug Fest. If you have
Speaker 1: an email you want to send us, I would love
Speaker 1: to hear about your first brush with MH. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
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