Trip to Kitchener Waterloo

Clint Taurus

There was a double header roller derby game in Kitchener today.  I went to see the friends I haven't seen since Montreal's Beast of the East.  In Montreal it was take some photos, snap, snap, say "Hi', more photos, snap, snap, bus back to Toronto.  Even though there was an after party somewhere in between I didn't really get to talk to anyone for any length of time.  I decided that I'd take Mean Little Mama's offer to stay at her house in Kitchener so I could stay at the after party and schmooze.

The London Lunch Ladies


Clint Taurus reffing the bout


Mirambo leaps by Perky Set


Diane launches the after party karaoke


Some guy butchering "Don't Stop Believin'"...


...gets a little derby help


"....Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard "


"Street lights people uh oh ohhhh"


"Hold on to that feelin'...." Diane has a Journeygasm.

Hammer City End of 2010 party

Cut off (706), Death Row Dames

Waiting between cheques would be an understatement today. I haven't worked in the last month. Partially due to December being a slow month and partially due to a guy booking me three times to cancel at the last minute three times. Aggravating. Not only did I not work on the three days booked for those particular jobs but I also turned down work, photo work on those same days. Note to self: ask for a non-refundable deposit up front when dealing with this person.

I managed to scrape together enough money from the magical change filled piggy bank to afford a GO bus ticket to get to Hamilton. The girls of Hammer City would reimburse me when I arrived. That was nice.

The rest of the money I had from the pig I spent on making prints of the skaters retiring this year. There's four of them. I managed to have just enough to cover the four prints. (The pig works it's magic once again).


Jett Girl (15), Hamilton Harlots


Mean Little Mama (0), Death Row Dames


Perky Set (¶), Hamilton Harlots


The Alumni

It's times like this where I kind of wished I had all the skaters photos indexed to pick them out at a moments notice. I have a vague idea of where some of them are but I rely on this blog to remind me when I've taken those photos. Perhaps this is where I'll change things around a bit this year now that I have the photo store and all.


Candy asks, "Are you supposed to look like 'Devo' or are you supposed to look 'retarded'?"

The party was a lot of fun. This is the norm when attending a party with Hammer City. As like all of their past parties it's always a sad affair when you have to leave before it's over. Adam and I had to catch the last bus to Toronto.


Oscar


Carl bringing back early 80s break dance fashion


"Less food, more explosions!"


Ivy Rupted singing Journey's "Don't Stop Believin".


Leaving early to catch the last bus.

We bumped into Candy at the bus stop. She had left quite a bit earlier but missed a bus, then forgot her mittens in some public bathroom. Things weren't going very well for her and she was a bit sloshed from the party. She had a determination to walk home but Adam and I insisted on getting her home by transit. We stuffed a token into her hand and made sure she got on and off the TTC subway.


Candy stumbles onto the train tracks


Candy clamps onto a transfer


Candy leaves the train safe. Adam waves 'bye'.

Sign of Journey

Leah next to the sign.

I had to call in some money that people owed me to pay off some bills. It wasn't a lot to pay off when working with steady income. In lock down savings mode it was the difference between not having a phone and having a phone.

If people can't get in touch with you finding work will be that much harder. Still have 20 something days left in the month to make rent. Plenty of time.

Leah, the delivery person for the person that owed me money met up with me to give me cash. As we were walking down the street talking about work, finances, and all that, we stopped at a bar that she recognized. It looked like it was closed for good. I looked up and saw this sign. "Don't stop believin'". A sign from God? Probably just a Journey fan. Still, it was a weird coincidence.

Meet the Betties

Some new, some not as new.

The Smoke City Betties, one of ToRDs four awesome teams, had a fund raiser tonight. I looked over at the auction table and didn't recognize a bunch of the people there. While normally a first reaction might be "Who are these people?" as a photographer of derby one has to take into account that a derby skater does not always look like the same person in a real life environment compared to the big exciting sport life on the track.

There are a few factors that play into this.

• helmet - usually when photographing a skater their hair is covered by a helmet. When I first saw Slaughter Lauder off the track doing some NSO work I did a second take because she had a long mane of hair. She looked "weird".


• skates - skates add height. So if you're used to shooting someone who's 5 foot something and then meeting them without skates on you wonder why you're not looking at the same height you're used to. Also while on skates, the subject moves around differently. Gliding from point A to point B. Off skates, the subject moves differently. Maybe seems more clumsy, off balance (usually if holding beer), or just moves up and down more.
  


• outfit - the brain adjusts to the skater wearing an outfit. Should the outfit change into street wear the effect is like seeing a familiar comic book character wearing something else. Imagine Charlie Brown in a tux drawn into a Bloom County background. You might recognize him but you'd have to take a second look if he's not standing next to someone else you know.

Slaughter Lauder (11) "Some thing's a foot"

As it turns out the people behind the table at the auction were actually new skaters that I had not met yet. That was good, verifying that my brain and memory (at least for derby) was still intact. wheew.


"Don't stop believin'..."

At some point in the night the old derby standard of Journey started to play. I think that's also about the time the party picked up a bit. Some of the girls got up on the beer counter and started dancing to the song while singing along.

One of these days I'll have to make a book just on photos taken at roller derby after parties with this song playing in the background. It's magical. Gold! Photographic gold!!!


It's a magnet for foot notes.

Rebel Rock-it's Birthday

Birthday party at Disgraceland

My sleep schedule since I've been back has been nutty. I woke up just in time to go to Rebel Rock-it's birthday at a bar called Disgracelend. It should be noted that they have veggie corn dogs there.




Veggie corn dog.


Burger and coleslaw



After eating a corn dog and a burger we went next door to Hurricane's and participated in some karaoke. Some of the girls sang the song "Summer nights" from Grease and then they all got up to sing "Rebel Rebel" while Rebel sat in front of them in a chair.


Karaoke at Hurricane's

The Karaoke host (at least while we were there) did not play Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" so a bunch of us sang it anyway over the music of something else. That being the last song we then returned to Disgraceland to see them close up.


Rebel Rebel
















Singing "Don't stop believin'" without musical backup.


Back at Disgraceland

Post black and blue ball 2009

The last photo from the Flamingo.

After politely getting escorted off the Flamingo pool area at midnight by a line of security, we (as in the roller derby people) split off to different venues. Some went to the Rock House (the bar located in front of the Imperial Palace), others went to the Imperial Palace dealtainer area, some went to the second floor of the Imperial Palace (the Karaoke room), and I'm sure others but not many went back to their rooms to crash.


Tommy Toxic gets his photo taken with some admirers on the Strip


"Billy Idol"




Cool hair... with an octopus!







At some point I wandered over to the Rock House. The entrance that faced the main entrance of the Imperial Palace had security people telling us to go around to the front, the entrance off the Strip. There was a crazy assed line to get in. You can see Thomas Refferson (see photo above) in said line.




I also found a girl wearing a tuxedo shirt. Yeah!!!


Of course we had to get a photo of the two tuxedo shirts.


...which was then followed by getting a girl in between the two tuxedo shirts.


Can't get enough of Nerd Rage? Then see what's she up to now on Twitter.

Not wanting to spend my time in Vegas in a line up I went back to the Imperial Palace's karaoke room.




















Looking to see if the bruise can be photographed on Pussy Venom's face.


Pussy Venom in better lighting, can you make out the bruise?


Some of the girls from the Boston Massacre.




Montreal's Georgia. W Tush with Boston's Claire D. Way


Tomic Toxic sports an arm of marker art work


Journey's "Don't stop believin''"




Pause during guitar solo


Full on vocals




"...street lights... people... uh oh ohhhh."




























Our hotel neighbour.
Believe it or not this photo would become useful later on.














Nerd Rage singing up a storm with Teenage Head's "Psycho Killer".
















Has anyone seen B-Train?
Yeah around 2:30am (see the photo, as noted before, did come in handy)

Some girls that I thought were knocking on my hotel door. They were actually knocking quite loudly on the door next door. I lent them a T-shirt because they couldn't get access to their clothing...