Product Description

The 1950s phenomenon of Roller Derby is back in full force, and it's definitely not your grandma's game anymore. With leagues in more than one hundred cities across the country, a national tournament, and major sponsors, the new wave of the sport has gone mainstream. No one is better qualified to tell the story of Flat Track Derby's astronomic rise than Melissa "Melicious" Joulwan. As a founding member of the Texas Rollergirls -- the league that launched the sport and the reigning national champions -- she has helped redefine what it means to be stylish, sporty, and sexy.

With her mouthy, tough-as-nails style, Melicious recounts her best tales from the track: her fierce rivalries with The Wrench and Ivanna S. Pankin, the scene at the annual national tournament, the thrill of a bout, and the infractions that so often bring her to the penalty box. From the minute she first laced up her skates and wrapped herself in her alter ego, Roller Derby has given her a confidence boost, and she shares the positive impact the sport has also had on girls -- young and not-so-young -- who tack posters of her on their bedroom walls and lace up their own skates.

Complete with photos and suggestions on how to develop a Rollergirl name and persona, this unprecedented tell-all comes from the woman who's watched the sport evolve from an underground Friday-night event to a bona fide national phenomenon.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82908 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
"Rollergirl crackles with wit and furious energy -- an absorbing account of the power of DIY spirit and punk rock rebellion."

-- Davy Rothbart, author of Found

"... surprisingly inspirational story of four teams... who started a league of their own and survived to tell the tales." -- Mike Shea, Texas Monthly

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Jo's Coffee on Congress Avenue in south Austin is the kind of place where you instantly feel comfortable, even if you're a new transplant to Texas, like I was in 2001. The latte drinkers are good-looking in their own I-know-who-I-am way. The staff is bright and friendly and prone to cracking wise. The soundtrack is retro-hipster: the Cure, Elvis Costello, Hank Williams, Frank Sinatra.

I'd moved to town with the love of my life, Dave, nine months before, and we were still living in an anonymous, dreamlike state. We could never quite remember which freeway exit led to the Target, but somehow we always found it. Occasionally, we'd run across a celebrity at Jo's -- ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons or my 1986 heartthrob, singer-songwriter Charlie Sexton. We had no family in Texas, and our "friends" were a variety of waiters, waitresses, bartenders, and other drinkers, diners, and musicians that we ran into again and again in our attempts to get out of the house and "meet some people."

I was in love with Austin -- the live music, the comfort food, the feeling that I was in one of those music videos from the eighties where tromping down a dusty road in vintage cowboy boots seemed like the best idea ever. But I was also growing weary of knowing only the people who served things to me and required a tip. Although Austin was my first choice for a new home, I was blue.

Dave and I had moved to Austin so we could have a do-over on our lives. We'd both been following what I think of as the "grown-up path." We had director-level jobs at a corporate Web development agency -- and the fat salaries that went along with the positions. It was what I'd always thought I wanted: the title "creative director" on my business cards and an assistant who brought me salads during lunch meetings because my schedule was so hectic I couldn't possibly take a break. It was the go-go life that I had dreamed of in college. And I hated it.

There were minor annoyances, like pitch meetings with straightlaced white guys (and their tight little ponytails and striped ties). Or the fact that the executives had gotten rich from our IPO while the rest of us were left with big tax bills for the "privilege" of our stock options. Or the fact that the phrase "maximize billable hours" was meant to be my mantra.

The last straw came during a vacation. I was visiting my family in Pennsylvania, baking cookies with my four-year-old niece Pepper. We were up to our elbows in chocolate-chip cookie dough when the phone rang. It was my boss; she needed to discuss a second round of layoffs with me: "I know you're on vacation, but I thought you'd want to be involved in the decision making, since it affects one-third of your staff."

I put my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and told Pepper to leave the kitchen. As I watched her toddle away, I realized I had just become the kind of person who sends her cookie-making niece out of the room to take a call about layoffs during a vacation.

So I quit.

Not too long after I submitted my resignation letter, I went to Temple Tattoo -- to Mr. Scott Silvia, the best old-school tattoo artist in the land -- and I had my left forearm permanently inked as a reminder to never "take a meeting" again. My tattoo is a black panther surrounded by yellow, pink, and red roses. She wears a crown, and she's ferocious and beautiful and sleek and powerful -- all the things I wanted to be in my postcorporate life.

Austin seemed like a great place for Dave and me to reinvent ourselves. I once read a passage in a tour book that theorized that the reason Austin has such great nightlife is because during the day, it's too damn hot to move around. In San Francisco, even summers are gray and chilly most of the time -- black turtlenecks and big black boots were my standard uniform before we relocated. But I was now in the land of flip-flops, tank tops, shorts, and the mad dash from one air-conditioned building to another.

The draw of a caffeine buzz trumps the climate at Jo's. Dave and I were parked on stools at the counter -- sweating -- watching the traffic slide by and idly talking about what to do with our day.

The back wall of Jo's is the DIY equivalent of a town crier: posters, handbills, flyers, postcards, and hand-drawn notes are tacked, stapled, and taped floor-to-ceiling. Notices about rock shows, yard sales, lost puppies, a sofa for sale, belly dancing classes, political speeches, houses for rent, and volunteer gigs overlapped, creating a paper patchwork quilt, a snapshot of the crazy-good stuff Austin has to offer. I regularly used Jo's wall as a to-do list: "Tuesday night, we should go to the Alamo Drafthouse...Jesse Dayton's playing at the Continental Club on Friday!"

In the upper-right-hand corner of the wall on that particular Sunday was a poster for "All-Girl's Roller Derby." The punk-rock girl in the illustration wore old-fashioned roller skates, knee pads over fishnet stockings, and a helmet. There was a skull and crossbones on her ripped tank top, a "fuck you" expression on her face. "With live music from the Flametrick Subs. Playland Skate Center. Tickets $5."

Roller skating and punk-rock chicks...irresistible! We decided to check it out, and I started to obsess about what to wear.

When Dave and I pulled into the parking lot of Playland Skate Center to watch our first-ever Roller Derby bout, the scene was already jumping off. Cars were parked bumper-to-bumper on the residential streets around the rink, filling every legal spot between the perfectly landscaped driveways. People streamed toward the building in packs, like the Jets and the Sharks headed to a showdown.

The boys wore the standard punk-a-billy uniform: cuffed jeans or Dickies work pants with pristine wife beaters, black boots, chains on their wallets, and chips on their shoulders. Tattoos snaked up their arms and the sides of their necks; their hair glistened in the sun, pomade melting to an extra-shiny lacquer in the Texas heat. And the ladies! Short skirts or fit-like-skin capri pants, fishnet stockings, ruby red lips, and jet black eyeliner that flicked up -- just so -- at the outer corners of their eyes. They vamped and flirted and giggled and chatted as they made their way across the shimmering asphalt to the front door, vintage handbags dangling off their wrists.

Playland is in north Austin, a neighborhood so different from mine in south Austin's 78704, it could be another city entirely. We southies decorate our yards with shrines to the Virgin of Guadalupe and pink flamingos; every corner has a fly-by-night taco stand. Up north, it's a kitsch-free zone of SUV dealers and sprawling ranch-style houses with arrow-straight rows of daffodils. Dropped right in the middle of the suburban sprawl, like Oz landing in Dorothy's backyard, is Playland.

The skating floor is huge: 27,500 square feet, or about half a football field. The acrylic surface is a putrid shade of lavender, scraped and dented in some spots to reveal a pale yellow underfloor. Suspended over the rink are multicolored lights and a six-foot roller skate covered in disco-ball mirrors. Just inside the entry door, racks display rows of rental skates: dun-colored with orange wheels and dark brown laces.

The hipster crowd sat on the floor, or stood in clusters around the track and on the carpet-covered benches for a better view. Electric fans the size of airplane jet exhausts fought a valiant crusade against the heat being generated by the thousand bodies packed into the rink. A thick layer of cigarette smoke hovered in the air, and music thudded in the cavernous space. In the center of the floor, an oval track was outlined in white Christmas lights. On that track, the reason we were all there. The main event. The most amazing thing we'd ever seen: Rollergirls.

At the time, beyond recognizing that they were skating very fast, it was impossible to make sense of what they were doing. But I didn't care. They seemed taller than regular girls. Certainly tougher. And so much sexier. More fit than the honey-blond-and-manicured girls on the elliptical trainer at the gym. I was riveted.

The only Roller Derby I'd seen prior to that night at Playland was on a Charlie's Angels episode. The great mystery of the show was not so much the insurance scam the Angels investigated, but how Farrah Fawcett fit her helmet over her gigantic blond waves. But these women blew Farrah away! They were a blur skating around that oval track. They bashed into each other. They tripped themselves, then jumped up to race back into the fray. They slid on their knees. They crashed together, tumbling to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs and flailing skates. They skidded and glided and leapt and twisted. They were graceful and awkward and altogether amazing.

"I had a horrible case of the Sunday blues, just moping around the house. After watching me all day, my beau Blake said he was taking me out...to the Roller Derby. 'Nothing like girls in short skirts and torn fishnets knocking the shit out of each other to make you feel better,' he said. I thought to myself, Yeah...that'll make you feel better. But I went. I was mesmerized. I turned to Blake and said, 'I must do this.' And he asked, 'Do you skate?' I answered, 'I do now!'"

-- Apocalippz, Hell Marys/Texas Rollergirls

The group of girls putting on the show was known as Bad Girl Good Woman Productions, and the bout that I saw that night in August 2002 was their first time performing for the public. They'd been at it for a year or so, learning to skate and holding fund-raisers to get their four teams up and rolling.

The Rhinestone Cowgirls wore red Western shirts -- with spangles, fringes, rhinestones, and rivets -- and Daisy Duke shorts or up-to-there miniskirts. With fishnets on their legs and their boobies strapped into bustiers and push-up bras, they were what Lori Petty would have been if Tank Girl had been set in a turn-of-the-century Western. That night, they played the Putas del Fuego. Literally translated, their name means "whores of fire," and they dressed the part in black ...

Customer Reviews

A Review by Phil Arnold...
Imagine living a fairly quiet life, having come out of the "dog eat dog" corporate world and moved to laid-back Austin, Texas. A real, enjoyable change has taken place in your life. However, one day you go and see a flat track roller derby match, and you are hooked so much by what you have seen, you decide to try out for roller derby.

This is just the beginning of a personal journey by author Melissa Joulwan, aka: Melicious, who describes in her book Rollergirl: Totally True Tales from the Track an amazing adventure that brought an admitted nerd into team sports.

Readers find out that Melicious in fact worked very hard to get as good as she could, and loved skating with her teammates, although after her first regular season, felt there was nothing really satisfying about the team sport aspect of this new activity. That situation would change, and so readers share in that pursuit that saw the formation of skater-owned and operated flat track roller derby, and eventually the formation of well over 150 roller derby leagues throughout the world.

I found this book to be difficult to put down, although Ms. Joulwan's descriptions are so vivid at times I had to slow down and savor her writing. For a roller derby fan like me, it was a thrill to find out how the revival of roller derby in this decade came about. It was fascinating to hear stories like how her first pair of roller derby skates used for tryouts were just the wrong color (white) and so her husband Dave drew an anarchy symbol on them in magic marker to make them derby acceptable.

It is the first of many wonderful stories in this book. Highlights include the story of how a major injury in an uninsured venue, drove a split in the organization she was skating in, and eventually led to a skater-run league that would be the pattern for most emerging roller derby leagues in the next four years. It is also satisfying to read about her many friends and co-league skaters, all of whom seem to have very unique backgrounds that came together in this passionate love of an emerging sport.

And for Melicious, after four years of skating, and being a fan at the first National Flat Track Championship in Tucson, Arizona, a real transformation had taken place. The former nerd and sometimes roller skater had become a teammate, and a sports participant. She had gone from an empty feeling on team sports early in her derby experience, to understanding the artistry and strategy in other team sports.

This book is a must read for fans of roller derby, but I also think it is an excellent read for sports fans in general. As a sports fan, and a former player and coach in sports, this book reminded me of the unique qualities of team sports. Winning games and derby bouts may be nice, but the discipline of sports and the friends who support the effort are invaluable. These teammates and friends are truly treasures of life and I think Ms. Joulwan has done an excellent job of communicating this in Rollergirl: True Tales from the Track.

Fun, informative and full of sass.
When Melissa Joulwan saw her first roller derby bout way back in 2001, she was immediately hooked. Having just moved to Austin and looking for ways to reinvent herself, the chance to become Melicious, a roller derby powerhouse, seemed like the answer to her prayers. Little did she know what she -- and the rest of the world -- was in for.

As a sport that had come in and out of fashion since the Great Depression, roller derby was all but dead when a gang of girls from Austin, Texas got ahold of it. Through hard work, determination, and an unwavering desire to strap on a pair of skates and knock each other over, the Texas Rollergirls single-handedly launched a flat-track roller derby revolution. Currently the fastest growing women's sport in America and boasting over 160 DIY, grassroots leagues in cities across the nation, roller derby has broken barriers, changed lives, and formed countless relationships and communities.

As one of the founding members of the Texas Rollergirls, Melicious has been there from the beginning, and in Rollergirl she spills it all -- the early interleague drama, the first public bouts, the heartbreaking and bone crushing injuries, and the "by the skaters, for the skaters" ethos that has sustained roller derby through thick and thin. A memoir, a history book, a how-to manual, and all told in an intimate, conspiratorial tone, Rollergirl is an epic ode to a sport that's so much more than just a game. You don't have to love derby to get a kick out of Rollergirl, but I dare you to remain indifferent once you finish. In fact, you might just find yourself compelled to don a pair of fishnets and seek out a slice of glory on your own eight wheels.

And somewhere, anywhere, there's a roller derby league waiting with open arms to take you in -- and knock you down.

BY THE SKATERS, FOR THE SKATERS
I loved this book so much!! I could not put it down. It covers everything you should or wanted to know about Women's Flat Track Derby. It's a must read for all rookies with 101 Roller Derby but everyone can relate to something in the book. As a veteran skater, I feel blessed to play one of the fastest growing sports for women! BY THE SKATERS, FOR THE SKATERS. A special thanks to Melissa...and all the Texas Rollergirls.