STEPH DEROSA: GRRRRRRR >>>

Cookies ‘n’ MILF of Tacoma’s Dockyard Derby Dames hates me. I’m most certain.  Every opportunity she gets to rub in my face the fact that she is having fun with roller derby and I’m not, she takes it.  This time she sends an e-mail listing out the Dockyard Derby Dames upcoming season’s bouts, how much fun everyone will have, how easy it is to get tickets, and how cold, large, and cheap ($3) the beers are going to be.

Bitch.

If you care anything about seeing scantily clad women beat each other up on skates, then I suppose this information was meant for you as well.  As jealous as I am that Cookies ‘n’ MILF could kick my ass and look damn hot doing it, I suppose I’ll go ahead and share these dates:

• BOUT 1: Sunday March 29, Auburn Skate Connection, 1825 Howard Road, Auburn, doors @ 5 p.m.
• 
BOUT 2: Saturday, May 9, Tacoma Soccer Center, 2610 Bay St. E. Tacoma, doors @ 5 p.m.

• BOUT 3: Saturday, June 13, Tacoma Soccer Center, 2610 Bay St. E., Tacoma, doors @ 5 p.m.

• BOUT 4: Saturday, July 18, Tacoma Soccer Center, 2610 Bay St. E., Tacoma, doors @ 5 p.m.

• BOUT 5: Saturday, Sept. 12, Tacoma Soccer Center, 2610 Bay St. E., Tacoma, doors @ 5 p.m.

• CHAMP BOUT: Saturday, Oct. 24, Tacoma Soccer Center, 2610 Bay St. E., Tacoma, doors @ 5 p.m.

Ticket information can be found at the Dockyard Derby Dames' Web site.

MATT DRISCOLL: LIKE A PRO >>>

In case you haven't seen the photo of Olympic gold medal collector Michael Phelps hitting the bong at a college party last November, here's what everyone's been talking about.

Of course, lots of people hit the bong - and some just use Mt. Dew cans - but when a guy like Phelps gets caught burning one on camera, well, it's bound to cause a stir. And it has.

It shouldn't, really. But it has.

STEPH DEROSA: DOODLE LA, DOODLE LA, DOODLE LA >>>

Alfredâ's Cafe & Bubble Room on Puyallup Avenue is THE place to catch a Seahawk's game.  With a plethora of mirrors, you can't help but either hate yourself for not looking in a mirror before you left the house, or watch the damn television.  Not that there isn't a huge flat screen in front of you everywhere you look, but the mirrors make it impossible for anyone to catch a bad seat in the house.  Add a grand bar, cold beer, and Alfred's extensive bar food menu to that Seahawk's game and you got yourself a case of testosterone overload.  Ah yes, the warm, fiery scent of testosterone - a perfect thing to be overloaded with on a Sunday morning, if you ask me.

As I took a much-needed break in order to re-collect my estrogen, I pondered the upcoming football season, the fall, and the holidays to come.  I mentally took a look back at 2008, at everything I've been fortunate enough to take part in and experience.  Instead of writing out my memoirs and developing intense thumb-cramps, I've decided to put together a little recollection video. 

Thank you Destruction Island for creating the tunes you are about to hear.

STEPH DEROSA: O CANADA! >>>

Once again, Tacoma’s very own flat track roller derby league, the Dockyard Derby Dames, are out for blood. This time they’ve suckered our skating neighbors up north â€" Calgary Roller Derby Association â€" into the Tacoma Soccer Center. Calgary Roller Derby must not know how to say “kick ass” in French, because these Canadians obviously have no idea what they’ve signed themselves up for: A world of American derby fury!

In honor of this Saturday’s international roller derby showdown, I’ve revamped the Canadian National Anthem, done Dockyard style. If I’m not already on my way, I’m definitely going to hell after this one:

O Canada!

You’ve come to skate our land!
True derby love in all fishnets command.

With spinning wheels we see thee fall,
Dockyard Dames strong and free!

She spreads them wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Refs keep our beer ice cold and free!

O Canada, we’ll give a bruise to thee.

O Canada, we’ll prep the medics for thee!

The Halftime show will be live music by Reality Check Juniors. The after party invades Puget Sound Pizza. Steph DeRosa waives all liability of any ass kickings due to the nature of above anthem parody. Please don’t hurt me.

[Tacoma Soccer Center, 7 p.m., $10-$12, 2610 Bay St E., Tacoma]

Levi Meinzer was not the first person in my downtown circles that I would imagine as a father.  Pictured here with his happy child, Persephone, he seems to be doing an excellent job. 

In the day Levi was one of the few people brave enough (or crazy enough) to drop Tacoma's hills on a skate-deck.  Always friendly and surprising me with his knowledge of the astral world, he and his brother, Eli, were often my compatriots outside of the old Kickstand Cafe.  Since then he has moved to Fox Island, where he lived in a cabin with the love of his life and now baby's mamma. 

Levi is one of those kids that no matter where he goes or what he does, will always and forever be Tacoma.  The grit spirit has him by the balls, and he wears it on his sleeves.   

A short time employee of University Place-based alternative sportswear company One Ball Jay, Levi is currently the operator of the Pink Mail-Jeep ice cream truck with his sister, Jasmine.  A calm and soft-spoken fellow, I have always known him to be friendly and level headed - the type of gentleman that I would take with me if I had a meeting with some leg-breaker loan sharks under the bridge of the new China Gardens.

BRAD ALLEN: SCHOONER GOES BIG FOR FOOTBALL >>>

The Schooner Pub in Lakewood is ready for football season. Everybody knows they installed a big screen television on their deck¬" at least all the smokers do.

And everybody knows they carry most of the college and pro games, which start this weekend.

But do you know their popular Saturday College Breakfast and Sunday Pro Breakfast start Sept. 6 and 7, 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., respectively?  If you don't, then let me advise you to arrive early. It's a freakin' packed madhouse of various uniforms and enthusiasm.

STEVE DUNKELBERGER: AROUND AND AROUND THEY WENT >>>

Roller derby in Tacoma is just one of those things that defines surreal. First there are hot chicks in torn fishnet stockings and tons of makeup on roller skates. And then there are their children jumping around with pom-poms and signs of encouragement. It's a mix of tramp stamps peaking through low rise jeans and halter tops and children in Sponge Bob Squarepants pajamas chugging down juice from their sippy cups.

Saturday night at the Dockyard Derby Dames bout at The Soccer Center in Tacoma there were crowds ranging from grandmothers to toddlers in training pants, from dudes in muscle shirts to suburban housewives in their weekend finery.

Such is a night when the Dockyard Derby Dames find themselves on the playbill.

The 3-year-old dames are Tacoma’s all-female roller derby league that has bouts once per month until the season championship in October. The dames have four teams: Maurading Mollys, Femme Fianas, The Trampires and Hellbound Homewreckers. The all-stars from these teams make up the touring team that finds itself around the nation.

Here's a primer for anyone unwashed in the ways of roller derby:

One woman from each team, called the pivot, leads the other roller derby skaters to set the pace of the teams. Each team has three blockers right behind the pivot that are supposed try to block players from passing. One Jammer from each team then tries to pass the pack of blocker and pivot to score points. They earn one point for each player they pass. Matches are 20 minutes long and made up of jams, which are when all of the players get into position.

Between the starting whistle and the end of the jam are blocks and spills that can send players spinning into the safety pads. Safety and common sense dictate that skates can legally bump and nudge only with their shoulders and hips â€" no hands allowed or the offender faces time in the penalty box, which is often full.

Next bouts

• Travel Team Bouts: Saturday, Sept. 27 at the Tacoma Soccer Center.
• The Dockyard Derby Dames will hold tryouts at the Auburn Skate Connection Sunday, Oct. 5.

Visit their Web site here.

BRAD ALLEN: THROWDOWN IN THE SOUND >>>

Steph DeRosa drilled it into your heads that the men were to strap on the skates and do it derby style March 8 at the Tacoma Soccer Center. 

It went down.  And it was dirty.

Photographer extraordinaire Philip Peterson got up close and personal for the Weekly Volcano. 

Enjoy.

Since our Derby Dame Steph DeRosa was down and out with the flu, read up on the Throwdown action on All About Derby.

Minnesota T.C. Terrors warming up before the match.
Falling pla yers in a match between the T.C. Terrors and the Diamond City Death Kings.
Pileup about to happen between the T.C. Terrors and the Diamond City Death Kings.
T. C. Terrors player sliding into the crowd.
Scorekeepers Slim Finnegan (left) and Paula Bunion (right) sliding back to their stations.
Puget Sound Outcast player takes a spill vs. Dallas Deception.
Puget Sound Outcasts vs Minnesota's T. C. Terrors.
Injured Dallas Deception player before medical attention arrives.
Quadzilla of the Puget Sound Outcast showing off between games.
Pennyslvania Diamond City Death Kings vs Puget Sound Outcasts.
One of the orginizers, Nancy Hardagain of the Tacoma Dockyard Dames

BOBBLE TIKI: SLUGABED, TWO SHOWS, MAHJONGG >>>

THE DAILY WORD

Slugabed \SLUHG-uh-bed\, noun:
One who stays in bed until a late hour; a sluggard.

USAGE EXAMPLE: Weekly Volcano Music Columnist Matt Driscoll may, perhaps, be the most dedicated slugabed Bobble Tiki has ever met. Somehow, through marriage and the birth of his first child, Driscoll has managed to sleep into a.m.’s double digits seventy-five percent of the time. While many people disapprove of Driscoll’s late sleeping ways (just apparently not his wife), Bobble Tiki admires his perseverance. Most people would grow up and stop being lazy. Not Driscoll. He’s a fighter.

MORNING NEWS

SEATTLE: Cops will kick your ass

TACOMA: Free full-day kindergarten

OLYMPIA:Panhandler crackdown

WORLD: Harry's cover blown

HUSTLER OF CULTURE
You can stand atop the mountain and scream your naked desires to the universe or shed that synapse epilepsy and hug the South Sound today with your fellow man:

MUSIC: Bobble Tiki’s not a psychic, but he does have ESPN. Bobble Tiki predicts two shows will challenge you tonight, making it difficult to decide which to attend. Bobble Tiki predicts www.myspace.com/girltrouble ">Girl Trouble, Guns and Rossetti, and the www.myspace.com/freakouts ">Freakouts will tear up Club SOTA tonight, and ‘90s powerhouse Floater will unleash a bit of grunge on Hell’s Kitchen. Which show you attend is up to you.

MORE MUSIC: What’s on tonight
REAL STORY: Evergreen riot
FORUMS: Check ‘em out

THREATS AND PROMISES COLUMN
When Bobble Tiki listened to Mahjongg, who released Kontab on Feb. 22, their latest record and first on K, he felt like he had a grasp on where these guys were coming from. Their influences are across the board, delving into afro beat as much as electronica and distortion, but their songs remain digestible and almost catchy at times. Bobble Tiki felt like he’d found a band in Mahjongg (named after an ancient Chinese game of strategy and luck) that he understood. Bobble Tiki knew they were arty, but he didn’t feel alienated

Breakfast with Bobble Tiki runs six days a week now. Deal with it.

STEPH DEROSA: ABOUT EXPO BOUT >>>

Last Sunday marked the Good vs. Evil Dockyard Derby Dames expo bout, kicking off the 2008 roller derby season for our beloved Tacoma gals on wheels. The Skate N Station housed a large crowd of roller derby fans who sipped Miller High Life and cheered on their favorite short-skirt-wearing ladies. Cop A. Phil and Nacho Daddy were emcee partners in crime, The Leprekunt served the masses plenty of cold brews, and All Bout Derby sat sidelines as he watched his hometown league get downright dirty.

I was especially appreciative of our neighboring Navy City Rollergirls who pitched in, volunteered, and did it all with such grace and magnificence.

The award for cutest roller girls in the joint went to the A-Town Derby Dollz. Those pint-sized skaters may look cute, but they can take down any unsuspecting 12-year-old without even batting an eyelash.

The bout was a pure thrashing by both teams, and remained neck-and-neck through most of the bout. Team Good ended the bout with a crushing 109 points, beating Team Evil.

All of the girls looked especially beautiful and confident.

I want to really toss a huge compliment out to the Dames: It is incredible how solid and professional you all have become since your first season/first bout on May 5, 2007. There is an amazing difference in talent, showmanship and skill. Doxy Crux’s proud of you girls, and it kind of chokes me up a bit how much you’ve grown.

If you’re interested in trying out for the Dockyard Derby Dames, make your way out to the Skate N Station Sunday, March 2 from 10 a.m. to noon.

The first “official” bout (this last one was an expo bout) for the 2008 season will be April 5 at the Tacoma Soccer Center. If you’re like me and can’t wait that long, stop by the Throwdown in the Sound at the Soccer Center on March 8 to watch some men get physical on skates.