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I was sent this recently from a friend involved in the Dockyard Derby Dames league. If you’re interested in All-Girl, Flat-Track Roller Derby, Tacoma’s team is looking for YOU. Here’s their call to action:

The Dockyard Derby Dames (Tacoma’s ONLY all girl flat-track roller derby league) have scheduled tryouts! This means any girl, age 21 and over, that posses grit , determination, and derby desire can come out to our rink on Sunday December 3rd, from 10am to noon, and bid for a spot on our league. Tryouts will be held at the SkateN Station, at 133rd and Pacific Ave. Good exercise, great friends, and awesome fans are all things that are included in the derby experience, but we are also looking for dedicated women that can commit to our practice schedules and be positive team players. Prior experience is not necessary, but good attitudes, determination, and desire to learn are a must!

This will be the first tryout the league has held since March 2006 and open spots are expected to fill up very quickly again. If you attend try-outs you do not need equipment (i.e. helmet, skates, knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, mouth guard, etc.), but if you have any, we encourage you to bring it along.

Pre-registration is a must, though, and can be done by contacting Elysia Smith at leashpj33@yahoo.com or Jennifer Hirst at hirstinterp@yahoo.com . They are also doing a referee clinic for anyone who is interested in being a ref… same date, same time.

We look forward to seeing you ladies soon!
– your one and only Dockyard Derby Dames

These ladies are total rock stars in other cities with Flat-Track teams. What have you got to lose?

There’s a Halloween Party sponsored by Tacoma’s Flat Track Roller Derby team The Dockyard Derby Dames this Saturday at Taboo at 100 S. 9th Ave in downtown Tacoma. Expect to see live music from Splendid Vengance (their spelling, not mine) and Seattle’s Boss Martians will headline the show. This is a costume party and will feature a kissing booth, arm wrestling (think you can take one of these girls?) and what is referred to on the flyer as “dance mayhem”. The flyer was created by el Resident of Jerk Mountain, who’s also been snapping tons of photos of the DDD and Seattle’s Rat City Rollergirls lately.

While I know absolutely nothing about Splendid Vengance (who self-proclaim to be “the greatest rock band in the galaxy!!”), I guarantee The Boss Martians are going to bring it. Are you?

While not quite as poignant as a well-constructed piece from, say The Onion for example, a recent post to the Tacoma blog exit133 seems to echo the flavor of some sentiments recently noted here.

Link to Exit133.com: Carl’s Jr. Expands Into The Arts?

Err. Well. I will be rockin’ the Biodiesel… when it’s time to fill up the tank again. After toying with the idea of buying a new car for a while, I finally caved in last weekend and purchased this 2005 VW Beetle TDI (Turbo Direct Injection) last Saturday. (This photo is from my Lomo.) It was time. My full size GMC 1500 SL was 12 years old and falling apart, and though even with a smaller 4.3L Vortec V6, it wasn’t by any means fuel efficient. After looking at all the options, (hybrids, small gasoline cars and the vw diesel) I chose the diesel Beetle because of it’s fuel efficiency coupled with safety features like full on airbags and Electronic Stability Control (ESC), but the ability to run alternative fuel also played a major role, especially since there are a couple of sources to purchase the stuff—both locally (see Tacoma Biodiesel) and regionally.

It’s no secret. America is addicted to foreign oil. If this isn’t evident, you’re actually under a rock. Call me crazy, but to me, betting on biofuels seems like a more sustainable approach to this problem than trying to beat the fuck out of some people. Or—essentially—our way into oil. This isn’t about politics, so that’s all I’ll say.

So far, so good. Though I initally had to take it back to the dealer because the check engine light came on the first day I drove it around. Proved to be no big deal as there was just a vaccuum line detached. It was a simple fix, thankfully covered under warranty. I’ve driven about 250 miles on 1/2 a tank of petroleum diesel furnished by the dealer. That’s pretty amazing right to me there. I’d barely get better than that from the ginormous 22 gallon tank in the truck. When the tank’s empty, I’ll head over to APP and give the biodiesel a whirl.

The one thing I’ve discovered I don’t like about the little guy: the cupholders suck. They’re stashed down under the dash in front of the automatic transmission and it’s pretty hard to get a drink in there. Whatever. Not a hill to die on.

Volkswagens have keys that function like switchblades. Perhaps there is a biodiesel gang I can join. Me & Willie Nelson. “Watch out, we’ll cut-choo sucker.”

I made mention of a series of recent articles in The News Tribune regarding the opening of a Carl’s Jr. stirring up quite a bit of attention in Tacoma to my friend Kevin who authors Guilty Carnivore and lives down in Portland, OR. Our instant messenger conversation prompted him to offer this particularly astute summary of the breaking “news”.

After a recent trip to Austin, TX, I’ve decided to try out the concept of blind double exposing some film. I’ve got a 24 exposure roll of FujiFilm Superia 400 which I’ve run one time through a Lomo LC-A at 200 ISO. The only thing I’ll reveal about the subject is that the exposures were made in Austin, Texas on Sunday September 17th. I’m looking for someone who shoots film—preferrably someone whom I don’t know—to double expose the film and return it to me. I’ll then develop the film and scan and make prints.

Couple of things: I’d like the subject to be people and I’d like the location to be Tacoma. Other than that, I don’t care what you do. Actually, I really don’t even care if you stick to that. What do you say? If your’e interested in this project at all, contact me. Use the comments field. Or not.

I was downtown a while back. I dropped by the Kulture Lab at the Catapult Gallery. There were a lot of people out and interested in the event. There was some good stuff on display. Blanco Bronco (sorry no photos), The Plastards (photos), Beat Box Fred (photos) and The Fucking Eagles (photos) played a party at the Blacksmith (Jefferson & Fawcett) later in the evening and I brought some 3200 B&W film. I missed most of Blanco Bronco, but liked the last song they played. I mentioned it to their singer later to which he replied “Oh, that one we screwed up?”. I said “Um, yeah, I think so.” The Plastards played next and call me crazy, but I think they had some new songs. Beat Box Fred was at the show, up from Olympia. Fred drops beats—mostly with his mouth and a wireless mic. I think I heard some Moby Dick in there. Hard to say. The Fucking Eagles went on last and included an impromptu “jam” with BBF.

The reason it’s taken me so long to post about this is that I shot with actual film (the horror!) and it’s taken me this long to get everything scanned and some of it up on the web (blah blah blah). I like film. I like the results. It’s a lot more work. I don’t have any photos from the gallery event, I only had black and white film and it didn’t really suit the scene.

A sidecar: evidently, a woman was murdered—shot in the head—around 2:30 AM (well after we left, but still…) near the Fawcett House at 19th & Fawcett. There were some condos going up across the street at 26th & Jefferson.

Tonight at Hell’s Kitchen. The Dockyard Derby Dames are an all-female, amateur, flat-track roller derby league kicking off in Tacoma. Following in the footsteps of teams from cities like Austin, Texas, Seattle and Tucson, Arizona to name a few, the DDD are attempting to raise money for their new league as well as AIDS reaserch. Live bands include: Devil’s Advocates, Sarah Connor, Organic Guerilla, Bell’s Theorem, I Defy. 9pm/$5/21+

Man, I had a busy Saturday. I also popped into Hell’s Kitchen on 6th Avenue to catch Vancouver, BC’s Taboo Revue and caught the Broken Oars playing their version of anthemic punk rock. The show got off to a slow start with some karaoke with made up drunken harlot lyrics, but revved up and ended up being quite entertaining. Watched some uncomfortable squirming when the boylesque started. I didn’t finish the show, Seattle’s Neutral Boy also played, but I just couldn’t hang any longer.

There are photos of Taboo Revue here and Broken Oars here.

Took the dogs down to the South Tacoma Auto Show on South Tacoma Way yesterday afternoon to get them some exercise. The street was blocked off to auto traffic from about 50th St S down to around 58th. The streets were lined with mid-century classic american automobiles the entire way. In particular, I picked up on emblems as a lost design element that is for the most part missing from modern vehicles. There are a bunch of photos from the event on Flickr.

An interesting parallel note, we met a group of people from the Edison neighborhood who were participating in the Edison C.A.R.E.S. Action Team program who were working on their initiative sponsored by the City of Tacoma’s Community Based Services program. The group meets once a week to focus on creating solutions for local issues like clean up, street trash, curbing and lighting maintenance and speeding. All things that have come up in conversations I’ve had with Dionne about what it would take to improve our neighborhood. They’re focusing on the Edison neighborhood, which is south of us, Oakes to Washington, 56th to 66th. If they succeed in simply slowing the traffic on Oakes it would be a major improvement for the area. According to the city’s website, a recent speed sting in Edison netted $2,700 in tickets issued for speeding violations.

Oakes has a 30 mph speed limit, though routinely people buzz through here like it’s a the freeway. It’s scary sometimes. In spite of my usual support for privacy, I’ve even said aloud we should go the Lakewood route and install cameras, as long as a proper appeal process is in place. 5 mph over? Yeah, too bad. Ticket. Slow down. The volunteers told me most of the speeders were from other neighborhoods around the region. Well… duh? Who would speed into their own driveway?

While not without it’s share of issues, South Tacoma is still an affordable option for living in the city without paying exorbitant prices North End homes pull in. Especially as projects like this succeed in polishing up the area. A while back, I ran across a Tacoma city map circa 1887 (via exit133.com) which indicates that the entire area of Tacoma was formerly connected via cable car lines. While the light rail system downtown is nice. It doesn’t do much for connecting the entire community of Tacoma. (Or much of anything for anyone for that matter. Every time I’ve been on it, it’s been almost empty.) It might be an interesting proposition to connect all the areas of Tacoma in a manner similar to what Portland has done with it’s MAX light rail.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that downtown Tacoma is getting lots of attention, but there are other areas in town that could really use some love too. By romanticizing the idea that downtown Tacoma is going to become an urban utopia, and in doing so is going to auto-magically make Tacoma the greatest city ever, collectively we may be unable to see the forest for the trees.

I guess this post is not just about the auto show, but it was still pretty cool.