P.C. Shannon

Forbes.com recently ran a list of the biggest private companies in the country, and it was with some pride that I saw my favorite local grocer, HEB, come in at number 11, with 2005 revenues of $12.4 billion. Consider that Hollywood’s domestic box office is projected to pass $9 billion this year. Not too shabby.

To the best of my knowledge, Austin is the origin of the current resurgence in rollerderby. We have two leagues, TXRD and Texas Rollergirls. I’m not sure what the beef between them is, but I assume there is one, since there are two of them and they never play against each other. Even though both leagues have been around for a few years, Caroline and I have only ever been to one match, a bout in the Texas Rollergirls league.

In January, the A&E channel premiered their Rollergirls show, which followed the TXRD league. I don’t know if I would have followed the show if I didn’t live in Austin, but thanks to the magic of Tivo, we saw all the episodes. For me, part of the interest was just in supporting local, uh, culture. It was also strangely fascinating to see very familiar places on television.

It has been even stranger seeing the girls from the show around town. Most of our encounters have been at the regular 80’s dance night on Sundays at Elysium. The experience was kind of a cross between seeing a celebrity and (because the show exposed their private lives, as much as any “reality” program does) running into an old friend.

Any lingering notions I had that reality show were real, however, was shattered by witnessing the girls’ behavior. I don’t want to name names, but one girl, who came across as very mild mannered and reserved on television, turns out to be really very crazy. Another, who was one of the more colorful characters on the show, I can only describe as even skankier in person.

For Caroline’s birthday, we went to a TXRD bout, and finally got to see our televised friends in action live. It was a blast. Going to rollerderby is kind of like attending the female version of a hockey match, because you spend half the game just waiting for a fight to break out. And fight they did! One girl got her shirt torn off and was ejected from the game.

Being familiar with girls on both teams, we couldn’t decided which one to cheer for. I ended up taking my father’s route and cheering for a good game. I was not disappointed. The bout was close throughout and undecided until the very end.

Rollerderby leagues are springing up all over the country, from New York City to Phoenix, Kansas City, and even Caroline’s hometown of Richmond. I like to think that it started right here. Now that I’ve had a taste of the all-girl rollerderby, I’m hooked and ready for more.

On Wednesday night, both Caroline and I had our cars broken into. This has happened to me before, but this time was much more unsettling. Previously, some crackhead smashed the window on my pickup truck and nabbed my portable CD player, which I paid $20 for at Best Buy. The real pain there was having to replace the window.

In the current circumstance, our cars were sitting in front of our house, and there was no “breaking in” per se as both cars were unlocked. The theives—who we figure were just some kids from the neighborhood—took some CDs from my car, nothing from hers. The unsettling part is that this happened in our tranquil little subdivision miles from downtown and other sketchy areas.

I keep thinking about the part in Fahrenheit 9/11 where Michael Moore goes to Canada and starts walking into people’s homes to see if they lock the doors or not (the film makes it seem as though there are no locked homes in Canada). He starts a conversation with one guy, asking the man has ever experienced a break-in. Just some liquor, probably taken by local teenagers.

I guess that’s my conundrum. I’m not really upset about the actual theft—although it is annoying to have to repurchase like 8 CD—my mind is filled with images of home invasions and Elizabeth Smart and so on. (And for all the worried parents out there, we do lock the doors at night.) But I don’t want to have to lock my car at night. I want to believe that we live in an area where such precautions are unnecessary.

But clearly that’s not the case. I guess the solution is to only keep burned copies of my CDs in the car.