roller derby

We're proud to announce that our down 'n' derby pals at the Rose City Rollers have chosen Bitch Media as a finalist to be their next community outreach partner! As mega roller derby fans, we'd love the chance to work with the Rollers to promote each other's causes and cheer each other on throughout the season. (For more on the Rose City Rollers, check out our review of Brutal Beauty, a super documentary about them.)



The contest closes on July 30, so vote now and tell your friends to do the same! Vote for Bitch here on the campaign site or here on Facebook!

Whether you hated Whip It due to its Hollywood treatment of roller derby, or you loved it and found yourself jonesin' for more (or you just want to watch a fun documentary about women kicking the crap out of each other in the name of teamwork and sisterhood), you're bound to fall for Brutal Beauty, an action-packed film by Chip Mabry that provides a behind-the-scenes look at the sport of roller derby as told by the women of the Rose City Rollers.

For you Portlanders, Brutal Beauty is playing this week at The Northwest Film Center! More after the jump.

So, I was tooling around the Interwebs the other day trying to find some old-school ladies’ sports footage for that last blog piece, and I stumbled upon some pretty sweet YouTubery—the site is loaded with tons of amazing bits of video that relates to women and sports. I ended up spending the last two days hovered over my laptop trolling through dozens of old newsreels, current news bits, interviews, play-by-play excerpts, and pretty much everything else you could think of, and I found plenty of stuff to pass on, some of it inspiring, some of it totally depressing, but all of it fascinating.

So, kicking things off is the old newsreel obituary for the great Babe Didrikson, who may be the best female athlete to ever live. She died of cancer at the age of 42, after basically kicking ass her entire life. Here’s how ESPN describes her:

The first to prove a girl could be a stud athlete, Babe Didrikson began as a muscular phenom who mastered many sports and ended as a brilliant golfer. An exuberant tomboy whose life was athletics, she was accomplished in just about every sport - basketball, track, golf, baseball, tennis, swimming, diving, boxing, volleyball, handball, bowling, billiards, skating and cycling. When asked if there was anything she didn't play, she said, "Yeah, dolls."

(You can read whole ESPN article here.)

The Didrikson footage kicks off with Hurricane Flossy news, and the Didrikson bit comes in about the 1 minute mark:



More Jock Bitch power pack video picks, after the jump!

Seeing as their last full-length Mountain Battles took six years to come out (when you gotta tour with the Pixies, you gotta tour with the Pixies), it's nice to see the Breeders aren't slowing down any time soon! Fate to Fatal, the four track vinyl, is limited edition, so get your listening on in while the listening's good! Read on for a mini review, the title-track's video, and Kim and Kelley Deal in the (non-recording) studio!