Rollin' with the punches

Let's start this where it needs to start:

I love women. So leggy women in really short nothin' nothin' with fishnets and some serious booty and their cha-chis sometimes popping out of their negligee while they hip-check and push each other around?

LOVE IT!

So I was in some kind of white trash, lesbionic verision of my Own Private Heaven tonight when Bubba, YogaGirl and I went to catch the Rose City Rollers season-ending roller derby championship.

Roller derby reminds me of one of my favorite Really Bad Movies of All Time, Reform School Girls, featuring Wendy O. Williams. It's just very ... naughty. And ridiculously funny at the same time.

I don't think three consecutive minutes were able to pass without Bubba, YogaGirl and I each busting into smiles or spontaneous laughter over the action on the floor. It was sporty and sexy and camp -- all at once.

Tonight's bouts were a sold-out affair, and the stands were so crowded when we arrived that the only place we found to grab a seat was right on the edge of the race track. So for the first hour, we had front row seats to a scene that...

Well, it was a bunch of scantily clad women, many of them dressed in costumes that blended sex with bad-ass in such a way that ... whoa. Lots of tatooes out there on the floor, too. And all the women had amusing names: Slaybia Majora, Vominatrix, International Booty Trap, Apocalipstick, Viva Vendetta, Viagrrra Falls, etc.

My two favorite roller chicks were on a team named the Heartless Heathers. They were a fast group of bad-ass mo-fos, I'm telling you what. And the two baddest asses of all were Sol Train and Sump Pump, both of whom were jammers for their team (along with Vominatrix).

For those of you who may not recall the rules to roller derby ... essentially, each team has a "jammer," the woman who starts in the back of the pack and tries to get past a group of blockers and pivots (pivots being pace-setters, essentially). The blockers do just what it sounds like they do: They try to block anyone getting past. That's were all the funny, campy, hockey-like checking and pushing goes on, as these women whirl around a fairly short, circular flat track. For each blocker and pivot a jammer passes, the team gets a point. If the jammer can lap the pack and pass everyone again, she takes the lead and can call off the race if she wants. Each of the contests lasts for two minutes or less, and they start as many races between the same two teams as are necessary to run out the clock in a 20-minute quarter.

A second set of teams competes in the next quarter, and then in the second half, the teams compete against each other again.

When the game is close, things can get really heated. This, by the way, is not the scripted roller derby of old; instead, it's actual competition that includes all the crazy camp costumes, pushing, blocking and hip-checking of yesteryear.

To get a sense of the competitive spirit at play here, all you needed to do was look at the fierce expression on the face of Sol Train, a river-rafting guide who has massive thighs and the most phenomenal ass you can imagine on a woman -- a real piece of work that made me want to run out and squeeze her butt like it was a bin of Charmin.

She and Sump Pump were favorites of me, Bubba and YogaGirl, and when their team won the whole shebang, we were really jazzed.

In fact, watching those gals swinging around the track was inspiring. YogaGirl said to me, "We totally need to go dig some skates out of somewhere and hit the road."

Only if I get to shoulder-check you a time or two, I replied, giving her the elbow.

"Oh, absolutely," she said. "And throw in a little hip-check, too."

But here's the truth: That roller derby takes some really tough women. The fact that some of them are seriously sexy and circle the track in little panties that say, "Spank me," and "You'd be lucky to get this booty" on them is just the icing in the cake. I'm not sure I know a woman who could hang with that crowd.

Although Bubba and I did have a conversation or two about how well S2 might fare in this sport. She's already got the sparky attitude and a body piercing or two. All she needs is to lose the bottoms from her silky Victoria Secret PJs and throw on some kneepads, and she'd be ready to roll! Except for that part where she weighs like 105 pounds or something. She's a little small.

But then, Bubba and I did have a conversation about whether our little clique from school should work on some kind talent act. We were highly amused by the half-time show performance of the Sprokettes, a collection of women who ride little, itty bitty bikes and do funny, nearly talentless choreographed dances with each other and their little bikes.

The whole of the roller derby event -- from the beginning Jimmy Hendrix-style national anthem to the roar of the crowd as Sump Pump lapped the pack in her final bout -- was a carnival from start to finish. Probably the best $15 I've spent on entertainment all year.

In the end, all I can say is: I love women. And this event was very cha-cha-cha.