Come Celebrate the Winter Holidays with The Outfit!

This Friday, December 18
7 - 10PM
Plan B in Wicker Park (1635 N Milwaukee)
There will be white elephant gifts, but I don't think there will be any of the pain that is normally part of that game.
Please come party down with us. We want to tell you how much we miss you, but it has to be in person.

Spotlight On... #666 Suzie Crotchrot

You couldn't tell it from the name, but Suzie Crotchrot is probably the unofficial "jokester" of the Chicago Outfit. What a crazy character THIS one is!
If she ain't crackin' bones, she's crackin' wise! Oh ho ho ho!
If she ain't splittin' heads, she's splittin' sides! Hee hee hee hee!
When the penalty box timer tells her to stand, she takes that as a cue to do standup comedy! Ah ha ha ha!
When she's told to go out and jam, she breaks out a guitar and plays Van Halen! Heh heh heh heh!
She tells jokes! [chokes on own saliva]
Anyway, this Spotlight works best if you play each YouTube clip as it comes up. Enjoy the comedy, everyone.
[slips on banana peel; falls into bottomless pit]

Sports before roller derby: Long Distance Projectile Puking, reigning champ since '94.



Signature move: My signature move is hitting on your younger brother when you aren't looking.



Notable injuries: My only notable injury was "messing up my knee." I still don't know exactly what happened to it, but the S.O.B. took me out for a majority of the season. Not being able to bout and practice with my ladies was a sad feeling. With that said, I fell so hard on my butt that I got this crack in it now. Can this be fixed?



Best team derby moment: SWEEPING the Fall Brawl 2008 Non-WFTDA bracket. When the Outfit first joined up in late 2007 they got together the few girls they had, scribbled Chicago Outfit on whatever white shirts they had and signed up to play the Fall Brawl '07 and were eliminated in the very first round. When we were invited back to the tournament in 2008, it was a COMPLETELY different story. The league had been working really hard and bouting some solid teams that season. All we really wanted to do was just play hard and do the damn thing. We came in as a force and wanted to show the derby world that we meant some serious fucking business, and we did. There's an epic group picture of us when we received our trophy and everyone just looks so happy.

Best personal derby moment: When I received the Rookie of the Year 2008 award. I had no idea that I would even be considered for that and was completely floored when I heard my name get called. Very honorable mention goes to all derby road trips in Chico or Sweet's car where we laughed the hardest and shared the best stories.

Favorite/rival non-Outfit skater: Ying O Fire and Hoosier Mama of WCR, Maura Buse of the Boston Derby Dames

Number of tattoos: I have 7 tattoos, with plenty more on their way. Sorry, mom! At least I'm not bleaching my hair blonde?

What you do when you're not skating: Flirting with you and taking your tips at New Wave Coffee; preparing for the Zombie apocalypse.

Favorite place in Chicago: (1) The Orbit Room. Ali the bartender is the best!!! (2) Irazu, for delicious Costa Rican food on the cheap. (3) Quimby's Book Store, for sweet books and zines. (4) Anywhere Dj Zebo spins for funfunsuperhappy dancepartytime.

Favorite drink: The blood of infants, chilled, in a highball glass.



Movie you hate that everyone else likes: The Saw series. What are they up to now? 6? How did that even happen?! I'll seriously judge you if you say that's one of your favorite movies. Honorable mention also goes to Twilight. (Sorry, Smashley.)

Favorite article of clothing: I am a t-shirt queen. Every time I go out of town or out in general, I will go out of my way to find a shop with some neat t-shirts to add to the arsenal. Horror/roller derby/local band shirts run my collection for the most part. My favorite out of those has to be my Return of the Living Dead t-shirt with reworked cover art that has "Do You Wanna Party? It's Party Time" printed on the front and the sleeves cut off. I hate sleeves. I will cut the sleeves off of every damn shirt I have!

Guilty pleasures: Picking my nose, popping zits, looking up videos of French Bulldog puppies doing cute things.

Tell us something you probably shouldn't: I can be sweet. Don't go expecting it, though!

Give us some advice: Eat two raw cloves of garlic before you go to bed and after you wake up to make your cold ease up. I SWEAR IT WORKS.

Draw yourself in MSPaint:




And that's all she wrote... literally! These are the jokes, folks!
[gets hooked offstage]

Spotlight On... #08 Erin Watershow

Holy guacamole. We are back. Who is the skater that will be showing us a window into her mind this week? It's Erin Watershow, dudes and dudettes.
Fun fact: Erin takes her name from Chicago's Air & Water Show. For an amount of time this blog editor is embarrassed to admit, he thought the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum was actually called the "Aaron Space Museum." He wondered who this Aaron guy was and what kind of space adventures he had to give the government enough reason to name a space museum after him. Never mind the fact he had been inside and seen a lot of non-space aircraft on display. Idiot.
Anyway, on with the Erin Watershowing.

When/how you first got involved with roller derby: Last winter, my roommate came home from work one day with a flyer and asked, "Would you maybe wanna try out for roller derby with me?" and I was like "Hell yeah!" A month later, I went to my first new recruit practice; it was love at first sight.

Sports before roller derby: Mainly dance. I studied ballet, tap, and jazz from the time I could walk until I graduated high school. I also did synchronized swimming (yes, really) as well as swim team.

Best team derby moment: One word: ROLLERCON

Best personal derby moment: Coming back and defeating Demolition City's B Team this summer with the Shade Brigade [the Outfit's B Team]. I have never been prouder of myself or my teammates.

Worst personal derby moment: If I told you, I'd have to kill you :)

Favorite/rival non-Outfit skater: I developed a bit of a derby crush watching Smarty Pants play at RollerCon.

Number of tattoos: 1, a tooth! I come from a family of dentists. Six to be exact, soon to be seven.

Still-to-come tattoos: I really want the Goodyear blimp on my left arm to show my hometown pride. Akron, Ohio: it's the rubber capital of the world.

What you do when you're not skating: I work for a children's photographer, blotting the drool off of kids' faces.

Favorite place in Chicago: The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool in Lincoln Park. If you haven't been there, go.

Favorite word: "Unscathed." I like the way it feels when you say it.

Guilty pleasures: Suzie's cheese fries and milkshakes, watching Lost, listening to Kiss FM, and collecting old crap that serves no purpose but to clog up my shelves (old broken cameras, typewriters, cool trophies, outdated globes, thermoses, the list goes on and on)

Tell us something you probably shouldn't: Sometimes I won't do my laundry for months. Once my hamper is full, I'll pile the overflow of dirty clothes onto my bed and just carve out a little space to sleep in.

Give us some advice: "Fear the goat from the front, the horse from the rear, and (wo)man from all sides."

Draw yourself in MSPaint: I went to art school. Can you tell?



Please, folks, support art in your local schools.
Thanks for the good times today, E. Watershow. Maybe we can all go for a ride sometime on the S.S. Outfit, though it doesn't really look like it could carry more than a few stick figures. Guess it's time for all of us to hit the gym.

Spotlight On... #M80 Sweet Mary Pain

Welcome back, folks. Today, we meet with the captain and peer-voted Most Valuable Player of the 2009 Chicago Outfit (and champion of the United States), Sweet Mary Pain. Given her work ethic, it's not surprising Sweet Mary Pain takes a somewhat straightforward, professional angle in her responses. Maybe if you make enough silly faces at her, you might see her crack a smile.

When/how you first got involved with roller derby: I first heard of the Rat City Rollergirls many years ago when i was living in Ithaca, NY. Without any explanation of the game, I knew I wanted to play. Unfortunately, Ithaca didn't have a league at the time, and I had to wait until I moved to Chicago in September 2007 to join what would become the Chicago Outfit.

Sports before roller derby: I played a million sports before derby in high school including, Swimming, Tennis, Volleyball, Basketball and Soccer, yeah, I'm kinda a jock. While I don't think I'm necessarily more athletic than anyone as a result of my experience with sports, I do think I had a better understanding of the formula of coaching and practice than most people do coming into sports for the first time.

Signature move: I wouldn't say I really have a signature move. When I first started jamming, I was a juking fool and would waste all my energy with a lame fakes left and right that didn't really work. I've calmed it down since then, 'cause one very convincing juke is much more effective than a bunch of lame wiggling behind a blocker. Hopefully now my juking is a little more convincing and effective.

Notable injuries: I've been very lucky with injuries. They've all been minor. I've broken a rib, twisted my knee, broken a dumb pinky finger, and finally had concussion or two. The worst was totally the concussion. I don't like my brain getting busted. It feels weird.

Best team derby moment: There are so many awesome team moments with the Outfit both on and off the track it's hard to pick just one. I have on the track moments when our replacement blocking is on point and we just relentlessly push the opposing jammer one after the other to the outside of the track. Replacement blocking, although it's a simple strategy, only works when the team is really functioning cohesively and when the skaters are willing to temporarily abandon their position in the pack, trusting their teammates will pick up where they left off. It's those moments when we exhibit the most trust in our teammates that gives me that special feeling.

Best personal derby moment: I don't really have a best personal derby moment. There are some instances where I certainly feel great about a particular jam but mostly I tend to fixate on the things I need to work on. This isn't necessarily destructive or negative. Being able to recognize what I have to improve on makes it more achievable.

Worst personal derby moment: The worst derby moments for me only happen off the track. It's been a lot of work for me learning how to communicate with my teammates constructively and with empathy. I'm extremely diligent and have very high standards for myself, and in the beginning, it was hard not to hold all skaters to my personal standards. Of course, that was unfair, and I've been working on trying to be more motivating and accessible to the rest of my teammates. I guess the hardest part has been understanding complicated team dynamics.

Favorite/rival non-Outfit skater: I have a million players that I love to watch and learn from. I try to watch girls that are successful with my body type and play my position. Right now I am very interested in DeRanged from Rocky Mountain Rollergirls. She's a former speed skater turned jammer who is just awesome and aggressive.

What you do when you're not skating: When I'm not skating, I'm studying and that's all, ugh. I'm in a premed post bach program at Northwestern, and one day, many years from now, if everything goes right, I could be your doctor. Yeah, get scared.

Sweet Mary Pain declined to draw herself in MSPaint, so it looks like we're going to have to do it ourselves.



Aw, jeez. Why'd you have to go and do that to The Shoveler, everyone's favorite referee? He even gave you lead. What more do you want? And you know he hates it when skaters exploit the lack of rules on laser beam eyes.
Okay, enough of this nonsense. Join us next week when we look for more ways to alter images so it looks like we are killing referees.