My girls were out of town this weekend and last night was the second home game of the NO Town Roller Derby, so I rounded up my buddies Jon and Jeff and we went to watch us some roller derby. For those who aren’t familiar with roller derby, it’s a game played by women on skates, who skate around a marked track and bash the crap out of each other. I think there’s points involved too. It sounds weird I agree, but it’s great fun.
We thoroughly enjoyed the game and watched our girls give a king sized butt whipping to the Prison City Derby Dames and afterward we hung out for a few minutes to talk to some of the girls. Several of them are nurses, which I find ironic, and one works with us at the hospital. So we’re getting ready to go and Jon realizes he can’t find his keys. The staff is already breaking down the hall and putting everything away and it quickly becomes obvious that if he dropped them and somebody picked them up, we are not going to find them until Monday at the earliest. So he goes out to the parking lot to see if he left them in his truck, and yep, there they are, dangling from the ignition.
So no problem right? You call your road side assistance and we’re off. Except that Jon wasn’t carrying his insurance card so he has no idea who to call. Great. Well I have my AAA card, so I get on the horn and Jon goes over to some derby girls to see if he can borrow a hanger or something. They actually have one and he comes back and starts fiddling with it. After about 15 minutes of trying to break into his car he’s having no luck and gives up. A few minutes later the tow truck pulls up. So the tow guy gets out of the truck, pulls out what looks exactly like a coat hanger, and in no less than 20 seconds the car is open. I suddenly realize that’s a skill I would love to have, just to show off at parties.
We now have travel capabilities and it’s still relatively early so we decide to hit the after party. It’s at a club called North Tower Circle which none of us had ever heard of so we head over to check it out. When we get there we realize it’s the old Ewell’s Garden, a complete dump that used to be a regular stop on the Fresno rock circuit about 15 years ago. Cool! We walk in and the place is really nice! Nice pool tables, flat screens everywhere, two bars, big dance floor, nice decor, I mean they really fixed it up nice and we’re asking ourselves how come nobody ever talks about this place?
Then I see a guy on the dance floor with a mic and he’s asking the crowd to cheer for some girls he has up there. But he’s calling them lesbians. That’s odd, how do you pick three lesbians out of a crowd at random? Then he’s talking about the prop 8 fiasco and telling everyone they should be proud. What? Then I see a GayFresno banner on the wall and realize that the flat screens are showing pictures of sweaty dudes. Holy crap…… we’re in a gay bar…. and we have full beers.
It’s a weird feeling realizing that you are suddenly so far out of your element it’s not funny. It’s a combination of embarrassment and panic tempered with anxiety. I suddenly had these completely unreasonable images in my head of being chased out of the bar by a guy in a leather vest and a big bushy mustache. Jon suddenly looked like a deer in headlights. Jeff’s laughing his butt off.
Once the initial shock subsided, it was really not that much unlike any other bar scene. Of course it was roller derby night so there were far more women there than would probably usually be there. The only girls I saw that weren’t in roller derby outfits were a few older women sporting the serious butch look, and a large “gal” sitting at a table who’s square chin and broad shoulders led me to believe that she did not have female private parts under her dress, though I certainly can’t vouch for that. The one guy walking around with no shirt, leather wrist bands and a leather vest was also something you don’t see at a straight bar. Aside from those few stereotypical standouts though, the crowd was a pretty normal looking crowd and for some reason I was surprised at the number of older men (50 and up) there.
Alright since everyone is going to ask; NO, no one hit on us, although one guy did ask Jon what his shirt meant (he had a Google Mini shirt on, which is a search server for corporations), but I don’t think that was a come on. And not getting hit on at a gay bar is certainly a good thing, but now I’m wondering if I should be offended? Am I the ugly chick at the gay bar or something? What’s up with that?? Ah well, I think I’ll just let myself believe that I am so freaking manly that everyone could plainly see that I’m straight so they didn’t bother. Yeah, that’s what it was.
So we finished our beers and headed out unscathed. It was a heck of an evening I gotta say. The next home roller derby match is on July 11th. Be there!
