Well, I have officially entered into the podcasting world thanks to Springfield’s M.E.O. Podcast, which featured Ms. Sandra Day O’ Slaughter and yours truly this week. I really encourage you to go listen and support Eric and Merr, who invite Springfield-area artists, musicians, comedians and even roller girls onto their show for an hour of hilarity and great conversation. It’s an incredibly well-produced podcast that’s highly entertaining, and best of all, free to you.
Having never done a podcast before, I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but one of the hosts, Eric, is such a professional that he’s already working on getting advertising and sponsors, and he’s begun to expand into a full network. So obviously, the experience was amazing. The Owl is intrigued and hoping to start a comics podcast after Merr, the other host, continues to bring up his love of Marvel Comics over DC (something we discussed… so please listen to it here!).
We were representing the Springfield Roller Girls, but interestingly enough, the two of us were the first females to ever be featured on the show. So that in itself was pretty cool. And despite my fears of rambling on and on, which I can sometimes do, I think it turned out pretty well. We did talk about derby a lot, but we delve into comics, but we talk, too, about one of the most important things that derby has brought to so many of us ladies: empowerment.
My fellow derby sister—the lovely New Pound Glory—blogged about it today and I think was extremely poignant about something I said. I explained that eventually, derby girls just quit taking the punches life gives us. Specifically I was talking about my last job, which, at times, I loved, but for the most part, I actually hated and felt like it was sucking the life out of me and forcing me to compromise who I am in order to sell, sell, sell. Now that I no longer work there, I have realized something: I never want to go back to a place like that again. And my derby sisters who are in the same boat, I have learned, feel exactly the same way. Case in point: this quote from New Pound Glory.
I wouldn’t call derby girls… negative or rude or brash (although we can, indeed, be all those things).. I just think that there comes that point when roller derby creates in us this empowered, strong, raging woman, and we can’t deal with things that hold us down, or keep us back from being who we are, achieving the things that we want.
Derby has done this for me.
Derby has changed the way I see the world, the way I view women and women-owned/operated organizations, men, jobs.. Everything.
So many people have this preconceived notion of what being a roller girl is all about. And generally, they’re wrong. Believe what you want. But ask any roller girl and I can guarantee you’ll hear these words come out of her mouth:
Roller derby saved my soul.
And she won’t care whether you believe it or not.
Listen to our full podcast here:
<3
that is all. 🙂