SPEAKER_06 0:27

Welcome everyone to a very special episode of Good Morning Charlie, a Charlie's Angels Rewatch podcast. I am here with my incredible co-host.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Hi everybody, I am Colby Smith, and this is a special mini episode of Good Morning Charlie. Who is joining us today, Chris?

SPEAKER_06 0:46

Oh, good gravy. This is like those very special episodes we would see on TV like Blossom, where you knew something really big was going to be discussed. One of the dearest people in my life is with us this evening, Morgan Rose.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Hi guys.

SPEAKER_06 1:02

Thank you for coming on the a very special mini soda of Good Morning Charlie. Morgan and I worked together several years ago, and as we became BFFs, I learned something startling yet somehow not surprising. And that fact is Morgan used to be a roller derby goddess. Tell us about when you were you just on the one team. Tell us what year that what tell us all about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yes. Um, so 150 years ago, in the year of our born, 2009, um, I joined and helped to form the Chattanooga Roller Girl. And um, yeah, so in our episode of Charlie's Angels that we have all watched and deeply enjoyed, they were on a banked track, which is the round, angled, kind of scary, slopey roller derby track. And in the early 2000s in Austin, Texas, roller derby made a bit of a comeback. And when the ladies in Austin started to try to use those kinds of tracks, they realized a few things very quickly. They're huge, they're hard to store, they're expensive, and they are a really great way to break your legs.

SPEAKER_06 2:24

And so, oh, so they're not permanent.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

So they're not permanent. You have to like erect them, you have to take them apart, they're not like many tons to carry and store. And as you saw, you can flip over the rails and then someone could break your neck on purpose or by accident.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Well, right.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Someone could just murder you at any moment. They're very dangerous. Most of the time, when you see people doing roller derby, they're wearing very little. One of the things that I was always very upset about is that I am very short statured, while roller derby girls will always wear knee pads, elbow pads, helmets, and mouth guards. Generally, they will also wear fishnet stockings, which is very scandalous.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

I haven't seen that.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Except I'm very short. And so you could only see about two inches of my not tech feet tab and about an inch of my knot. It's very short and it was very upsetting. I wanted to have long, luxurious thighs to show off the fishnet. So I was mad about that from the beginning. The Women's Flat Track Derby Association, which is WFTDA, started in Texas, which was the group that sort of laid out the rules and all that. For roller derby. Yes. And so we were talking earlier for a second about the roller derby names. Yes. And so everybody got to choose their moniker, right? Because you weren't really supposed to use your real name. And to do that, you had to go to the registrar, the like list, which I was saying earlier was like a geo city.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

You gotta ask Jeeves.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Yeah, pretty much ask Jeeves. It was like Firefox GeoCities, like under construction, like I'm dead. Yeah. Um, and you had to go make sure it wasn't already taken. And so I landed on Lights Out Lucy, which um I sent Chris a beautiful photo where I had it plastered across my butt on some short that maybe you guys get to see like we're gonna make some art for lights out Lucy.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

All right.

SPEAKER_06 4:32

Hell, we're gonna make merch.

SPEAKER_05 4:34

So we just might Morgan Rose.

SPEAKER_06 4:38

Morgan Rose, accountant and financial manager extraordinaire became lights out Lucy. Good thing you listen to.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Oh, is that an LOL? Are you implying anything by lights out? Hashtag lol.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

The assumption was that I was gonna knock your lights out. Not that you needed to turn the lights out, but I appreciate it. Oh, I thought you just played in the dark. All right. Right. Yeah. Um but where were you?

SPEAKER_06 5:09

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Oh, that's cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:12

And where was this? What what city was this in? And what made you take an interest in um so roller derby?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

A girl that I went to high school with called me up and said, I'm starting a roller derby team in town and we need you here.

SPEAKER_06 5:30

Walk us, walk us through. So, how much did you know about roller derby before taking this zero? Or could you roller skate?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

I could, well, I could roller skate um when I was a child, but um I was no longer a child.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

I was in my 30s, and the muscles it takes to roller skate.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Your body is different from um when you were a child.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

And so the floor is on fire.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

It's just a different weight distribution. Your your um your center of gravity has changed. And so we went to like the roller skating rink in Podunk for Oglethorpe, Rocksville Boulevard, and like I started skating on the carpet, you know, like not on the rink, you know, old school in the brownies, the little brown roller skates with the orange wheels. Yeah. Um roller derby is played on quad roller skates, so that is not different. It's the same. They take great pride in that, and the skates can be very expensive. I mean, back back in the day, it was still like 300 bucks to start up with your quad skates and your gears. So there's a little bit of a barrier to entry there. Um, but yeah, so we would just get together and skate. So the rules of roller derby, which is where we originally started this very long story.

SPEAKER_06 6:49

Yes, now but Morgan, before you get into the rules, yeah, Colby had a very important pre-show question.

SPEAKER_05 6:57

He did.

SPEAKER_06 6:57

Um, which I think will play into the rules and the scoring and who wins. Colby, what was that question you had of my dearest friend, financial whiz and financier Morgan Rose?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

For those of us not in the know, but are aware that many sports have an object to score with. I asked, you're ruining it. Is there a ball in roller derby?

SPEAKER_06 7:24

What are you chasing?

SPEAKER_00 7:25

There's no ball in roller derby.

SPEAKER_06 7:27

Kobe, it's a golden snitch.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

No, it's a golden snitch, Chris. It's all right.

SPEAKER_06 7:33

Oh my god. Oh, I'm gonna have to bleep that out with that with the sound of a sound of a concussion.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Yeah. Um, there's no ball in roller derby. So the way that roller derby is played is um it is called a bout. The match is called a bout.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Okay, yes, like um sword fighting.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, just like it. It's just the same.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Divided into two 30-minute halves, and then within those 30-minute halves are um a round. It's been a while.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

I'm old. The way it works is five girls from each team get on the track, and from each team, you've got four girls that are blockers and one girl that is the jammer. The jammer is the one that scores the points. She starts at the back of the pack, and to score points, they have to pass the girls on the other team. So you've got a crowd of people, and the jammers are in the back, and they have to lap the other girls. So each time they go around, they can score five points. And then each round can be two minutes long, and the jammer that gets through the pack first is in charge of how long that round lasts, and she can call it off whenever she wants. So if she wants to score her five points and then cut it off, then she calls the jam and says, forget it, I'm done. They all start together. The pack goes. These girls, their job is to knock the other girls on the floor so that their jammer can get through and score the points.

SPEAKER_05 9:14

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

So it's their job to throw their little tiny jammer through the pack and go around. Yeah, it's called a whip. If they grab that, that isn't real thing.

SPEAKER_06 9:26

So there are whips. That's whips is a real thing.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

It's a real thing. I was a blocker because even though I'm short, I am not little and I'm not fast.

SPEAKER_06 9:35

Very sturdy. You're very sturdy.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Like a teapot. I am short and still. I would try to make way, and the fastest way to get your person through is to knock everybody else out of the way.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

So or knock their lights out, as it were.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

As it were.

SPEAKER_06 9:51

Oh, that's a callback. Well done, Colby.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

When I was playing, it was a very fast-paced, aggressive game. There were a lot of hits. Everybody was skating quickly. They were all going around. The pack would try to outrun the jammers so that they couldn't pass them. And then after I had played for a little while, they started to use a lot more strategy and they would just stop and sort of like go really slow and try to kind of like hold the line. And so there were a lot less big hits, which means a lot less injuries, but in my opinion, a lot less fun.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

For you as a blocker, when you are practicing, I assume your specific practice is very physical. How long is a practice? And uh how often are you uh kind of banged up after even a practice?

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Most of our injuries would come from practice. We would practice two times a week for about two hours, but um we would run scrimmages just like you would, you know, we would play little like mini games, that kind of stuff. Um, we would do a lap test where you would have to skate a certain number of laps within five minutes, that kind of stuff. Um, we would take turns being the jammer, which I was terrible at. We would do different um agility tests and stuff like that. We would definitely try different kinds of hits. You would have to learn how to stop in different ways. There would be a T stop, which is where you would, when you play roller derby and you stop, you're wearing knee pads. You learn, you train yourself to stop by falling down on both of your knees at once, or to stop with with one foot, which is great when you're on all your gear. It was it was very physical for sure.

SPEAKER_06 11:45

It's like a very violent Xana do. I'm probably the only one who gets that reference.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

I would it was really funny because a lot of the girls that were there were like, I just loved roller skating. Roller skating was my favorite. And I was like, I just really like knocking the crap out of other girls and throwing people on the floor. And if we were doing this in sneakers, I would be fine.

SPEAKER_06 12:09

When you were practicing, when you were going to help your friend form this team, you weren't even light out Lucy at this point. You had not consulted Yahoo or anything, Hotmail. Did you already did you already know how to roller skate backward? To me, roller skating backward is like the ultimate. And could you roller skate backward? Could you flip yourself around if you were sort of in the lead as a blocker to see what the other team was doing?

SPEAKER_00 12:37

No, I was not great at roller skating backwards. Um, the thing I liked about roller derby was when you saw a girl walk in that was built big and square, it was exciting because you knew she could take somebody out. Yeah. Yeah. That was the first time I had been in a sport where you didn't have to be teeny tiny for somebody to be excited for you to be on the team. And they were like, oh my gosh, you're gonna be great at this. And I was so excited. I very quickly ran out and got a roller skate tattoo on my arm. Um we have a photo of that. Did it have your team name on it? It does not. Your monitor, I mean. It does not. There's there is a lightning bolt on it. Um, but I would say probably within about a month of joining the roller derby team, I was like, I am so excited about everything this stands for. Even if I wash it out, I'm still really into it and I'm gonna get this tattoo forever.

SPEAKER_06 13:34

You have a we will post a photo. Is there a move you were known for?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

There was one thing my coach referred to as the cannonball, where I would come in from the side because I was so short, I would hit somebody right in the top of their thigh with my hip because I was short and knock them off of their gravity and like and and knock them over. So yes, yes, the cannonball was um, yeah, that was referred to more than once.

SPEAKER_06 14:05

Morgan, because you've referenced your height so often in this interview, how tall are you?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

I am five feet and zero inches.

SPEAKER_06 14:12

I asked that on purpose. I already knew, because it just goes to show you if you want to do something, do it and take what some people may see as a less than perfect thing and make that your thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

What were your team colors?

SPEAKER_00 14:27

The reason I was told I should come and help with the team was because they needed somebody to be the mama bear. They needed someone to organize them. It is one thing, it is one thing to organize women, it's another thing to organize the kind of women that want to sign up for roller derby. And when I tell you it took us three months to pick the team colors, it is not an exaggeration. There are a lot of very strong opinions about a lot of things. Um, and it was a whole thing. We ended up with blue and gold, I think, to start. I think we ended up being blue and silver. Um, they've come a long way. The team is still here in Chattanooga, they're still going strong. They're really cool. They've got a junior roller derby team now with younger girls. We we had a lot of fun. It was really cool. Our our our first game was in December of 2009, and we had like 2,000 people come out to the game.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Did you have a um uh like a mascot or like an item on your derby that signified your team?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

We had yeah, we had a logo. It was a girl with pigtails, and she was running towards you like towards you on a railroad track.

SPEAKER_06 15:39

If somebody falls down in front of you, because the job of the blockers is to knock people down or push them out of the way, do you more zigzag around them or just leap and leave the air and come back down?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Okay, so so two things about that.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Um, it depends.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Um number one, I definitely was in a pileup where someone jumped all the way over me. It was a referee that like jumped way over me in like a very like Tony Hawk skateboardy kind of um way that I didn't see because I was tucked and rolling. Um very impressive for the audience. Um generally you end up in some sort of like puppy dog, kitty cat tumble, like everybody tangled up together. Um, there is also because you're on a flat track, people will sit in chairs away from the track, but there is what they called the suicide seating, which is where you sit right next to the track on the ground. And often you will catch a roller derby girl in very close to you if they get hit hard enough. So, like you will get out into the crowd as well if you get hit hard enough. Um, so sometimes skates go a fly-in. Um yeah, it's an interactive event. Um, generally they'll sell beer and concessions at these games. So it's kind of rowdy. Um, but usually it's just a big pile up of of skaters and sometimes um also the the people that are there watching too. So yeah, it's not if if you can dodge it, that's fine. So one thing that I think you guys had asked was what happened, like what are the rules? Like, can you get in trouble? Can you just punch somebody like this?

SPEAKER_06 17:34

Yeah, what's wrong? What's what's a foul?

SPEAKER_00 17:36

So there is a penalty box. Um, there are rules. You can not punch anybody, you cannot shove, you can use your um shoulders, you can bump up against people, um, you can kind of use your body to block, and you can use your hip, but you can't like punch or elbow somebody in the gut.

SPEAKER_06 18:03

Or can you elbow? Can you elbow?

SPEAKER_00 18:06

You can't elbow. You can throw your own teammates, like we talked about. You can whip somebody. So that's where you grab a hold of their arm and like jettison them out across, but they have to stay um within the track limits. So you can't cut the track, which means you can't go outside of the line to go around somebody. You can jump over, like you're saying, if someone's splayed out on the ground, you can jump over them, you can um step over them, but you can't like skate to the face or whatever it is. And so if that happens, you get a penalty, which means you have to go get in the penalty box, which means your team is down a person.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

But if they're jamming a player, they are not replaced, they are down a player.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

No, they're down a person. So then if the jammer goes by and you're in the penalty box, they're getting their points. You're just getting there. Yeah. So I've definitely seen multiple folks in the penalty box and the jammers just sort of going through scoring points while you're just stuck in there.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

We don't get a lot of play during the episode. We get uh like two instances of practice and essentially like you know, the tiniest snippet at the very beginning of the game, and then the end of the episode is a game. In the episode, what are some of your like either favorite parts or parts that you thought were the most accurate that they did portray?

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Um I did like the fact that they so they were on a bank track. We talked about that. That's a difference, right? Um, there are some bank track teams that play, but it is a big investment and it is way more dangerous because it is really easy to hurt yourself. Um but you know, you did. I think we do see them do a whip, maybe in the episode, um which is a cool move. Um I don't think they had enough players on the track. There definitely weren't it's hard to not 10 people on there by any means. And I couldn't see who was a jammer and who wasn't. So one thing that they do um in roller derby is to tell who's the jammer. So they all wear the helmets. They have a little, they call it a panty, guys. I'm sorry. Um, I pay taxes. Sorry. They put it on the helmet. It's a cover and has a star on it. And that's how you know who the jammer is. Okay. And so they wear that, and that's how you know who's scoring the points. And so, like, there was no, you couldn't tell.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

I would have synergy all over my helmet. You know what?

SPEAKER_00 20:49

And the earrings that matched. But so like you into gym immediately. Um, but so it wouldn't, I don't I didn't see that. So I couldn't tell in the episode who was scoring the points or anything like that. Um, it was interesting that they had a coach. So when I was there, or a manager, I think that they said, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_05 21:08

Yes, correct.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Um, but that we did have a coach. We had a bench coach, and then we would have referees, and they generally, some of them were dudes, some of them were girls, but they had a lot of um non-skating officials, is what we would call them. They're NSOs. And so they're people that help with keeping score, and they're people that help with watching to make sure all the rules are being followed, and there are people that help with, you know, sending people to the penalty box and all that kind of stuff. So you did have a whole bunch of support staff around as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Is this like I'm thinking of the Olympics where the judges are sitting at a table watching it? Are they all in the same place or are they kind of mixed around the rink so that they can keep an eye on things from like a different perspective?

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah. So you're gonna have some in the middle and some on the outside. And then generally you would have some announcers as well over at a table separately that would be there for the sake of the crowd to talk about what was happening in the game. Folks much like Chris, who have amazing radio voices that would tell people what was happening and narrow rate. And tell everybody how things were going. Who was who was scoring and all that kind of stuff as well. And kind of keep everybody engaged because it does get kind of confusing. They no, they'll get uh well dolled up for the events. Oh, okay. So it is um some folks go hard and do very complicated hair and makeup and like yeah, and it would be very like gym, very fair, faucet, all kinds of and then others are very like, no, this is a sport, and I'm here for sport only. So it it runs the gamut for sure. And some people um very much lean into their derby alter egos, and there are a lot of folks that use the name as a like a pun and they'll kind of like lean on it. So I know they're um the team now has a lot of different names and stuff um as well, but you know, there are a lot of like I don't know, there's just a lot of different names and everybody will kind of dress up. It it allows you to kind of lean into whatever your persona is. That was really fun.

SPEAKER_06 23:33

If you were male and had long hair, I would ask the same question. So you have shoulder length hair for those listening. Was it that way back then? And how did you get it up under your helmet so it didn't get rolled over and your scalp pulled off?

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Um, so I have always been a very low maintenance, no makeup kind of girl. So I would just go low pigtails. Um, and much like my chagrin of my knee pads, it would just get covered up on a helmet and be very unimpressive.

SPEAKER_06 24:07

And I do have some photos now that you've described it. I'm just really concerned about the thought of hair getting rolled over and caught up in the gears and pistons and shaft of it all, and yanked just your scalp clean off of your head like some sort of horror movie. What's the grossest thing you've ever seen happen in a match? The grossest, nastiest, horrible.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Um, I okay, so much like any sport, if something terrible has happened on the track, everybody will stop. They'll everybody will take a knee, the EMTs will run out that we have paid to have there. They will check out the skater that is hurt, they will sort of shield the audience from whatever's going on. If they need to put them on the little like gurney or whatever it is, right? The braceboard, they will like scoop them off and take them away. Um, I have never seen anybody get totally wrecked, but I'm sure that someone's broken, legs, femurs, ankles, that kind of stuff. Um, the nice thing about wearing tights and fishnets is that it keeps it all contained.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

I'm getting bad at her, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

So there's probably not a whole lot of gore. Oh, I will say that we were at um an outdoor skate park.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Tinger all the time.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Yes, an outdoor skate park in winter, and somebody did bust their chin, and I did go with her to the ER to get stitches, and then we waited so long that she got bored and we went and ate tacos.

SPEAKER_03 25:41

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

And she just had some napkins and was like, who cares? I'm tired of waiting.

SPEAKER_06 25:49

That's like a very morgan move, I I would say.

unknown 25:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:53

I got I got tired of the ER, so I just had the baby here.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Yeah, so we just went and got we just went and got tacos and she went back later and got stitches after the tacos.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Are there uh is there anything else in the episode that you saw that you one either really enjoyed or appreciated saying?

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Um, you know, it was funny. I I was really grumpy about the lunch that they decided to eat when they all got together. Um, and they had chips and an apple. And I was like, these are working women, and they need more food than an apple and a bag of chips that they're sharing, and this is ridiculous. And I hate the 70s.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

And I don't recall an episode where you see maybe more than one or two Fort Fools in anyone's mouth. All right.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

I mean, I really enjoyed roller derby. I really like it that it's super body positive, unlike Charlie's Angels. I liked it that, you know, you could have fun and and and enjoy roller derby and you didn't have to everybody look like Fair Faucet. Um, of course, we'd all like to look like Ferra Faucet. Um, but yeah, it was fun to watch that episode and to see them pull in roller derby in a really, it was kind of weird. Like it felt like a very strange thing for them to pull in. I don't, I don't really understand why it was part of the episode. I it didn't really make any sense, but I appreciated it. Um, I was glad it was there, but I couldn't figure out how to how it related to insurance fraud. Um, but I supported it, you know. I was like, well, I'm I'm glad that it's here, but I don't understand.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Please make sure that we work into the episode that she just said she supported insurance fraud. Thank you, Morgan, for joining us. We really appreciate you spending time with us, getting to educate us on roller derby, uh, showing us how cool it is.

SPEAKER_06 27:58

So cool. You listen, Morgan has been my friend for a long time, and she is cool in every single way, not just roller derby way.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

I mean, as roller derby accountants go, I'm pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Everybody, that wraps up our mini sode. Uh, so I guess we have to say it's lights out, angels.