So the running joke over here is that every time we gear up to put another issue of the ‘zine together, I get super pumped and start saying shit like, “DUDES! Dudes. DUDES! This is going to be the BEST issue EVER!” I am a very excitable person. But yesterday I found myself saying that to Juliette LowBlow (HELLARAD layout designer extraordinaire), and realizing that I FULLY MEAN IT THIS TIME. We have so much insanely rad content, from a hilarious review of cellulite-fighting space-age hot pants to an interview with the Gotham Girls’ Wild Cherri where she talks about wanting to give her coaches the middle finger, to a heartfelt message from Dumptruck in jail. AND THAT’S JUST THE BEGINNING.

With that in mind, I’d like to share with you this pretty photo of space, taken by Evil E (amazing LA Derby Dolls announcer)’s brother the astrophysicist:

Evil E once did a beer bong right before watching a lecture by the guy who discovered Pluto.
This is a photo of Evil E and her astrophysicist brother.

Do you see what I am saying? THE GALACTIC ISSUE IS GOING TO BLOW EFFING MINDS. Get ready.

Love,
-Moxxxie, Captain of the HELLARAD Space Shuttle

So it’s par for the course that last Friday night, J Crush (our resident Saints fan) decided it was high time she learned us how to really party. Like how they do where she’s from. After all, it is Carnival season in New Orleans, and the kickoff party is traditionally held on Epiphany, or the Twelfth Night. This is January 6th. I don’t know why. And I’m not going to go into all the details here, because I don’t know them. I will say that those Southern kids sure have a lot of rules to their drinking games!!! However, we reminded ourselves, at the heart of the matter there are PARTIES involved. Lots of them. So we were in.
If you wanna get yer geek on, you can read up on Epiphany here.

We were more concerned with the cake and drinking parts of the party. We met up at Iron & Gold, where Mickey got everybody in the Party Gras mood with some choice tunes. Crush made a couple King Cakes from scratch, and dude, let me tell you.

They are GOOD. I didn’t even care that I didn’t get one of the traditional baby figurines inside my first piece. Or my second, or my third. Anyway.

So we drank some beers, and ate hella cake, and celebrated loudly (YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHH!) every time somebody got a piece with a baby in it. Two of the people to get the babies were crowned our Queens. This means they are responsible for making more cakes and planning more parties (one a week until Fat Tuesday on February 21st). All the baby excitement made for some good quotes.

“Hey, this doesn’t taste like babies” – Me

“I really want a baby!” – Skato

“Everything tastes like babies to me” – Tyson

“Show me the baby!”

“I’m trying!!!” – Mickey

Skato and Molly ended up being crowned Queens (usually there’s a King too but, you know, they’re chicks), and Chani, Crush and (we think…things got kinda fuzzy there at the end) Tyson ended up being crowned as members of the Royal Court.

So, there you have it. The Queens have almost-officially dubbed our krewe “Adventure Team”, and I hear the next party may or may not involve a placenta-shaped piñata.

Until next week’s party, keep it ‘Rad!
xoxo
-Moxxxie

What do you do when yer unemployed and yer best pals ask you to help ‘em paint their shop in exchange for some scrilla? You tell them to throw a couple tall cans into the equation, and call it a done deal. I spent the last few days in overalls and funny goggles (this was *after* painting my eyeballs a lovely shade of vanilla), getting my brush, roller and dust on with Rioter’s Block and Motley Cruz from Cruz Skate Shop. The ladies closed up shop for a few days while the transformation took place.

When we started, Cruz SF was the same good ol’ pink and brown gnargyle combo you may remember from the opening, nearly 4 years ago (if you were rad enough to be there).

(The party, April 2008)

Putty and primering begins, Monday

J Crush brushes up

Proprietress extraordinaire

As the Cruz Employee Handbook states: “Each employee shall take a mandatory shotgun break every 4 hours.”

Day 2. Mint green and a lighter shade of chocolate replaced the pink and brown on the walls, and the ceiling became vanilla. Are you craving an ice cream cone yet? (Note: Painting the ceiling fucking sucks. Do not ever let anyone tell you otherwise.)

Day 3. Motley’s hubby and Plaid Again Screenprinting owner, Gordo, came by to do a lot of stuff involving electrical wires and power tools. Dudes!

After pulling almost two weeks of 10 to 15 hour days moving out of the Sac store, giving the SF store a facelift AND relaunching their website, the Cruz girls (and dudes, not pictured) were pretty beat.

After just 3 days, I feel kinda similar. And also like a wuss.

And that’s a wrap! Your favorite skate shop, Cruz SF is now back, open fer business and looking better than ever! Just in time for the start of the derby season. Get on in there and try not to let the paint fumes get to ya. If you can’t get into the store, their website is all ready to go, too (and the only place you can get limited-edition HELLARAD merch)!!

xoxo
-Moxxxie

P.S. Thanks to our friends at (the also newly remodeled) Iron & Gold for pouring much-needed after-painting libations.

When I was in second grade I drew a diagram of the solar system on butcher paper for my science class. The sun was about the size of a medicine ball, artistically resembled at least half the tramp stamps in Texas, and wore sunglasses. Because, you know, the sun really needs to shield its eyes from its own awesomeness. All the other planets sort of had this half-ass quality to them that indicated that I really had no interest in Uranus, Mars, or Saturn and its jewelry, but Pluto my friends! Oh, Pluto was beautiful. Probably having something to do with the fact that “he’s really short” was my number one qualification for beauty at the time in the opposite sex, I was a big fan of the tiny little adorable underdogs. I pulled out my Periwinkle colored-crayon and I started coloring that sweet little chunk of galactic ice by making a bold little heart in the middle and coloring outward like a fucking radiation of love. Can you have a crush on a planet? Well, apparently there are people who try to fuck buildings, so I don’t see why not.

Though our love was not to be – long distance relationships are a real bitch – I still had a soft spot for the farthest of our planets when suddenly, in 2006, some goddamn motherfuckers met up in Prague and said, “Oh, yeah, we were totally just kidding, Pluto. You’re not a part of this club.” I’m sorry, what? Now, they say, it hasn’t met the committee’s new arbitrary conditions for what it takes to become a planet. Those who challenged the ruling of the interplanetary referees were told unceremoniously that the ruling stands (and we all know what that fucking feels like, now don’t we?). In order to be a planet, an object must: 1. Orbit around the sun (score one for Pluto), 2. Have enough gravity to pull itself into the shape of a sphere (hey-o Pluto!), and 3. “Clear the neighborhood” of its orbit (say what now?). Basically, the object has to be the dominant gravitational body in its orbit so that everything else around it either gets eaten alive or gets repelled into outer space. For those of you jocks out there who are wondering what the fuck I’m talking about – think of derby as a planet in the neighborhood of you. In your life it has the most gravity and everything can either join it or fuck right off.

But the real pisser is that some dudes just sat around and VOTED Pluto out of the solar system. And, really, let’s just examine what this means for the sacristy of everything else. If a fucking planet isn’t safe from committee rule changes than what is? How can you possibly defend against something as cosmically trivial as the rules allowances for Slow Derby and counter-clockwise skating when officials could really just say “If scientists can decide that Pluto is not a planet, we can decide that it’s okay to skate counter-clockwise, illegal to hold up signs that say “Boo” using more than 8 o’s, and required that even the largest among us is only allowed to have a sliver of contrasting color down the side of our jerseys.” It’s the trump excuse forever, rivaling only “I can’t get my own beer because I’ve got a cat in my lap” for ultimate excuse world domination. But, just to be clear on the bright side of all this, we can totally use the Pluto example for good in derby, too. For the sake of this example, Oly will be our figurative Pluto. In re: Three new criteria for WFTDA league membership. 1. Team must be comprised of all women, (ok, Oly, you’re in), 2. Team must have coach who can be amusingly ridiculed (Sensitive Ponytail: check!), 3. Team must all reside in the city in which it is representing (wuah wuah wuahhhhhhh). By the “Pluto Rule,” Oly is no longer a planet. Perhaps we didn’t need Pluto after all.

HELLARAD ISSUE 11, THE GALACTIC ISSUE! To be released at the following events:
Wild West Showdown in Bremerton, WA March 2-4th
March Radness Training Camp in Los Angeles March 8-11th
Cruz Skate Shop 4 Year Anniversary in San Francisco March 8-11th

Contact Moxxxie at wearehellarad@gmail.com for advertising info!

HELLAday Haikus

Christmas came and went
Friends farted everywhere
Farticles. Die Hard.
(by skato)

Big guns a-blazin’
‘Murrkah rides into World Cup
Have a Xanax, guys
(by windigo)

Eighty degrees yo
Fuck yeah, Hawaii betches
Suck on that Christmas!

What the fuck you guys?
Santa toilet seat cover?
Is nothing sacred?
(by carson b. demented)

this year kinda blew
next year will be galactic
fucking galactic

beer and then more beer
now add whiskey then some more
ok, now repeat

pretty good haiku
oh snap it just got better
hellarad haiku

shot gunning a beer
hoping you all feel our cheers
shot gunning more beer
(by mister moxxxie)

Christmas miracle:
No one’s on the 405
I’ll drink to that!
(by kasey bomber)

fuck you december
phlegm-crusty lungs want you to
eat dicks from a bag
(by rioter’s block)

Did I fuck someone
at the holiday party?
Then why’s my pee burn?

A plate full of ham
is how we celebrate a
Jewish baby born.

Oh draedel, draedel,
draedel, you got me beat up
by white kids at school!
(by miles prower)

jack daniels’ egg nog
christmas story’s on all day
oh pajama jeans

snow on the ground, yeah
mock turtlenecks are so in
you crazy bastard
(by moxxxie)

(we love you guys, happy merry hooray fuck yeah!)

It’s about time to light some candles, spike the cider and wear a hideous sweater with pride. We’re so grateful for all our friends and family, and are super pumped to see what 2012 has in store! Until then, we leave you with our very own Mr. and Mrs. Claus, and a wish for a raging HELLAday season!!!

Photo by Alotta Backside, ACDG

Love,
-Moxxxie and The ‘Rad

If yer like us and wait ’till the last minute to do yer holiday shopping, you’ll be pumped to know that you can now order sweet HELLARAD merch from Cruz Skate Shop! Those creeps have a limited run of epic ‘stache schwag guaranteed to delight anyone on your list. Check it out!

Shop HELLARAD merch here!

And it’s true…the HELLAday season is officially upon us, and I can’t think of a better way to kick it off than with some ice cold Christmas Ale and Fubar 2: Balls to the Wall! Seriously, this might take the place of Christmas Vacation as the #1 holiday movie of all time. Raise yer glass, and keep givin’ ‘er!

Fubar 2: Balls to the Wall

Keep it ‘Rad,
Moxxxie

Tamponals Theme Song: “Youth Gone Wild” – Skid Row

We tried to get warmed up in SF at the Mastodon/Red Fang show, but really we just got wasted and pissed at our shitty seats. After too many $9 beers, Block convinced me to belly up to the merch booth and say hey to Red Fang. Those dudes are rad, but I can’t help it if they won’t heed my burrito advice.

Songs in our heads upon waking up at the Cruz Compound in Sacramento:

Motley – “Daniel”, Elton John
Me – “Dancing Queen”, Abba
Block – “Blinded Me With Science”, Thomas Dolby

The morning we left, it was clear and cold. Thankfully, that weather would hold through all five of the “big damn states” we drove through in the following week.

This is probably a good time to mention that Block’s “Hate” mix (full of guilty pleasure songs she thought would really bum us out) contains a cover of Reign in Blood by Tori Amos. Also, in a 3rd grade talent show, she danced to Vixen’s “Edge of a Broken Heart”.

After a full 12 hours on the road (and many texts from my dad asking to “please get a photo of the Bonneville Salt Flats sign”), we landed at a Marie Callender’s just outside Salt Lake City. If I was surprised to see 10 people at the table waiting for us, I tried not to show it. See, Block is from Utah. And her family is MASSIVE. That night we crashed at her grandparents’ place and learned exactly how massive (7 kids, 13 grandkids and the 18th great-grandkid on the way).

Road Rules:
*After farting, you will not apologize. You will roll down the window and curse.
*Birds belong outside.
*You will let your grandmother know when you make it to Denver. It is a horrible place.
*Rush is absolutely not allowed, ever.
*We are going to be millionaires. We just need to sell a couple more T-shirts.
*If you are caught jerking off to the Cyclops on Futurama, you will be made fun of for all time.
*Never say goodbye.
*Do not bury the banana.

Next we shacked up at the HoJo in SLC for a couple days of chillaxing, metal, pastrami burgers and the best mole sauce in the entire world.

Caught round 2 of the Mastodon/Red Fang tour here, and shit totally redeemed itself. We raged, got sweaty and drunk, bruised and groped and yelled at. So, you know. A successful night.

Wednesday, Wasatch Roller Derby and Salt City Derby met us out at Dick n’ Dixies for some 3% brews and a gear clinic run by Motley Cruz herself. They also got a chance to peep Issue 10 before anybody else!

The following night, we scooted out to Ogden and hooked up with the Junction City Roller Dolls for gear clinic #2. Here, Motley tells JCRD everything they ever wanted to know about cleaning bearings, and the meaning of life.

Stop number 4 on the long road to Tamponals was a secret cabin in the mountains. Block’s dad built this thing with his own hands and makes a mean stir-fry. We wanted to stay forever, but we had to get back on the road to stupid Denver.

Wyoming is boring.

When we finally reached the Mile High Shitty, Miles Prower, Jonathan Lee and Mister Moxxxie greeted us with open arms at a pretty decent watering hole called the Lancer Lounge. Afterward Miles plied us with weird viral videos (CAAAARRRRRRLLLL!) and root beer milk, and we fell asleep on the floor.

Then: ROLLER DERBY! Our pals at Derby Deeds invited us up to their sweet skybox. We’d have been there all weekend if the Nazis at 1stbank Center hadn’t been trying so hard to make everyone there as miserable as they seem to be. No matter! We had a party to throw!

Motley’s buddy Brian picked us up in the short bus, and we wrangled a couple pals to come with us. From there, it was off to the Night Owl Lounge for the Outlaw Issue Release Party!!!!

If you were there, you had a good time. Don’t I know it. Pretty City and The Outfit showed up in force, and we overwhelmed the poor bartenders to the tune of…oh, a couple hundred more heads than we originally thought. Fucking Lobster brought the purple glitter, Bacon provided the Jager Bombs and we were subjected to so much bad karaoke we will never be the same. Seriously, Zoot Suit Riot, Megatron? We should have paid the KJ to make you stop singing.

Anyway, by the time we closed the bar down, we were drinking out of paper cups and had cleaned them out of PBR, Jager and whatever the hell is in a 5-for-$15 Kamikaze shot. The owner thanked us (and we thanked him!), and while the locals gave us the stinkeye for about 5 whole minutes, even the dude celebrating his 60th birthday couldn’t be mad with all the shirtless ladies on the dance floor.

As expected, a bunch of drunk idiots barged the short bus as we were pulling out of the parking lot, and Brian (truly www.rad-dudes.com material here, ladies!) was nice enough to stop at three different hotels to drop us all off.

Sunday morning we piled some grub and a couple Tecates on our hangovers and tromped over to the tourney for one more day of epic derbs. I can’t even begin to tell you how amped I was to watch as Gotham flushed Oly, and became the first team ever to win the Hydra twice.

Note: Even overzealous “security” people will not dig through a bag full of tampons to find out what’s at the bottom.

Around 6 AM on Monday, Block (A.K.A. TCB) peeled us off the floor of G$’s swanky Westin suite. I managed to pack all my shit, walk to the car and not hurl even once before passing out in the backseat for the next seven hours, visions of broken tampon machines and sensitive ponystaches dancing in my head. I blame Oly.

The ride home was pretty uneventful. We stopped for the night at a lovely Comfort Inn in Elko, Nevada (“Good Morning, Furniture!” – Block), deposited Motley in Sac and made it home to SF by Tuesday night.

Many, many everlasting thanks to everyone who came out to the party, bought merch and drank beers with us, Miles Prower and Betty Deadheader for host and hostessing, G$ for being the best sugar daddy a friend could ask for, Bacon flavored EZ-Cheez, B-Train and Wicked Skatewear for peddling our wares and calming our nerves, Red Fang and Mastodon for providing the soundtrack, Flat Track Revolution for helping us promote the party, Red Iguana for food so good it brought me to tears, Brian and Fuzz from the Denver chapter of the Silly Pink Bunnies for securing the Night Owl for the release party AND ESPECIALLY for manning the Party Bus and getting all our drunk asses back to our respective hotels. Big fuck yous go out to the crotchety old doucheknuckles at 1stbank Center, 3% beer, Tori Amos, Fireball whisky and Denver altitude for handing me the worst hangover since I was there last.

See you next season when we do it all again,
Moxxxie and The ‘Rad

HELLARAD and our BFF’s at Cruz Skate Shop are taking this shit on the road one more time in 2011, starting in SF, following Red Fang and Mastodon to Salt Lake City, and, weather providing, ending up in Denver (again…) for WTFDA Tamponships.

By now you may have heard that the release party for Issue 10 is happening on Saturday, November 12th at the Night Owl Lounge in Broomfield, CO. Let’s say 9pm, shall we? It’s there that you can be sure to get your paws on a copy of The Outlaw Issue (boasting arguably the ‘Raddest cover ever), AND score sick limited-edition HELLARAD shirts and hoodies (check the sweet Outlaw logo below!). We’ll have plenty of stickers and even some back issues to share, and would love it if you’d stop by, warm your bones with a little brown party liquor, and scream some karaoke with us.

Otherwise, you can find us out and about during the tourney, and we promise our backpacks will be full up with ‘Rad shit (not to mention plenty of signmaking supplies for Hecklandia). Come say hi! We’re uber stoked to see you all, and we can’t wait for Miles Prower to make good on his promise to redeem the city of Denver’s reputation.

Until then, we’ll try to post from the road when we have a chance. But we plan to pass the time laughing, rocking out and possibly crying (Rioter’s Block had this idea for each of us to make mixes full of songs the other two totally hate). If nothing else, we expect complete awesomenocity.

See you soon,
Moxxxie and The ‘Rad

*Cover photo and Outlaw Logo design by Mister Moxxxie

Now! Let’s get on with it and get stoked for Westerns, shall we? See you in Portland!

Love,
‘The Rad