Riding Shotgun with the Blonde Bomber.
Originally posted by artdaddy at Riding Shotgun with the Blonde Bomber.
Driving from Chicago to the next game, the rain poured. Peoria, Springfield, Gary, ribbons of highways. It's a lonesome road to the next game. Joan and her constant companion, Malia, a little mutt of a pooch. We were at a diner near Peoria searching for a hamburgers.
“Why did the team drive separately”, I asked? Joan recalls that skaters barnstormed by bus years ago. A tire blew and the bus went off a cliff and exploded killing over 20 skaters plus personal. The accident almost wiping out the derby in 1937.
At every stop, waiters, short-order cooks, dishwashers, waitress, and dinners ask for Joanie's autograph. Weston always complies smiling. In the parking lot, her food gets cold because of signing napkins, shirts, and grease stained menus. Her fame gets in the way, on and off the track.
The Bomber has to watch her back.
Everyone on the track is gunning for her, team members and opponents, trying to grab notoriety by clobbering the Bomber. Fame and assault are a daily routine the track.
The Blonde Bomber, The Golden Girl of the Banked Track, the Viking Princess, The Blonde Amazon; That's a lot of personalities for one 5' 10” tall, 165 lbs. gal to inhabit. Hard work when your name alone fills an entire 20,000 stadium. That's who Joanie was for over 25 years. Joanie really enjoyed her superstardom. "Do you know what it’s like to be able to bring 20,000 people to their feet-to make them hate or love you? That’s where it’s at. Power!”, she said to me.
Joan thought about being a nun, graduating from Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles, a soft softball player, scoring 8 home runs in one game, a dog breeder, a surfer, anything that was competitive. She loved hockey, and fumed when the derby was compared to wrestling. Thought hockey was a better comparison. Joanie would receive a standing ovation from the crowd when she went to a Chicago Blackhawks hockey game.
A young athletic woman had few career opportunities in the 1950s. Joanie saw the derby on TV and found her calling. She was 14, sneaking into the unguarded Rose Bowl derby track in LA and practiced. She lied about her age, her hight and shapely silhouette, Joanie becoming a favorite member of the Los Angeles Braves, and later captain of the San Francisco Bay Bombers in 1965.
Weston, like Calvello wanted to be remembered.
Unfortunately Joan didn't live to see the resurrection of the derby. Joan died in 1997 of Mad Cow Disease (bad meat while in England I was told).
Ann got her wish, the Calevello Cup, the worship of the new skaters, and a sweet film called Demon of the Derby http://www.fireproofproductions.com/ Joan and Ann's grudge matches were very real, Ann referred to Joanie as a “bitch” often, and meant it. Joanie would roll her eyes back in her head at the mention of Ann, and say “Well we sell tickets!”
The Blonde Bomber book, bring Joan back into the spotlight.
The derby had an amazing past, starting as a marathon endurance race. Leo Seltzer and Damon Runyon met while drinking in Miami, sportswriter and member of the Algonquin Round Table. The author of gangsters classics like Guys and Dolls, Bloodhounds of Broadway, Little Miss Marker, Sorrowful Jones, and Pocketful of Miracles is the guy to thank for the derby rules. Pretty much the same rules as today.
Another motel exit. Joan unpacks telling me the 1972 film Kansas City Bomber, starring Raquel Welch, was supposedly "inspired" by hours of interviews the screenwriter did with Weston. That film is an obvious sour point. The screenwriter changed her story enough so Joan received nothing.
Rummer is that Goldie Hawn has a developed treatment based on Weston a few years ago.
Joanie also hated the song Roller Derby Queen by Jim Crouch which was always played when she entered the track. In fact the song was NOT about her, but the Viking Princess smiled and excepted it as part of the job. My fantasy film would star Joan Allen as the Bomber, Allen has the inner depth and icy, pissed, fuck you gaze. Edie Falco would play Ann Calvello. insanely whacked-out. I'd pay to see that film in 3D.
Joan was not original as Ann Calvello always told me.
Ann's right. Joan inherited the name, there were other Blonde Bombers, and Blonde Bombshells. Joan had media savvy that kept her on top for 25 years. The1950s TV camera loved Joan's curvaceous, athletic looks. In the1940s, Dorothy Wosilus was billed as Johnnie, the Blonde Bombshell. Joanie was a superstar, as long as the Derby was in the limelight.
The lights began to dim
Joan suggested over dinner that we do a book about her life in the derby. Rumors were flying that the derby was dying or being sold. Weston did not want to be forgotten.
We developed an interesting and complicated friendship. Joan needed me to document her, our friendship was the perfect codependency. She taught me to skate, allowing me to photograph her as a participant rather then a spectator. My photos were about HER as an athlete, hero, tough dame! No one fucked with me on the track. Joan worked the media, I was the media. I went the extra mile on skates. I was trusted, to a point. Joan had boundaries, even to me.
Joan was a feminist but the word was new to her. Feminism made her nervous, to close to a political statement, another boundary of hers. Joanie was a Republican and did some campaigning, I think for Nixon, she was elusive in details. Watergate was front page then. Politics and sexual preference were completely off the record with Joanie, but a number of woman on teams claimed to have affairs with Joanie.
Joan also owned a “woman's bar” call the Driftwood in Haywood, Ca. Joanie held court there. The Driftwood softball team played in the lesbian bar league. Fans, skaters, gay men and women were always welcome in her bar.
Joan didn't make a big deal that she was married to Nick Skofis another skater (a Sony Bono look alike.) She always called him “Her buddy” rather then husband. Joan knew her fans thought of her as the battling Amazon Goddess. Cat-fights between “lesbos” were a hot ticket back then. Being married could hurt her image, interesting dilemma for the times. Joanie thought about these things.
Flat track speculation
Joanie would have really dug the flat trackers. Their guts and creativeness, giving life back to a sport she invested her life to. I don't know how she would have reacted at all the ink, fishnets, piercings, and funky names. Weston the Republican was pretty conservative in her personal life. The new derby with women in charge would have put a huge smile on her face.
What really pissed Joan was that the MEN were in control back then! Men started the games and finished the games, scoring all the winning points, men dreamed up the rules. The justification by the all male management to pay men 30% more then the dames. Everyone knew the “weaker sex” was the draw. They just were not valued as much.
The Blonde Bomber was voted Roller Derby Queen four times, received the Most Valuable Player award in 1968 and was inducted into the National Roller Derby Hall of Fame.
Joan and I played postcard tag for years, talking about the book project. As time faded, in a world before email and Facebook the derby and it's superstars became a distant memory, the most unique American sporting event just faded out, and Joan died in 1997. Mad Cow was not a fitting end to such a outstanding athlete.
Thanks to the woman of the flat track Joanie and her amazing accomplishments can be rediscovered for a new generation.
Joanie would probably be training the new skaters, she already owned her own fearless name The Blonde Bomber.
Just don't play that Jim Crouch song while reading this!
Driving from Chicago to the next game, the rain poured. Peoria, Springfield, Gary, ribbons of highways. It's a lonesome road to the next game. Joan and her constant companion, Malia, a little mutt of a pooch. We were at a diner near Peoria searching for a hamburgers.
“Why did the team drive separately”, I asked? Joan recalls that skaters barnstormed by bus years ago. A tire blew and the bus went off a cliff and exploded killing over 20 skaters plus personal. The accident almost wiping out the derby in 1937.
At every stop, waiters, short-order cooks, dishwashers, waitress, and dinners ask for Joanie's autograph. Weston always complies smiling. In the parking lot, her food gets cold because of signing napkins, shirts, and grease stained menus. Her fame gets in the way, on and off the track.
The Bomber has to watch her back.
Everyone on the track is gunning for her, team members and opponents, trying to grab notoriety by clobbering the Bomber. Fame and assault are a daily routine the track.
The Blonde Bomber, The Golden Girl of the Banked Track, the Viking Princess, The Blonde Amazon; That's a lot of personalities for one 5' 10” tall, 165 lbs. gal to inhabit. Hard work when your name alone fills an entire 20,000 stadium. That's who Joanie was for over 25 years. Joanie really enjoyed her superstardom. "Do you know what it’s like to be able to bring 20,000 people to their feet-to make them hate or love you? That’s where it’s at. Power!”, she said to me.
Joan thought about being a nun, graduating from Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles, a soft softball player, scoring 8 home runs in one game, a dog breeder, a surfer, anything that was competitive. She loved hockey, and fumed when the derby was compared to wrestling. Thought hockey was a better comparison. Joanie would receive a standing ovation from the crowd when she went to a Chicago Blackhawks hockey game.
A young athletic woman had few career opportunities in the 1950s. Joanie saw the derby on TV and found her calling. She was 14, sneaking into the unguarded Rose Bowl derby track in LA and practiced. She lied about her age, her hight and shapely silhouette, Joanie becoming a favorite member of the Los Angeles Braves, and later captain of the San Francisco Bay Bombers in 1965.
Weston, like Calvello wanted to be remembered.
Unfortunately Joan didn't live to see the resurrection of the derby. Joan died in 1997 of Mad Cow Disease (bad meat while in England I was told).
Ann got her wish, the Calevello Cup, the worship of the new skaters, and a sweet film called Demon of the Derby http://www.fireproofproductions.com/ Joan and Ann's grudge matches were very real, Ann referred to Joanie as a “bitch” often, and meant it. Joanie would roll her eyes back in her head at the mention of Ann, and say “Well we sell tickets!”
The Blonde Bomber book, bring Joan back into the spotlight.
The derby had an amazing past, starting as a marathon endurance race. Leo Seltzer and Damon Runyon met while drinking in Miami, sportswriter and member of the Algonquin Round Table. The author of gangsters classics like Guys and Dolls, Bloodhounds of Broadway, Little Miss Marker, Sorrowful Jones, and Pocketful of Miracles is the guy to thank for the derby rules. Pretty much the same rules as today.
Another motel exit. Joan unpacks telling me the 1972 film Kansas City Bomber, starring Raquel Welch, was supposedly "inspired" by hours of interviews the screenwriter did with Weston. That film is an obvious sour point. The screenwriter changed her story enough so Joan received nothing.
Rummer is that Goldie Hawn has a developed treatment based on Weston a few years ago.
Joanie also hated the song Roller Derby Queen by Jim Crouch which was always played when she entered the track. In fact the song was NOT about her, but the Viking Princess smiled and excepted it as part of the job. My fantasy film would star Joan Allen as the Bomber, Allen has the inner depth and icy, pissed, fuck you gaze. Edie Falco would play Ann Calvello. insanely whacked-out. I'd pay to see that film in 3D.
Joan was not original as Ann Calvello always told me.
Ann's right. Joan inherited the name, there were other Blonde Bombers, and Blonde Bombshells. Joan had media savvy that kept her on top for 25 years. The1950s TV camera loved Joan's curvaceous, athletic looks. In the1940s, Dorothy Wosilus was billed as Johnnie, the Blonde Bombshell. Joanie was a superstar, as long as the Derby was in the limelight.
The lights began to dim
Joan suggested over dinner that we do a book about her life in the derby. Rumors were flying that the derby was dying or being sold. Weston did not want to be forgotten.
We developed an interesting and complicated friendship. Joan needed me to document her, our friendship was the perfect codependency. She taught me to skate, allowing me to photograph her as a participant rather then a spectator. My photos were about HER as an athlete, hero, tough dame! No one fucked with me on the track. Joan worked the media, I was the media. I went the extra mile on skates. I was trusted, to a point. Joan had boundaries, even to me.
Joan was a feminist but the word was new to her. Feminism made her nervous, to close to a political statement, another boundary of hers. Joanie was a Republican and did some campaigning, I think for Nixon, she was elusive in details. Watergate was front page then. Politics and sexual preference were completely off the record with Joanie, but a number of woman on teams claimed to have affairs with Joanie.
Joan also owned a “woman's bar” call the Driftwood in Haywood, Ca. Joanie held court there. The Driftwood softball team played in the lesbian bar league. Fans, skaters, gay men and women were always welcome in her bar.
Joan didn't make a big deal that she was married to Nick Skofis another skater (a Sony Bono look alike.) She always called him “Her buddy” rather then husband. Joan knew her fans thought of her as the battling Amazon Goddess. Cat-fights between “lesbos” were a hot ticket back then. Being married could hurt her image, interesting dilemma for the times. Joanie thought about these things.
Flat track speculation
Joanie would have really dug the flat trackers. Their guts and creativeness, giving life back to a sport she invested her life to. I don't know how she would have reacted at all the ink, fishnets, piercings, and funky names. Weston the Republican was pretty conservative in her personal life. The new derby with women in charge would have put a huge smile on her face.
What really pissed Joan was that the MEN were in control back then! Men started the games and finished the games, scoring all the winning points, men dreamed up the rules. The justification by the all male management to pay men 30% more then the dames. Everyone knew the “weaker sex” was the draw. They just were not valued as much.
The Blonde Bomber was voted Roller Derby Queen four times, received the Most Valuable Player award in 1968 and was inducted into the National Roller Derby Hall of Fame.
Joan and I played postcard tag for years, talking about the book project. As time faded, in a world before email and Facebook the derby and it's superstars became a distant memory, the most unique American sporting event just faded out, and Joan died in 1997. Mad Cow was not a fitting end to such a outstanding athlete.
Thanks to the woman of the flat track Joanie and her amazing accomplishments can be rediscovered for a new generation.
Joanie would probably be training the new skaters, she already owned her own fearless name The Blonde Bomber.
Just don't play that Jim Crouch song while reading this!