The Atomic Bombshells

Pretty. Fast. Girls: Nurse Lithium, Evilyn A. Heathen, Blitzkrieg Betty and Mean Mean Mississippi Queen. Photo by Brian Steffen.

The time has come. After two years of blood, bruises and neon green glitter getting in all kinds of uncomfortable places, our very own Radioactive City Roller Girls have their first home bout Thursday, June 13, at the Paducah Regional SportsPlex, 6 p.m.

OK, people. These girls have not only broken bones and busted noses for you, they have also brought fishnets, flippy hair, red lipstick and a sexy, tough pinup vibe to town. We sat down with a few of our favorite rollergirls — Mean Mean Mississippi Queen, Blitzkrieg Betty, Nurse Lithium and Evilyn A. Heathen — so you can get to know these Pretty. Fast. Girls.

OK, the important stuff first. Who’s the biggest badass?
Blitzkrieg Betty (BB): Mean Mean Mississippi Queen is totally the biggest badass, and I would hate going against her in a bout. I hate going against her in a damn practice. She’s the hardest hitter and has the best footwork ever!

Evilyn A. Heathen (EAH): Mean Mean Mississippi Queen, no doubt. Sugarann Anthrax and Heidibusa are getting pretty badass, also!

Mean Mean Mississippi Queen (MMMQ): I consider any girl that’s willing to get out there and just try it a badass, but it’s the girls that stick with it after being in on the action, skating their first bout, seeing a serious injury or getting a serious injury that really earn the name “Rollergirl” — it’s no joke. Roller derby is rough and it takes a badass just to roll with us.

Photo by Lacy Williams

Now this is the real deal. Girls get hurt. What have been some of the worst injuries?
Nurse Lithium (NL): During my first few months I was black and blue all over, all the time. Cracked a rib, sprained my wrist — but we all have our injuries. Evilyn A. Heathen is healing a cracked clavicle. Sometimes we are walking injuries waiting to happen. But don’t worry, most of the time we are a pretty healthy group.

EAH: Barba Fett’s had some pretty wicked knee injuries — she has the most comical, vaudevillian wipeouts, and she’s laughing the whole time, too so you don’t feel like a heartless bitch joining in. And of course, I broke my collarbone at the first practice of the year. Heidibusa can hit like a Mack truck! Jaded Hades had a broken wrist with pins and other tortuous looking contraptions sticking out of it.

And everyone gets loads and loads of rink rash. For those unfamiliar with derby lingo, rink rash is when your bare flesh slides across the rink, making a terrible screeching sound and an even worse burn.  Imagine carpet burn times 10 with a fishnet pattern thrown in. Poor Sugarann had rink rash on both sides of her ass after our last bout. Makes the car ride home super fun!

So it’s not all fun and fishnets, right?
BB: Roller derby is a ridiculous amount of hard work. We have to do cardio and stupid knee raiser push-ups each practice, and we have to constantly do drills to develop our skating skills. It wears us out but all of it makes us better skaters in the end.
MMMQ: It’s lots of fun, but you pay your dues. With coach Lou Kemia (a.k.a. Will Cook) at the helm we work hard at practice twice a week, and try to scrimmage other teams as much as possible to get ourselves ready to roll.

There’s also the organization that takes a lot of work. We are a skater owned and operated league so with the help of our volunteers and the support of the community we do it all — recruuting skaters, seeking sponsors, raising funds, producing our events and bouts, etc. There’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes, and it’s up to the girls who also have work, school, families and such to handle it. There’s no doubt we work hard for our chance to play, but it’s worth it.

EAH: Our poor coach has to deal with the team sassing him about drills and exercises we hate, but somehow he puts up with us! All the pain and suffering just make us a stronger team. That’s kind of my mantra during the drills I don’t like: I can sit here and bitch about how badly it hurts, or suck it up and do it!

Do all the girls get along?
EAH: You know, we all get along pretty well. We’re not all BFFs, and we do have our fair share of disagreements, but overall we know we’re trying to do what’s best for the team as a whole, so it works out. When we have disagreements, we just don our cutest lingerie and have a sexy pillow fight and everything’s resolved!

BB: Well, we are a bunch of girls. If we don’t get along the fight usually lasts for a minute; or until we knock ‘em down really hard at practice. Then we forget about it. Even if we do fight sometimes, we really do all love each other.

Party like rock stars together?
MMMQ: You know it! We work hard, we skate hard and we deserve to play hard. 

EAH: What is this “party” of which you speak? Um, yeah, that’s one thing we do very well together. We can drink and dance and get rowdy with the best of them!

BB: I think we party too hard together sometimes. Some of us more than others. We also party with other leagues when we go watch them bout. We heart our sister leagues!

So whose awesome brainchild is this?
EAH: Blitzkrieg Bettie started the whole damn thing.  Don’t let her be modest — this is all her fault! 

BB: I got inspired when my ex played a fundraiser for the Mason Vixxen Rollergirls in Covington, Ky. He showed me pictures of these girls skating and knockin’ each other in the heads with chairs. I became interested and did some research on roller derby and decided Paducah needed a league! 

Why did you want to do it? What has inspired the rest of you to don the fishnets?
BB: I didn’t have any friends who were girls. I also needed some sort of an outlet so I could forget about the rest of the world and just focus on something fun. I also had really bad body issues before. Roller derby helps get me into shape and makes me feel good about my ass hanging out all over the place.

EAH: A) It’s fun. B) Dress code is rockin’. C) It’s challenging. D) It’s like having your very own girl gang. E) You get to meet all kinds of new people and make new friends.

NL: Well, I have only been in Paducah for a little over a year in a half. In my previous life I was a competitive barefoot water-skier. I think a lot of us actually have interesting histories with other sports. For example MMMQ was a hockey player. My point is we are competitive athletes from all different backgrounds that found a home together in roller derby. We enjoy beating the crap out of each other, then going to get a beer after. We love wearing fishnets, mini skirts, and black and blue bruises. It’s a great sport, and a great group of girls to be around.

MMMQ: When I first heard about it, I really didn’t completely understand what I was getting into. I knew it was a contact sport on roller-skates and an excuse to wear fishnets and booty shorts. It sounded like lots of fun and it seemed like a good way to meet people in a new place, but mostly I was looking forward to beating people up.

I know you guys are always looking for new recruits. What advice do you have for girls interested in checking derby out?
BB: Don’t be scared. We WANT you there, even if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. We’ll teach you how to skate. We want you to be a part of our team. Even if it means me baking you cookies every practice, I’ll do it.

MMMQ: I tell everyone the same thing — just come check it out. You will either fall in love with derby or you won’t. If you end up skating, that’s awesome! New skaters are cause for celebration, but it’s not for everybody. If you like what you see but decide not to skate there are other ways to get involved. Mary and Nikki, for example, have made iList Paducah one of our official sponsors!

Right on, iList Paducah! So if someone can’t skate, is there a place for them in the organization?
MMMQ: Everyday we are getting better ourselves and that means we are better at teaching others how to skate, so don’t let “I can’t skate” stop you. If you really just want to help out, there’s plenty to do and we’ll put your talents to work. Our volunteers are part of the team and we couldn’t do it without them.

BB: Well…if you can’t skate, we’ll teach you. BUT if you really don’t want to, there are plenty of things you can do. We are always looking for scorekeepers, penalty box timers, stats peeps, announcers, merchandise sellers, our own personal shirtless masseuse guys, etc!

So you guys are insanely tough, sexy and just all-around loveable. I bet you have awesome groupies!
BB: We are always taking applications. ;)

NL: We have hella groupies! And we heart them :) We always need more though. We will need all the support we can get for our upcoming home bout June 13 at the Paducah Regional SportsPlex. I want to see people holding up signs with our names on them and our numbers painted on their faces!

So what does the future hold for the ladies of Paducah’s first flat-track derby team?
EAH: Universal domination.

NL: Only the future will tell. We hope to get more girls recruited to skate, more dudes available to ref and a solid foundation of loving followers to support us. One day we would like to have enough skaters to have multiple teams in Paducah so we could scrimmage each other. We are all very dedicated to the growth of our team and we hope you will support us all the way.

Of course we will! You guys heard it from the mouths of tough hot babes. They want YOU! The team couldn’t survive without the wonderful fans, and they thank you for all the love you’ve already showed them. And now is time for the payoff. Head out to the SportsPlex on June 13 and watch them rip some heads off!

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