Holding Space with Magical Wheelism

Throughout last year, derby folks filled their downtime with baking, gardening, and other kinds of socially distance-friendly skating. April "Jumpy McGee" Fournier (Maine RD, Team Indigenous) decided to pursue a long-held interest: public office! Last summer, she entered the race for one of Portland, Maine's City Councilor At-Large seats.

I caught up with Jumpy back then. I found out what a candidate's life is like, how derby's primed her for this new, exciting endeavor, and why we all need to do our part to create the world we want to see. {{Spoiler alert: Jumpy won!}} Enjoy!

Get to know macrame plant hanger maker extraordinaire Rachel Avenido (aka Ice of Minnesota Roller Derby) of Icy Knots on this latest episode of "Pop-Up Shopcast"!

In this latest episode of "Pop-up Shopcast," maker Caesarea Hendrix (aka Legs of Minnesota Roller Derby) tells us all about her handmade stationery and skin care! FYI: the video of this interview is available on this pod's youtube and Insta pages. Enjoy! 

What's up, peeps! I'm super pumped to introduce POP-UP SHOPCAST, an informal chat series with Black, Indigenous &/or Skaters of Color with entrepreneurial endeavors be they full-fledged businesses or nascent Etsy side-hustles. I've been motivated by these makers in our midst for some time now and have wanted to big them up somehow. Last year, I compiled a BIPOC biz list and have refreshed it a few times. This "Pop-Up Shopcast" series is meant to bring that list to life, to have these folks tell us about their work in their own words.

First up: Taco Bruiseday and Ratchet, the midbestern sister duo behind the roller derby subscription box Bout Betties, the roller derby cross-training service Roller Derby Athletics, and the soon-to-be-launched "Small Business Mullet," a podcast for small businesses. Enjoy!

Today’s special guest is topical, timely as well as just plain awesome. Manila Ice of Minnesota Roller Derby and Team Philippines, is a U.S. Census enumerator, which means they visit far-flung areas in their home state and completes the census form with residents who have not been counted. In case you don’t know what the Census is, it’s a national count that takes place every 10 years of every child and adult who resides in the United States, regardless of immigration or economic status, or political affiliation. It is a count that is dictated by the U.S. Constitution and is in turn used to apportion how many seats your area gets in the House of Representatives, how much funding is disbursed. The population number of this Census will determine the Electoral College votes are apportioned to each state for 2024’s Presidential Election--so it’s super important.

We’re nearing the deadline for responses to the United States Census. It was originally set for October 31 and then shortened a month by the executive branch of the federal government and set for September 30, but a federal judge last week restored the original deadline. In any case, if you haven’t done so, get it in as soon as you can. It takes 5 minutes. The link is below.

Enjoy the convo with Ice, who knows their stuff. We also talked about identity and the mood and conversations that have taken place at MNRD since George Floyd’s murder in neighboring Minneapolis.

EPISODE LINKS:
US Census: https://my2020census.gov/

Holding Space with Magical Wheelism is available on all your favorite podcast outlets. Help support the pod grow by subscribing and sharing it with friends! Rating and reviewing on Apple Podcasts also helps others find us.

Follow the pod @holdingspacewithmagicpod on IG and @ThisisHSMWPod on Twitter

Music: ROFEU, "Midnight Lover"

Cover photo: James Corbett www.epiclifeimages.com and Instagram @epiclifeimages (https://www.instagram.com/epiclifeimages/)

Today’s guest needs little to no introduction for followers of skater social media. Neon is the creator of the @BIPOCWhoSkate instagram, which has become a clubhouse of sorts--equal parts home, hang, and hub--of BIPOC skater-centric topics, issues, and images. Through BIPOCWhoSkate, Neon hosted or sponsored Spanish-language skater terms classes, Q&As, events, book and film discussions, fundraisers, takeovers, and more. IRL the LA native co-founded and built a skating collective in Madison, Wi, where she landed after attending college elsewhere in the state. She’s also an alum of Madison Roller Derby and Team IRN, and is avid park skater. 

Windy City Rollers announcer and coach Jumping Spider talk all about the 10-part ESPN/Netflix basketball doc THE LAST DANCE  about Michael Jordan and the ’98 Chicago Bulls' final quest for their sixth and final NBA Championship. Ourconvo went everywhere from my unresolved animus as a New York Knicks fan, who were routinely antagonized by his Bulls, to the parallels and differences between roller derby and basketball.

Warning: Spider and I go into spoilers but I think it’s an enjoyable listen whether or not you’ve watched the doc.

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Holding Space with Magical Wheelism is now available on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, and Youtube. Help the pod grow by subscribing and sharing it with friends! Rating and reviewing on Apple Podcasts also helps others find us. Follow the pod on Instagram at @holdingspacewithmagicpod.  

Cover photo: James Corbett www.epiclifeimages.com and Instagram: @epiclifeimages (https://www.instagram.com/epiclifeimages/)

Music: Puzzle by Roa https://soundcloud.com/roa_music1031 Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/al-puzzle Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/-ttCBruXsjo

On today’s episode, we have Windy City Rollers’ Jumping Spider. We had a nice chat a few months back all about his five years announcing and coach. You can also catch Jumping on WARR Media (weareregalradio.com).

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Holding Space with Magical Wheelism is available on all your favorite podcast outlets. Help support the pod grow by subscribing and sharing it with friends! Rating and reviewing on Apple Podcasts also helps others find us.

Follow the pod @holdingspacewithmagicpod on IG.

Music: ROFEU, "Midnight Lover"

Cover photo: James Corbett www.epiclifeimages.com and Instagram @epiclifeimages (https://www.instagram.com/epiclifeimages/)

What does a musical-turned-film cultural phenomenon about the US founding father Alexander Hamilton performed by a majority POC cast have to do with roller skating? Nothing but for the fact that many skaters are huge HAM fans. (Not to mention there's also a decent-sized Venn diagram overlap between musical theater nerds and derby peeps.) So listen to Coco, Punkie, Scarbs, and PEGGY--err, Magic--dissect why HAMILTON is so special, important and, at times, problematic. And yet we'll never be able to say no to this (musical)!