• "The Portlandian" - November 12, 2015 edition

    From Terry Hall@21:1/5 to All on Fri Nov 13 14:18:46 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.nicole-bobek, alt.fan.tonya-harding

    TTTTT H H EEEEE
    T H H E
    T HHHHH EEEEE
    T H H E
    T H H EEEEE

    PPPP OOOO RRRR TTTTT L A N N DDDD I A N N TM
    P P O O R R T L A A NN N D D I A A NN N
    PPPP O O RRRR T L AAAAA N N N D D I AAAAA N N N
    P O O R R T L A A N NN D D I A A N NN
    P OOOO R R T LLLLL A A N N DDDD I A A N N

    *****************************************************************
    The Portlandian, the Internet's premier source of Tonya News

    November 12, 2015 Edition - ANNUAL TONYA BIRTHDAY ISSUE
    (C) 2015 Portland Ice Skating Society
    http://www.pdxiss.org *****************************************************************

    Welcome to our traditional annual birthday edition of "The
    Portlandian". In this issue, we have an update on the museum
    project, discover a Tonya reference in a local newspaper, cover
    breaking news of yet another Olympic corruption scandal, and
    as a special birthday treat, finish off with some pulp detective
    fiction featuring many thinly disguised characters from the
    skating world (including you know who).

    This time of year marks a number of important anniversaries: not
    only is today Tonya's 45th birthday, but last Friday was the 40th
    anniversary of the very first gig by the Sex Pistols. And today
    also marks the 40th anniversary of the finished edit being
    produced of Queen's iconic music video for "Bohemian Rhapsody":

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFF9fj6cH7I

    We're sure that there's some kind of connection between all these
    things, we just can't work out what it is yet.

    There's not much Tonya news to report, though in this instance
    it's one of those cases of "no news is good news" - our sources
    tell us that Tonya and her family are doing fine.

    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...

    Maybe one day we'll get around to writing "Tonyarian Rhapsody".


    TONYA MUSEUM NOW ON AirBnB

    Now you really can spend a night at the museum. In fact, several
    nights, and days as well. Well, at least at the Tonya & Nancy
    museum (which is the only one that really counts), as Matt &
    Viviana have now listed their museum on AirBnB. As one person put
    it, "a must stay for figure skating fans and people who want to
    use 'I live in a Museum' as a pick up line".

    They also made a surprise trip to Portland earlier last month,
    and visited the Clackamas Town Center Mall, the location where
    Tonya did most of her training. Unfortunately the rink was
    removed several years ago, but to a Tonyaphile, it's almost like
    visiting the site of Woodstock. No word on whether they took up
    the invitation of a local to visit the Dockside Saloon, or that
    science museum where Tonya can be seen studying a brain in a jar
    in "Breakaway", but you can find a brief video of their trip to
    the mall on their Facebook page:

    https://www.facebook.com/THNK1994/


    TONYA MENTION IN KIWI NEWSPAPER

    The impact of the events of almost 22 years ago continue to be
    felt in ice skating, even out here in NZ.

    A few months ago Disney on Ice toured out here. In an interview
    with a local paper, one of the skaters, Josh Uster, explains how
    he got interested in skating at the age of 11 after watching the
    1994 Olympics:

    "I think everyone fell in love with skating in the 90s, with
    Nancy (Kerrigan) and Tonya (Harding)," he says, "I saw it and I
    just took to it."

    You can read the rest of the article here:

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11486159

    No word on whether he finds the Disney factor "dumb" or "corny".


    FROM RUSSIA WITH DRUGS

    Hot on the heels of the FIFA scandal has been the news in recent
    days of another massive case of sports cheating being exposed.
    And this one is about as big as they come: the World Anti-Doping
    Agency has accused the Russians of systematic doping on an
    industrial scale, proving that nothing has really changed in that
    area since the Soviet era.

    Already the affair has claimed its first scalp, with former
    International Association of Athletics Federations President
    Lamine Diack resigning from his position on the IOC after being
    placed under formal investigation by French authorities. Putin
    has ordered an investigation, although the idea that anything of
    this size could possibly have been going on without his
    knowledge and approval is pretty hard to believe. And there is
    now serious talk of the Russians being tossed out of the 2016
    Olympics.

    Events are still unfolding, but we'll be keeping a close eye on
    this one over the next few months.


    And now we move on to our special birthday feature:

    THE PORTLAND ICE SKATING SOCIETY PRESENTS:

    "THE BIG ICE RINK"

    A Skating Noir

    The scene: the interior of a badly-lit office, Portland, Oregon,
    1994 - oops, I mean 1949. But we'll let our hero take up the rest
    of the tale:

    ***********************************************

    There's a million stories in the big skating rink of life - and
    this is one of them.

    The name's Boni. Sam Boni. I'm a private dick. Gumshoe. P.I. Call
    it what you will. I run the Figure-skating Bureau of
    Investigation here in Portland. As you've probably guessed, I
    deal with ice skating crime.

    One day this dame walked into my office. Said her daughter, a
    skater by the name of Nicole, had gone missing. She showed me a
    picture. Blonde. Nice rack. Legs up to her armpits. A real class
    act. I was smitten. I immediately decided to take the case.
    Little did I know it would lead me on a wild goose chase halfway
    around the West Coast.

    I'd need some information, and I knew just where to get it. My
    favorite snitch, a reporter called Christine. A broad with the
    inside edge on the sleazy underbelly of the sordid cesspool of
    vice known as ladies' figure skating. She knew nothing, but she
    gave me a lead, a skater known as "Ice-T".

    I found her down at Morry's bar. That's a seedy dive over in
    Clackamas County - the rough side of town. I knew she was there
    because her pick-up truck was parked outside. "Ice-T" was a real
    tough cookie. When I went inside the joint, she was shooting some
    pool with the local hustlers, and taking them to the cleaners,
    too. A sassy blonde with a pack-a-day habit, she was the type who
    knew a truck axle as well she did as a triple axel, but she had a
    heart of gold. She didn't know anything either, but she told me
    to talk to a slick customer known only as "the Fat Man".

    Fat Man, it turned out, was in the protection game. The "Mr.
    Big" of the deal, in every sense of the word - he weighed 300
    pounds. He ran an outfit called the World Bodyguard Service, a
    security agency for skaters. At first he wouldn't squeal. But
    then I turned on the heat, and he folded like a cheap accordion.
    He spilled his guts. Literally. All over my trenchcoat.

    But Fat Man did give me another lead. A clown who operated the
    biggest numbers racket in figure skating. A man who "knew the
    score". Actually, he knew all the scores for the skating
    contests, because he made them up beforehand. A skating judge
    named Yuri, and his sidekick, a saucy little French minx called
    Marie. "Yuri". Sounds kind of Russian. I might have known some
    dastardly commie was mixed up in this caper. After dropping off
    my trenchcoat at the dry cleaners, I decided to pay him a visit.
    He didn't know anything either, but he gave me another
    connection.

    I had to take a detour down to Frisco - Chinatown, to be precise.
    My contact there was a shapely Oriental babe known as "Madame K",
    who was also reputed to control most of the city's opium dens.
    She couldn't help, but did give me the name of a suave Italian
    nicknamed "The Speedskater", who was rumored to be the Godfather
    of the international skating scene. Perhaps he'd know something.
    Russians, Orientals, Italians - this case was turning into a
    regular League of Nations.

    As I exited Madame K's joint, I was to have an unpleasant
    encounter - with a thug known as "Jeff the Knife". Ice-T had
    warned me about this guy: a dangerous unstable psychopath with a
    penchant for violence. And she should know - he was her ex-
    husband.

    "I hear you've been getting nosey" sneered Jeff, as he poked his
    "heater" into my ribs. "Sticking your schnozz into other people's
    business. Well, here's a warning about what happens to nosey
    people!".

    The pain was excruciating as Jeff stabbed my nose with an ice
    skate. But I now knew one fact: Jeff must have been sent to
    scare me off - and that meant I was getting too close for comfort
    for whoever was behind this thing.

    The Speedskater fancied himself to be a bit of a Ladies man. And
    Mens, Pairs & Dance as well. I never liked these foreign Romeo
    types. Speedy turned out to be a total chump. This guy was so
    dumb he couldn't empty booze out of an ice skate if you told him
    the instructions were written on the sole. I was going nowhere.
    It looked like I was skating down Christopher Bowman Boulevard -
    in other words, a dead end street.

    But I did get another name, a character called "Max the Pimp",
    based in Lake Oswego. Max's line was selling pictures of the
    stars. Not movie stars, like Bogey or Bacall, but actual stars -
    astronomy photos. But that was just a front for his real
    operation. You see, Max was actually one of the biggest wheels in
    the smutty picture business. Here I finally struck paydirt.

    I showed Max the photo. "Yeah, I've seen her. A real doll. But
    she wasn't blonde - she had dark hair, and she didn't use the
    name Nicole. Instead she called herself 'La Azalea Noir' - 'The
    Black Azalea'. Most of my stuff is fairly mainstream. But
    occasionally I get a customer who wants something, well, a bit
    different", he said. "A bit out of the ordinary".

    He paused, and drew back on his cigarette. "There are some guys
    who like... the kinky stuff".

    I slipped him a few pictures of George Washington to help loosen
    his tongue a bit more. "Gimme some names", I asked.

    "There was this one guy. I only know his first name - 'Chuckie'.
    He paid me big bucks to take photos of this Nicole broad spanking
    him while dressed in her skating costume. That's Chuckie who was
    dressed in Nicole's skating costume, not Nicole - she was wearing
    high-heeled boots and a gas mask. He asked me to send the
    pictures to this Post Office box in Sacramento. That's all I've
    got".

    The next morning, I was on the train down there. It wasn't much
    of a lead, but it was all I had. I sat outside the Post Office
    for hours, staking it out. I was giving up hope. It looked like
    Max had given me a bum steer. Then it hit me, like a nightstick
    on an ice skater's kneecap. I was such a mug. Perhaps Max was
    actually Chuckie, and this was all just a cheap ruse to get me
    out of the way. I suddenly realized - this wasn't going to end
    like a Sonja Henie musical. I had to get back to P-town - and
    fast.

    By the time I got to Portland it was almost midnight. I went back
    to Max's, but he wasn't there. But then I had a stroke of luck. A
    discarded book of matches with the name of a now defunct ice-
    skate factory on the back. Could this be where he'd taken Nicole?
    I gunned the car hard and put pedal to metal - time was running
    out for "The Black Azalea".

    When I entered the factory by the back door I found Christine, or
    rather, what was left of her. She'd been "whacked" - bludgeoned
    to death with a baseball bat, then crudely cut in half &
    dismembered. It wasn't a pretty sight. I guess she'd stuck her
    nose into one too many skating scandals. She must have sensed the
    Nicole story would be a big scoop and been on my tail ever since.

    It was obvious I was dealing with a real psycho here.

    Then I saw two shady-looking characters. I immediately recognized
    both of them - the first was Max and the other was "Jeff The
    Knife" - he was probably responsible for what happened to
    Christine. Together they were hauling something up a flight of
    stairs. There was no mistaking that curvaceous form - it was the
    unconscious body of Nicole, bound and gagged, and they were going
    to dump her into an ice-skate sharpening machine. Nicole was
    going to be "iced", hurled into a death spiral that really was
    deadly. A triple-toe-double-toe-loop combination into oblivion, a
    double Salchow into the great hereafter if I didn't act quick.

    But then I made a horrible discovery. I was unarmed! I'd left my
    "piece" in my other trenchcoat when I dropped it off at the dry
    cleaners. Curse that Fat Man! There was no time to go back to my
    office to get another gun. I decided there was only one option: I
    was going to have to bluff it out.

    "Okay Max!" I yelled, "The jig is up! This place is surrounded by
    coppers with Tommy guns! Surrender now, or I'll give the word and
    they'll pump you so full of lead you'll look like Swiss cheese!"

    "You don't fool me, you two-bit punk!", sneered Max. "I know
    you're alone!".

    "Not quite!" A woman's voice came from above and behind me. It
    was Ice-T. And she had a crossbow. The bolt struck Jeff straight
    between the eyes. He dropped Nicole and fell down the stairs. It
    was obvious that he was now where he belonged, and it was a place
    that would be way too hot for any skating.

    Max immediately panicked. Like most bully-boys he was gutless,
    and with his muscle-man gone, he turned into a quivering
    jellyfish. As he ran along the gantry to try and escape he
    slipped and fell into the skate-sharpening machine, making a
    ghastly shriek as he was processed into a human toe-pick.

    "After you left", said Ice-T, "I realized that Jeff would
    probably be mixed up in this. So I followed him". We untied
    Nicole, who was none the worse for wear after she came around.
    Once again, I had cracked the case - with a bit of help, of
    course.

    Afterwards, I married Nicole, and made an honest woman out of
    her. I think I'll quit the P.I. game, but I can't completely
    escape from skating. It's in the blood. Perhaps I'll settle down,
    start a family, maybe set up a nice little business sharpening
    ice skates. Because at the end of the day, there's only one thing
    you can say about this tawdry affair:

    "Forget it, Sam, it's figure skating."

    *****************************************************************
    VISIT THESE GREAT TONYA WEB SITES:

    PortIce - http://www.pdxiss.org
    David House - http://www.tonyaharding.org
    Charlie Main - http://www.charliesweb.com/tonya/tonya.html
    Puppetboy - http://www.usapaul.net/tonya/
    Valerie Smith - http://www.olywa.net/radu/valerie/LilHam.html
    Swan Lake - http://members.tripod.com/~TonyaHarding/index.html
    Blades of Gold - http://members.tripod.com/tmhfan/index.html *****************************************************************

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Gary R. Schmidt@21:1/5 to All on Sat Nov 14 23:58:46 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    On 14/11/2015 6:00 PM, Chilly8 wrote:
    .
    [alt.fan.tonya


    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...


    I agree there. There are lot of upbeat songs that skaters could skate
    to, and I am amazed that a lot of the skaters are skating to it.

    I would LOVE so see some skater skate to AC/DC someday. "Girls Got
    Rythm" is one sone that would make a good upbeat porogram.

    Hey, if it's AkkaDakka that they should skate to, "I've Got Big Balls"
    should be done first! :-)

    Cheers,
    Gary B-)

    --
    When men talk to their friends, they insult each other.
    They don't really mean it.
    When women talk to their friends, they compliment each other.
    They don't mean it either.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chilly8@21:1/5 to Gary R. Schmidt on Sat Nov 14 09:48:57 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    "Gary R. Schmidt" <grschmidt@acm.org> wrote in message news:5pnjhc-gjg.ln1@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au...
    On 14/11/2015 6:00 PM, Chilly8 wrote:
    .
    [alt.fan.tonya


    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...


    I agree there. There are lot of upbeat songs that skaters could skate
    to, and I am amazed that a lot of the skaters are skating to it.

    I would LOVE so see some skater skate to AC/DC someday. "Girls Got
    Rythm" is one sone that would make a good upbeat porogram.

    Hey, if it's AkkaDakka that they should skate to, "I've Got Big Balls"
    should be done first! :-)


    That sounds like something one could skate to. That would be a perfect
    program for any of the men, if done right.

    But a lot of pop music could allow for high paced upbeat programs that would really get the audience into it

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Terry Hall@21:1/5 to All on Fri Nov 13 14:31:43 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    TTTTT H H EEEEE
    T H H E
    T HHHHH EEEEE
    T H H E
    T H H EEEEE

    PPPP OOOO RRRR TTTTT L A N N DDDD I A N N TM
    P P O O R R T L A A NN N D D I A A NN N
    PPPP O O RRRR T L AAAAA N N N D D I AAAAA N N N
    P O O R R T L A A N NN D D I A A N NN
    P OOOO R R T LLLLL A A N N DDDD I A A N N

    *****************************************************************
    The Portlandian, the Internet's premier source of Tonya News

    November 12, 2015 Edition - ANNUAL TONYA BIRTHDAY ISSUE
    (C) 2015 Portland Ice Skating Society
    http://www.pdxiss.org *****************************************************************

    Welcome to our traditional annual birthday edition of "The
    Portlandian". In this issue, we have an update on the museum
    project, discover a Tonya reference in a local newspaper, cover
    breaking news of yet another Olympic corruption scandal, and
    as a special birthday treat, finish off with some pulp detective
    fiction featuring many thinly disguised characters from the
    skating world (including you know who).

    This time of year marks a number of important anniversaries: not
    only is today Tonya's 45th birthday, but last Friday was the 40th
    anniversary of the very first gig by the Sex Pistols. And today
    also marks the 40th anniversary of the finished edit being
    produced of Queen's iconic music video for "Bohemian Rhapsody":

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFF9fj6cH7I

    We're sure that there's some kind of connection between all these
    things, we just can't work out what it is yet.

    There's not much Tonya news to report, though in this instance
    it's one of those cases of "no news is good news" - our sources
    tell us that Tonya and her family are doing fine.

    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...

    Maybe one day we'll get around to writing "Tonyarian Rhapsody".


    TONYA MUSEUM NOW ON AirBnB

    Now you really can spend a night at the museum. In fact, several
    nights, and days as well. Well, at least at the Tonya & Nancy
    museum (which is the only one that really counts), as Matt &
    Viviana have now listed their museum on AirBnB. As one person put
    it, "a must stay for figure skating fans and people who want to
    use 'I live in a Museum' as a pick up line".

    They also made a surprise trip to Portland earlier last month,
    and visited the Clackamas Town Center Mall, the location where
    Tonya did most of her training. Unfortunately the rink was
    removed several years ago, but to a Tonyaphile, it's almost like
    visiting the site of Woodstock. No word on whether they took up
    the invitation of a local to visit the Dockside Saloon, or that
    science museum where Tonya can be seen studying a brain in a jar
    in "Breakaway", but you can find a brief video of their trip to
    the mall on their Facebook page:

    https://www.facebook.com/THNK1994/


    TONYA MENTION IN KIWI NEWSPAPER

    The impact of the events of almost 22 years ago continue to be
    felt in ice skating, even out here in NZ.

    A few months ago Disney on Ice toured out here. In an interview
    with a local paper, one of the skaters, Josh Uster, explains how
    he got interested in skating at the age of 11 after watching the
    1994 Olympics:

    "I think everyone fell in love with skating in the 90s, with
    Nancy (Kerrigan) and Tonya (Harding)," he says, "I saw it and I
    just took to it."

    You can read the rest of the article here:

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11486159

    No word on whether he finds the Disney factor "dumb" or "corny".


    FROM RUSSIA WITH DRUGS

    Hot on the heels of the FIFA scandal has been the news in recent
    days of another massive case of sports cheating being exposed.
    And this one is about as big as they come: the World Anti-Doping
    Agency has accused the Russians of systematic doping on an
    industrial scale, proving that nothing has really changed in that
    area since the Soviet era.

    Already the affair has claimed its first scalp, with former
    International Association of Athletics Federations President
    Lamine Diack resigning from his position on the IOC after being
    placed under formal investigation by French authorities. Putin
    has ordered an investigation, although the idea that anything of
    this size could possibly have been going on without his
    knowledge and approval is pretty hard to believe. And there is
    now serious talk of the Russians being tossed out of the 2016
    Olympics.

    Events are still unfolding, but we'll be keeping a close eye on
    this one over the next few months.


    And now we move on to our special birthday feature:

    THE PORTLAND ICE SKATING SOCIETY PRESENTS:

    "THE BIG ICE RINK"

    A Skating Noir

    The scene: the interior of a badly-lit office, Portland, Oregon,
    1994 - oops, I mean 1949. But we'll let our hero take up the rest
    of the tale:

    ***********************************************

    There's a million stories in the big skating rink of life - and
    this is one of them.

    The name's Boni. Sam Boni. I'm a private dick. Gumshoe. P.I. Call
    it what you will. I run the Figure-skating Bureau of
    Investigation here in Portland. As you've probably guessed, I
    deal with ice skating crime.

    One day this dame walked into my office. Said her daughter, a
    skater by the name of Nicole, had gone missing. She showed me a
    picture. Blonde. Nice rack. Legs up to her armpits. A real class
    act. I was smitten. I immediately decided to take the case.
    Little did I know it would lead me on a wild goose chase halfway
    around the West Coast.

    I'd need some information, and I knew just where to get it. My
    favorite snitch, a reporter called Christine. A broad with the
    inside edge on the sleazy underbelly of the sordid cesspool of
    vice known as ladies' figure skating. She knew nothing, but she
    gave me a lead, a skater known as "Ice-T".

    I found her down at Morry's bar. That's a seedy dive over in
    Clackamas County - the rough side of town. I knew she was there
    because her pick-up truck was parked outside. "Ice-T" was a real
    tough cookie. When I went inside the joint, she was shooting some
    pool with the local hustlers, and taking them to the cleaners,
    too. A sassy blonde with a pack-a-day habit, she was the type who
    knew a truck axle as well she did as a triple axel, but she had a
    heart of gold. She didn't know anything either, but she told me
    to talk to a slick customer known only as "the Fat Man".

    Fat Man, it turned out, was in the protection game. The "Mr.
    Big" of the deal, in every sense of the word - he weighed 300
    pounds. He ran an outfit called the World Bodyguard Service, a
    security agency for skaters. At first he wouldn't squeal. But
    then I turned on the heat, and he folded like a cheap accordion.
    He spilled his guts. Literally. All over my trenchcoat.

    But Fat Man did give me another lead. A clown who operated the
    biggest numbers racket in figure skating. A man who "knew the
    score". Actually, he knew all the scores for the skating
    contests, because he made them up beforehand. A skating judge
    named Yuri, and his sidekick, a saucy little French minx called
    Marie. "Yuri". Sounds kind of Russian. I might have known some
    dastardly commie was mixed up in this caper. After dropping off
    my trenchcoat at the dry cleaners, I decided to pay him a visit.
    He didn't know anything either, but he gave me another
    connection.

    I had to take a detour down to Frisco - Chinatown, to be precise.
    My contact there was a shapely Oriental babe known as "Madame K",
    who was also reputed to control most of the city's opium dens.
    She couldn't help, but did give me the name of a suave Italian
    nicknamed "The Speedskater", who was rumored to be the Godfather
    of the international skating scene. Perhaps he'd know something.
    Russians, Orientals, Italians - this case was turning into a
    regular League of Nations.

    As I exited Madame K's joint, I was to have an unpleasant
    encounter - with a thug known as "Jeff the Knife". Ice-T had
    warned me about this guy: a dangerous unstable psychopath with a
    penchant for violence. And she should know - he was her ex-
    husband.

    "I hear you've been getting nosey" sneered Jeff, as he poked his
    "heater" into my ribs. "Sticking your schnozz into other people's
    business. Well, here's a warning about what happens to nosey
    people!".

    The pain was excruciating as Jeff stabbed my nose with an ice
    skate. But I now knew one fact: Jeff must have been sent to
    scare me off - and that meant I was getting too close for comfort
    for whoever was behind this thing.

    The Speedskater fancied himself to be a bit of a Ladies man. And
    Mens, Pairs & Dance as well. I never liked these foreign Romeo
    types. Speedy turned out to be a total chump. This guy was so
    dumb he couldn't empty booze out of an ice skate if you told him
    the instructions were written on the sole. I was going nowhere.
    It looked like I was skating down Christopher Bowman Boulevard -
    in other words, a dead end street.

    But I did get another name, a character called "Max the Pimp",
    based in Lake Oswego. Max's line was selling pictures of the
    stars. Not movie stars, like Bogey or Bacall, but actual stars -
    astronomy photos. But that was just a front for his real
    operation. You see, Max was actually one of the biggest wheels in
    the smutty picture business. Here I finally struck paydirt.

    I showed Max the photo. "Yeah, I've seen her. A real doll. But
    she wasn't blonde - she had dark hair, and she didn't use the
    name Nicole. Instead she called herself 'La Azalea Noir' - 'The
    Black Azalea'. Most of my stuff is fairly mainstream. But
    occasionally I get a customer who wants something, well, a bit
    different", he said. "A bit out of the ordinary".

    He paused, and drew back on his cigarette. "There are some guys
    who like... the kinky stuff".

    I slipped him a few pictures of George Washington to help loosen
    his tongue a bit more. "Gimme some names", I asked.

    "There was this one guy. I only know his first name - 'Chuckie'.
    He paid me big bucks to take photos of this Nicole broad spanking
    him while dressed in her skating costume. That's Chuckie who was
    dressed in Nicole's skating costume, not Nicole - she was wearing
    high-heeled boots and a gas mask. He asked me to send the
    pictures to this Post Office box in Sacramento. That's all I've
    got".

    The next morning, I was on the train down there. It wasn't much
    of a lead, but it was all I had. I sat outside the Post Office
    for hours, staking it out. I was giving up hope. It looked like
    Max had given me a bum steer. Then it hit me, like a nightstick
    on an ice skater's kneecap. I was such a mug. Perhaps Max was
    actually Chuckie, and this was all just a cheap ruse to get me
    out of the way. I suddenly realized - this wasn't going to end
    like a Sonja Henie musical. I had to get back to P-town - and
    fast.

    By the time I got to Portland it was almost midnight. I went back
    to Max's, but he wasn't there. But then I had a stroke of luck. A
    discarded book of matches with the name of a now defunct ice-
    skate factory on the back. Could this be where he'd taken Nicole?
    I gunned the car hard and put pedal to metal - time was running
    out for "The Black Azalea".

    When I entered the factory by the back door I found Christine, or
    rather, what was left of her. She'd been "whacked" - bludgeoned
    to death with a baseball bat, then crudely cut in half &
    dismembered. It wasn't a pretty sight. I guess she'd stuck her
    nose into one too many skating scandals. She must have sensed the
    Nicole story would be a big scoop and been on my tail ever since.

    It was obvious I was dealing with a real psycho here.

    Then I saw two shady-looking characters. I immediately recognized
    both of them - the first was Max and the other was "Jeff The
    Knife" - he was probably responsible for what happened to
    Christine. Together they were hauling something up a flight of
    stairs. There was no mistaking that curvaceous form - it was the
    unconscious body of Nicole, bound and gagged, and they were going
    to dump her into an ice-skate sharpening machine. Nicole was
    going to be "iced", hurled into a death spiral that really was
    deadly. A triple-toe-double-toe-loop combination into oblivion, a
    double Salchow into the great hereafter if I didn't act quick.

    But then I made a horrible discovery. I was unarmed! I'd left my
    "piece" in my other trenchcoat when I dropped it off at the dry
    cleaners. Curse that Fat Man! There was no time to go back to my
    office to get another gun. I decided there was only one option: I
    was going to have to bluff it out.

    "Okay Max!" I yelled, "The jig is up! This place is surrounded by
    coppers with Tommy guns! Surrender now, or I'll give the word and
    they'll pump you so full of lead you'll look like Swiss cheese!"

    "You don't fool me, you two-bit punk!", sneered Max. "I know
    you're alone!".

    "Not quite!" A woman's voice came from above and behind me. It
    was Ice-T. And she had a crossbow. The bolt struck Jeff straight
    between the eyes. He dropped Nicole and fell down the stairs. It
    was obvious that he was now where he belonged, and it was a place
    that would be way too hot for any skating.

    Max immediately panicked. Like most bully-boys he was gutless,
    and with his muscle-man gone, he turned into a quivering
    jellyfish. As he ran along the gantry to try and escape he
    slipped and fell into the skate-sharpening machine, making a
    ghastly shriek as he was processed into a human toe-pick.

    "After you left", said Ice-T, "I realized that Jeff would
    probably be mixed up in this. So I followed him". We untied
    Nicole, who was none the worse for wear after she came around.
    Once again, I had cracked the case - with a bit of help, of
    course.

    Afterwards, I married Nicole, and made an honest woman out of
    her. I think I'll quit the P.I. game, but I can't completely
    escape from skating. It's in the blood. Perhaps I'll settle down,
    start a family, maybe set up a nice little business sharpening
    ice skates. Because at the end of the day, there's only one thing
    you can say about this tawdry affair:

    "Forget it, Sam, it's figure skating."

    *****************************************************************
    VISIT THESE GREAT TONYA WEB SITES:

    PortIce - http://www.pdxiss.org
    David House - http://www.tonyaharding.org
    Charlie Main - http://www.charliesweb.com/tonya/tonya.html
    Puppetboy - http://www.usapaul.net/tonya/
    Valerie Smith - http://www.olywa.net/radu/valerie/LilHam.html
    Swan Lake - http://members.tripod.com/~TonyaHarding/index.html
    Blades of Gold - http://members.tripod.com/tmhfan/index.html *****************************************************************

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    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chilly8@21:1/5 to All on Fri Nov 13 23:00:30 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    .
    [alt.fan.tonya


    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...


    I agree there. There are lot of upbeat songs that skaters could skate to,
    and I am amazed that a lot of the skaters are skating to it.

    I would LOVE so see some skater skate to AC/DC someday. "Girls Got Rythm" is one sone that would make a good upbeat porogram. "If You Want Blood (you got it) would work as a long programme, especially or any of the men. The
    audidence would LOVE that one.

    I would like to see one of the ladies skate to that new hot hit by Elle
    King, "Exes and Ohs" would made a a nice upbeat long programme for any of
    the ladies.

    One Britney Spears song that would work any of the ladies is "womanizer".
    That would be a crowd-pleaser

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeanne Douglas@21:1/5 to Chilly8@hotmail.com on Sat Nov 14 20:06:59 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    In article <n27s6g$tqk$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote:

    "Gary R. Schmidt" <grschmidt@acm.org> wrote in message news:5pnjhc-gjg.ln1@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au...
    On 14/11/2015 6:00 PM, Chilly8 wrote:
    .
    [alt.fan.tonya


    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...


    I agree there. There are lot of upbeat songs that skaters could skate
    to, and I am amazed that a lot of the skaters are skating to it.

    I would LOVE so see some skater skate to AC/DC someday. "Girls Got
    Rythm" is one sone that would make a good upbeat porogram.

    Hey, if it's AkkaDakka that they should skate to, "I've Got Big Balls" should be done first! :-)


    That sounds like something one could skate to. That would be a perfect program for any of the men, if done right.

    But a lot of pop music could allow for high paced upbeat programs that would really get the audience into it


    But if the judges hate it, it won't do them any good.

    --

    JD

    Išve officially given up trying to find the bottom
    of the barrel that is Republican depravity.--Jidyom
    Rosario, Addicting Info

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Terry Hall@21:1/5 to Chilly8@hotmail.com on Sun Nov 15 21:06:40 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:n26m6l$7bi$1@speranza.aioe.org
    .
    [alt.fan.tonya


    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...


    I agree there. There are lot of upbeat songs that skaters could skate
    to, and I am amazed that a lot of the skaters are skating to it.

    I would LOVE so see some skater skate to AC/DC someday. "Girls Got
    Rythm" is one sone that would make a good upbeat porogram. "If You
    Want Blood (you got it) would work as a long programme, especially or
    any of the men. The audidence would LOVE that one.


    We are long overdue for someone to skate to Motorhead's "Ace of Spades"



    Terry Hall
    Head of Special Duties Section
    Portland Ice Skating Society - New Zealand's Tonya Harding fan club http://www.pdxiss.org
    http://www.tonyaphiles.org.nz

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chilly8@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 15 20:20:27 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    "Jeanne Douglas" <hlwdjsd2@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote in message news:hlwdjsd2-5A746D.20065914112015@news.giganews.com...
    In article <n27s6g$tqk$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote:

    "Gary R. Schmidt" <grschmidt@acm.org> wrote in message
    news:5pnjhc-gjg.ln1@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au...
    On 14/11/2015 6:00 PM, Chilly8 wrote:
    .
    [alt.fan.tonya


    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...


    I agree there. There are lot of upbeat songs that skaters could skate
    to, and I am amazed that a lot of the skaters are skating to it.

    I would LOVE so see some skater skate to AC/DC someday. "Girls Got
    Rythm" is one sone that would make a good upbeat porogram.

    Hey, if it's AkkaDakka that they should skate to, "I've Got Big Balls"
    should be done first! :-)


    That sounds like something one could skate to. That would be a perfect
    program for any of the men, if done right.

    But a lot of pop music could allow for high paced upbeat programs that
    would
    really get the audience into it


    But if the judges hate it, it won't do them any good.



    The ISU allows it so the judges HAVE to accept it.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chilly8@21:1/5 to Terry Hall on Sun Nov 15 16:49:00 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    "Terry Hall" <e-mail_@ddress_classif.ied> wrote in message news:n29eel$q68$1@speranza.aioe.org...
    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:n26m6l$7bi$1@speranza.aioe.org
    .
    [alt.fan.tonya


    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...


    I agree there. There are lot of upbeat songs that skaters could skate
    to, and I am amazed that a lot of the skaters are skating to it.

    I would LOVE so see some skater skate to AC/DC someday. "Girls Got
    Rythm" is one sone that would make a good upbeat porogram. "If You
    Want Blood (you got it) would work as a long programme, especially or
    any of the men. The audidence would LOVE that one.


    We are long overdue for someone to skate to Motorhead's "Ace of Spades"


    There is a lot good rock and pop that skaters could skate to now, and really
    be a crowd-pleaser.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeanne Douglas@21:1/5 to Chilly8@hotmail.com on Sun Nov 15 19:34:55 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    In article <n2b969$ndk$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote:

    "Terry Hall" <e-mail_@ddress_classif.ied> wrote in message news:n29eel$q68$1@speranza.aioe.org...
    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:n26m6l$7bi$1@speranza.aioe.org
    .
    [alt.fan.tonya


    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...


    I agree there. There are lot of upbeat songs that skaters could skate
    to, and I am amazed that a lot of the skaters are skating to it.

    I would LOVE so see some skater skate to AC/DC someday. "Girls Got
    Rythm" is one sone that would make a good upbeat porogram. "If You
    Want Blood (you got it) would work as a long programme, especially or
    any of the men. The audidence would LOVE that one.


    We are long overdue for someone to skate to Motorhead's "Ace of Spades"


    There is a lot good rock and pop that skaters could skate to now, and really be a crowd-pleaser.


    But will they be judge-pleasing.

    --

    JD

    Išve officially given up trying to find the bottom
    of the barrel that is Republican depravity.--Jidyom
    Rosario, Addicting Info

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chilly8@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 15 21:02:20 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure



    We are long overdue for someone to skate to Motorhead's "Ace of Spades"


    I agree, that would be very high energy program that would work well

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chilly8@21:1/5 to All on Mon Nov 16 01:07:01 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure



    There is a lot good rock and pop that skaters could skate to now, and
    really
    be a crowd-pleaser.


    But will they be judge-pleasing.


    The ISU needs to get rid of the fugitive-from-the-old-folks-home judges and bring in judges more amenable to modern music. Problem solved

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeanne Douglas@21:1/5 to Chilly8@hotmail.com on Sun Nov 15 21:18:27 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    In article <n2blio$brk$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote:

    "Jeanne Douglas" <hlwdjsd2@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote in message news:hlwdjsd2-5A746D.20065914112015@news.giganews.com...
    In article <n27s6g$tqk$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote:

    "Gary R. Schmidt" <grschmidt@acm.org> wrote in message
    news:5pnjhc-gjg.ln1@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au...
    On 14/11/2015 6:00 PM, Chilly8 wrote:
    .
    [alt.fan.tonya


    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...


    I agree there. There are lot of upbeat songs that skaters could skate >> >> to, and I am amazed that a lot of the skaters are skating to it.

    I would LOVE so see some skater skate to AC/DC someday. "Girls Got
    Rythm" is one sone that would make a good upbeat porogram.

    Hey, if it's AkkaDakka that they should skate to, "I've Got Big Balls" >> > should be done first! :-)


    That sounds like something one could skate to. That would be a perfect
    program for any of the men, if done right.

    But a lot of pop music could allow for high paced upbeat programs that
    would
    really get the audience into it


    But if the judges hate it, it won't do them any good.



    The ISU allows it so the judges HAVE to accept it.


    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's just watch those presentation
    scores plummet.

    --

    JD

    Išve officially given up trying to find the bottom
    of the barrel that is Republican depravity.--Jidyom
    Rosario, Addicting Info

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeanne Douglas@21:1/5 to Chilly8@hotmail.com on Sun Nov 15 21:17:52 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    In article <n2bo1h$fih$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote:

    "Jeanne Douglas" <hlwdjsd2@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote in message news:hlwdjsd2-38357C.19345415112015@news.giganews.com...
    In article <n2b969$ndk$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote:

    "Terry Hall" <e-mail_@ddress_classif.ied> wrote in message
    news:n29eel$q68$1@speranza.aioe.org...
    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote in message
    news:n26m6l$7bi$1@speranza.aioe.org
    .
    [alt.fan.tonya


    By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever skated to Bohemian
    Rhapsody? Now that the ISU has ditched the archaic prohibition on
    vocal music in eligible skating, there's an opportunity awaiting.
    Of course, clocking in at almost 6 minutes, it really would be a
    Long Program in the literal sense of the phrase...


    I agree there. There are lot of upbeat songs that skaters could skate >> >> to, and I am amazed that a lot of the skaters are skating to it.

    I would LOVE so see some skater skate to AC/DC someday. "Girls Got
    Rythm" is one sone that would make a good upbeat porogram. "If You
    Want Blood (you got it) would work as a long programme, especially or >> >> any of the men. The audidence would LOVE that one.


    We are long overdue for someone to skate to Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" >>

    There is a lot good rock and pop that skaters could skate to now, and
    really
    be a crowd-pleaser.


    But will they be judge-pleasing.


    If EVERY skater in the event skated to that stuff, the judges could not tank them ALL, as SOMEBODY would have to win


    Why do you think skaters are stupid?

    --

    JD

    Išve officially given up trying to find the bottom
    of the barrel that is Republican depravity.--Jidyom
    Rosario, Addicting Info

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeanne Douglas@21:1/5 to Chilly8@hotmail.com on Mon Nov 16 04:23:40 2015
    XPost: alt.fan.tonya-harding, alt.skate.figure

    In article <n2c6c2$b2b$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
    "Chilly8" <Chilly8@hotmail.com> wrote:



    There is a lot good rock and pop that skaters could skate to now, and
    really
    be a crowd-pleaser.


    But will they be judge-pleasing.


    The ISU needs to get rid of the fugitive-from-the-old-folks-home judges and bring in judges more amenable to modern music. Problem solved


    Fuck you. Who died and made you god?

    --

    JD

    Išve officially given up trying to find the bottom
    of the barrel that is Republican depravity.--Jidyom
    Rosario, Addicting Info

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)