Welcome to Tuesday Night Fights, a weekly celebration and analysis of street-fight videos found on YouTube. Tonight's fisticuffs: "Huge Lesbian fight at Dallas Gay Pride 2012." Tonight's commentators: Craig Brownstein and Doug Johnson who edit PuckBuddys, "the site for boys who like boys who like hockey," and are upset about the lockout as well.
Ah! Finally! The mythical lesbian fight, those much talked about same-sex beat downs that John Waters has been regaling us with for years. We first heard of these legendary brawls while attending one of the Prince of Filth's Christmas spectaculars, when he told a story about a notorious leather bar located smack dab in the middle of a Towson, Md. trailer park.
The scene Waters described was an especially ratty bar frequented by nasty lesbians. "Smoking and fighting - fighting and smoking. ..." That establishment as we've come to learn after screening this video, is actually one or two rungs up the evolutionary ladder from this year's Dallas Gay Pride parade, the scene of tonight's bout. And while we're far more accustomed to watching guys fight, on ice, it's with the high bar that Waters set, that we judge this bout.
A little rain didn't dampen the enthusiasm at Dallas Pride this year, and if anything, it may have made for a better fight venue. Mud, blood and beer is a much better surface for brawling women than Texas' typically parched earth, right?
Hickey found us the Zapruder Film of drunken lesbian fights. And like that grainy footage of Dealey Plaza in 1963, it's hard to make out all the action here. No doubt, historians (and chick-fight enthusiasts) will study this tape, frame-by-frame for years to come.
In the background we see baton boys and girls (or girly boys), spinning and twirling, prancing and dancing, as they're followed by the parade floats. But the main attraction of course, was on the crowded sidelines.
The fight site was along the parade route, "across from Walgreens," one spectator says, and that surprises us, because normally, a fight of this caliber would occur in front of a Piggly Wiggly. All that was really missing from this card were Don King, a cutman and Arthur Mercante. And ring girls maybe. Slinky, scantily-clad, lipstick ring girls.
The low production values of the tape make it hard to identify all the combatants - there were quite a few womyn going at it – which pretty much debunked our "single bull dyke theory." But our fave pugilist turns out to be the one sporting the backwards baseball cap – a dead giveaway that she's all class. We ultimately gave her the win on points – not fashion points, mind you.
While it's difficult to determine who is calling the bout from ringside because the audio cuts in and out, our best guess is that it's the tank-topped gymbot who could very well be the love child of Howard Cosell and Paul Lynde. Other disembodied, off-camera voices best describe the action:
• "Get them bitches off of each other," says a bystander. Clearly, he didn't understand the point of all this. Get that one bitch on top of the other bitches, we say.
• "Dirty lesbians, go home, go home!" Where exactly is "home" to dirty lesbians? We think it's Lubbock.
• "That's how you stop 'em, give 'em more alcohol." More booze – that's a Texan's answer for everything. How else can you explain Rick Perry?
• "They're like killing each other." No, they're like not. If this was a real fight, Hickey would've recruited far more experienced analysts than a couple of gay hockey fanboys.
• "What is wrong with people?" What's wrong with people in general or Texans in particular? We'll save that treatise for Gawker.
Several minutes in, cooler heads prevail and one of the gays calls 9-1-1:
"There are like 12 lesbians that are just, like, knocking each other out. Can you please send an officer? It's getting out of hand."
This of course, begs the question – what exactly is the Dallas threshold for "out of hand?" Apparently not "like, 10 lesbians." Twelve must be the magic number. And what does one call a group of lesbians, anyway? A gaggle? A brace? We're going with "a flannel."
Finally, a couple of Dallas' finest — cops not lesbians — wade into the melee to break up the fight and restore order.
Reminiscent of Abraham Zapruder's footage, an "Umbrella Man," is seen wandering in and out of the frame.
But in this case, the mysterious figure is shirtless and actually looks pretty buff. We're going to call him "Umbrella Boy," because that's probably similar to his Grindr profile, where no matter how old you are, "boy" is always an appropriate suffix for a screen name.
At least Umbrella Boy has his ball cap on properly, demonstrating that even in a God forsaken sewer like Dallas, gay men are the style setters. But just don't ask them to fight. By the looks of it, those lesbians would've kicked his grassy knoll.
And now, the rest of your Tuesday Night Fights:
• Sometimes, Goliath wins. Like this time, when he drops David by the friggin' head. (Start of Violence, 0:10)
• Life lesson: Don't continue sidewalk-fighting with someone whose first reaction is to try and smother you with a T-shirt. (SoV, instantly; money shot, 0:48)
• Spot No. 146 has become the parking-garage equivalent of Overlook Hotel Room No. 237. (SoV, instantly)
• Watch A Cute Russian Schoolgirl Kick Her Mean Teacher Square In The Balls. (SoV, 0:54)
• A couple feet over, and if the participants were skinheads, this would have been TNF's first-ever Jersey Curb Sandwich video. (SoV, 0:02)
• WESTSIDE! (SoV, 0:02)
• Your Women Fighting In The Sewer Commercial Break:
• Philadelphia, where it looks like an ice-cream truck guy did street battle in West Philly. (SoV, 0:17) Bonus Coverage: They're a brawlin' in the streets near Temple University. (SoV, instantly) Bonus Coverage 2: The appropriately titled "Philly Fight" (SoV, 0:29). Bonus Coverage 3: "Labor Day Weekend Block Party Fight" (SoV, 0:07).
• TNF's Beijing Correspondent Anthony Tao presents a triple feature this week! Involving planes and trains and the violence of mourning. Also, Helter Skelter POV! And, Old Man Beaten For Criticizing Mao!
• Groups of Russians or Eastern Europeans or Liam Neeson enthusiasts brawling with one another. Again. (SoV, 0:05)
• He's good enough. He's smart enough. And gosh darn it, people like him. Except the dude that he baited into punching him square in the face and K him TFO. (SoV, 1:02)
• When Old(er) Ladies Attack One Another, Outside a Concert, and the kiddies go feral. (SoV, 0:12)
• This gentleman is supremely confident that he will, in fact, prevail on the Street of Battle. He did not. In fact, he was brutally beaten about the head in stomach-turning fashion. (SoV, 0:47) SAVED?
• Two bros enter, one doesn't leave. (SoV, 0:10)
• Your Stone Mountain High School Mace-And-Worldstar Slo-Mo Smooth Jamtermezzo:
• DOWN GOES THE GUY IN THE LAVENDER SHIRT! DOWN GOES THE GUY IN THE LAVENDER SHIRT! (SoV, 0:17)
• The time a fire hydrant got caught up in the mix. (SoV, instantly)
• In which a progressive-minded observer of an Aussie street fight declares, "Don't pull his hair, you faggot." Time to unleash The Kluwe? (SoV, 0:05)
• Things got a little heated in the stands at the Черноморец Одесса vs Заря competition. Ukraine 4 lyfe. Because the step roll makes this crowd melee among the year's best. (SoV, instantly)
• Bowling Green 4 Lyfe! (SoV, instantly)
• Your Fuckin' Hoopster Draws Blood Slap-Fight Rush Party:
• This Week in Shameful Sucker Punches ... (SoV, 0:22)
• Pelea Callejera! (SoV, instantly)
• Apparently, the lead-up explanation of this New Jersey street fight needed to be yelled. To wit: "THIS KID SAID HE WAS GOING TO KILL MY BROTHER . CAUSE MY BROTHER WAS TALKING TO THE KIDS "EX" GIRLFRIEND. CHECK OUT WHAT MY BROTHER DOES TO THIS GUY. IM ALSO FEATURED IN THIS VIDEO WARNING HIS FRIENDS NOT TO JUMP IN ALONG WITH ONE OTHER. THEY HAD 15. WE HAD 5." (SoV, 0:10)
• In Dublin, chairs are flung during this captured-from-a-bus battle royale. (SoV, instantly)
• Girl meets boy. Girls talks to boy outside bar. Girl drops boy. (SoV, 0:05)
• This is criminal. Disgusting. And people should go to jail for it or whatever they call jails in Birmingham, England. (SoV, instantly)
• Your Dude in a Sweet Jacket Getting Pretty Fucked Up Intermission:
• In "two Crazy white girls fight and brawl over boys!!" it is the desire of at least one observer that crazy girl Melissa or Alissa is able to "fuck her shit up" in reference to foe Ashley. (SoV, 0:50)
• And now, "emo kids fighting like crazy in a driveway." (SoV, instantly)
• Street fightin' in Minneapolis, yo! (SoV, instantly)
• This here's what it looks like when they get to brawlin' in Miami's "Pork n Beans" projects. I think. It's hard to tell what the hell's going on. (SoV, 0:22)
• White boys fighting on Whyte Ave. WHATWHAT! (SoV, instantly)
• Others: "Kickback Brawl." "Wigga got washed in seconds!" "TEAMPREACHA FIGHTS BIG QUINN AT DA BP." "Thug ass tough ass hood nigga mma professional street fight fight." "(Verbal) Brawl outside of Courtroom." "An american tourist street fight in Africa." "Street fight 123." "Brutal Gang Fight in Atlanta, Mother Children Attacked." "Boston Hill Beatdown." "Sandusky Brawl outside." "chicago downtown street fight." "mansfield street fight." "stollywood one punch." "bwoods party fight." "Fight Outside of Hookah Lounge." "Girl Fight in Iowa."
• Your OMG Brittany Heath and Heather McNeil Totally Started Fighting When They Got Off the Bus and Some Topless Dude on a Golf Cart Showed Up, Like, Immediately Broke 'Em Up But They Still Totes Hate Each Other And Are Talking Behind Each Other's Backs Coda: