[bright electronic music]
- Angela Fitzgerald: Pinball is part of American pop culture.
- Rachel Ristow: It's been around forever.
It's like this big, gigantic puzzle of chaos,
but it's fun.
[game chiming]
- Angela: Pinball's popularity has had its ups and downs.
- Rachel: Oh!
Seeing a resurgence in the hobby is great.
[game clacking]
- Angela: At home, Rachel Ristow plays a vintage machine
alongside her cat, Rigby.
- Rachel: It shuts off everything else in my head
because you have to focus on flipping your buttons
and nudging the game and hitting the ball.
[game chiming]
- Angela: You can also find Rachel
getting her adrenaline kicks at the Plymouth Tap.
- When I first started playing in 2019,
there were no games basically in Sheboygan County,
and now, we have a place like here.
I think he's got 12 games.
- Angela: Rachel's heart pumps
on the unpredictable fun of pinball.
- It was a good game.
I missed my extra ball.
One ball to win 'em all.
- Angela: She is a paralegal by day
and a pinball fanatic all day, any day.
[dark music tone playing]
- Hey, I'll take that.
232 million, I'll take that any day.
That was a good game.
- Angela: To get others in the game,
Rachel founded Ladies Flip Wisconsin,
a statewide club helping women take the pinball plunge.
- Rachel: Women's pinball is a whole different vibe.
- All right, now I'm done. [laughing]
- The pinball community is pretty incredible.
It's made up of all sorts of people from all walks of life.
- Angela: Home base for Ladies Flip Wisconsin
is the Diamond Plate Arcade.
It's a unique private collection near De Pere.
Pinball is also a place
for these women to connect, converse, and compete.
[cheering on pinball machine]
- Recording: Please welcome, from Hollywood, Guns N' Roses!
- Yeah, whoo!
Women's pinball creates a safe space for women
in the hobby so that they can learn
and so that they can feel supported.
I've been able to meet so many new people in my life.
A lot of folks, I think, struggle with,
where do you meet new friends at different stages in your life?
I'm in my 40s.
I don't have children, I'm divorced.
Women's pinball is really important.
It's very important to me.
- Angela: On this evening, Rachel has organized
a women's pinball boot camp.
- Welcome to Ladies Flip Spooky Season.
Yay! [group cheering]
This is something new that I started doing last year
because we wanna build your skills.
- Hey! - Hey!
- Rachel: I love to think about pinball as controlling chaos
when you're able to find the skills to control the ball.
- Player: No, no. - Group: Yay!
- Rachel: That's what I'm talking about.
You're able to score and have a bigger game
and more points, and you can win the game.
- Angela: Winning isn't everything, but for Rachel,
it is a close second.
- Rachel: I've never been competitive
about anything in my life until I met pinball.
Get in there, you little jerkface.
I played a couple of women's world championships.
My current open women's world ranking,
I think, is 25th overall in the world.
I ended last year at 13th.
I think that, in Ladies Flip Wisconsin,
we have some very competitive players
and other players that don't care at all.
- Angela: This magical box with flashing lights
is more than a game for Rachel.
- Rachel: Because you get into this hobby
and then you meet people that just become your friends,
and it becomes more than just pinball.
It gives me the feeling of, like,
I have always a woman in my corner looking out for me.
It makes me happy.
[bells chiming]
That's pinball.
That's pinball, baby.
[players chatting]