12/27 Recap: This... Is CNN.

Craziness. My voice is somewhere around the register of James Earl Jones this morning.

The Season Two Finale (and year-end blowout) was kind of messy. Nineteen teams, more than a few of whom changed their names at random without telling anyone (please don't do that; if you change your name, please put your old name on the answer sheet so we know who you are), and it wound up being our second-largest night ever. Woot!

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - When the wrestler formerly known as Chyna shares her birthday with Sarah Vowell, Howdy Doody and Louis Pasteur, you know it's a day for all ages.

2. Audio Round: The End Of The Innocence - A round to commemorate the end of aught-six. I didn't do anything so déclassé as use Don Henley (not yet, anyway), but there was Styx's "Don't Let It End," the Kinks' "Till The End Of The Day," and "Endicott," by the vastly underrated Kid Creole and the Coconuts.

3. Not James Brown - in which Janet called back James Randi & asked about James Brown's last backing band.

4. Not Gerald Ford - Featuring The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Lita Ford's old band, Ford Prefect's home star, Harrison Ford's Oscar nomination, the dystopian religion of Brave New World, Richard Ford's third novel in the Frank Bascombe trilogy (an advance copy of which will be a prize next week), and the New York area university formerly known as St. John's College. (Hint: its current name fits in this round.)

5. Name 3's - You know, aside from being provinces that have food specific to their regions, Champagne, Vidalia and Feta really are all shades of white.

After a few weeks of top-notch team names, this week's infusion of new players meant things were a little uneven. Still, there were some gems:

• 1st Place: If I Had Known, I Would Have Made Him A Partner
  
• 2nd Place: [A Drawing Of A Polar Bear] (literally, that was what their team name was: a drawing of a polar bear, asleep on the top of a hill, with stars all around. It was positively pastoral)
  
• 3rd place: 99 Red Debloons! (props for the aggressive pirate noises, which could be heard throughout the bar, even though they sat in the front alcove)
  
  
  
  Followed by, in no particular order:
  
• God Finishes What Squeaky Couldn't


• Inigo Montoya (I made them change their name from 'Team We Can't Think Of A Team Name'))


• The Drunken Inquisition


• Kara & Darren


• Sara & Dave


• Shit, My Brown Ford Died On Me


• Bearded Clam Chow-der (Say It French!) (I assumed ze h'instrokshions were part of ze team name, oui?)


• Killer Red Ant Brigade (I thought this read 'Killer Red Ant Bridge' for the first two rounds. Sorry)


• Orchid Avenue #209


• Kevin Bacon 4 EVA


• JAM/Jenn, Adam, Marcel (not Maurice, as I misread the first time. I had a rough night in the reading-handwriting department)


• 4D


• Hokey Birds


• Off Their Rockers


• One Of Us Is Not Wearing Their Own Underwear

Prizes this week included some piggybanks made from recycled denim, as well as the last of our last batch of prizes from the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

You know, this silly little pub quiz thing really turned out to be the greatest thing I personally was involved in all year, and I know Janet & I are both grateful you continue to choose to come and wonder what the hell we're going on about every week.

Thanks. See you next Wednesday for the start of Season Three.

Tonight: Season Two Finale!

If there was any question as to whether we are on tonight, it is going down like the Hindenberg, like the US Dollar against the Euro, like Jessica Simpson's sales figures, like yo momma.

Hope y'all had a good holiday and stuff, and that your family didn't drive you to homicide.

In honor of the Godfather of Soul, we'll be listening to this excellent record between the rounds.

[Programming Note: Tonight is the twenty-first and final episode of Season Two, but we won't be skipping a week or anything before we begin Season Three next Wednesday, January 3. (For reasons that hopefully will bear fruit later, I'm going to start counting these weeks as episodes; DSO Season One had 25 episodes between February and the August hiatus, and Season Two ran from August 2 until tonight).]

12/20 Recap: Freeze! Drop! Bass!

It was a lovely night. The fact that we're not having anything close to winter so far this year maybe helped goose the mood of some of youse this week, and certainly the return of the most excellent and raucous posse from Human Rights Watch (who apparently have won a Nobel Peace Prize, go figger!) brightened our day in ways that defy adjectives. Really, though, I'm happy to see you guys. The unexpected success of the DSO is easily the best thing to have happened in my life this year, and I'd buy you all Cadillacs if I could. (Will you settle for some fridge magnets, the occasional book and a few drinks? Maybe dinner for two at CremCaffé Ristorante next door, or a little something from our favorite Broadway show?)

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Happy Birthday to Branch Rickey, Simone Beck and Kate Hudson, and props to James Randi and Grand Funk Railroad.

2. Audio Round: Not All Christmas Songs - I was hoping to put together a round of songs about wintery themes that weren't about Christmas, but sometimes when you're cutting and pasting song clips for these rounds, things just don't go together the way they should. So I fudged the original idea and made it half-Christmas music (the Carpenters, the Ramones, Band Aid, the Vince Guaraldi Trio) and half songs about snow (Johnny Cash's "Snow In His Hair," the ever-ubiquitous Duran Duran version of "White Lines," They Might Be Giants' "Snowball In Hell"), ice (Jonathan Richman's "Ice Cream Man") and other seasonal themes (The Decembrists, Jay-Z, I think that's everyone).

3. The Fall - Janet marked the last day of Autumn with some questions about Camus, Yeats, Bowie, merkins, some band and the lyrics to "American Pie."

4. 'For Hanukkah, Hans Handled Hank's Handicap Handily - I know some people spell it "Chanukah," but I'm not some people. Also, the round was about things that started with HAN (Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, Hannibal Smith, The Handmaid's Tale, the House of Hanover, Hannah And Her Sisters, and the two states where hanging is still on the books as a possible form of capital punishment), and so that wouldn't have made sense. Also, truth be told, I'm not all that Jewish. As in, I'm not Jewish.

5. Name Threes - in which I named three organizations who'd won the Nobel Peace Prize that weren't Human Rights Watch, three Phil Collins #1 hits, three cities in the Star Wars universe, and Hans Arp, Benvenuto Cellini and Camille Claudel.

This week's team names were top loaded for quality:

• 1st Place: Big Daddy Kandy Kane and his Ho-Ho-Hoes! (they changed their name to Noel L. Cool J and his Ho Ho Hoes and then Doug E Fresh & Slick Nick, thus getting all their yuletide ya-yas out at once)
  
• 2nd Place: Tara Trumps Mark Foley: Only One Queen Keeps Their Crown! (an excellent example of bringing your parents along for extra payoff)
  
• 3rd place: Britney Spears Nolested My Dog! (Yikes!)
  
  
  
  Followed by, in no particular order:
  
• Buddy Lembeck, Go Long!
  
• The Go-Tards, Holiday Edition
  
• The Christmas Gymnastic All-Stars
  
• Bitchass Pretentious Ranch Hands
  
• The Little Giants Rock!!
  
• Lunch Crüe Plus Two
  
• HRW: AWOL, WTF? (Seriously, welcome back)
  
• The Brawling Isiah Thomas Olympics
  
• Is That A Black Hole In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Disappointed To See Me?, and
  
• Kiss Me Under The Cameltoe
  

Prizes this week included my Christmas Bonus from work (as advertised; it was a $15 gift card for Starbucks, but still), a flowery tablecloth, some chocolate comfort food, and as usual, plenty of swag from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, whom we love and from whom we would really like to get a few pairs of tickets starting in Season Three.

Did everyone get what they wanted? More or less?

Oh, and watch this space as I'll be giving something special away through this blogspace in the next couple of days.

One Of This Week's Prizes...

...will be my Christmas Bonus from work. For real.

12/13 Recap: "No Man/Does It All By Himself"

Now see, that's how it's supposed to work. A raucous night full of heckling nutcases, some new kids on the block who came and finished in the middle of the pack (every trivia host has their own style, and once you learn how we roll, you'll move up the boards just as a matter of course), the nice people at Samuel Adams came by and gave away a mess of beverages at the beginning of the night, the scores were high, and so was I. Oh, and no tiebreakers needed, which is always a relief.

I wore a bowling shirt that said DAN on the front, so people were calling me by that name, especially when I was giving them bad news. Which was rather less often than usual this week.

Rounds were as follows:

1. On This Day - Happy birthday to the second black major leaguer to break the color barrier, to Dick Van Dyke, the guy they call Deadly Tedly & Theodocious Atrocious, and the Salvation Army. And a fond farewell to Peter Boyle, who did the best version of 'Puttin On The Ritz' ever committed to celluloid.

2. Audio Round: There, There, There - Songs with "There" in the title, featuring hits by the Velvet Underground, Naked Eyes, the White Stripes, the Zombies, the La's, Eddie Holman, the Beatles, Steve Earle, the New York Dolls and (that's right) Bon Jovi. I have enough different versions of "There She Goes Again" and "There She Goes" that I might be able to make another round of just those songs up, but it would only work if you've heard of, oh let's say just as a litmus test, the Beat Farmers.

(I apologize for forgetting to ask the bonus question: Of what city was Gertrude Stein speaking when she said "There is no there there?")

3. Islands - in which Janet asked two questions about "Islands In The Stream," and worked in a gratuitous Scarlett Johanssen reference with no prodding from me whatsoever.

4. One Letter Words - What great punk band did Ray Manzarek produce? Which NYC Subway line is the newest? What is South Africa's currency? How well do you know the lyrics to "YMCA?"

5. Name Threes - including examples of father-son movies, famous cartoonists, among other things.

This week's team names:

• 1st Place: Mental Machine Muzak!
  
• 2nd Place: Nicole Richie Blew .23, Or At Least That's What She Thinks His Badge Said
  
• 3rd place: The Beerocracy
  
  
  
  Followed by, in no particular order:
  
• The Staten Island Beer Belt
  
• Matt's Late, So We're Suffering Matt's Here, And We're Still Suffering
  
• Get Your Dreidel On!
  
• Yuletide Yids! (these two teams were tied through each of the first two rounds. Six more and it would have been a miracle)
  
• Dan Sucks! (see above.)
  
• Shark Truck
  
• The Creationists
  
• Fighting Violets (first timers who did actually real well)
  
• Seek-Roy, or See-Kroy (winners of the longest-traveled, they came in from Cleveland to play with us. I'm sure that was the only reason they came to New York, and I'm grateful for their level of commitment.)
  

Prizes included some shirts & sweaters courtesy of VH1 Classic, two workout DVDs (one a gospel one, the other a bhangra-for-kids workout) and a trigger-loaded punching machine, but everyone left with something, because quite frankly I'm sick of these prizes piling up in my apartment, and some of you have secret santa packages you need filled, right?

Just let 'em know where you got your cool schwag.

What else happened?

One Of The Prizes This Evening

...will be a firearm. For reals.

Also, knowing what city Gertrude Stein was referring to when she mentioned that "There is no 'there' there" might be useful to you.

Tonight

If you're interested, DSO Friend Kory Skeete is hosting the last night of his trial run of trivia at Mo Pitkins' House of Satisfaction (34 Avenue A, between 2nd & 3rd Streets). There's a $6 cover, but winners get $50 in cash, and who doesn't need that during this crucial season.

Anyone care to maybe join me for a drink? I'll go if someone else is up for it.

And... Yes,

I'm fussing with the template of this blog. I know it's taking long to load, and I'm sorry about that. The hamster is tired today, and isn't running that wheel fast enough to generate the proper power.

Post a comment if you find any problems with the new layouts. I'm no genius, but I'm not afraid to tinker with the thing to make it look good.

Can't Get Enough?

Just to reiterate: We will be hosting the DSO trivia through all of December (Decemer 13, 20 & 27), just like normal, so if you're in town for the holidays and at loose ends, come on down and hang out. We will not be skipping any weeks. Trivia continues apace.

And if for some reason Wednesdays don't fully scratch your trivia itch, there are a few other nights out there, which I recommend you give a look at, should you be so inclined. (I don't think of these people as competition for our business; first of all, they're all friends of ours, the city is big enough for all of us, Wednesdays are pretty much our night at this point, and I happen to like our brand of trivia best, and if you disagree, well, commenting is on for a reason.)

Anyway, I've set up a rolling public New York trivia calendar on Google system. (If you have a gmail account, you can subscribe to it here.) If you run a trivia night that isn't listed on that calendar, it's simply because I don't know about it; post a comment or email me and we'll fix that right up.

(Although... if you go to one of these other nights, and you see something we can do better, don't be afraid to tell us.)

12/6 Recap: Grays, Garys, And Puns For Days

Well, that went smoother this week than last week. Also, I drank more, which was nice. Wednesdays are certainly the one night I crawl out of my haystack and pack up my needle* and talk to you guys. I'm always game to hang out.

Oh, and in case you were curious: We will be running the DSO through the holiday season, so if you're not leaving town to go to Ibiza with your harem or wherever and you have no other plans, you are always welcome to come chill with your brethren & sistren at the same bat-time and bat-place. We'll be ordering pizza for everyone who shows up the next week or two, so don't load up on transfats before you get there.

Rounds were as follows:
1. On This Day
2. Audio round: the Big, the Bold, the Badass, the Beef, the Brisket, the Bratwurst, the Bellydancer, the Barium, the Barracuda, and the Beautiful (which included tracks by the Band, Barry Manilow, the Beastie Boys, Big Star, Barry White, and others. To clarify, we won't be running through the alphabet for the next 26 weeks, but I'd be lying if I said we'd not be visiting this theme again. The goal is to cover more than one kind of stylistic ground.)
3. Garys (with Gary Cherone, Gary Burghoff, Gary Gygax, Gary Bettman, Gary Dell'Abate, Gary Glitter, Gary Gilmore, and the voices of Roger Ramjet, Powdered Toast Man, and Space Ghost. Oh, and the Ambiguously Gay Duo. Of course.
4. Grays
5. Name Threes (What are the Schlong, the Ape Drape and the Missouri Compromise all examples of?)

Second week in a row with primo team names. The best name was a rare three-way argot that was topical and lurid in equal measure. I fucking love that shit.

• 1st Place: God Is My Co-Pirate
  
• 2nd Place: Waiting For Godot To Exhale
  
• 3rd Place: Transfatuals
  
  followed by, in no particular order:
  
• Manx_x On The Beach (who lost the third-place tiebreaker)
  
• The Replacements (winners of a Ricky Martin video collection)
  
• Catcher In The Wry (best dressed award winners)
  
• Percy Bysshe Shelley Winters
  
• Daddy, Can I Borrow Your Iraq Study Group Notes?
  
• Desperate Jobwise
  
• The Go-Tards! (Not Fakin' It!) (Still Less Filling!) El Tards Del Go!
  
• San Andreas Westfault
  
  
• (and the best team name of the night:)
  Evidently, Britney Spears No Longer Supports Bush!
  

Comments & further heckling after the jump.

* This is a metaphor. The only needles I'm using are when I'm on the mic, busting on you beautiful people.

11/29 Recap: 15 Teams All In A Row, and Liore turns 24

Okay, let's get this out of the way right now: As god is my witness, I have no idea why I thought bureau was a seven-letter word.

We pride ourselves on having the best-written questions in the city (we know you have a choice of trivia nights, and we're thrilled you choose to fly with us week after week), so when I brain-fart seven letters out of a six-letter word, I take it a little personally. (Although I gotta admit, it is kind of a rush to be booed unmerciful by 75 drunk people all at once.)

Rounds were as follows:
1. On This Day (Happy Birthday to not just one of our players last night (see below), but to Mariano Rivera, Pong, and Mean Gene Okerlund.)
2. Audio round: Ask Any Audiophile About Anthony's Asshole Attitude, the theme of which was apparent and also acutely apocalyptic.
3. Watching The Detectives!
4. Two Countries Separated By A Common Language (Okay, this requires some explanation. The questions stood by themselves, but I started with this list, and figured there'd be enough questions buried in the stories behind some of those words to put together a round. Well, I got four or five questions in, and realized I would have to travel slightly further afield. The only real problem with that is it dilutes the theme; the questions still stand on their own, and nine of them were still pretty much okay. I do understand the abuse, though. Like Jane Austen* used to say: some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you.)
5. Name Threes

The team names rocked this week, like, even more than usual.

• 1st Place: Shootin' For 3rd! (who apparently failed miserably)
  
• 2nd Place: Honey, I Thought You Packed The Polonium-210!
  
• 3rd Place: Crunchy Frog
  
  and then, in no particular order:
  
• Stroker Aces
  
• Go-Tard Reloaded
  
• Fu Stags
  
• This Team's Name Is The Best
  
• Flynn
  
• 12 Inches Of Taint
  
• Testocles: The Greek Nut (who won best team name)
  
• Clueless
  
• Special People
  
• Sweat, Anger & Shame
  
• and finally, Happy Birthday To Liore! (I hope you enjoyed your 24th birthday screaming at us about Opus vs. Milo.)

*and by Jane Austen, I mean Commander Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Why, Yes, I Am In Fact Talking To You.

Well, that was fun. We ran a little late (and I stayed a lot later than I should have), but the Sopranos people seemed to be pleased. I hope you guys were too.

Full recap is half-written, but honestly, I'm still not awake yet.

[Janet's first post] Paulie Walnuts Is Unconfirmed, And Other Phrases I Thought I'd Never Live Long Enough To See In Print

This was sent to the email list by Janet. Now she can no longer say she's posted nothing to the blog. (Wanna join the email list? Drop us a line, and bada bam, bada bagel, buttery bisquick, it shall be done.

In addition to the regular Drunken Smartass Olympics questions, answers, and antics on Wednesday, November 15, we will offer (this week only) special Sopranos prizes and stuff along with a theme round. Even if you don't have HBO, it's fun.

As you know, we always have different and unusual categories, a mix of easy and challenging questions, bar tab prizes of $10-25 for top-scoring teams plus lots of other novelty prizes for such distinctions as goofiest team name, best dressed, and other entirely arbitrary things that we aren't telling you about.

See you Wednesday!
The Drunken Smartass Olympics
with your hosts Janet Rosen and Tony Hightower
Every Wednesday at 7:30 pm
No cover (two drink minimum)
Dempsey's Pub
61 2nd Avenue (between 3rd & 4th Streets), New York, NY
(212) 388-0662 F, V trains to Second Avenue
Prizes, weird questions and fun people. Or is it the other way around?
http://www.baggotinn.com/dempseys.html

visit our blog--so far Tony has done all the posting, but I will learn how any minute now. I know, I know, I keep saying that. (I'm very lo-tech.)

dsolympics.blogspot.com

11/1 Recap: When the fish hits your heart with a big spiky dart, that's a moray

Alright. Let's get the bare necessities down at least here. Thirteen raucous teams, lots of heckling and loudness, two tables did rounds of shots, and I lost the ability to do math.

Rounds were as follows:
1. On This Day (In which we found out that Larry Flynt and Jenny McCarthy, among others, share a birthday. Also, there was something about Algeria.)
2. Audio round: Golden Shower Of Hits! (songs about gold; included Spandau Ballet, Neil Young, David Bowie, America, Ken Nordine and Kanye West)
3. Elephants!
4. Elections (Who was the last President to be neither a Democrat nor a Republican? Which character receives a Valentine's Day card that says "I Choo-choo-choose You!"?)
5. Name Threes

The team names rocked this week, like, even more than usual.

• 1st Place: The Horror Movie Sidekicks
  
• 2nd Place: October Surprise II: Kerry Does Democrats, Swiftly
  
• 3rd Place: Courtney Love Is Not The Daighter Of Darlene Love
  
  and then, in no particular order:
  
• The Little Way
  
• Wikitrivia
  
• The Element
  
• Jews For Malawi
  
• We Went As Tony & Janet For Hallowe'en!
  
• Natural Blondes!
  
• Can We Cheat, Please?
  
• My Favorite Herpes Commercial Ever!
  
• The Go-Tards!
  
• Hooray! Transfats Are Banned! Because Prohibition Always Works!

There was lots more, wasn't there?

Of Ass-Butts, Assclowns, Ass-Gards, Ass-Guys, Asshats, Assmasters, Assmunches, Asstards, Ass-heads, Assbags, oh yeah and Dingo's Kidneys

I've been a very bad boy.

Instead of faithfully rendering recaps of the last few weeks' worth of hijinks, I've been tryiong to hold down a job and working on a screenplay. Apparently, everyone has a screenplay. (It's about the death of CBGB's and the end of punk as we know it. I'll be playing the Vincent Gallo part, and Christina Ricci will... probably not be involved.)

But the least I can do is to show you the source of the round on made-up swear words last week. There are some doozies there.

Expand your vocabularies, and I'll see you tonight.

I Like The Spite in You

There will be a little something extra in all your pay packets this week, seeing as I missed last week's recap window (I'll put an abbreviated one in this weekend, I promise) and I know you guys need a little something-something to get by.

But I will say this, to the lovely group who complained about there being questions about the Clash so many weeks in a row:

I actually looked this up, and in the month-plus since we've come back from hiatus, we've had a grand total of three questions (or audio clues) about, regarding, or somehow related to the Clash. That may be a lot, but I wouldn't call it excessive. (I know you would, and I understand, but it is what it is.)

We have, however, asked four (four!) questions about Duran Duran in that same time. That's a far more egregious misuse of our trivia-making abilities, and I humbly and abjectly apologize for that.

Still, spite being the most powerful force on earth and all, I shall provide you readers of this fine blog with a little tip: I'll be doing an entire ten-question round of clash-related questions next Wednesday. C-O-N, Control.

In other news:

• We have taped segments for two separate public access TV shows in the last two weeks, so the odds of us seeing airtime are pretty high. (Watch this space or email me for details as we find out what the deal is).
  
  
• And I'm thinking about putting together a podcast. We have the means to record and host mp3s, but anyone know how to get in with iTunes?
  

9/20 Recap: "I'm going to have to ask you to come in on Sunday, too..."

So proud of you bastards last night. After two rounds, no one had less than 10½ points, and I thought the questions were pretty hard, but then what do I know. And the only reason the guy playing solo won the whole night was that he was really into documentaries, which is why I'm kind of wary to hew too close to one topic for ten questions. Still, it was nice & raucous regardless. I can't stand a quiet room.

1. On This Day - in which Chester Arthur became President, Lee Iacocca became the head of Chrysler, Orville Redenbacher drowned in his hot tub, Matthew & Gunnar Nelson tossed their long ironed-straight blond hair, and Bill Lumbergh turned fifty.

2. Audio round: Father's Day - Including Father Of Mine, Papa Legba, the Temptations' Papa Was A Rolling Stone, and to kinda pad it out, Feliz Navidad ("Dad?" Geddit? Dad? Geddit?), and This Is Pop by XTC.

3. Famous Howards - Including Howard Stern, Howard's End & Ron Howard (though not Elston Howard, Howard Beach or the great Emily Howard, who is a very pretty lady!)

4. Great Documentaries - Triumph of the Will, March of the Penguins, Roger & Me, The Aristocrats, The Kid Stays In The Picture, the Seven-Up series, and of course Spellbound.

5. Name Threes - Three American writers living in France, three New York City mayors, three types of clams, and three actors who played FBI agents.


Nine teams this week (kind of quiet by our standards; if you haven't come recently, now's the time, before we get busy again with the change in weather and the prizes are still easier to get).

1st Place: The Dreaded "Rear Admiral" (USN, Ret.) (a solo act, who won dinner for two to Cremcaffe next door. Your move, ladies!)
2nd Place: The Schadenfreudes
3rd Place: Soco & Lime Diseased (I had a terrible experience with this drink, and even typing it today I get a memory-twinge of nausea, so, uh, thanks for that)

and then, in no particular order:

• Dankberg, Dankberg & Dankberg (It's Not Rabinowitz)
  
• We're Not Wrong! You Just Don't Understand!
  
• The Little Way
  
• The Super Jews
  
• My Ex-Wife Got Our Brains In The Divorce Settlement

9/13 Recap

Well, that worked out pretty well.

We got last night’s game in before today’s monsoon, and it went pretty well. I set a new record for cussing up a blue streak in the questions, on the same night my father came down from Toronto to watch me do my thing. (I don’t believe he got the question about GG Allin, but I could be wrong.)

1. On This Day

2. Audio Round: I Could Rule The World If I Could Only Get The Parts - Songs about Parts: It's My Party, Junco Partner, Particle Man, that sort of thing. In brainstorming versions of this round out, there was a Sam Cooke song in the mix, so even when that song didn't make the final ten, I decided to put a mess of his songs on the end of the disc, just because.

3. This was a guess-the-theme round, but the answers included GG Allin, Alcoholics Anonymous, LL Cool J, AA Milne, Bebe Neuwirth, and the top-level domain for Estonia. I threw out the question about BB King's nightclub, because I lost the ability to tell my East from my West. D'oh.

4. Pluto & Other Planets: The two teams that chose this round as their daily double rocked the round like crazy.

5. Name Threes: intended as an occasional rapid-fire substitute for the True/False round, it seemed to go over pretty well. I gave three items, and you gave me the one thing they had in common (Examples: "Formidable Opponent, Better Know A District, The Threat Down" or "Jackie Robinson, Henry Hudson, the Korean War Veterans"). We'll test-drive this baby for a month or two and see how it works out.

Team names this week included:

• 1st Place: The Dusseldorf Overcompensators (Don't Mention The War!)
  
• 2nd Place: Frites and Geeks
  
• 3rd place: Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz: The Savage Jews Who Will Tear You Limb From Limb
  
  Followed by, in no particular order:
  
• Three's Company, formerly Take Two
  
• Road Head On The BQE
  
• We Impregnated Neil Toomey's Mom, formerly We Piss On Neil Toomey
  
• Sherman Helmsley's Revenge
  
• The Yael Gottlieb Fan Club (Be careful out there)
  
• The Humpalots
  
• The Unnecessaries
  
• Snakes on Joey Buttafuoco, formerly Snakes on Valerie Plame
  
• The A Levels
  
• Snap & Crackle (Pop Died)
  

Och, another impending recap

The second night of Season Two of DSO was great. we managed to sneak it in before the monsoon hit, and you-all helped my father get through what was the most foul-mouthed question round we've done yet. (It's okay; where do you think I got this mouth?)

Welcome to Caffecreme restaurant, our newest sponsor, as well as to the Spelling Bee, who ponied up with more prize action, which you-all will have the chance to win over the next few months.

Details to follow, as soon as I make sure I don't get fired today.

Pics! Och, Pics!

Recap will be up tomorrow (it's my first week at the new job, and I'm paying extra attention to making a good impression until they get used to my slack ass and I can get back into ranting at youse), but until then, I've added some pics from Wednesday night to the the DSO Flickr page.

Add yourself to the group, and take some shots next week! (Oh, and we've got another announcement in the next recap. Another reason to come out, if you need one!)

A Handbill For Youse

Handbill originally uploaded by Tony.

Two More Things.

I've set up a public Flickr group for you guys to add your pictures to. (I should have done this months ago.)

If I don't have your email or Flickr nickname, go to the DSO flickr set and join the group, and I'll hook you up with ... something, I don't know what yet.

But yeah, please, share your pics. My camera died partway through last night and I didn't get pics of everyone.

Oh, and do us this favor: tell someone. Tell people about the night, tell people about this blog, and if there's something you wanna tell us, well, that's what the comments are for. Suggestions, ideas, gripes, epiphanies, recipes, team name ideas, predictions for the coming hockey season, Project Runway spoilers, whatever you got. Hit me.

7/26 Recap: See You In September

Well, that was the way to wrap up a party. The six-month anniversary party was blindingly hot, there were very few flat surfaces to even write on, and apparently not everyone got food. We grossly underestimated how hungry people were, which won't happen the next time we do this.

In good news, we so totally will be doing this again. Last night's DSO was the biggest ever, and the level of commitment some of you had was a little disconcerting. I'd have had this recap up this morning, but I've been kind of dazed whenever I sit down to say something about it. Thank you guys so much for giving a shit about this stuff. Janet's an agent who reads a lot of books, and I'm some dork who writes trivia questions in his bedroom for kicks. Speaking personally, I always figured if I was ever going to wind up being a rock star, even for a night, there'd be actual performing of music involved.

Anyway. On to the details. The rounds this week:

• On This Day - in which New York became the 11th state in the union, and new nations were formed in Iberia and Liberia. (That wasn't planned.)
  
• Audio Round: Sweets For My Sweet II: Even Sweeterer - This week, featuring a mess of songs that all had the phrase "Pour a little sugar on me," as well as "Sweet Lovin' Woman" and "Sweet Lovin' Man." No one misses out on love here. Or getting sugar poured on them, for that matter.
  
• My Favorite Things - Where Janet ran through the lyrics of the song and told us about how great her shoes were.
  
• Stuff That Didn't Fit In Other Rounds Over The Last Six Months - I don't usually like doing these rounds, but I have so many leftover questions from other rounds that didn't need them, it seemed like a good time to bleed some off.
  
• True Or False
  

The winning team, Queens Of The Dark Age, also got the Scrabble Solution correct (someone read the Wall Street Journal piece about the number of pennies minted this year), so their winning margin was kind of high. But honestly, everyone did fairly well. Second place went to From This, You're Bragging?, and third place went to Human Rights Watch Snatched Djibouti... Arrrr! (our most excellently attired piratical friends).

In other news, there were, in no order (deep breath):

• Vinderschmongers
  
• Slingers
  
• We're Screwed, Mate
  
• Milk Us Till We Moo!
  
• Fuzzy Wuzzy Wants To Win
  
• Rotterdam, We're Good!
  
• Team B
  
• The Dragon Star Porn Brigade
  
• The Team Formerly Known As...
  
• Bloody Nipples
  
• Fashion Victim
  
• Alimony Schmalimony, We Ain't Payin!
  
• Robert Goulet's Secret Moustache
  
• Peter Cook's 8 Simple Rules For Schtupping My Teenage Daughter
  
• If You Can't Join 'em, Beat 'em
  
• The Bush Foreign Policy (A No Brainer)
  
• Go Hang A Salami, I'm A Lasagna Hog! (<---a palindrome!)
  
• Lance Bass-O-Matic
  
• Juan Wannabes
  
• Saigon Cheesesteak
  
• Boroughers
  
• and (last but far, far from least) Dead Grandma's Titties When You're Fucking Her From Behind

Anyway, Janet & I can't thank you enough for making this thing a success. We'll be back in action on Wednesday, September 6th, same as usual (with hopefully another new sponsor!), but this blog will continue through August, hopefully being updated a little more regularly than even now.

Finally, I want to make sure Amy, your waitress, and Colin, your barhunk, get some recognition for the crap we put them through every week. We are not your average bar crowd, and we can be occasionally demanding little freaks, and they both handle the weird stuff with great aplomb and grace. It makes doing this so much easier. And Tom, the owner of Dempsey's, who thought enough of this thing to keep it going when there was eight people a week showing up: thanks for sticking with us.

Now, relax this summer. Go catch a musical or something!

7/19 Recap: Birthmarks, Sweetness and Perfection

Our penultimate DSO before next week's great getaway party was another decent success. I'm starting to think we're getting the hang of this. Ah, who are we kidding. Pride before the fall. Still, it was a fairly upbeat night, and that's even filtered through a serious hangover after a few of us went to Punk Metal Karaoke afterward and, um, got kind of blasted.

Thanks to everyone who came, and who come (more or less) every week. It's a lot of work to put these questions & audio rounds together, but I for one (and Janet for two) are grateful that you guys seem to like how the night has grown into itself a little bit. We're always (always, always) open to suggestions. I'm not going too far afield next month, so email me personally or just leave a comment below. You can even do it anonymously if you feel self-conscious, I don't care. We have a chance to improve things for our big comeback on Wednesday, September 6 (mark your calendars; there will be a kickoff party to rival those of ancient Rome, or at least the one we're throwing next week).


Rounds were as follows:

• On This Day: In which we celebrated the birthdays of Anthony Edwards, Ilie Nastase, George McGovern and the great Max Fleischer.
  
  
• Audio Round: Sweets for my Sweet. All the songs were sweet ones, because who wants hate? Not even me. Not all the time, anyway. (Spoiler: We may do this round again next week!)
  
  
• Perfect 10s: I understand there is a pornographic magazine with this title, but I didn't have any questions about that. (Maybe next time; we're certainly not afraid of occasionally "working blue.") There were, however, questions about the board game Perfection, the cruddy John Travolta/Rolling Stone magazine movie vehicle, Nadia Comeneci's current husband, and the present perfect tense of the phrase "I rock the house."
  
  
• States of Mind: Janet brought up the Ohio Players, the two senators from Illinois, and a few places Billy Joel isn't allowed to drive to anymore.
  
  
• True or False: I think I may have to correct something from last night. I mentioned that Mark Twain had a birthmark he called "Mr. Cantankerous." I checked it in a couple of places, and decided to go with it. But I'm looking at those sites again today in writing this recap, and it's starting to look like this was a prank item dropped into Wikipedia and picked up by a few other sites. Nowhere else, in different language, is any birthmark at all mentioned. I'm guessing Mister Cantankerous does not and did not exist.
  
  I'm not changing the results from last night or anything, but don't ever say we don't follow through on our research.

The first Scrabble Solution Question involved the number of asteroids officially logged and registered (129,436; a couple of teams tanked this question, including our returning championship team. (Have you people no shame?)

The second tie-breaker question decided second place: How many states does Bruce Springsteen mention by name in all the songs of his recorded catalogue? This is not something you can google easily, so I'll let that one sit for those who weren't there last night.


The top three teams were: Rabinowitz, Rabionowitz & Rabinowitz (a two-person team, but I'm sure there's some explanation), You Would Totally Love This Drawing Of A Duck If You Could See It But You Cannot, who made that name longer and longer over the course of the evening, and Human Rights Watch Rocks My Socks, who took valuable time out from helping the planet and watching "Project Runway" to finish in the money for the first time under their new name. Good on youse!

The other teams were: Milk Us Till We Moo; Tonight's Winner; May The Sri Be With Us; 'Cause Pussy Too Tasty!, and The Drunken Inquisition (welcome back, you bastards!).

There was something else I mentioned I was going to post here, but I've forgotten what it was. But this recap is already too long by half, so I'm not too concerned. If anyone remembers what it was, I'll up it later.

Did I miss anything important?

7/12 Recap

It was kind of a hot room (in every conceivable way) on 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Fridge Magnet Night, but it felt like a pretty good night. Nine big teams, a lot of new faces, and everything seems to be rolling as we near the six-month anniversary (and a one-month break) from the DSO. (We took some great pictures of some steamy people, and they're up in the official DSO Flickr Stream.)

Rounds were as follows:

• On This Day: In which we celebrated the 27th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night, the 55th birthday of Cheryl Jean Stoppelmoor, and the ascension to the throne one year ago of Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi.
  
  
• Audio Round: A Quick Quiet Quiz: A series of samples featuring artists who have nothing in common except for the seventeenth letter of the alphabet. There was one exception, but it makes sense to be on this list as well once you figure it out. Listen and see how many of these artists you know.
  
  
• Grab Bag: A list of classic trivia questions from the previous incarnation of the DSO, back when Janet did this whole thing more or less by herself with the occasional guest host.
  
  
• Movies Featuring a Color: Which was a lovely round, if I may say so myself, except for the final question, which dealt with the prequel to Vin Diesel's The Chronicles of Riddick, entitled (ahem) Pitch Black. (It's now available on DVD, and it seems to have gotten decent reviews in a wide USA release, even.) If some people forgot this film existed (and forgot the title of the round), that's trivia for you. Apologies can be offered in the form of the beverage of your choice.
  
  
• True or False, which had to be shouted as the PA system went down. We promise this will be fixed by next week. Janet is a woman of many talents, but shouting is, alas, not one of them.
  

Team names included Team Head Butt, Aunt Anteater's Aunts Aren't Ants, Norfolk & Chance, Don't Insult My French Mother, Zid Vicious' Bald Faced Lie, The 12th Step's A Charm (who changed their name to The Dartboard Is Still In Sight), By The Way I Had Sex With Your Mom & All I Got Was The Herp & This Lousy Pub Quiz, See Emily's Dad Blow Up The Town House, and Breakin' Knowledge II: Electric Boogaloo, who were formerly the Armless Ninjas and are now looking for a new name to run with for a while.

It was a feisty night, but I had a ball. I hope you guys did, too. Remember, in two weeks there's the Summer Cotillion Ball and Hoedown Cabaret Jamboree, with food supplied by Dempsey's, a special game setup, and more than the usual amount of the usual silliness.

Recap To Come, Plus A Coming Major Announcement

After this Wednesday's festivities, I left very early the next morning to leave the city for the first time since the late 1970's, and I'm currently typing this from (quite literally) the back woods of Virginia. I will be posting the recap, but it might be some time over the weekend.

(My captors are treating me well, and as long as the ransom money is delivered on time, they have every intention of letting me come back to New York.)

I didn't handle the lack of sound in the back very well, apparently, but I really appreciate everyone coming and staying through the difficulties. We're really grateful for that.

Anyway, we actually have some pretty important news to announce, that will affect the very fabric of the Drunken Smartass Olympics as well as how the trivia scene in New York City goes down. (I'm not overstating this.)

We'll be ready to announce it on Monday. Watch this space.

6/21 Recap

I was out all day yesterday auditioning for a game show and sunning myself like a lizard on the verandah while my houseboy, Paco, brought me capirinhas every half-hour on the half-hour (a good man, that Paco, and thorough), so I'm finishing up this Recap before the sun gets too high in the sky, and my deck chair's siren call gets too irresistable.

Here's what we did:

1. On This Day

2. Audio Round: "We're Staaaaars!" - There was We Are The World, and Do They Know It's Christmas, and Tears Are Not Enough and Sun City (which far as I care was the best charity single of all) and even rehashes like What's Going On, but this week's audio round came from my memories of Stars, the charity record from the world's metal gods, under the name Hear'n Aid. Not that it was included (I don't have a copy of it; if you do, I'd love to hear it again), but -- well, here's what did make the round:

• Deep Purple - Highway Star
  
• Flaming Lips - Vein Of Stars
  
• Tornados - Telstar
  
• Norah Jones - Lonestar
  
• Blur - Star Shaped
  
• Police - Does Everyone Stare
  
• The Byrds - So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star
  
• Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star
  
• Bee Gees - I Started A Joke
  
• Oasis - Rock & Roll Star

I actually have enough versions of "So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star" to make a ten question round, but not a ten-question round that you'd want to suss out. You'd get maybe four or five at the most, and that would be it. (If you have, or know of, another version, let me know or send me an mp3. That round may yet come to fruition.)

3. Bacon - I made a small mistake in this round; while the movie "Canadian Bacon" was the last movie ever released to star the great John Candy, he did in fact die on the set of "Wagons East" in Mexico, and they rush-released that one as well (a la Bela Lugosi).

4. June - In which Janet mentioned Nam June Paik, the site of the recent US Open of Golf, and Juneteenth, but not June Lockhart, the Emperor Junius, or the Brazilian midfielder Juninho. Which, honestly, was probably for the best all around.

5. True/False - Were the Beatles really once called "Johnny and the Hot Dogs?" Was carbonated water really created for the court of Louis XIV? How long can a snail sleep? If you were there, you'd know.

Notes:

• The teams were:
  - 1st - Under The Dartboard (third time here, I believe, and a first time winner of the $25 bar tab and two tickets to The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee)
  - 2nd - The Brown Bag Of Laziness (who won our first three-way tiebreaker question, about the number of sculptures in Central Park)
  - 3rd - Brick (named for a Ben Folds song? Or maybe a fantastic Ontario brewery? or perhaps the stuff you make buildings out of?)
  
  And then, in no order:
  - John In The Bar Is A Friend Of Mine
  - Ovid & the Horse Next To Him
  - The Kates (who won the "Best Dressed Award", and who started as one person in a fabulous dress, and who held the fort until her tardy friends arrived)
  - JFKFC (which reminds me of G'n'F'n'R, but has way better taste)
  - Growin' Up Grizzly
  - Bain Dramaged
  - and the Armnless Ninjas (who of late have been all around the top three spots lately, and frankly it's only a matter of time)

Thanks as always for coming out.

Profiting From Others' Misfortune

Among a quickly growing number of other searches, we are now #5 if you search for toothlessburger.

Not sure how I feel about that. Eh. Welcome, you sick bastards!

Oh, and I added a link to the DSO picture set on Flickr. I try to take a few pictures every week. I might make a point of shooting the winners. We'll see.

Actually, a question: should I set up a proper group? Do you take pictures on Wednesday nights? I know some of you do. (I'll add you as a contact if you add me. I'm no snob. Ask anyone. Well, anyone who matters.)

6/14 Recap

Speaking for myself, I was a bit lazy this week. I've watched approximately 317 World Cup matches, and my brain has become a fine paste. But that didn't stop it from being a much better night then even last week.

1. On This Day - Happy birthday to Pat Summitt, who despite the fact that she's already the winningest coach in women's basketball history, could easily still have 20 years of coaching in front of her. (You know where she coaches, right)

Oh, ten questions and I didn't even mention Flag Day once. So, Happy Flag Day!

2. Audio round - Bob Dylan Covers - I didn't use any Byrds songs or Hendrix, nor did I find room for the Ramones' "My Back Pages," but here's what I did use:

• Van Morrison - It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
  
• U2 - All Along The Watchtower
  
• Manfred Mann - The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)
  
• Warren Zevon - Knockin' On Heaven's Door
  
• Red Hot Chili Willies - Subterranean Homesick Blues
  
• Steve Earle - My Back Pages
  
• PJ Harvey - Highway 61 Revisited
  
• Duran Duran - Lay Lady Lay
  
• The Pretenders - Forever Young, and of course:
  
• William Amadeus Shatner - MISTER TAMBOURINE MAAAAAAAAAAN!
  

3. Wolves At The Door - Including questions about Peter Wolf, Naomi Wolf, Wolfen (well, actually about Albert Finney and his Oscar nominations, but still), and Sergei friggin' Prokofiev.

4. On The Ropes - in which only one question was actually about rope. There was, however, Rope, Roper, tightropers, the rope-a-dope and double dutch.

5 - True Or False.

Team name trends this week included a lot of before-and-after style action, which I'm always a sucker for, and the Madeline Kahn shoutout just made me smile. ("It's twuuue! It's twuuuuue!")

• Celebrity Watch: Caren Lissner from Tuesday Night Trivia was there with her full entourage, as well as some respresentatives from our newest sponsor, for whom we are most grateful.
  
• Teams this week included:
  - 1st place: The Wrath Of Madeline Khan (first time winners!)
  - 2nd place: Occam's Toothbrush
  - 3rd Place: License To Kill Bill
  
  And then, in no particular order:
  - Ursprache (God bless 'em, they spelled it right)
  - Ben Toothlessburger (so tasteless, they won Best Team Name, which this week was Tangled Ropes: The Superstar Billy Graham Story)
  - Efficient Frontier
  - Jose Pepe Mayorca & his Recipes (I don't even understand this, but it was sure fun to say)
  - and Million Dollar Baby Got Back, even though I don't remember Hilary Swank having much in the way of booty in that movie. That, though, is a subject for further research.
  

Okay, I'm off to the pub now to watch England beat Trinidad & Tobasco, but what did I miss?

6/7 Recap

Oh, good. Blogger was down yesterday. Anyhow. Here's what went down. It was a great night.

1. On This Day - It was Prince Rogers Nelson's birthday on Wednesday. Every time I hear his name, I can't get Boy George's description of him out of my head: "He looks like a baby dipped in pubic hair." (More on both of them below.)

2. Audio Round: "Sex Beat... Go!" - The title is from a Gun Club song that I used the last time I put a round like this together for a different trivia night, a couple of years ago. Songs included:

• Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing
  
• Ron Sexsmith - Strawberry Blonde
  
• Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
  
• David Essex - Rock On
  
• Timbuk 3 - Too Much Sex, Not Enough Affection
  
• Sex Pistols - Silly Thing
  
• Salt & Pepa - Let's Talk About Sex
  
• Alien Sex Fiend - Now I'm Feeling Zombiefied
  
• Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On
  
• Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Bell Bottom

The Alien Sex Fiend song didn't go over very well. Sorry about that. I was hoping for a couple more goths in the hizzy. Actually, scratch that. There won't be tons of old-school goth in future audio rounds. I just don't have it, and I never find myself wanting to listen to it. (I seriously considered using "Sexy Motherfucker" by Prince, but I decided against it at the last minute.)

3. Spelling - to commemorate our newest sponsor, I figured I would get my Spelling jones out of the way early. I was very pleased that so many of you spelled "ursprache" correctly, but that was tempered by the fact that so many of you knew who Tori Spelling's new husband was. The hell, people.

4. More Marilyns - Janet found a rich vein of Marilyniana when she researched her Mostly Marilyn Monroe round last week, so she just ran with it. Marilyn Manson's new wife, Boy George's friend the drag artist Marilyn and their musical, Marilyn Munster's home address, and Marilyn vos Savant's column were largely answered correctly. I say this a lot: the louder some of you complain about how hard it is, the better you do. (If we did a Nuclear Physics round and a "Real World" round or something, I'd bet you a dollar -- a whole dollar! That's half of what I earn in a week! -- you'd know more about physics than about who's shtupping whom on the MTV.)

5. True/False - Apparently, the Calcutta Stock Exchange (the second largest stock exchange in India) has changed its name, seeing as the city of Calcutta itself has changed its name (or at least the English spelling of it).

Now, some notes:

• Thanks, everyone, for coming out. Please tell your friends. My needs are few, but Janet & I would really like to keep this night going as long as it's fun for you guys.
  
  
• There were 12 teams, not counting people who didn't play all the way through:
  - 1st - GMFAC (who were in 4th place going into the Scrabble Solution final question, and were the loudest table of the night.)
  - 2nd - Drunken Inquisition (who led for the whole night.)
  - 3rd - Rule 6.2 (+1) - Two guys, one of whom played solo last week and did very well, now with a friend, and they finished in the money. I'm impressed.
  
  And then, in no order:
  - Chainsaw Dunlap
  - Armless Ninjas
  - Tenzin Tsundue Rules! (I mistakenly thought this was the given name of the Dalai Lama, but apparently he's a Tibetan writer and revolutionary. I am cool with this. Thanks for the lesson, guys.)
  - The Return Of The Best Team Ever Made: The Best Team Ever Made's Greatest Hits, Part 2 (formerly The Best Team Ever Made)
  - S.A.M. (they won our Best Dressed Award for their thong sandals)
  - The Five People You Meet In Heaven Can Wait (I did not like the book, and the movie... well.)
  - The Drunky Pants (who changed their name to "I Swear I Didn't Know She Was 8," which for my money is a much better team name.)
  - Fat Sue's Team (I'm assuming Fat Sue wasn't there, because everyone on the team was actually ferret-thin)
  - 2 Good 2 Be 4 Gotten

What did I forget?

5/31 Recap

This week, we welcomed a new sponsor for the DSO (The Putnam County Spelling Bee, now playing on Broadway at Circle In The Square), and welcomed back Lindsay after what turned out to be a short retirement from Wednesday action. Both of these things are very, very good.

1. Christies & Kristys (no "On This Day" round this week, although we kind of made up for it later on)

2. Audio Round: Song titles that rhyme
In which we played short bits of (and asked for the artists who recorded) the following songs:

• Wooly Bully
  
• Walk Away Renee
  
• White Riot
  
• Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Atitudes
  
• Maybe Baby
  
• Noise Annoys
  
• Ready Teddy
  
• Night Flight
  
• When The World Is Running Down, You Make The Best Of What's Still Around, and
  
• Ooby Dooby

I have more of these. You think it was the right amount of difficult?
3. Marilyn Monroe (who would have been 80 years old today, so she's two years older than Christie Brinkley!

4. The Plots of Brodway Shows (you guys did very well on this. If I put a round like this together again, I'll make it a little harder)

5. True or False

• There was a numbers theme among the team names last night: "The 700 Club," "Rule 6.2" (a guy who played solo and got 9/10 on the audio round), "Three of Cups," "Hawaii 5-0," "Katie Squared." Best Team Name? "Night Of The Living Dead Poets Society," although I really liked "We'll See You In Hell, Wilford Brimley."
  

More later. Did I miss anything?

Sample Round

This is last week's "On This Day" round, which is the one round we're not going to be using elsewhere at some point. See how you do. (You can leave answers in the comments.)


On This Day: May 24

1. On this day in 1870, The American lawyer and judicial theorist Benjamin Cardozo was born. The Benjamin Cardozo School of Law is a part of which smaller New York City university?

2. Happy birthday to Priscilla Presley! She played the part of Jenna Wade on which 1980's prime time soap opera?

3. On this day in 1911, the New York Public Library officially opened. There two Lions that guard the main branch's entrance on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. What are their names? I'll give half marks for one.

4. Today is the 39th birthday of this rapper, born Dwight Errington Myers, who aside from his albums may be best known for recording the theme songs to In Living Color and Mad TV. What's his stage name?

5. May 24th is a national holiday in Canada (as well as pretty much every other Commonwealth country). It commemorates the official birthday of which English Monarch?

6. On this date in 1959, John Foster Dulles died. He served as Secretary of State under which President?

7. Today would have been the 263rd birthday of Jean Paul Marat, the scientist and French Revolutionary who was best known for his odd murder at the hands of Charlitte Corday. Madame Tussaud herself cast his corpse in wax where it lay. Where did Jean-Paul Marat's corpse lay?

8. Happy 107th birthday to Suzanne Lenglen! Still considered one of the greatest tennis players to ever pick up a racket, ten years ago, they named one of the courts where they hold the French Open Tennis tournament after her. The rest of that tennis complex is named after what early French Aviator?

9. It's Gary Burghoff's 63rd birthday today. Of course, he's best known for playing Radar O'Reilly on M*A*S*H. What was Radar's actual first name on the show?

10. On this date in 1883, The Brooklyn Bridge was opened. At the time, it became the longest suspension bridge in the world. (Now, it's the sixth longest suspension bridge in New York City.) Before 1883, what inland American city had the longest suspension bridge in the world? (A hint: this city is not on the Mississippi River.)

5/24 Recap

You should have been there. I got there and Prince Harry was dancing on the bar, screaming like a banshee, his tie around his forehead like a fratboy, unsuccessfully trying to get Colin to change the channel to the final episode of American Idol. "I've got a thousand on that old bloke!" He kept saying, and if I watched a minute of that show myself, I have no doubt I'd know what he's talking about.

Then the taps ran dry, and everyone started drinking from the bottles, and then the water and electricity got cut off and someone brought in a million candles and we all drunkenly sang Police songs until we all got hoarse, and then we all played naked twister in the dark, and everyone who was there will never, ever, ever forget it. Well, maybe they'll have forgotten parts of it.

* * *
Okay, a big wedding reception or something came in around 8:30, and we knew they were on their way, so between that and the American Idol and Lost hysteria, as well as it being the first hot Wednesday of the year, the 15 or so of us who came for trivia decided to chill out. Shame, too. Lindsay was there spelling for Amy on wait service, as she will next week.

I'll post the On This Day round for yesterday in the next posting tomorrow. Hope you enjoy your long weekend, and if you've not come out recently, do us a favor and come on out. (We've picked up an additional sponsor, I think. Details on that when we confirm, which should be this week. Watch this space.)

Preview

Prizes tonight will include:

• Japanese snacks (back by popular demand), as well as...


• books by a certain over-the-top CNN Host and someone named Ruby Ann Boxcar (*turn your speakers down, midi alert!) who's apparently been dispensing wisdom from her trailer park for years. Who knew? (Also, she looks fabulous!)

Also, a birthday boy will figure prominently in tonight's festivities. That's a hint. Now, go have fun.

5/17 Recap

We made a valuable technical discovery tonight: the microphones work on the same broadcast channel as the jukebox. This explains a lot of what we previously thought of as supernatural phenomena right there. Electric things baffle us. We plug in the blender, press a button, and out comes margarita. Some things I'm not sure I want to know.

1. On This Day In History

2. Audio round: Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen/Give me down to there, hair! - Janet got her highlights done today, and so it seemed entirely appropriate. (I also included Professor Longhair's "Bald Head," because sometimes, late at night, when I'm typing trivia recaps all alone and listening to Jethro Tull really loud and drinking and crying, I secretly wish I had a big Samson-like mullety mane.)

3. Cartoons Named After People - in which the works of Matt Groening figured prominently. I considered making an all-Simpsons version of this round, as every character on that show is named for someone, but then that would leave Yogi Bear, Hobbes' Leviathan and Bullwinkle out. (Wait, I didn't ask the Bullwinkle question! Shit! Well, actually, there was a reason for that; the question was ass, and I couldn't confirm the answer being right. I won't even include it here. Forget I said anything.)

4. Supersize This Round - They say everything's bigger in Texas, but Morgan Spurlock (and Greta Garbo, and the rest of the people who were featured) would disagree. Janet may be three feet four inches tall, but she can Bring The Big.

5. True/False - The Current Miss Universe is Canadian, though she was born in Russia; and apparently Amy, our sweet and uncommonly beautiful waitress, lived near a Route 100 in a previous life, even though it says here and here that no such place has ever existed. (There's only one way to settle this. That's right: field trip.)

• If you came early, you noticed two things: One, that the second-last song played before we started was also the first song in the audio round (Beck, Devil's Haircut), and two, Colin the Bartender walking about the bar in just a wifebeater and shades. It was, of course, a good look for him.
  
  
• The True/False question about Glengarry Glen Ross felt kind of like a dirty trick. It's won a Tony and a Pulitzer for sure, but the soundtrack didn't win a Grammy that I know of, it's never been mounted Off-Broadway, so it never qualified for an Obie, and the National Book Critics' Circle doesn't even do plays, I think. Still, it's a great play. Instead of $25 for first place, $15 for second, and $10 for third this week, we should have substituted the appropriate prizes. Though parking that Cadillac would be a pain in the ass.
  
  
• I just want to officially welcome back The Drunken Inquisition. They used to come every week during the old Drinking and Thinking days, and it was good to see them come back and finish their customary fourth. I don't know what to tell you, guys.
  
  
• The private function that was supposed to happen today, um, didn't. We are available for other trivia-related functions. Contact us through the comments or here.
  

Did I miss anything?

Need More Trivia In Your Life?

Because we know you can't get enough of that live trivia action, and because we know our endorsement goes really far (these days we've got milk-crates-full of credibility that's just piling up in the corners of DSO HQ, and we can't close the door to the walk-in closet anymore), may I recommend two other places to go if you want to get your trivia on and it's not Wednesday:

• Every other Monday, you can head down to Last Exit Bar on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Eric, Julie & Katherine put together a hell of a fun night, and there are actual cash prizes (everyone pays $5 into the kitty, and someone else takes it all home. Just like the government!). They too have cheap beer, a working karaoke machine they sometimes bring out in case of tiebreakers, and an intermittent Canadian fetish that works in my favor.
  
  
• And every Tuesday, our sister bar, the Baggot Inn, continues to hold the trivia night that got me involved in this whole sordid scene myself. Caren has been running this night for a long time, and with rotating hosts, you never know what kind of questions you're going to get.
  

Representatives of all three groups got together last night, and we talked about some most excellent (and possibly even workable!) plans, so watch this space as we work shit out, but in the meantime, please feel free to patronize these other fine establishments on the appropriate nights.

5/10 Recap

Aside from misstating which week the weird function is and then grabbing a quick nap before dropping off my rent check and finding myself too exhausted to ride my bike all the way down and getting stuck in the worst traffic I've ever been in in a cab (at least this week), the night was very low key. Everyone seemed to want to congregate in the back corners of the rooms, but that was okay, as the Red Sox were playing the Yankees and god love you for coming out anyway, you national-pastiming freaks.

1. On This Day In History - featuring questions about John Wilkes Booth and Mark David Chapman, but not Sigmund Freud, who turned 150 yesterday. He'll be 151 next year. Maybe we can do a rum tie-in of some kind. ("Your subconscious wants you to take off your pants and buy the table another round of shots!")
2. Audio round: 3-letter bands - with ELO, Cub and Mr. T, but not LFO, NWA or DOA. Maybe next time.
3. Mothers - here's a short sporting interview with featured mother Jane Kaczmarek.
4. Name That Candy Bar - it turns out every candy bar currently on the market was invented between 1919 and 1935. Go figure.
5. True/False

• The Scrabble Solution Question involved how much merchandise Winona Ryder shoplifted that fateful day four long years ago. Now that we've addressed this necessary issue, it is my sincere hope that we can put that sordid incident behind us, and get to rather more contemporary issues, like which indie rocker she's schtupping. (I'm still holding my place in line, thanks for asking.)
  
  
• Amy, the new waitron, performed admirably in her first day. I don't believe she cried once. You-all are losing your touch. Either that, or Lindsay taught her well. Just saying.
  
  
• Nine teams tonight, which seemed like a pretty slow night. Best team name: Upton Sinclair Lewis Carole King Friday. Those overlapping pun things always get me.

Oh, if you wanted a candy bar and didn't get one tonight, there is of course always more. Come on back next week. I'll detail the prizes tomorrow.

Did I miss anything?

Reminder/Fair Warning

**CORRECTION: This is happening next week, not this week. That mistake is all mine. Everything runs regularly this week. Shop as usual, and avoid panic buying.

We're going to be hosting a private trivia-related function earlier next Wednesday afternoon (May 17th) which, as far as I know, is supposed to end around 7:30. If you get there early enough (6:30 or so), you might be able to kindasorta play along with an extra few questions, but there'll be a full house of people, some (but not all) of whom will be staying over.

It's gonna be a weird night, but it could wind up being very cool.

5/3 Recap: A Farewell To Lindsay

This week:

1. On This Day In History
2. Audio round: The Ten Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever, as chosen by VH1 (It was actually Numbers 1 through 11, as I didn't have #2. You're welcome.)
3. Foods Named After People
4. Empire State Building/It Happened in 1931
5. True/False

• My favorite team names: Hey, You, Get Out Of My Palm Tree and To Suri With Love. I'm as sucker for well-placed topical humor.
  
  
• There were only eight teams, but somehow there were twice as many people at the end of the night as were there at the beginning. I'm not sure how that happened, but it wound up being okay.
  
  
• What wasn't okay was that it was Lindsay's last night waiting for us. Amy will be your waitron next week, and like Frieda, she has naturally curly hair. She seems fine and willing, and she's cute as a button, but I miss Lindsay already.
  
  
• Next week, there will be a short semi-private function happening before trivia which Janet & I will be hosting. If you come early, you'll have to hang out at the bar until it's done. (We will be asking some trivia questions for them, but you guys can't play along. At least, not officially. We'll work something out.)
  
  
• Other plans are also in the works, including a possible partnership with another major trivia night outside the Dempsey's/Baggot Inn Axis, and I'm starting to think about the summer, and how things are changing then.
  

Any ideas? You can email me directly or leave a comment.

4/26 Recap

Okay, last week's rounds, because I thought I'd added these and I just didn't:

1. On This Day In History
2. Winston Churchill
3. Famous Epileptics
4. Opening Lines To Movies (This was supposed to be read by you guys, but that didn't work out. Next time we do this, and mark my words, we will be doing this again, I'll be handing the lines out before the night starts. Everyone will have a different one-question head start.)
5. True/False

Janet With Gerry Adams

Janet With Gerry Adams, originally uploaded by Tony.

Janet got invited to Washington a month ago to eat green food with President Bush and former IRA head Gerry Adams, of all people. This may have happened over St. Patrick's Day, but the pictures had to go through as many channels as the friggin' Geneva Conventions to get to your pretty little eyes.

I also have a copy of Lindsay (our excellent waitress') appearance as one of the "Wonderful Women Of New York," but my scanner seems to have died. Soon as I remedy that, I'll upload that to here as well.

4/19 Recap

1. On This Day
2. (audio round) Spring Fever, Part II
3. On The Occasion of Queen Elizabeth II's 80th Birthday
4. Taxes (included one question on "Taxis")
5. True/False

The questions about the Queen were taken from this list of 80 facts about her 80th birthday. And yeah, there were other facts sprinkled through the rest of the evening as well. (I can't get over the fact that shehas a gold record for doing a spoken word album called Party At The Palace. That, with all due respect, is off the hook, kind of, innit?

Also, I'm kind of surprised (although I guess I shouldn't be) that the Queen was among the very first non-geek, non-military people to send an email, in 1976. I'm guessing she must have sent it from an IBM Selectric with a pterodactyl in it.

Notes:

• My favorite team name: Wes Mantooth and the Channel Nine News Team. (I was hoping they would all turn and face front in unison, like Ron and Veronica trained Brian, Brick & Champ to do, but that was just a low-level fantasy of mine.)
  
  
• The best reaction to a team name was for "The Roosevelt Island Swim Team." Everyone loves a tragedy. You heartless freaking vultures, all of you.
  
  
• Lastly, there were nine teams, but most teams had way too many people. We'll start getting a little harder-assed about the numbers on the teams (officially it's five, but six is a hard maximum) next week. Think of it this way: you risk winning more shit this way.
  

I have some images I'm trying to fix my scanner so I can share, and I'm thinking about listing the prizes in advance so you can prepare your desires accordingly. The bar tab prizes are a constant, but we have many books and whatnot as well. Leave a comment if you have any ideas about this.

Thanks for your support, and see you next Wednesday.

4/12 Recap

Okay. I'll be posting to this space at least weekly from here on in.


1. On This Day
2. (audio round) Spring Fever
3. Cabin Fever
4. Oh, No, You Di'int! (Everything kindasorta rhymed with "ono")
5. True/False

Janet ws away sick last week, and I drank myself absolutely stupid, but the people from Vassar who used to come all the time back in the old "Drinking & Thinking" era were back, and they should start coming again, which is good, because they're smart and good hecklers, which is always welcome. (What's the point of calling it the Drunken Smartass Olympics if you can't come and be a drunken smartass? Like Janet likes to say that I like to say, I'm just saying.)

Uh, yeah. Notes from this week:

• I was hoping to make an audio round based on ten different covers of "Fever," but I figured people wouldn't be able to discern the difference between Little Milton and Little Willie John, or Cindy Ellis, Veda Brown or Sharon Cash. So out of the 30 versions, I was able to pull five (Elvis Presley, Isaac Hayes, Madonna, Peggy Lee & James Brown), and then I put in five other songs about other kinds of fevers (it's the only time in my life I have ever wished I had a Ted Nugent record.)
  
  
• The loudest group was the eventual winners, "The Unleavened," who raucously cheered everyone else on, but when they were called out themselves, the rest of the room was eerily quiet. Don't be afraid to bring the noise. Also, the prizes have been getting better every week, and if you dress up, you're almost definitely going to be rewarded for your extra effort.
  
  
• I don't know if they were the funniest team name, but the longest of the night went to "Haha, Haha, This Name Is So Funny. I Have A Distended Asshole."
  
  
• Finally, I'm always happy when someone playing solo doesn't finish last. So "Jack's Joker," good on you for doing so well. Bring a couple of friends and clean up next week, alright?
  

3/15 Recap

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day
2. Irish
3. You Don't Know Jack (audio)
4. Yellow
5. TV Shows with Acronyms in the title

Aside from the fact that I physically assaulted a few people over a Terry Jacks song, including my best mate, things went pretty well. About half the room was combative and confrontational, just like I like it, and the visiting dignitaries from South America were thrilled to do Jager shots and blithely watch as the teams in the back corners rocked the last two rounds and almost caught the duo up front who wound up winning the night.

Best team name was Secret Midnight Handjob (I'm going from memory; the tally sheet somehow didn't make it home), and two teams managed a perfect ten on the audio round. Maybe I'll post it later; we'll see.

Anyway, it was excellent to have an evening so interactive. Let me know if we as hosts can do anything to help out on that end.

3/1: On This Day

I'll be posting recaps of the previous night if I can get it together to do so, but you'll get a round or two every week in this space, as well as star sightings, hype and other trivia-related news.

===============

1. On this day in 1961, President Kennedy signed what volunteer agency into existence?

2. Dirk Benedict turns 61 today. Aside from playing "Face" on the A Team, he might have been best known for playing Lieutenant Starbuck on what science fiction movie and TV series?

3. On March 1, 1983, the company that's now the world's largest maker of timepieces began operations. Name that company.

4. On this day in 1932, the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped and murdered, sparking one of the largest media circuses and show trials in American History. Which Agatha Christie novel (later to be made into a movie) was inspired by the Lindbergh baby kidnapping?

5. On March 1, 1565, the City of Rio de Janeiro was incorporated. Residents of Rio de Janeiro are known by what term, which is also the name of a popular dance step?

6. The producer, actor and Canadian dude Alan Thicke is 59 today. He was also a popular songwriter, who wrote the original Wheel of Fortune theme, as well as the theme songs to two of the most popular sitcoms of the 1980's. Name either of those sitcoms.
(Hint: Growing Pains is not one of them.)

7. On March 1, 1803, what Great Lakes state became the 17th State admitted to the union?

8. On March 1, 1994, in Munich, Nirvana played their final live show. What was the name of Nirvana's first studio album?

9. Glenn Miller would have been 102 years old today if he were still alive. But he's not. How did he probably die?

10. On this date in 1989, prohibition was finally lifted in this northern nation, and now, every March 1, they celebrate Beer Day. (I don't know what you'd do on "Beer Day," but there you go.) What northern country now celebrates "Beer Day" every March 1?

Our First Handbill

The image is stolen with great adoration from Mad Magazine. And yes, we did get mentioned in an episode of Law & Order. Apparently someone died during one of the trivia nights.

I know you're smart enough for this to not have to be said, but -- it's a TV show, people. We appreciate the shoutout, but I can promise you that no one has actually died during Dempsey's trivia.

At least not on the premises.

2/22: City Nicknames

I understand that these questions only have a vague connection to the topic at hand, but the first rule is that no attempt is made to make this fair.

See how many of these answers you can get from your pretty little heads.

* * * * *

1. Which midwestern state capital is known as "The Railroad City?"

2. Istanbul was Constantinople, now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople. Why did Constantinople get the works? That's not the question. What vocal group originally recorded the song Istanbul (Not Constantinople) in 1953?

3. Budapest, Hungary is known as the "Pearl of the Danube." It's also the birthplace of the inventor of what 80's must-have novelty item?

4. This genteel southern city is known as "The City of Beautiful Churches" and "the Falls City," but it's best known for the fact that every year since 1875, it's played host to what major sporting event?

5. Two of the world's major cities, "St. Paul" and "January River," are about 225 miles apart. If you were to travel from one town to the other, what country would you be in? (St. Paul and January River are, of course, the English translations of their actual names.)

6. What city is known as "Space City," "The Bayou City," and "The Oil Capital of the World?"

7. Baltimore, Maryland is known as "Mob Town," "Charm City" and "The Monumental City," but it's also the hometown of this actor who started out 25 years ago on the Young And The Restless before moving on to star in two different international smash hit TV shows and building a very successful singing career. Who is he?

8. According to tradition, the Eternal City, Rome, was built on how many hills?

9. New Orleans is known as "The Big Easy," as well as by what other nickname that describes the way the Mississippi River moves through the town?

10. Oklahoma City, which is apparently a really cool town, is known as the "Capital of the New Century." They are also the home of which influential alternative (I don't know if it's fair to call them an indie) band, whose 11th and newest album is called "At War With The Mystics." Name this Oklahoma City band.