This Week: Fish! For Real This Time!

Tonight's Prize
Originally uploaded by Chico Bangs.

My skills are many, but being a prolonged and effective tease is not one of them. Some days I can withhold and entice pleasure with the best of them, and then others, well, I'm a big old suck who couldn't deny Marty Scorcese an Oscar, even if he didn't really deserve it.

(Note to those who are reading this via archive or google search: This metaphor may be not quite apt, but it is at least relatively current as of this typing.)

What I'm trying to say is, after a couple of weeks of back problems and carrying-too-much-crap-around issues, I will be bringing this special Discovery Kids! Exploration Aquarium ("great for goldfish, bettas and guppies!") as a prize for one special fishionista tonight.

(It comes with a special carrying bag, and it's not actually all that heavy. Certainly you can have your standard night out and bring it home without difficulty. I wouldn't bring anything you can't drop out of a moving cab while hammered at 2:30 in the morning on a school night. Promise.)

We also have some special books (including one about a movie star who left this world last year and yet didn't make the Oscars' grief reel at all, those ungrateful bastards).

See you tonight.

Podcast: Update

A couple of people have asked after I tried a couple of prototype broadcasts last month, so just FYI: I haven't abandoned the podcast idea.

In fact, I've run two prototype pods and feel pretty much ready to go. The sticking point right now is with setting up a stable hosting place, so y'all can subscribe and have it be there week in and week out.

Once I get that working (I have to get my domains in order; they're scattered across the four corners of the intertubes and are probably attracting moths or something), we will be up & running, and then, well, it's another something, anyway. And all these somethings add up. Or so I have read.

A Scoring Change For Make Glorious Nation Of Smartass Futures!

One of the things I occasionally mess up (I know, I know, I never make mistakes, but oh-crappertunities just sounds so damn corny) is that I will miss a team when reading the scores on the fly in order.

So to stop that from happening, I'm going to read out everyone's score, just not in order. I'm not going to stop doing the rankings, I'll just not go from bottom to top. Maybe I'll read the top three, and then everyone else, and certainly, everyone's name and score will be read aloud after rounds 2, 4 and 5, but yeah, there's no need for you guys to stare at me while I scratch my beer-addled head trying to figure out if there actually is an eighth place team that I just can't see on the page, or a three way tie for sixth.

It feels like it takes a lot of extra time, and the breaks are long enough as it is.

Does anyone have a problem with this?

3-08: 2/21 Recap - Betty Boop In A Neck Brace (or Where The Goys Are)

You guys keep surprising me. I was expecting a chill evening, hanging out, watching the Knicks lose and maybe ordering some pizza, throwing some questions around and wishing I could make it to the Ernest Borgnine night in the West Village (which I heard was kind of lame, which is kind of a bummer), and then it was like the bus from the Cool Institute stopped in front of the bar and let out a Parker Posey-like posse. There were a couple of groups who hadn't come in a long while, and a mess of new people too. (I hope some of you stick with us. The prizes are only going to get better.)

And to the team who named themselves after a serial killer with a brain fetish: I have to admit, I've never watched Heroes, and so I didn't know how to pronounce your name. I'm sorry. I try to know as much as I can about as much as I can. That's kind of my job. And this Sylar fellow sounds like my kind of guy. I'm not really the bulletproof cheerleader type anyways. (Keep those pictures coming, though.)


This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Happy birthday to Anais Nin! And Nina Simone! And the Communist Manifesto! And Affirmed!

2. Audio Round: I'm So Lonesome I could Plotz - Since it was a week after Valentine's Day, I figured I'd do a round on songs about not being with someone. Can you guess which tracks I used from The Police, George Thorogood, Tiffany, Tommy James & the Shondells, or Roy Orbison? Unlike the Motels said, not only the lonely can play.

I'm trying over here. Work with me.

3. Happy - In which Janet dropped Samuel Johnson and Kander & Ebb, but not one of my favorite bands or the latest Will Smith Oscarbait, which I am sad to report was vastly overrated.

4. They died in '06 - I was having a discussion with a few friends this week about who was going to get the biggest round of applause during the Grief Reel at the Oscars. The consensus was that it was going to be Robert Altman, though Jack Palance and Don Knotts are going to get some love.

5. Name 3's - Not only is Zsa Zsa Gabor Hungarian, she was chosen as Miss Hungary for 1936! (Sure, she was later disqualified, but still.) And forgive me, but what has she done since? I mean, that's a hell of a long time to dine out on an accomplishment, girlfriend.

We totally didn't enforce the team size rule this week, and as a result, there were some teams that were, um, large. Not that it helped; the three podium teams all had five players or less:

• 1st Place: Tony Looks More and More Like Britney Every Day! (Shyeah, as if.)


• 2nd Place: The Knicks Are Down By (as the Knicks slowly fell further and further behind, their score increased. Kinda clever, actually.)


• 3rd place: Laissez-Fairgrounds
  
  
  
  Followed by (in no particular order):


• It's Never Too Late For An Astronaut Love Triangle!


• We Are All Dannielynn's Daddies!


• The Well-Dressed Man Disguise


• The Dancing Oysters of Greater Lebanon


• METS/Bill Kristol/GNYCE (Could someone explain what these three things have in common?)


• Tim Hardaway's Baby Daddies (A theme here, there is)


• RehabFab


• Miso-Horney


• Sylar


• Master of the Kennel


• John Solo


• The Little Way


• Writers Of Rohan


• Cheap Tricks(who would have finished dead last except they got the Scrabble solution about the number of survivors from the Titanic)
  

Among the prizes this week was a Pez dispenser knockoff of Betty Boop which looked rather like she had sustained a spinal injury, and had to be kept in a neck brace. The fetishists in the room were all over it. Also, as a gift, we gave away a copy of a novel called Goy Crazy, which seems like a pleasant enough read, if a little preteenish for our crowd. (I've forgotten who won that, but if someone could take an hour and read it and let us know how it was, I'd be grateful.)

Tara, the fill-in waitress, had her hands full all night, and performed admirably. We are kind of a hurry-up-and-wait kind of scene, and it's not the kind of thing every server can do. We've seen this shift drive otherwise good people out the door screaming in rage. Even though we miss Christina, Tara did a fine job.

I know I forgot to mention something.

TMI, and Next Week: Fish!

I wound up missing last night's sports trivia thing because of a delicate "manly" condition. (Some things are best not talked about in mixed company.) But it did afford me the opportunity to put together a quality audio round, which plays on the whole idea that Valentine's Day is over, which means you can either squirrel yourself back in your little love nests and trysteries, or get back to the business at hand, that of being alone again, naturally. Whichever your situation may be, or whether you're just in a once-a-year fling thing, well, I hope that works out for you.

And while the special grand goldfish bowl prize will not be making an appearance tonight, it certainly will next week, as Spring creeps ever closer to our collective doorsteps. I do, however, have a bondagey Pez dispenser-like contraption, news themed clothing, and a book by Dr. Phil's wife.

As well as all the regular bar tab and other pointless and occasionally edible prizes on the docket. Never let it be said we don't take care of you.

Attention Sports Trivia Nerds

Tonight (that's Tuesday, if Presidents' Week has messed with your delicate innards) at the King's Head Tavern (222 East 14th Street), an outfit called NYC Sports Trivia is hosting something called the Jeffrey Leonard Invitational, which sounds not unlike our little thing, but they've specialized, and they do have as a special guest quizmaster Will Leitch of Deadspin.com.

From the breakdown on their blog, their plans for the evening look kind of ... familiar. Anyone wanna come down and explore a little further?

(Oh, and I've added this to the ever-growing list of trivia night on the Google NYC Trivia Calendar. If you have Gmail, well, you know what to do.)

The Greatest Ever, Just Ask Her

In the Name Threes round this week, I mentioned Leilani Kai, Joanie Laurer and Wendi Richter as being three WWF/WWE Wrestling Champions, and of all the women who've held the title, I recognize maybe two more names (Trish Stratus was a model in Toronto, and Sable, well, I can categorically say I am not the father of her Dannielynn, her Bahamian love child, and I want the mainstream media to finally acknowledge this in print. Right, Prince Anhalt? Good).

But of course, the greatest women's wrestler ever, The Fabulous Moolah, held the "Women's World Wrestling Championship" belt for 28 years, which even for a showbiz thing in a discipline where there weren't all that many contenders until recently is still an impressive athletic achievement. I think of it the same way I think of an actor doing a role for that long, like Yul Brynner doing The King of Siam in film & on Broadway for thirty years, or Mary Martin doing Peter Pan until Cathy Rigby was old enough (I know lots of other gymnast types played Peter Pan over the last half-century, but this is a trivia blog, not a place for facts).

If you get a chance to see the documentary Lipstick & Dynamite, about the pre-glory days of women's wrestling, do it. It's funny and excellent to hear these women laugh about their horror stories of life on the road. It's making the rounds of the cable channels now.

Have a good President's Day weekend, y'all. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "Don't dis my homies!"

3-07: 2/14 Recap - Baby, It's Cold Outside

Well, again, if you weren't there, you really missed something.

It was large group night, with two excellent and boisterous groups dominating the action and the scoresheet. That might have been because you would have needed to build a critical mass of people to want to brave the snowstorm, never mind that there was definitely a Fuck Valentine's Day vibe to the evening; even the people who were encoupleded really weren't interested in the corporate ooeygooeyness of the alleged "holiday."

We gave away more prizes per capita than ever before as well. I got down early, and went to the Jas Mart on St. Mark's and went a little apeshit with the Japanese snacks. If it had chocolate on or in it and was shaped like a bear, I picked up a couple of boxes. Chocolate because, hey, who doesn't like chocolate, and bears, because like Mister Colbert says, bears are godless killing machines hell-bent on our destruction. And who am I to contradict that. Exactly.

So yeah, this week's rounds:

1. On This Day

2. Audio Round: Now We Are One II - More songs with "one" in the title, including Howard Jones, the Scorpions, John Lee Hooker, Blondie, and the mighty, unstoppable sonic beatdown that is Air Supply. The mosh pit? Is open.

3. Hearts and Stuff - Questions about hearts, because, fuggit, 'twas the season. Purple hearts, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, The Tell-Tale Heart, Kitty Carlisle Hart, and the guy who came up with this logo.

4. Dogs - The name of the dog that won Best In Show at the Westminster Kennel Club show this week was...? (I am obsessed with that competition, by the way. I don't know what it is about it, but god damn, I can't stop watching. Often, by the end, I'm brought to tears. And I have no idea why.)

5. Name 3's - Three dudes who schtupped Ava Gardner, three of Anna Nicole Smith's best acting performances, three Hawaiian Islands, and Leilani Kai, Wendy Richter, and Joanie Laurer.

Like I said, big groups this week (we'll be enforcing that five-a-side rule again next week, aight? You've been warned), but the names were solid:

• 1st Place: Heartbreakers, Dream Makers, Love Takers, around with whom you ought not to mess.


• 2nd Place: ACLU & Friends


• 3rd place: Roy G & the Death Machine (They were Roy G. & the Bivs for a while, but I like the last-round amendment)
  
  
  
  Followed by (in no particular order):


• You Are Lonely If You Are Alone


• Anna Nicole Wordsmiths (They won Best Name, but they didn't get the Anna Nicole question in the name threes round! How soon you forget, you -- you capricious celebriphiles!)


• AXE Body Spray (Your name made me think of guys like this. No offense.)


• Pretty Pathetic (which, they hastened to add, was a song by the Smoking Popes. I figured the Smoking Popes would have been a better name, as team names that talk about how much you are going to suck are the only team names I can't stand. But I understand.)


• End All Carbon Subsidies and Find Life On Mars!

Prizes this week included a series of Valentine's themed books, including on on the history of prostitution and one on the trafficking of body parts. Both, I hope, will be enjoyed by their recipients and someone they love very, very deeply. Or at least wish to fuck.

3-06: 2/7 Recap - Our First Anniversary!

At the risk of quoting John Edwards: I was wrong.

I thought there would be more team names involving crazed astronauts wearing diapers, but the trend went the other way, as thoughts strayed toward the freaky guy masturbating like Darling Nikki, behind a sheet, backlit thirty feet tall, in front of a screaming cheering live audience of sixty-five thousand and a viewing audience of a billion or so. Janet Jackson shows a nipple with a hat on it for a quarter of a second and society almost falls to its knees, and then Prince has himself a nice long lock-the-doors scream-all-you-want wank in the rain, and everyone breaks their fingers talking about it being the best live stadium show since Cheap Trick played Budokan. You puritans are so cute when you're being selective in your outrage!

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - where we celebrated the birth of the Puerto Rican rapper Laura Ingalls Wilder, and mourned the death of the children's author known as Big Punisher.

2. Audio Round: Now We Are One - Commemorating the one year anniversary on the DSO, we pulled out all the stops, ordering pizza and doing an audio round featuring One Song Each from Murray Head, the J. Geils Band, the Fixx, Madness, and Johnny Cash covering U2. We weren't going to make it too easy. Also, we'll be doing another One soon.

That's a hint.

3. Inside the Box - Lots of box questions, including a question each about Joyce Carol Oates and Salman Rushdie, both of whom, in case you haven't for some reason been sick to death of my namedropping in the last 52 weeks or before, I have spoken with. One I took a writing class with, the other one I think is the greatest living writer in the English language.

4. Super Excellent Round Of Super Superness! - In which talked about the city at the near end of Lake Superior, the editor of Superman's newspaper, the NHL team Super Mario owns, and the lyrics to Liz Phair's Supernova.

5. Name 3's

A few less teams this week (because of the cold - if you want to win some prizes, this is the slower season, so you've got a better chance than in a month or two when it picks back up), but the quality of names was high as usual:

• 1st Place: Houston, We Have A Problem -- And She's Wearing A Diaper!


• 2nd Place: Tony & Me (actually, a series of vaguely stalkery drawings that quite frankly creeped me out)


• 3rd place: Fox Force Five (none of whom looked like Mia Wallace, but considering what happened to her in the movie, that may have been not the worst thing)
  
  
  
  Followed by (in no particular order):


• Nicky's Angels


• The Straight Guys Who Work In Cosmetics


• Alex Trebek Is My Bitch


• JD-4-2


• Jarvis Cocker Is Not Joe Cocker's Love Child


• 95 2nd


• Scooter's On Ice


• It's My Birthday Too, Biotch!


• Prince's Phallic Shadow


• Purple Reign Stick, by Dave Grohl


• Bess and Dana Say, "Summer Never Has To End If You Still Wear Sunscreen During The Winter!"

Prizes this week included a pair of Tanya Tucker self-help books and a special Thanksgiving holiday 5-pack of Jones Soda (Turkey & Gravy soda, Sweet Potato soda, Dinner Roll soda, Pea soda, and Antacid soda). And as well, every person received a special thank you postcard and a fridge magnet courtesy of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, who we are happy to continue having sponsor us, if they're game.

Thanks, everyone who's come out even once (and especially those of you who've made it part of your social life), for making this thing into a fairly big deal. If you've had half as much fun playing as we've had making up the questions, then we've had twice as much fun making up the questions as you've had playing.

Oh

And I'm going to guess the over-under on Astronauts-in-Diapers team names to be around, um, 4.

Now We Are One

Tonight's first anniversary version of the DSO will include a few better-than average prizes, including a package from Jones Soda, a laptop bag, and a special thank-you goody bag for everyone. I know I often say you probably won't go home empty-handed, but this week, it's the absolute truth, ruth.

There will also be food. You might want to get there early to ensure getting a table.

Last week in the audio round, I used a clip from both Jewel and the Smiths, two bands I just don't like (though at least with the Smiths I've tried, really I have; I'm the only person I know who can't stand them, and I know it's all about Morrissey and his affected limp-fish-handshake of a voice). This week, I commit another misdemeanor against my own personal taste, but I'm doing it for you.

You're welcome.

3-05: 1/31 Recap: Popsicles, Souvlaki, Corn Dogs, and Sister Mary Elephant

Yes, I am a pud.

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day

2. Audio Round: Cysted Twister - featuring various Sisterly songs, including selections (can you guess which song I picked) by Night Ranger, the Velvet Undeground, Steely Dan, Cheech & Chong, and the Elvis Presley version of a Dwight Yoakam track from last week. It's all about the continuity.

3. Russians - Black ones, white ones, Muscovites, Petrogradders, even a Latvian, a Tatar & a Kazakh (from when they counted as Russian), and it wouldn't have been complete without a mention of Maria Sharapova and Rasputin, the Beauty and the Beast of the old country.

4. Minty Fresh - In which Janet asked about Peppermint Patty and Altoids and stuff.

5. Name 3's - If you knew who Esmeralda Villalobos was, or Dr. Jonathan Zizmor, or the names of three different foods eaten off a stick, then you probably did okay.

Team names were better this week:

• 1st Place: Fellowship of the Ringworm


• 2nd Place: The Pillage People


• 3rd place: That Harry Potter's Got A Jungle Bush! (I would link to the photo spread in question, but you people know how to use the google, don't you?)
  
  
  
  Followed by (in no particular order):


• The Dizzle Dogs


• One Canadian


• The Remainders


• Team Kuby: NYHAngels


• You Stop Drinking, Voices!


• Kate's Kate


• FDR's Legs (I had to admit, this was a good name)


• Secret Agent Death Train!


• Drunken Inquisition


• Please Give Us Ramen (They got Pocky instead, and they LIKED IT)


• UNC 83, Miami 71. Yes, We Even Knew That. (Hm. Not quite. At least you picked the winner, though.)


• The Little Way


• Zoole In The Fridge (Did you mean "Zuul In The Fridge," perchance?)

I know it's been over a week. Sorry. I should be in traction.