the geek bowl
It’s a Wednesday night and the place is packed. Fifteen teams have gathered for quiz night at McCabe’s Tavern in downtown Colorado Springs, all ready to exercise their mental muscles — while downing some suds.
Quizmaster Aaron Retka, microphone in hand and wearing a pink bowling shirt, addresses the crowd.
He starts with the rules:
No. 1, don’t shout out the answers.
No. 2, don’t mess with the quizmaster. (He doesn’t say “mess,” actually, but a word with the same number of letters that can’t be printed here.)
“And No. 3, the quiz is, as always, fixed,” Retka declares amid laughter.
“Jeopardy,” it’s not. Instead of vying for thousands, or even hundreds, of dollars, the winning teams get bar gift certificates — along with, of course, bragging rights. But it’s enough incentive to draw big crowds to McCabe’s for the Wednesday-night showdowns.
Quiz night is the creation of Geeks Who Drink, founded in early 2006 by John Dicker, a writer, and software designer Joel Peach. The two snowboarding buddies began hosting quiz nights in Denver, promising “an authentic pub quiz for beer-soaked nerds.” They have expanded to taverns along the Front Range and plan to go out of state as well.
Quiz night arises from the grand tradition of British pub quizzes. It’s more challenging and entertaining than your standard trivia night, in which a DJ may shout out a question between songs, Dicker says.
“The difference between a real pub quiz and trivia night is roughly the difference between your mom’s cooking and The Sizzler,” the Geeks Who Drink Web site states.
The quiz consists of eight rounds of eight questions each. The quizmaster reads the questions aloud, and the teams, all with six members or fewer, scribble down the answers, handing them in at the end of every couple of rounds. The only limit to the number of teams is the bar’s capacity.
On this night at McCabe’s, the opening round involves the unlikely pairing of Adolf Hitler and ’80s movies: How many “Police Academy” movies have there been? Name Hitler’s lesser-read book after “Mein Kampf.” What was the profession of Mikey and Brandon’s father in “The Goonies” — “the obligatory ‘Goonies’ question,” Retka cracks.
Such brainteasers come largely from Dicker’s apparently somewhat-warped brain. Putting together a quiz may take him from a few hours to a day or more, says Dicker, who gets help from freelance question writers.
“I did a visual round last night, where you have to match the celebrity with his or her stalker. I just got obsessed with it and probably spent 3½ hours trying to find the right pictures of celebrity stalkers.”
McCabe’s has held quiz night for about 10 months. Greg Howard, the owner, was dubious when Dicker and Peach approached him about the idea. “I said ‘What — you really think people are going to come down here for that?’”
But quiz night has been a boon to business, he says. In recent weeks, he’s had to haul in patio chairs for everyone to have a seat.
The quizzes are definitely challenging, Howard says. “It’s above my level of trivia, that’s for sure.”
Audio rounds, such as “name that tune” or sound clips from movies or TV shows, are part of the quizzes.
In the first audio round of this night, Retka plays snippets from foreign covers of well-known songs; teams must identify the songs and original artists.
“The quieter you are, the easier it’s going to be for everyone,” Retka warns. But it’s difficult for the crowd not to drown out the music with laughter when hearing a Cantonese version of “YMCA” or a Ukrainian version of “Highway to Hell.”
At the end of the first round, a relatively new team, G-Unit, is in first place, with the Betas in second and Miss Kitty Fantastico in third.
The Betas have dominated in recent weeks, and the other teams are clearly tired of that winning streak. One team, in fact, has changed its name to the Beta Hatas. (As in Beta haters — got it?)
The Beta team doesn’t seem too concerned about all this Beta hatin’.
Victory comes from having a well-rounded team, with each member having an area of strength, such as sports or music, says John Murray of the Betas.
“I think success is a product of a childhood devoid of going outside, and from watching VH1’s ‘Behind the Music,’” he says.
“That makes us sound nerdy,” team member Brian Zahn complains.
The Betas climb to first place after the next two rounds — one asking whether certain animals are canine, feline or neither, and the other on Christian rock bands.
“It’s still a very tight game at this point,” Retka cautions at the midpoint of the roughly two-hour quiz.
Round 6 is a musical grab bag, with questions ranging from the name of a popular Metallica documentary and the instrument played by Benny Goodman.
In the next round, Retka plays sound bites from Woody Allen movies, and the teams work to identify them.
“I’ve never seen a Woody Allen movie in my life,” Murray mourns.
The Betas fall back to second place — “knocked off their high horse,” Retka observes amiably.
The last round is a broad mix, including soccer teams and venomous land snakes and Oscar-nominated directors.
The night’s big winner: G-Unit (which, in the spirit of full disclosure, includes some folks from The Gazette), with 86 points. The Betas end up in second with 80 points, and 3+1=5 is third with 77 points.
The Betas join in the applause for G-Unit. But days later, on the Geeks Who Drink blog, there’s a lot of trash-talking going on.
“You beat the JV squad,” Wes “Dr. Geek” Colgan of the Betas announces to G-Unit. The Betas, he points out, hadn’t been at full strength, with him and two other regular members absent.
“Dude, we didn’t miss many points all night,” G-Unit replies. “It doesn’t matter who was there; you got served.”
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0272 or bill.radford@gazette.com
DETAILS
Geeks Who Drink quiz night is at 8 p.m. Wednesdays at Mc-Cabe’s Tavern, 520 S. Tejon St. For more information, go to www. geekswhodrink.com.
GEEKS WHO DRINK SAMPLE QUESTIONS
1. What’s the most shoplifted book in America?
2. Which of the following does NOT practice the form of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah: Britney Spears, Ashton Kutcher, Tara Reid or Paris Hilton?
3. The product Ex-Lax gets its name from what two words?
4. Which of the following is NOT a Scientologist: John Travolta, Elizabeth Taylor, Kirstie Alley or Giovanni Ribisi?
5. Name the two Muppets who heckle the show from the balcony.
6. The New York City phone book had 22 people listed under this name in 1939 and none in 1945.
7. What accessory did Hasbro remove from Mr. Potato Head in 1987?
8. What’s the name of the Colorado Rockies mascot?
QUIZ ANSWERS
1. The Bible.
2. Tara Reid.
3. Excellent Laxative.
4. Elizabeth Taylor.
5. Statler and Waldorf.
6. Hitler.
7. His pipe.
8. Dinger.
SOURCE: www.geekswhodrink.com
