YOUR SPACE: Meet the king of the geeks

Aaron Retka studied chimpanzees at the San Diego Zoo for his Colorado College thesis in anthropology.

Those primates were tame compared to his current species: beer-soaked geeks and drunk hecklers.

He’s a pub quizmaster.

He’s part Alex Trebek, part Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

Retka runs the “Geeks Who Drink” show on Wednesdays at McCabe’s Tavern downtown. He delivers eight rounds of questions to a dozen-plus teams while deflecting heckling from other bar patrons not in the game who (gasp) don’t take trivia seriously.

Some unexpected benefits come with the weekly paid gig he’s done four years.

“I have completely expanded my social circle,” says Rekta, 30, a theatrical lighting company marketing man by day. “They are nerds, absolutely nerds. I’m a total geek and I get to let my geek flag fly.”

Test your Geek IQ with the 20 questions below.

The baby-faced Minnesotan looks more hipster than geekster. He wears cool clothes. He doesn’t wear glasses. His tawny hair is spiked. His arms are tattooed. He plays in bands.

“I get recognized for being a quizmaster more than anything else,” he says. “Somebody who saw me at a bar a year ago will say, ‘You’re that quiz guy, you’re kind of a (jerk).’ I say, ‘Yes I am.’ You have to be. Let it get out of control and the room is running you.”

Teams write down answers to eight questions in each round. “You always get some jackass in the crowd shouting out the answers,” Retka says, “and it’s my job to shut him up.”

He has his ways, without resorting to a dunce chair like another master.

“This isn’t like bar trivia where you answer a couple of easy questions and then listen to greatest hits,” Retka says. "The people are very serious about it."

How serious? Tickets for the Jan. 30 Geek Bowl quiz fest in Denver sold out in a few hours. Retka will share the stage with quizmasters for the four-state meet.

Then he’s turning over the McCabe’s stage to someone else. This pub quiz czar is stepping down.

“It’s stressful. It takes it out of you,” he says. “I’m going to take my Wednesday nights and reclaim them and watch television or something. And not drink quite as much in the middle of the week."

Want to be the new king of the geeks?

Tryouts are Jan. 23. The job description: “Can you handle hecklers, freestyle on the mic with mad wit, read questions with authority to a room full of drunky snarks and snarky drunks?”

Perks include a digital shot meter. That’s right, you can drink on the job.

“They buy me shots,” Retka says. “I encourage that. Bribes have been offered. I might take your money, but it’s not going to help you win.”

To apply: info@geekswhodrink.com

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How geeky are you?

Here are sample questions from Geeks Who Drink categories History’s Biggest Losers and Prophets/Profits/Prophecies. (Answers are below) 

1: Hiroo Onoda was just a Japanese soldier until nobody told him the war was over. He lurked in the jungle on the island of Lubang, in what Pacific nation, from 1944 to 1972, until somebody finally broke the news?

2. What American president caught pneumonia during his marathon inauguration speech and died 32 days after assuming office?

3. What Presidential candidate running under a 538-vote electoral college got the fewest electoral votes, at a whopping 13? (He won Minnesota and DC! Woo!)

4. Before he was named Il Duce, abandoned by Hitler, executed, strung up on a meathook and stoned by angry Italians, Mussolini was a regular working stiff. What was his profession before his political career?

5. What MLB team is widely renowned as the worst of all time, led to a record 120 losses in the 1962 season by manager Casey Stengel?

6. What emperor will go down in history for welcoming his nation’s invaders as gods, putting them up in his temple, being taken prisoner and ending up being publicly executed , as opposed to, you know, kicking their asses back to Spain?

7. In the Simpsons episode “Homer’s Enemy” we’re introduced to the unluckiest person ever, a guy who was abandoned by his parents and terribly maimed in a silo explosion before being electrocuted to death. What was his name?

8. Native Americans got shafted across the board, but we Coloradans share the legacy of the Sand Creek Massacre, during which US soldiers killed over 400 women, children, infirm and elderly people while the men were away to negotiate a treaty. What tribe were they?

9. Bruno Hauptmann was probably innocent of what crime, for which he was executed in 1936 even though a reporter admitted forging evidence used in his trial?

10. Commie sympathizer, high-school dropout, defector, wife-beater and all-around loser, poor Lee Harvey Oswald will go down in history as being our nation’s most famous patsy. What branch of the military did he serve in, who rated him as a mediocre shot?

11. Who is considered, in Islamic thought, to be the first of the 124,000 prophets?

12. The wackiest prophet of all, Joseph Smith “found” and “translated” some “golden plates” in order to found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints while living in Manchester, in what New England state?

13. It was reported on April 13 that what firm, notoriously bailed out by taxpayers, posted a quarterly profit of $1.5 billion?

14. Whose vaguely-worded prophecies, a mainstay of tabloids, are said to have predicted things like Adolf Hitler, the French Revolution and the atomic bomb?

15. What American church, founded in 1893, was based on the prophetic visions of a woman named Ellen G. White?

16. Who delivered the central prophecy of the Harry Potter books, saying, “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...”?

17. Apparently recession-proof, what ginormous multinational company’s profits rose by an incredible 80 percent in 2008, from $2.3 billion to $4.3 billion?

18. A guy named John of Patmos gave us what famous and oft-quoted prophetic vision, which reads like a bad trip?

19. She received visions from God, led the French army, was captured, sold to the English, raped and burned at the stake before being beatified and canonized. How old was Joan of Arc when she died?

20. What astrologer did Richard Nixon call “the soothsayer” and who later provided astrological advice to Nancy Reagan?

ANSWERS

1. Philippines

2. William Henry Harrison

3. Walter Mondale

4. Journalist

5. Mets

6. Moctezuma II

7. Frank Grimes

8. Southern Cheyenne

9. Kidnapping (Lindberg baby)

10. Marines

11. Adam

12. New York

13. Goldman Sachs

14. Nostradamus

15. Seventh-Day Adventist

16. Sybill Trelawney

17. McDonald’s

18. The Book of Revelation

19. 19

20. Jeane Dixon

Source: Geeks Who Drink