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hosting a trivia show is fun on paper, literally, when you are writing the questions. they are shiny little jewel-puzzles--you don't want them to be too easy, but you still want the people to get the questions right, because you know how much you enjoy getting questions right. it will be fun to share little info-bits and be in a little smartyclub with each other. it's a delicate balance, though, between subject matter and sentence structure and general accessibility, and it must be just so. you craft the questions carefully, artfully, excruciatingly at times, and include witty little clues and jokes for your patrons, whom you love. you want them to love you back.
they don't love you. they fucking hate your guts. they are much smarter than you could ever hope to be, and if you've doubted this for one second, you're deluded and deserve nothing but strife, which it is their personal duty to deliver to you. the thing on the poster that says you're an encyclopedia editor is not a qualification but a challenge.
we did geography-themed team trivia this month instead of the regular old geography bee because my co-host thought my questions were too hard last month. so the format shifted from 1. three rounds with one question per contestant and then 2. the bonus tiebreaker to 1. five categories with five questions apiece, 2. an intermission, 3. another five/five, and then 4. the bonus tiebreaker.
i was dismayed to hear the news. i liked the bee format because the contestants, for whom i was still overflowing with hearts, got to come up to the mike and vamp, and we'd ask them quirky little icebreaker questions, and they're usually smart and funny, and the show was much more of a show that way. versus us reading a list of questions to an audience and occasionally editorializing. oh, well. we'll try it on. the tiebreaker round remained the same--we make them draw countries or states or bodies of water on a whiteboard, which is always entertaining--so at least i still had that.
i'm supernervous in the first round because i'm scared the questions will still be too hard and i'll be criticized on stage by my co-host, per the last show, even though i'd dumbed them down by making them multiple choice. i can't think of anything funny to say. the sound of my voice is nauseating--i sound like corky with a valley girl accent. dar dar, like, petrograd leningrad. i am overruled in the state nicknames round--they are read without multiple choices--and that doesn't ease my nervous brains any. mad awkward pauses.
eventually, i warm up, after getting a laff out of "so are people from qatar qatarded?" but soon find that i will be hurried along whenever i try to tell similar asides.
a question about djibouti prompts the same djibouti anecdote that is always told at the geography bee. i think we are four for four now. it is fucking open season on anecdotes if you are not me.
some prematurely gray dude is all full of fabulous sauce and starts yelling shit out. "ah, yes, the country that is home to brooklyn's namesake is the same country referenced in the question about acadia!" all in the voice of Comic Book Guy. i mumble, "mmmmm, i'm pretty sure it's not." grayskull catches this and won't stand for it and snipes something back. i don't want to give the answer away yet cos we haven't graded this round yet, so i reply, "if you say so." he continues his end of the dispute with his teammates.
i am hassled by my co-host for asking a question about the faroes. i maintain that people have heard of the faroes. i am contested. i mention that they eat puffins in the faroes and you can just catch them out of the air and take them home and eat them!, and that distracts the adversary of the faroes. another question about the capital of nunavut is met with opposition because the towns are inuit words and hard to say, although i have included phonetic explanations. i feel as though people have heard of nunavut and it's not unreasonable to ask its capital. it's a province in canada. we live next to it.
people trade papers and we read the answers for round one. i misspeak and say "guyana" when i mean to say "ghana," and grayskull fucking loses it. stands up and yells, "GUYANA. WHAT. NO." there is a bomb in his temple and it's gonna explode.
when the folks turn the answer sheets in, they look pretty good. one team has 16 of 25, three have 15, and one has 9. i feel so happy for my little baby contestants! they know the capital of nunavut! we have a connection!
someone has written "the ferrous," which delights me. faroes sulfate.
a guy approaches the table during intermission to inform me that he has a "minor quibble" with my category on "the middle east and its penumbra," which is that bangladesh isn't in the middle east. i look deeply into his face and say, "that's why we added, 'and its penumbra,' because of that question. remember, we made a joke about it," and my eyeballs say to his eyeballs, "oh, my god, please stop talking right now, because it is very, very bad for both of us and is about to get worse." he asks me what i was thinking.
the first category in the second half is antarctica. the dude who won the last two geography bees takes personal offense at the question about what are the southern lights called in latin and keeps asking for clarification. i say, "the northern lights are called aurora borealis; what are the southern lights called?" he asks what that has to do with antarctica.
grayskull wants extra credit for knowing what portland, oregon, would have been named if the coin had come up tails instead. "i've BEEN to portland," he says smugly.
nobody gets upset over my question about which country is home to the delicious and very popular soda, guarana antarctica. thank the sweet lord in heaven.
several people don't understand the category "in which city is this TV show set?" they're like, wait, but the X-files was FILMED in VANCOUVER for the first six seasons before moving to LOS ANGELES. is THAT what you mean?
i'm like, "yeah, the answer for all five questions is 'an L.A. sound stage.' . . . no. it isn't. where do the characters in the show live? that is what i'm asking you."
when we read the answers for round two, grayskull argues that babylon and the tower of babel are the same thing. he and another guy piss their pants about "the X-files" being set in washington, D.C.--they insist the FBI is headquartered in langley, virginia. i say i always thought it was quantico and have never heard of langley, but i'll take it, it's OK. it's not OK with them. they are upset.
for the bonus round, we make representatives from each team draw a borough. grayskull draws a kickass staten island and i praise it highly. the next girl draws a pretty shitty bronx, but what the fuck, who can draw the bronx. all in good fun. the champion guy is given queens and throws a BALLS-OUT CONNIPTION FIT.
"no. i'm not drawing queens. that's too hard."
"it's harder than the bronx?" i ask.
"queens is the hardest one! that's not fair! i was hoping for manhattan because then, uh, you know, i'd just--"
"everyone was hoping for manhattan," i say.
my co-host tells him that he can send up another representative from his team if he wants. he's like no, but queens is too hard, give me something else. she tells him we can't change the question because we only have three borough-shapes printed out for reference.
so he stands there and draws a fastidiously detailed queens, bitching the entire time about how hard it is. i remind him that a puzzle of the united states is what's at stake, and we're not expecting him to be a closeted cartographer. we're playing trivia in a mall here.
he is not comforted. he names the neighborhoods as he goes and draws the coastline all ragged, with inlets and shit. it looks very much like queens. it is a totally legit queens.
"did we just get sharked?" my co-host asked. "watch him bust out with a fucking to-scale replica of queens."
i still don't quite know what getting sharked means, but i love that. shut the fuck up before you get sharked.
the team who ate shit on the bronx wins by half a point. they are friendly and nice, and i am relieved it's them who win. the queens-drawing champion hangs around the table to whine about it because his queens was so awesome compared to their bronx. he has lost his title. the guy who was upset about bangladesh not being in the middle east comes up and tells me that we have to get rid of the drawing round because "it is horrible." i say it's the best round, what are you even talking about, it's funny and silly and creative. he repeats his assertion, unsmiling.
some motherfucker from grayskull's team wants to chew my ear off about the geography bee book that i have tucked under my arm. i'm like, it's for fourth-graders--i don't really use it. i just brought it for emergencies. he's like, dude, i'm gonna buy that book and memorize it! i was like, knock yourself out, because i don't actually use it. he was like, dude! let me see it!
champion has something to say to me, but i get the fuck out of there before he can say it.
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