We start it on Wednesday at Dock Street at 8 PM. We’ve had a lot of fun these past two weeks. No reason to think this Wednesday will be any different. On Thursday, Carl will be hosting at Birra. He hosted his first one there this past week and it went great. That’s also at 8 PM. Then on Friday, trying something new…wanna do some pop-ups this summer so we can all try out some different bars. We start at the Black Cat Tavern at 12th and Oregon. They’re famous for their pierogies, and they’ll have $5 pierogie plates on Friday night. Action starts at 7:30. And the Friday quiz will be a new one if anyone wants to play twice. Can’t wait to see you guys this week!
Yes, we are fully vaxxed and back to doing in-person events! Whether it’s your wife’s birthday or your company’s annual getaway, we’ve got you covered. Just fill out this short form and we’ll be back in touch within 48 hours. Let’s party!
2020 was, in many ways, the year when everything went horribly wrong. There’s no need to rehash it. You LIVED it. But a few things went really right too. And one of those things was taking our weekly trivia cult out of the bars and into each other’s living rooms. It all seems so “normal” now, but at the time it was frightening, bizarre, and somewhat random.
Last March, as Carl, Art, and I discussed what an “Online quiz” should look like and how it should play, Carl said something that quickly directed the focus: “The most important aspect of this is people hanging out with their friends. Everything else we decide should revolve around that.” And so instead of a ton of teams playing at once, or a bunch of technical bells and whistles, we focused on small, intimate (as intimate as it can be on a computer), gatherings with a single quizmaster and a single team.
It worked. Carl went from a guy hosting once a week at Birra to becoming the backbone of the whole operation. (Yeah OK and the brains too. Whatever. I’m STILL the beer belly of this damn thing!) J. Michael went from weekly regular to beloved host. Chip and Blake stepped in and quickly garnered weekly regulars. Every time we faced a hitch in scheduling, Erin or Mike would step up big. The whole thing just kind of…came together. And after each quizzo season Carl and I would have the same discussion: how many can we expect for the next season? And every season we underestimated.
As summer turned to fall which turned to winter, we kept getting teams willing to sign up again. And there was a certain magic to it. The Narcotyzing Dysfunktion, a team that had played weekly at the Bards in the mid 2000s when they were in grad school at Penn, got the band back together despite living all over the United States. Jeremy and Sharon of There’s No I played from Tokyo while working overseas. Tiffany of Synchronized Trampoline drank some sort of red concoction out of a Mason jar every week. Beth of Duane’s World mocked my pronunciations online instead of in person. The Drunk Parents lived up to their name. Not Last Place seemed to always finish JUST AHEAD of last place.
We quizzed through the madness of 2020, the eerie silence of March and April, through the protests, riots, the nightly “fireworks” and explosions of last summer, the daily madness of a deranged President, through an election, an attempted insurrection, and through a year+ that we might like to forget but a year that may well define our lives. And while I can’t speak for you guys I can speak for myself: it kept me sane at times I thought I was losing it, it made me smile when things were grim, and it made me laugh when absolutely nothing else was funny. It kept a roof over my family’s head, and it made me realize that we’ve got something here that is a whole lot bigger than bar trivia. And for that I just want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. -JGT
I will be back in Wayne on Wednesday night. We’ve had fun with the first two so we’re looking forward to another great night of quizzing under the tent. As for Dock Street, yes we’ll be there weekly…this week it’ll be hosted by Carl. Action starts at 7:30 at 118 North, and 8 PM at Dock Street. Hope to see ya this week!
A thriller in the Sizzler, as the Sons of Sam (aka the Zodiac Killers) pulled off an improbable 92-91 win over the Trivia Mercenaries. Even more improbable: the Texas City Player’s Club, who were 40th in April Madness, finishing their magical season with a 3rd place finish. It was a wild game, with the scores bouncing around all game long. I’ll have the questions posted tomorrow. But a hell of a win for the Sons of Sam, Anthrax Ames’s first monster win since Quizzo Bowl II. Congrats to the Sons of Sam and thank you to ALL of our teams who played this past season.
It was an epic Sweet 16 that all but laid waste to our regular season. Four of our top 5 regular season teams were eliminated, while our 12th, 13th, 14th, and 17th place teams all moved on.
To start with, Boyz II Menehune won a spectacular 99-98 victory over two time champion Quarantine Spirit, thus spoiling Jon S’s 40th birthday.
Sofa Kingdom and Stone Cold Jane Austen were 8th and 9th in scoring during the Sizzler regular season, respectively, and that parity was born out in the Sweet 16, as they finished in an 82-82 tie. In OT, they were much closer on Seneca Falls elevation, and moved into the Elite 8.
Queefer Sutherland, who didn’t even make it out of the first round in April Madness, regained their composure and made their way into the final 8 with a surprisingly easy 80-67 win over Quizteama Aguilera.
Underground Bard, even playing without their superstar Anne, found themselves in another Elite 8 with a narrow 88-84 victory over Del-COVID 19.
The Winter Warz champs Trivia Mercenaries cruised into the finals with a 98-65 shellacking of Au Bon Pandemic.
Things were a bit tighter in the next bracket over in the Dork Division, where Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Answers knocked off Hallmark Hot 89-84.
By far our biggest stunner of the Sweet 16 was one of our biggest upsets in the past 16 months, as the Texas City Players Club stunned the defending champs, Brood X Karens, 94-92. This was a team that finished 40th in April Madness. Despite playing much better in Summer Sizzler (they finished 14th) this is a tremendous upset.
Our luckiest team was undoubtedly Sons of Sam, who scored worse than five teams that lost in the sweet 16, but had a favorable matchup with a Quick Questions squad that had scored a big upset over FFSF in the Round of 32 but couldn’t keep the magic going vs Sam.
The Final is set for Sunday night at 7:30 and will air live on Facebook. Chip and I will provide commentary, we’ll have some drinks, we’ll have some laughs, and we’ll crown a champ.
Our next season, Fall Brawl II, will kick off in September. We’ll have details on that soon.
The Philadelphia Phoenix return home this Friday after a thrilling 23-22 victory in Boston over the Glory on Saturday. The win moves them to 3-4 and 5th place in the Atlantic Division. On tap: a monster showdown with the 4-1 Atlanta Hustle. They played the Hustle in Atlanta a few weeks ago, and actually led by 2 at the half before falling, 24-17. A win on Friday night would be a big upset, and a huge shot in the arm for the Phoenix playoff chances.
As part of a partnership with Slice, our first 150 fans through the gates with the Slice app on their phone will receive a free slice of pizza. First 500 fans get a free disc.
Annnnnnnd there’s more. We’ll have a band called Dan the Movie performing before the game and at halftime. Second District Brewing will be selling great beer, Porco’s will be selling pizza inspired sandwiches, and we’ll have dessert from Poppa’s Custard as well.
Got restless kids who might wanna come? No problem…we have our Kid Zone in one corner of the stadium where the children will be monitored by a local teacher, so you can drop them off and grab yourself a bite or a drink.
Oh, and the Phillies are doing one of their epic fireworks displays right next door, which should start right after we wrap up.
Gates are at 6:30, the 4K starts at 6:45, and the game starts at 7:30. You can purchase tickets here. Price before Friday is a mere $12. We’re going to have a blast on Friday…hope to see you there!
To keep up to date on everything Phoenix, follow us on Instagram and twitter.
We’re back baby! Quizzo is kicking off again this Wednesday night, July 14th at 8 PM at Dock Street on 22nd and Washington. It’ll be a different quiz than our online quizzes. First come first serve, max team size of 8. Get excited!
PLEASE NOTE: They just changed it from 7 PM to 8 PM. I’d advise getting there by 7:30.
We’re headed into the playoffs, and oh boy do we have some first round doozies! We’ve got Boyz II Menehune vs Lambda, Au Bon Pandemic vs Babysitters Fight Club, and Sofa Kingdom up against their old City Tap House foes, Ukraine in the Membrane. If you wanna see who you’re up against this week, go here and click the “Bracket” tab at the bottom. Excited to kick it off tonight!
Here they are, folks, out standings heading into Week 5. No surprises at the top, as our top 3 teams are our last three champions. After that some of our usual suspects in our top 10. But if you click “bracket” at the bottom of the page and see what our prospective matchups would be you’ll see some real doozies in the first round (after the play in) if things stay as is: Lambda vs Boyz II Menehune, L. Ron vs Underground Bard, and Queefer Sutherland vs Babysitt’ers Fight Club, just to name a few. Good luck this week and start getting yourselves into playoff shape!
We’re going to be having a Phoenix watch party/mini-quiz tonight at Xfinity Live at 6:30 PM. We’ll be doing some great giveaways and watching the Phoenix take on the league leading Atlanta Hustle. Free parking, and we’ll be outdoors on a beautiful night. Event page is here. Hope to see ya there!
Our mission at the Blunt is quite simple: let people tell their best stories. And his are pretty damn good. He talked about how the K&A Gang broke into homes across the country, sleeping in the woods to avoid the police, and how he snuck into Don Ho’s penthouse suite in Honolulu. He was a primary character in Allen Hornblum’s book, Confession of a Second Story Man, and Allen joined us on the pod to help flesh out some of Chick’s most interesting memories. This one is well worth a listen.
A few months ago, I sent a message on Instagram to the Philadelphia Phoenix, asking if they would be interested in having Shibe do a shirt with them. Thus kicked off an insane adventure that, just a few months later, has me somehow a minority stake owner in a pro sports team, angrily arguing with the New York team ownership, talking to breakdancers about halftime shows, and tossing t-shirts into the crowd. It has been one hell of a ride thus far, and we’re just getting started. Our first game took place on June 4th, and we came away with a win over the Tampa Bay Cannons. Our week 2 game vs. New York was scheduled for June 11th, but after some “complications” that revolved around graduations at Philadelphia stadiums and the New York front office behaving like entitled divas (shocking right?), we had to postpone. So we head into South Philly on Saturday night for our second game, and this one is a cross state rivalry matchup with the Pittsburgh Thunderbirds. The game takes place on Saturday at 6:30. You should be there. Here are the top 10 reasons why:
The primary owner is a total badass. Billy Penn did an article on her here. Her professional and charity background was certainly something that made me want to be a part of this, as was her insistence that she wanted the team to be a real community partner, a team for all Philadelphians, not the privileged few that the other pro sports typically cater themselves towards.
2. In that regard, we are honoring Philly’s heroes on Saturday night. Before the game, we are having Billy Penn award their trophies from their Billy Awards, which took place virtually. We’ll also have a young Philly hero, Semaj O’ Branty, who not only survived a heartbreaking shooting a couple of years ago but defied the odds by walking again, performing the pregame coin toss.
3. It’s a freaking party. We have Porco’s serving sandwiches, 2nd District serving beer, and Poppa’s Custard Company serving delicious dessert. We’ll have Butch Cordora there teaching people how to play poker. We’ve got the incredible Cosmo Baker DJing throughout the evening. Oh, and Breakdancing. You heard me. The Crowdpleaserz, the First Family of Philly breakdance, will be performing at halftime.
4. AND there’s an afterparty. Gotta have an afterparty. It’s going to be just a few blocks away from the stadium at Black Cat Tavern. Owner Tom is a quizzo player from way back in the day at Good Dog, and like every other bar owner in the city, got his ass kicked by COVID. Let’s pack the place on Saturday night.
5. Extremely Reasonable Price. Tickets are just $12 in advance, or $14 at the gate. Without question, the most bang for your buck at any pro sporting event in Philly. Buy your tickets here!
6. The Sport is SPECTACULAR. Seriously, the games are terrific and these guys are tremendous athletes. You get an Odell Beckham type catch every few minutes. Here are some of the best catches from Week 1 of the season. You’ll notice Phoenix star Nate Little with one of the plays.
7. The Roar of the Crowd. My favorite thing at the Week 1 game was hearing that roar. It was something I had missed so much without realizing how much I had missed it. Damn, it sounds good to hear 500 people cheering all at once.
8. These dudes are so cool. No prima donnas on this team. I’ve been around other sports teams where the guys were cocky assholes. That’s not the case here. These guys are all really freaking nice, and fun to hang out with. Really, really easy team to root for.
9. Free Parking. Lots of ways to get to the game on Saturday night. Uber, subway, biking, etc. It’s close to Broad Street. But if you do decide to drive, it’s one of the few places in the city with a free parking lot.
10. The Commonwealth Cup is On the Line! We’re taking on Pittsburgh, so you know I had to make that a spectacle. We ordered the first ever Commonwealth Cup from our friends at Spike’s Trophy’s. The winning team Saturday Night owns it for the next year.
Finally: This is the Best Live Sports Experience in Philly. Maybe I’m being obnoxious here, but I don’t really involve myself in anything unless it’s going to be the best. I want to host the best quizzo in Philly, I want to co-own with the best sports store in Philly, and now I am steadfastly determined to put on the best sporting events in Philly. That’s why the vendors are so awesome, that’s why we got the best DJ in Philly, and instead of just having people wander around during halftime, we’re putting on a show. I am hereby guaranteeing a good time for all who attend.
So what are you waiting for? Buy your tickets here. Or you can buy them at the gate…which will be at the South Philly Supersite at 10th and Bigler. Hope to see you Saturday!
Gonna be in Wayne, across the street from 118 North, under the Giant tent, tonight at 7:30. Super easy to get to (train drops you off 50 feet from the tent), solid food and drink, and all new quiz. See ya tonight!
