We’ve started doing quizzes each week at Frankford Hall (outdoors, socially distant, quiz is on your phone, teams of up to 6) and it’s been awesome. It’s a beautiful venue, they’ve got great beers on tap, and it’s been really nice to get back in the swing of things. Action starts on Sunday at 7 pm. It’s part of their Oktoberfest Celebration, so I’d expect to get a few questions about Germany, and beer. See ya there!
Philadelphia’s oldest environmental non-profit, the Clean Air Council, puts on the Philly Greenfest every year. This year it’s gone virtual, and that’s where quizzo comes in. Gonna be hosting a “Green” quiz on Sunday, September 27th at 7 PM (we moved it back a couple of days). It’s free to play, and 50% of the tips go to the Clean Air Council. If you want to join in the fun and help raise money for a terrific organization, just sign up here. On the morning of the 27th, I’ll send a Zoom invite to you which you can then share with your teammates and you’ll meet with Carl on Zoom at 7 pm.
Hope to see ya Sunday!
An interesting quiz this week. We’re not just honoring teen idols, but teenagers in all fields who have become famous, invented things, and gone to war. Good luck this week!
Here they are folks, our standings after Week One. And boy was Week 1 a wild one. Boyz II Menehune went down. Sofa Kingdom went down. Expired Walmart Meat went down. And we had some thrillers: Texas City Players Club knocked off Yacht Rock. Quiz Yo! edged Sweet Hats, 33-32. Dobby’s Sock held off Drunk Parents 31-30. (To check our final scores, click on the Weekly Matchups tab at the bottom of the page.)
We move into Week 2 with a new topic: Teen Idols. Gonna be a fun one. Good luck this week!
Where I’m eating: Goldie. I lost a little piece of my heart when Mama’s Vegetarian closed. Their falafel was fantastic, and the place had that kind of authentic vibe that some places can just create without an interior designer or “theme”. So I put it out on twitter yesterday: where should I get falafel this week? Ryan Godfrey on twitter said Goldie. Great call, the falafel was delicious. And now everyone is telling me I gotta go back for the tehina shake.
What I’m Listening to: American Scandal, a podcast about John D. Rockefeller and the remarkable woman who helped destroy his empire, Ida Tarbell. Also remarkable (and kind of depressing) that I remembered learning plenty about Rockefeller growing up, but never learning anything about the trailblazing woman who had the guts to face off with the most powerful man in America.
What I’m Watching: Tread. It’s a documentary on Netflix about a welder in Colorado who absolutely lost his shit, built an insane tank/bulldozer, and started destroying his entire town. It’s starts pretty slow, but boy does it pick up down the stretch.
What I’m Reading: Every year on 9/11, I read the same thing: this story by Michael Wright of being on the 81st floor of the World Trade Center, and his miraculous escape. I read it every year, and it never stops being one of the most amazing things I’ve ever read. Heartbreaking, horrifying, and inspiring all at once.
What Town I’m Digging: Took a quick trip up to Clinton, NJ last weekend (about 90 minutes north of Philly). Cute little downtown, and wandered around the famous Red Mill there. Came around a corner, and boom! There was a band playing one of my favorite songs, Dublin Blues by Guy Clark, with a spectacular backdrop. Having not really heard live music since March, it hit me like a cool summer breeze. Sat (socially distanced of course), drank some wine, and listened to some damn good music provided by AJ Croix and the Devil’s Right Hand Band.
Where should I eat and drink this coming week? What should I read/watch/listen to? Let me know on twitter.
Here ya go, folks. You’re split into two conferences (Nerd and Geeks) and each conference consists of 5 teams. The top team in each division will earn an invite to the playoffs…the top 4 teams will get a first round bye. After our 5 division winners, the next 6 teams (wild cards) will be determined by average points (your top 9 scores). Our final wild card team will be determined by scoring the most points among all non-playoff teams in Week 10. So everyone has got something to play for every week. Gonna be a fun season. You can click on “Weekly matchups” at the bottom of the above link to see who you’re up against each week as well. We’ll be unveiling all of the week’s scores each Saturday.
Here are the sign ups for Fall Brawl for the first 5 weeks of the season. Just click on the tab at the bottom if you want to sign up for future weeks and maintain your slot.
And here are our topics for the first 5 weeks. Good luck everyone!
Place I’m Loving: We’ve been spending a lot of time at Fairmount Park this summer, and it’s been WONDERFUL. Diverse crowds, everyone in a good mood, plenty of room to socially distance and let our kid run and play, that weird wonderful Philly vibe (ie random horse rides next to pickup basketball games), and so many spots have great views of the city.
What I’m Reading: One of my favorite things in the world is the rivalry between Puma and Adidas. Long story short: two brothers in a German town ran a shoe company together, they fell out during WWII, and each started his own company, with a factory on opposite sides of a river in the same town. This from a great 2009 Guardian article on the story:
The enmity has divided the town ever since, determining which pubs its 23,000 citizens drank in, the butchers they frequented, who cut their gravestone and which football team they supported.
“There was a time when you’d have risked the wrath of colleagues and family if, as an employee of one company, you married the employee of the other,” says Klaus-Peter Gäbelein of the local Heritage Association. “Even religion and politics were part of the heady mix. Puma was seen as Catholic and politically conservative, Adidas as Protestant and Social Democratic.“
What I’m Listening To: Summer may be ending, but this song called Water Ice by Reef and Ethel Cee is hawwwwt. Love the piano loop. Also, if you want to support local artists by buying their music, do so on Bandcamp. They take really good care of indie artists, unlike pretty much all of the streaming platforms.
What I’m Drinking: Finally broke down and tried my first Frose on Thursday night. Went to Lou Bird’s for it. Really good. Another thing I’ve really grown to enjoy this summer: sitting under an umbrella, having a drink while it rains. Just really relaxing. Highly recommend.
Random Thing I Just Learned About: Chip turned me onto this last weekend…Bobby Darin (above) rapping about getting roughed up by cops in South Philly. Yeah it sounds insane but, but, well, that’s why I like it. The song is Me and Mr. Hohner, and it’s off the extremely funky album Songs from the Big Sur, which is a collection of songs from his two “hippie” albums, as they’re known. I did a little digging, and there’s a fascinating backstory:
“(Robert) Kennedy’s assassination left Darin deeply shaken, and combined with the emotional fallout from his divorce and the discovery that the woman he thought all his life was his sister was actually his mother — not to mention his looming anxiety over the permanent cardiac damage that had resulted from a childhood bout with rheumatic fever — it sent him into a deep existential crisis. He dealt with it by going into seclusion, moving into a 14-foot trailer in Big Sur and cutting off most lines of communication with the outside world. When he returned to Vegas, performing under the name “Bob Darin,” he’d traded in his tux and toupee for all-denim outfits and a mustache, playing a new batch of material that he was writing in Big Sur.”
The result was some great music (I encourage you to listen to the whole album) that went over poorly because crowds wanted to hear him play Splish Splash. Darin claimed to be happy and at peace, but he still needed to find work. So he called his friend Dick Clark and asked for advice. Clark told him he was going through an identity crisis. “Go back and put on the tuxedo and go to work,” Clark told him. “Do what the people expect of you. They don’t want to see a balding hippie sitting on a stage in Las Vegas.” And so Darin put the tux back on, started doing the classic material, and would remain in demand until his ongoing heart problems slowed him down and, sadly, killed him at age 37 in 1973.
