Everything You Need to Know About Quizzo Bowl XVI

WHO: Everybody who loves quizzo and want to celebrate the bar game that Philly made famous.

WHAT: Quizzo Bowl XVI, the longest running event of its kind in America.

WHEN: February 29th, 7 PM doors, 8 PM start.

WHERE: Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill Street.

WHY: Because you want to have an awesome time on the ONLY Saturday the 29th you’ll see until 2024, answering trivia questions, performing on stage, and engaging in general inanity.

WHAT’S THE ENTERTAINMENT? Pat Finnerty Live Band Karaoke.

HOW’S THAT GOING TO WORK? Simple. You’re going to drop three songs you want to sing in a bucket. They’ll draw out requests. They know so many songs that they’ll certainly know one of three. If they draw your song, you’ll get on stage to sing…but don’t blow it! Fastball Bob will be in charge of the gong.

HOW MUCH ARE TICKETS? $25, same as they’ve been for the past 15 years.

WHERE CAN I GET THEM? You can purchase them here. I will also have some on me next week at the quiz.

WILL THERE BE A CHARITY COMPONENT: Yes and it’s one I’m excited about. We’ll be doing a 50/50 during the quiz, so be sure to bring some cash. Juliette is a Vous regular and a teacher at Freire Charter School, and they have a field trip coming up…TO SPAIN! Most of these kids have never left Philadelphia, much less gone to another country, and I think it would be awesome if our community could help raise a few hundred bucks to help make sure this is a terrific trip.

WHERE CAN I FOLLOW UPDATES ON THE QUIZ? On the Quizzo Bowl Facebook page.

WHAT THE THEME? Quizzo Goes Underground.

WHAT’S THAT MEAN? Quizzo has gone too corporate, too mainstream. We need to return it to its roots!

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I don’t know. I’m just making this up as I go.

HOW IS IT DIFFERENT THAN A TYPICAL QUIZ GAME? It’s completely different. Video rounds, live music, special guests, guests who aren’t special, huge trophies, ETERNAL GLORY. It is a distillation of everything great about quizzo rolled up into one magical night.

ARE YOU HIGH? I wish.

IS THERE AN AFTERPARTY? Yup! For those of you who haven’t been to Underground Arts before, there’s a main area (the stage) and a “lounge”. The afterparty will be right next door in the lounge.

WILL THERE BE FOOD AND DRINK SPECIALS? Yup, and Underground Arts has legendary tamales maker Jenn Zavala (if you have never heard her Philly BLunt interview, YOU ARE IN FOR A TREAT) running their kitchen, so the food is going to be awesome.

WILL THERE BE A PRO PHOTOG? Yep! Photo Lady Marissa will be on hand to take pro pictures of all participants.

WILL THERE BE PRIZES? Plenty.

WHAT AM I WAITING FOR? I have no idea. Buy your tickets. We’re at about 50 sold, 150 left. Let’s goooooooo!

Quizzo Bowl Tickets Now on Sale!

It’s official, folks. Quizzo Bowl XVI on the rarest of days, February 29th. We’re taking it underground this year, as this year’s quiz will be held at Underground Arts. And the between round entertainment will be…YOU! More details about the event coming later today, but for now just so you now, you can purchase tickets online by going here. Gonna be a great event, look forward to seeing you there.

The Friday Five…On a Saturday!

Yes, I’m a day late. Couldn’t get it into yesterday’s schedule. But better late than never, here’s the Friday Five:

Where I’m Watching Basketball: At the Cathedral of College Basketball, of course. We are beyond blessed to live in a city that has a venue like the Palestra. Most field houses like this one have long since passed on for cookie cutter “modern” arenas, but this architectural marvel lives on. I watched Penn-Harvard there last week. Not a bad seat in the house.

Family Tradition I Love: At Super Bowl III, my dad and his roommate Ron decided to bet a 6-pack on the Super Bowl (my dad took the Colts, and lost to Broadway Joe). The next year, they did it again. And then, after college, they decided to travel to each others homes for the Super Bowl. Then the two got married and had kids, but decided even then to keep getting together for the Super Bowl, despite living 4 hours apart. So it became a part of our childhood, knowing that the Super Bowl was as much a holiday as Christmas or Thanksgiving. And on and on its gone, through their kids becoming adults, getting married, through tragedy and triumph. This past weekend we did it all again. What a wonderful tradition and what a wonderful weekend.

Where I’m Grabbing a Beer: Is there a better place to be on a Friday than Bob n Barbara’s? The lineup of the Crowd Pleasers has changed over the years, but the music still sounds as funky as ever and it puts everyone in there in a good mood. Just a magical, magical place.

What I’m Listening To: Kind of digging this new joint from G. Love and Special Sauce.

What I’m Reading: Like many, I’ve struggled to come to grips with the death of Kobe Bryant (I actually met he and Vanessa many years ago, and like everyone else, am just overwhelmed when I think about what she’s going through). I am still working on writing something about it. But I also struggle to come to grips with his legacy in light of what happened in Colorado. I think this article does a really fair job of talking about it.

The Friday Five for January 31st

Cool Thing I Did This Week: I’m going to be hosting a podcast with Billy Penn twice a month, and we recorded our first one on Thursday at WHYY studios. A lot of fun and great to meet their writers. Pretty cool! Should launch on Monday. Be sure to sign up for their newsletter. Not only is it a great recap of everything happening locally, it will also contain the podcast on Monday.

Podcast I’m Listening To: I’m a bit late to the party, but Chip Chantry turned me onto this one: S-town, about the bizarre goings on in a small town in Alabama. A reporter goes down there to investigate a murder, and ends up being a part of something else. I like it not only because it’s so well done, but because it reminds me a bit of where I grew up. A small town in the middle of nowhere, with enough interesting characters to make Twin Peaks look like Ozzie and Harriet.

What I’m Watching: Don Montrey, a member of Comedy Sportz who performed at our World Cafe Live Seinfeld quiz, posted this and I was kind of amazed by it. It’s called an Ames window, and it’s a hell of an optical illusion. It reminds us that what we see isn’t always what’s actually happening, and that sometimes our expectations guide our brains more than our eyes do.

Music I’m Listening To: I love this song by Brother Ali so much. It’s an impossibly beautiful song about a topic that we very rarely hear in music: love for self. Brother Ali is a rarity in hip-hop: an albino Muslim who is legally blind. In the song, he talks about reasons that he should be bitter, but instead is joyous. It’s wonderful.

Ayo, dependin’ on the day, and dependin’ on what I ate

I’m anywhere from twenty to thirty-five pounds overweight

I got red eyes and one of them’s lazy

And they both squint when the sun shines so I look crazy

I’m albino, man, I know I’m pink and pale

And I’m hairy as hell, everywhere but fingernails

I shave a cranium that ain’t quite shaped right

Face type, shiny, I stay up and write late nights

My wardrobe is jeans and faded shirts

A mixture of what I like and what I wear to work

I’m not mean and got a neck full of razor bumps

I’m not the classic profile of what the ladies want

You might think I’m depressed as can be

But when I look in the mirror I see sexy-ass me

And if that’s somethin that you can’t respect then that’s peace

My life’s better without you, actually

To everyone out there, who’s a little different

I say damn a magazine, these is God’s fingerprints

You can call me ugly but can’t take nothing from me

I am what I am, doctor, you ain’t gotta love me

Cool Thing That Happened This Week: Not only was Bowlizzo a huge success (we sold out all eight lanes and had a ton of fun), but something kind of cool happened. 15 years ago, I joined the Big Brothers program. On Sunday my little brother, now a graduate of Temple, brought his friends out for the event. It was his first ever quizzo. Pretty neat.

Quizzo Bowl XVI!

It’s official, folks! Quizzo Bowl XVI is going down on the rarest day of the year, February 29th, at the funkiest of venues, Underground Arts. Really wanted to mix things up this year, and I’m going into this one excited to basically peel back everything and start from scratch. I love the World Cafe Live, but it was time for something new. That does mean that there will be fewer tickets for sale this year, at a smaller venue. Tickets will go on sale later this week, so be sure to check back.

As for our musical guest this year, it’s going to be….YOU! We’re bringing the Pat Finnerty Live Band Karaoke Experience to Quizzo Bowl this year, so that YOU can perform between rounds. We’ll have a trophy for best performance, but we’ll also have a gong for those who are terrible. The gong, of course, will be operated by Fastball Bob.

I think things got a little too formulaic the past few years, so I’m taking a step back, looking at this very cool tradition we’ve got here, and working on ways to take it to another level. I hope you’ll join me. Let’s have some fun.