As you are all aware, I dropped some serious smack talk on Denver a week or two ago. Apparently they weren’t real thrilled about it, as the 54 comments under the story attest. Today, they return the favor with a bit of smacktalk of their own, courtesy of Russ Esposito, one of the members of a renowned Denver team known as the Slump Busters. Here is his report. He’s no JGT when it comes to smack talk, but it ain’t bad. -ed.

When I heard that the “originator” of American Pub Quiz Johnny Goodman was coming to Denver with some friends to try their hand at winning Geek Bowl IV I couldn’t help but get excited! I mean, the one and only John Goodman (I didn’t even know he was from Philly) coming to our quiz! I mean WOW!  But the more I thought about it, well, lets just say my shock and awe was replaced with more of a pity and loathing.  So much so that I want to extend a pre-apology to Mr. Johnny Goodfellow and his friends for flying out here only to lose  as early as round 4 or 5 at the latest.

But I’d like to also take this opportunity to tell Mr. Godspell and Co. about all of the wonderful things they can do in Denver and Colorado before and after they lose at Geek Bowl IV.

For instance, they can walk along historic Colfax Ave., the longest continuous street in the U.S.  It’s a lot like your South Street (Restaurants, Theaters, Shops etc.) except with fewer boards in the windows and alot less vomit to step over. However, I will say that they can both have a tendency to look like a Frank Miller NOVEL threw up on them.

Now I don’t know exactly how many people old Jonathan not-so-Swift is bringing along but whatever the number it’s okay by us, the more the merrier.  Besides, Denver’s used to taking people in from distressed areas like New Orleans, Haiti and Philly, so a few more won’t hurt.

Now Philly is of course a big metropolitan city with far reaching suburbs, towns and hamlets all fairly close by, just like Denver is…Well, not exactly, I mean we have Aurora which is a wonderful multi-cultural city exploding with life and vitality, whereas Philly has Camden NJ right across the Delaware and it’s just exploding.  Didn’t Ridley Scott film exteriors from Black Hawk Down there?  Either way it’ll be a nice change of pace I’m sure.

But don’t think it’s all sunshine and roses here either Mr. Goodspeed. We have crime in our fair city as well. Granted it’s a bit more respectable and takes some more planning to rob a bank here than it does to club an old man to death for a can of peaches in Philly, but we can’t all be the city of brotherly love then can we?

Now I saw that you, Johnny Goodfornothin said we always take Philly’s sloppy seconds when it comes to sports and that’s just not fair.  Sure we took A.I. but you took him back. You took him back after he’d been used more than a dumb, pretty girl who wanders into Fishtown, I wouldn’t even bring up sports if I were you. I mean it’s true we both have all 4 major sports playing right within our city limits, except our fans aren’t total assholes.

Speaking of assholes, we even have a better class of asshole than Philly.  We’ve got people making tractor tanks and destroying whole towns, Balloon Boys with cracked out parents, hell, we even had a gay-bashing preacher who turned out to be gay…and a meth addict! Philly just has some knucklehead in his mom’s basement working on his 8th remix that month of Schoolly D doin “King of New York” before he goes out walks right past Dinics roast pork and into Pat’s vat o’ cheez whiz.  But don’t worry Johnny, if you want a cheese steak as good as Philly, we have ’em here…at the Safeway…in the freezer section.

The point is Mr. Goodflop, you’re going to lose, probably pretty badly and I don’t want you and your crew leaving the MHC with just your sad 18th place finish as your only memory.  So get out there and enjoy our city! Walk around, get some fresh clean air, enjoy some fine unpretentious culture and food that hasn’t been fondled by some scrawny dude in a Hawaiian shirt with a not-beard two dozen times.  See a good local band (you have to buy a ticket here though, ours don’t stand around oil drum fires on the corner). Eat a cheeseburger (invented here) or try some of our great beer (we brew more here than anywhere else) but try not to get too many tears in it.  Besides, who knows, we may even come to Quizzo Bowl sometime in the future…if you don’t mind losing to a Denver team twice that is.   So long ya Bastards!

It’s getting closer to game time, and I gotta admit, I’m starting to feel some nerves. Four of us played at New Deck on Monday. We tied for first and then fell in overtime. Tough loss, drove home some of our weaknesses, though we have at least started to figure out what those weaknesses are. We’re going to struggle with fashion and perfumes. There is no getting around that, and I don’t know how much cramming is gonna help in that regard. We also are gonna struggle with cooking terms and country music, both of which I’ll be studying today. There will be 72 teams at this thing, and I’m gonna be honest: anything less than a Top 10 finish will be a disappointment.

As for Denver itself, I still have no idea what we’re going to do there. Any suggestions? I think that we want to do lunch at the Casa Bonita on the day of the event, provided we’re not too far away from it. I went to Casa Bonita once before (like 12 years ago,) and it was pretty spectacular. It’s an enormous Mexican restaurant which features cliff divers, gunfights, and Black Bart’s cave. I’m telling you, this place is insane. And the food is famously mediocre. And let’s face it, eating mediocre Mexican hours before the big event…what could go wrong?

Anyhow, this will be a rare weekend where it’s worth checking out the website. I’ll be taking video the whole time and posting it on the site, so be sure to stay turned to how this thing turns out. No matter what, it should be a lot of fun.