Old King’s Road’s Pub Trivia Night

Text & photos by Shannon Kelley Gould

Do you know the capital of Burkina Faso? Neither do I, which
proved unlucky last Wednesday night when I was initiated into the
ways of Old King’s Road’s Pub Trivia Night. Intrepid reporter and
recently, and wildly unfortunately, coiffed (read: mullet) Ethan
Stewart told me about the event a week earlier, and we decided we’d
assemble a dream team of Indy staffers who’d cover all the
bases.

As Wednesday approached, we were feeling pretty confident: We
had news goddess Hannah Tennant-Moore, New Yorker junkie Sam
Kornell, and Copy Chief Palmer “Masta P” Gibbs in our corner. And
Ethan and I figured we could handle any question necessitating
knowledge of the random and obscure. (He certainly has the bad
haircut category covered. And if Beverly Hills, 90210 were to come
up, well, let’s just say I pity the fool who’d dare challenge me on
the finer points of the Brenda-Dylan-Kelly love triangle.)

Webster’s Dictionary defines trivia as “unimportant matters,”
and, while I hate to brag, I’m quite full of it: I majored in
religious studies and anthropology, have subscriptions to no less
than 20 magazines, and recently spent upward of two weeks on the
couch, watching endless hours of mindless crap on the boob tube and
reading everything I could get my hands on. Yes, if it’s useless
knowledge you’re after, I am unquestionably your girl.

We arrived a little before the 7 p.m. kickoff, settled in, and
began sizing up the competition. Our confidence waned as we watched
the regulars take their places and greet each other; they looked
serious — as serious as it’s possible to look when sitting in a bar
dotted with “No Wankers” wares, anyway. Soon enough, Round One got
underway, with David Mankin at the mike. Our synapses were firing
like Yosemite Sam on speed, and the answers were flying.
“Carburetor!” “Scarlett O’Hara!” “Wolverine!” When Sam, employed as
our political ringer, pulled out the answer to “What actress just
married country singer Keith Urban?” cold Stella shot from my nose.
(Quite a charming move, I assure you.) Later, when Mankin asked us
to name seven of the eight parts of speech, we were in our glory,
and had no shortage of inspiration while creating a haiku that
might have been written from disgraced dirty-bird Mark Foley to an
underage page. (Ours: Your ass is so fine/But it can never be
mine/You are only nine.) But our consistent seven-out-of-10 scores
were no match for the likes of reigning champs Purple Bag of
S.T.F.U., who made off with the cash. And there’s nothing trivial
about that.

4·1·1 Old King’s Road’s Pub Trivia Night goes
down every Wednesday at 7 p.m. Teams can include as many as six
people; cost is $5 per person. In honor of National Breast Cancer
Awareness Month, OKR will host a breast cancer benefit, Pub Quiz
for Boobies on Wednesday, October 25. Oh, and for the record, the
capital of Burkina Faso is Ouagadougou. Don’t say I never taught
you anything.

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