Thursday, November 11, 2010

You were in the darkness too...So I stayed in the darkness with you

Do you guys remember that time my friend Kate was on Wheel of Fortune? Me too. Sure, that girl that solved the puzzle with just one letter is getting a lot of buzz but Kate, after making up the word "fiping," solved the final puzzle before Pat even finished saying "good luck" so I still would rank her as the greatest WOF contestant of all time.

(The category was "Things" and the puzzle was _ _ _ ES AND P _ NS)

I think being on a game show is up there on the list of awesome things I don't think I could ever actually do. I'm not going to blame it entirely on being scarred by Cindy Brady's game show collapse on "Question the Kids," (Baton Rouge! Baton Rouge! Baton Rouge!) or that time Cliff from Cheers goes on Jeopardy ("Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?") but that is basically my biggest fear. Getting on the show and my mind going completely blank. I think the closest I'm going to get to an actual game show (until I convince a team to wander around New York with me, desperately seeking Cash Cab) is to continue playing the lucrative pub trivia circuit.

The other day I went with some of my friends to play trivia, specifically, music trivia. And honestly, it was really hard. Like, what band has a one-armed drummer? Fine. Everyone knows that. Def Leppard. Oh no. That's not what they asked. What was that one-armed drummer's NAME? What? Who knows that?

I think how the question is asked makes a huge difference. That's what makes Jeopardy awesome.There is usually a hint to the answer (question, whatever) in the question (answer, whatever). Like a playful pun. There is always something that makes you more confident that your guess might actually be right. Granted, I would never actually go on Jeopardy. I know if I ever made it on the show, the categories would be like "16th Century Russian Poetry" and not "3-Letter Words" or "Foods that Start with 'G'" and other things about which I know entirely too much.

But music trivia, the questions were just asked in a misleading way. Like asking which artist debuted at number one, we would think the song was what debuted at #1, but it was actually the album, and so on. Or when he was like, "Which song has been on the Billboard Top 100 for 29 weeks?" Dude, I don't know. But had he said "Which TERRIBLE song has been on the Billboard Top 100 for 29 weeks?" I would have been like oh, Airplanes by B.o.B and that angst-y girl.

The bottom line is that I don't know as much about music as I wish I did. Sure, my awareness of murdered Tejano superstar Selena came in handy, but I really think I could have done better. I was really hoping for a lightening round of "Name as many Michael Jackson songs as you can in one minute" or "List all of the Britney Spears singles that have appeared on the Billboard 100." Yes, that's where I would have shined. Am I proud of that? You bet your sweet ass. And really, who are you to judge? Rick Allen? Yeah, that's what I thought, you wouldn't have answered that correctly either.....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Baton Rouge! Baton Rouge!

I've always wanted to try trivia. Maybe because I'm afraid I'll feel infinitely less intelligent after.

Lisa Lisa said...

@Kari - Oh my gosh, stop. No one knows everything, except maybe my physics teacher from high school, Doc Belote. But other than that, you have to accept you may not know the one-armed drummer from Def Leppard's name. And that's ok. (Right?)