Returning to Brown’s for Monday Night Trivia

It’s almost as if I never left.

The Taproom at Troy’s Brown’s Brewing last night was as packed with hungry and satisfied customers.  I went over to the hostess station and, almost from memory, requested my reserved Table #21 upstairs for trivia.

Yep.  Trivia was back at Brown’s Brewing, nearly six months after the last Wednesday night game was relocated to Revolution Hall.  In full disclosure, I and my friends Jeremy and Alexis played over at Rev Hall during that time period, as new hosts Marc and Anthony packed the joint with trivia aficionados.  But the game at Rev Hall ended a couple of weeks ago, and the hosts have set up a Wednesday night trivia game down the street at Meka’s Lounge, a martini bar.

And as much a I liked playing the Marc and Anthony trivia game, I wanted to come back to Brown’s if team trivia ever returned to their establishment.  And sure enough, it returned yesterday, as they signed on with Kevin Baker’s trivianightslive.com company for a Monday night game.  Steve Murray, who hosts games Tuesday night at McGeary’s in Albany and Wednesday night at Legends on Lark Street in Albany, would host the first round of trivia inside the Taproom in six months.

Even with short notice, there were at least eight or nine trivia teams in the building – from squads that played back in the day at Brown’s (including one team that sarcastically called themselves, “I Give This Game Three Weeks”), to teams I recognized from other trivianightslive.com games, including several members of Lynch’s Mob (who, with their trivianightslive.com host Ben Hovey on the team, called their squad “We Brought Our Own Trivia Host”).

Of course, another team showed up – a group called “A Few Cards Short of a Deck,” who I have played against for several years.  Their team leader Ed is a good friend of mine; I met him when he was dressed up as the Albany Patroons’ mascot Lido the Panda.  He also talks a good game; before the matchup, he texted me that I should be prepared for the slaughter.  I texted back that you can’t spell slaughter without the word “laughter.”  Fun stuff.

Brown’s improved several other aesthetics to the trivia game that, in the past, often drove trivia patrons nuts.  The upstairs microphone and sound system, which often overheated and sparked out, was replaced with a new audio system that kept the volume levels at an acceptable sound level throughout the night.  When the host wasn’t giving out answers, the sound system played classic rock and roll songs from the bar’s Sirius/XM satellite connection.

My trivia teammate Alexis showed up (Jeremy had a prior commitment and understandably couldn’t attend), and we blitzed through the questions like there was no tomorrow.  So did several other teams; we nailed questions like what team the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated to win the gold medal at Lake Placid (it’s Finland, even though all the focus was on the US-Russia game), who won the Oscar for best actor in The Pianist (Adrian Brody), and what state produced Apolo Anton Ohno (Washington).  In fact, at the halfway point Street Academy was tied for the lead with two other squads.  Murray brought a representative from each of the three teams up to the microphone for one tiebreaker “sudden death” question.

We stood at the microphone.

Murray looked at all three of us, and asked the question – “What musician is the on-again, off-again boyfriend of Miley Cyrus?”

Total guess.  Before anybody could get a word in edgewise, I blurted out “Joe Jonas.”

Murray pointed at me and said it was correct.

As I walked back to my table, one of the other teams good-naturedly commented, “You should be ashamed of yourself for knowing the answer to that question.”

I responded back, “You know what… I am ashamed that I do.”

As the game progressed, the questions got harder, but the top teams continued to battle on.  A quadruple bonus question came up – “With sixteen years between the oldest and the youngest, how old are Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, P!nk and Shakira?”

Again with a Miley Cyrus question.  Geez.

Alexis and I debated over whether or not Miley Cyrus had turned 18 yet, and we both agreed that if she had turned 18, it would have been a big deal with the tabloids.  So we settled on Cyrus being 17, which if we added 16 years to that, would have made Shakira 33.  I postulated two guesses for Lady Gaga and P!nk, and handed in our answer slip.

The answer – Miley Cyrus was 17 (we got that), Shakira was 33 (got that one too), Lady Gaga was 23 (total guess but we got it) and P!nk was 30 (which we didn’t get, I thought P!nk was 27, my bad).

As the final question loomed, five teams(including Street Academy) had point totals of 120 or more.  We all nailed the final question – in what year did the Winter Olympics first play in a two-year interval from the previous Olympics, thus breaking the pattern of Summer and Winter Olympics appearing on the same year?  It was 1994 in Lillehammer, and Street Academy and “We Brought Our Own Trivia Host” tied for the night.

Murray called a representative from both squads up to the microphone.  Sudden death again.

“What actor starred in the film ‘My Name is Bruce’?”

No clue.  I said Bruce Lee.  I was wrong.  Ben Hovey, the representative from the other trivia team, couldn’t come up with the answer.  It was Bruce Campbell.  Toss that question away.

Murray then pulled out a trivia sheet from a previous game and asked, “Who is the only person inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame AND in the Grateful Dead Hall of Fame?”

“BILL WALTON!” we both shouted out in unison.  Right answer, but no way anyone could tell who got it first.

Then Ben said to me, “Chuck, you win, I think the tiebreaker questions are from a game I hosted last week, and it’s not fair if I already know the answers ahead of time.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

He shook my hand, the game was over.  Street Academy won again at Brown’s. WHOOO!  Now that’s class, and I have to give props to Ben’s team for being honest and fair.  I hope they – and everybody else – comes back to Brown’s next week and we do this all again.

And out of force of habit, after I left the second-floor dining area at the Taproom, I went over to the hostess station and placed my reservation for Table #21 for next week.