'Trivial Pursuit,” the board-game epitome of good, clean fun, was never like this: questions, answers, heckling and drinking.
Consider these categories: “Diseases.” “Hip-Hop Aliases.” “Name That Monophonic Ringtone.” And these team names: “The Over 30s.” “The Neck Beards.” “Wife Swap.” “Team Filth.”
It's all in a Monday night's work, and play, at Scolari's Office in North Park, whose bimonthly Monday Trivia Nights (the next one is April 17, beginning, as always, around 10 p.m.) have become a cult pastime for neighborhood barflies and indie types.
The emcee, and the guy who dreamed this up, is Kipper Schauer, a 23-year-old student and waiter in Encinitas. He was inspired by a similar event on the East Coast that he attended last year. “I saw a lot of potential in it. I thought there was nothing like this going on here for the younger, rock 'n' roll crowd.” Already a “regular” at Scolari's, Schauer pitched the idea of a twice-a-month trivia night to them, and one was launched last October.
“It's a team competition,” explains Schauer, who comes up with all the categories and questions himself. On stage with microphone in hand he's a hipper, intermittently profane Alex Trebek. “We have teams from one to five people ... each team gets an answer sheet.”
Seven rounds of 10 questions each are played, followed by a “Lightning Round” final question, such as “Name all the Bill Murray movies you can.” Teams pay five bucks to compete, and the money goes straight into the pot as prizes for the winners. Schauer makes “50 bucks if I'm lucky. It's mostly just for fun.”
Fun is had by all, Schauer included. “There've been nights when there are people who just watch, but they usually end up competing,” he says. More amazing still, “People who came to drink now have stopped their drinking to compete.”
Of course, both rage on during the couple of hours it takes to play seven rounds. (“If there was less heckling going on, it'd be over sooner,” says Schauer, who doesn't seem to mind.)
Before I go, the category today is “San Diego Oddities.” The question: “In what San Diego neighborhood do Fourth Avenue and Fifth Avenue intersect?”
Answer in next week's “The Last Word.”
David L. Coddon: (619) 293-1348;
david.coddon@uniontrib.com
