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Interesting miscellany from our events & elsewhere. Earlier Posts

The 71 Greatest People Named Dave Of All Time

Davey and Goliath(Note: Of course this post has been updated. Thanks for the suggestions. I didn’t mean for this to become the Dave Hall Of Fame, but maybe it should be. I figured this would be a static rant, but at this point, keep them coming.)

How many of them do you know?

(Is this an exhaustive list? Of course not, though if you’re not on this list, it clearly means you don’t matter. Go be famouser, and we’ll put you on the next installment of this list![*])

  • David Lynch – Just might be the coolest, most awesome nutcase in America.
  • David Cassidy – He thinks he loves you. So what are you so afraid of?
  • David Boreanaz – Angel was the greatest. Spinoff. Ever. Except for The Facts Of Life and Better Call Saul.
  • David Duchovny – Why won’t you love me?
  • Michelangelo’s David – He’s like Adam Levine times Channing Tatum. And he’s 500 years old! Take that, Patrick Stewart!
  • David The Invincible – Armenia’s greatest philosopher. Rock on, Byzantines!
  • Hal David – Goes straight to valhalla for writing “Walk On By” and “I Say A Little Prayer.”
  • David Copperfield – The Dickens character, not the magician.
  • David Copperfield – His greatest trick was getting Claudia Schiffer to marry him. Well done.
  • Dave the Barbarian – His best friend was a talking sword. Read into that what you will.
  • Davey – His best friend was his Jesus-freak dog Goliath. Read into that what you will.
  • Dave Clark – The Dave Clark 5 were second only to the Beatles in British pop chart success. They were great.
  • David Caruso – The patron saint… of bad career choices. (YEEEEEAAAHHHH!)
  • Dave Matthews – Is he the next Grateful Dead? Do we even need another Grateful Dead? (Probably, I guess.)
  • David Banner – The TV name of the scientist who turned into the Incredible Hulk. (In the comics, his first name was Bruce. I’m sure there was a good reason for that.)
  • Dave Chappelle – If only he could have handled major overnight success just a bit better. It’s a lot to ask.
  • Dave Kovic – Kevin Kline’s character from the movie “Dave,” the story of a temp who steps in to impersonate the President.
  • David Archuleta - Should have won American Idol. But what are you gonna do.
  • David Cook – The guy who beat David Archuleta. Who? Exactly.
  • Larry David - I could never stand the Comedy of Discomfort, but he’s really good at it.
  • David the Gnome - Star of a kids’ show in the 1990s. You might have seen it.
  • Dave Mustaine - He founded Megadeth. That counts.
  • David Cross - Nevernudes have less fun! (Seriously, a total comic genius.)
  • David Attenborough - If Morgan Freeman is the voice of God in the movies, Attenborough is the voice of everything else.
  • David Bowie - Ground control to Major AWESOME!
  • David Hasselhoff – Depending on your age, he’s a smart-car enthusiast, a middle-aged speedo aficionado, or a guy who eats hamburgers off the floor. And they say American lives have no second act.
  • Craig David – British hip-hop star. Kind of a lightweight, but he’s fine, I guess.
  • David Suzuki – A biogeneticist and a total rock star.
  • Dave Brubeck – He proved you could dance in 5/4 time.
  • Dave Coulier – Let’s just agree to remember him as Joey from Full House and not for his bad relationship choices, ok?
  • David Mamet – The guy could write dialogue. Shame he’s such a right-wing douchenozzle.
  • Dave Lister – The main character in the series Red Dwarf. My sci-fi nerd friends subsisted on this show for a while.
  • David Ben-Gurion – Israel (the country) was kind of his idea. Like him or not, he was a big deal for a while.
  • Dave Foley – Is he the most successful Kid In The Hall? Sure, why not.
  • Dave Gahan – How is he still alive? And how (and why) is Depeche Mode still together?
  • Dave Barry – Your mom & I think he’s hilarious.
  • David Simon – Created The Wire, the Greatest TV Show Of All Time(TM) (except for, oh, Breaking Bad, Arrested Development, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Beverly Hillbillies, RHONJ, I Love Toy Trains, etc etc)
  • David Mitchell – QI‘s greatest panel guest, not the author.
  • David Mitchell – The guy who wrote Cloud Atlas, not the comedian.
  • Dave Stewart – The other half (with Annie Lennox) of the Eurythmics. Listening to them now, they were weirder than I remember.
  • David Hume – The philosopher who came up with the concept of Reason. Some people confused it with logic, and that’s screwed us up completely for centuries.
  • David Lee Roth – You bring the rain, he’ll bring the parade.
  • David Sedaris – Everyone I know adores everything he does. He leaves me cold, but I don’t hate him.
  • David Gest – New Yorkers will remember his bizarre marriage to Liza Minnelli. Non-New Yorkers probably won’t.
  • David Niven – He stared down a streaker at the Oscars, and played James Bond once, though it wasn’t canon.
  • David Beckham – At one point, he was a decent soccer player, I’ve been told.
  • David Schwimmer – I like him better now than when he was on that show, whatsis.
  • David Foster Wallace – This world was never meant[1] for one as beautiful[2] as you[3].
  • David Frost – No snark here for the greatest TV interviewer there ever was.
  • Davy Jones – The short guy from the Monkees.
  • Davy Jones – The mythical pirate whose “locker” you go to when you drown at sea. Not the Monkees guy.
  • Dwight David Eisenhower – Smart guy. Probably couldn’t get elected today.
  • David Gilmour – The smart one from Pink Floyd. (Come at me, Syd Barrett fans.)
  • David Byrne – Now that Lou Reed’s gone, he’s NYC’s most famous Old Fart Art Crank.
  • David Letterman – called his company Worldwide Pants because he thinks “pants” is the funniest word in the English language.
  • David Paich – He wrote the Toto song “Africa.” It bought him a mansion. What have you done with your life?
  • Dave Eggers – Undisputed Heavyweight Champeen of American Hipster Literature.
  • David Fincher – A big important man who directs big important films. Someone has to.
  • Dave Grohl – Talk about a guy who’s done everything right in his music career.
  • David Soul – Don’t give up on us, baby!
  • David Clayton Thomas – of Blood Sweat & Tears. Ride a painted pony, let the spinning wheel ride!
  • Dave Thomas – The guy who started Wendy’s, not the comedian.
  • Dave Thomas – The SCTV star, not the hamburger dude.
  • David Cameron – Should probably be the subject of a Monty Python sketch instead of British PM.
  • David Spade – Joe Dirt called. He says he was the peak of your career. BOOM.
  • David Tennant – You might be the most famous Doctor, but all my friends still pine for Eccleston. (Me, I’m already Team Capaldi.)
  • David Coverdale – I love that people call him David Coverversion. (Come at me, Whitesnake fans.)
  • David Thewlis – Remus in Harry Potter, sure, but did you see him in Naked?
  • David Ogden Stiers – The snooty douchebag accent he put on to play Major Charles Emerson Winchester III in MASH is actually startling.
  • David Wain – He directed Wet Hot American Summer, which is good enough for me.
  • Dave Edmunds – Rockpile was a fantastic band. I hear you knocking, but you can’t come in!

 

UPDATES (because of course):

  • David Robinson – NBA Hall Of Famer & former tallest person in the U.S. Navy.
  • David Cronenberg – Turning the novel “Naked Lunch” into a decent film was an amazing achievement. That should have been impossible.
  • Dave Van Ronk – They guy who allegedly convinced Bob Dylan that he didn’t have to sing in tune to get over. So he’s the one to blame for all of that.
  • Davy Crockett – King of the Wild Frontier.

*It just feels like we’ve seen a lot of checklists the last week that grade your value as a human being by how many of the top 200 movies you’ve seen, or how many states you’ve visited, and we find that kind of checklist tourism to be silly.

We are still trivia nerds, though, so this seemed like a logical response (to us, at least). If you feel trolled, think about why you feel that way. Everyone else can carry on. And if there’s someone we should have included, I’m happy to expand this list outward. Let us know.

11/26 – Monday Results

'Picture it! Plymouth Rock, 1620! Antoinette Romano invented turkey casserole, and everyone survived the winter!'Parity. It’s the most boring thing in the world, and yet it’s awesome for us. When the best trivia teams in the city aren’t being dominated by any one bar, it means that everyone gets an equal chance at the brass ring.

At The Gate’s TriviaCraft Monday quiz, the winning team, La Triviata, got a bottle of champagne on top of everything else, while at Social Bar in Midtown, a tiebreaker won one team a volume of Shakespeare (annotated by Joss Whedon) and another a collection of sex toys. Which I think about covers it.

Thank you for being a friend, indeed.

We have some exciting news about The Gate coming soon, but until then, here are the scores from last night’s action. (Once again, the scores are pro-rated, as the Social crowd is playing one less round to accommodate Monday Night Football. Just three more weeks of this, and then we’re back to equal everything across the board.)

 

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Monday Preview: Work On Your Night Cheese!

[This gif is a hint for at least two of tonight's questions. At least.]This might be a short week for you, and there’s no doubt you’ve earned the crap out of it, but we’re not planning on missing a beat this week, with live events right through to the moment your family arrives for their general Thanksgiving awkwardness. I’d load up on wine and make sure you have lots of other stuff beyond your internal family As-The-Stomach-Turns to talk about.

Fortunately, we’re here to help.

Tonight at The Gate in Brooklyn, the autumn crop of craft beers are flowing in. Peekskill Brewery, Breckenridge, Islander IPA, all exclusive tappings (or close to it), all incredible, and all part of TriviaCraft Mondays, sponsored by Blue Point Brewery. Just come and try a couple, and win something. That’s all we ask. Jamie will be hosting, and she is ace.

And at Social Bar, we’ll tee up the Monday Night game between California’s oldest professional sports team and the side Gregg Easterbrook of ESPN has long called “The Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons.” I’ll be there with Elana tonight, and we’ll set you up.

Just because it’s a short week doesn’t mean you need to deprive yourself of a couple of hours of blowing off steam. Come on out & enjoy yourself, have a few drinks, and win some prizes. It’s what the Puritans would have wanted you to do*.

*Actually, it would have been the exact opposite of what the Puritans would have wanted you to do. But what did they know.

NYT: A Couple Of Things.

Trivia! It gives you Wiiiings!If you haven’t read Neil Genzlinger’s excellent piece in today’s New York Times about Mark “The Beast” Labbett, The Chase, and how New York quizzers managed to beat him two games out of three, go check it out. It’s a great piece, and we’re amazed and thrilled by it. Also, it’s the first and only time The Beast will ever be referred to as “G-rated.”

There are a couple of things I’d like to add to the piece here:

  • If anyone got short shrift in our end of things press-wise, it was my regular co-host at Dempsey’s, Lisa McCorvie. She got into one of the pictures, but she basically took the night off while Jamie & I did all the talking. Lisa was also hosting at Social Bar the night Mark’s team finally broke through and won. Pieces like this will happen again, and she’ll get her due, but without her, TriviaNYC is far less of a going concern than it is. I just want to make sure you, dear reader, know that.
  • They came to Dempsey’s the night before Halloween, and Jamie shamed all of us by being the only person in the bar who dressed up. She’s actually wearing wings in that cover photo.
  • They didn’t talk to host Jarrod Hornbeck at the Raven’s Head, but you can hear his snark-filled retro style in Genzlinger’s description of his night. It’s just a little different than our normal thing, which I suppose is true for all the nights we do.
  • Finally: We’re proud of what we do, and we pride ourselves on being the most inclusive, best-curated and most professional public trivia events in the city. We are certainly looking to expand nationally as well, and plans for that are already afoot. But we are far from the only option, even in town. They mention that in the piece, but I just want you to make sure you try other quizzes. (And then let us know how we can make what we do better. We know you have options in your trivia nights. We’re honored that you choose to fly with us.)

      Noah Tarnow’s Big Quiz Thing is still very much a going concern, and if you haven’t been to a TriviaTryst night, you should go, once*. Last Exit in Brooklyn & Pete’s Candy Store have been cranking out solid quizzes for many years, and we’re just generally in a phase where the quizzing world is growing. It’s morning in America.

We are currently actively looking for new venues to host weekly quizzes. We’re training hosts as we speak, and we’d love to turn the quiet night at your bar (in NYC or anywhere across the country) into the highlight of your week. Here are some details of what we do. Drop us a line.

Any other questions we can answer?

*Once will be plenty, but knowledge is power, and you should know what their game is all about.