TRASHionals at University of Texas, 4/29-30/06

Results: License to IL
(Charlie, Colby, Flax, Alma)

    For just the fifth time in my life (2000 HSNCT, 2001 CUT, 2003 ICT, 2003 TRASHionals), I got on a plane to go to a quiz bowl tournament.   Austin was a place I'd never been and seemed like a reasonably interesting one to visit.  Of course, there's a certain level of irony involved in traveling to quiz bowl events in various cities and having basically no time to do anything but play quiz bowl.  We did go to a seedy bar and a rib joint, but it's not like we attended SXSW or anything.

THE GOOD: Considering that we started 3-4 and lost a couple heartbreakers, I was pleased that we were able to finish 7-0 for a 10-4 record that won our playoff division, even if it was the third tier overall after 8-4 was only good enough for fifth in the round robin division.  That put us in ninth overall, though as it was announced that records would carry over, I suppose there's a chance we could have slipped into eighth.  Not as good as last year, no, but top ten is pretty respectable.  I'll take it.

THE BAD: To be fair, we arrived at the "welcoming party" an hour late thanks to getting at least partially lost two separate times on the drive over (though I will defend Charlie here by noting that Austin is a really spread out and certainly not grid-planned city), but the Water Tank was, dare I say it, uber-lame.  That is, unless you like flat pop, mediocre Mexican food, and a bunch of red-staters doing country songs on the karaoke mike.  It's almost surprising that they were showing NBA games and not, like, rodeo.

OTHER BAD: I counted at least two factual errors in questions, one of which was possibly the most blatant error in a question ever and really ought to be cause for the writer getting kicked out of TRASH (note: this, unlike things that follow, is a joke).  A question about an episode of Sports Night whose plot turned on Isaac's attendance at the third game of the 1951 NL playoff between the Dodgers and Giants referred to "Willie Mays' home run."  What???  You have got to be kidding me!  How do you mess up the Shot Heard Round the World?  That's like writing a politics question that refers to Jimmy Carter as the former governor of California.  Compared to the Mays gaffe, switching the titles of Tommy Boy and Black Sheep was pretty forgivable.

THE UGLY: TRASH has always, dare I say, pushed it a little bit in terms of subject material.  I've always found the numerous porn questions to be a bit of a stretch in terms of the boundaries of good taste, and I don't feel all that differently about the questions on extreme sexual practices, even when I get some of them.  This is an organization that, I think, wants to make itself as mainstream as it can - questions of that sort certainly aren't necessary.   I'm not exactly Captain Squeamish on that front, I just think there's no real point.  Questions about serial killers and felons of various stripes who are only famous for breaking the law also seem a bit out of place amid questions about baseball players and Lindsay Lohan movies.  It's only really "pop culture" to a fringe of overly-interested individuals, I think, and, more importantly, categorizing that sort of thing as "trivia" is a bit awkward.  Last year, for example, I got a question on the BTK Killer.  Why, really, was a question like that in there in the first place?  My other answers in that round were three movie questions, a TV question, a Trash lit question, and a music question.  All that and a serial killer who tortures women!  Awesome.

Which brings us to this year's problem.  So, previous years featured the occasional true-crime question or porn question that wasn't always in the best taste.  I mean, I can live with that, right?  Unfortunately, TRASH happened to turn 2006 into the Year of the Rape Clue.

I'm not saying it was intentional, as I'm sure it wasn't, and I'm not saying there's no way they shouldn't have noticed; on their own, some of the clues were at least moderately legit within their questions, and unless you're play-testing 15 rounds one after the other, you may not notice the trend.  In addition, James D's wedding may have kept him from combing through the questions as closely as he might have in another year.  That said, when it seems like there's an average of one clue a round that involves either rape or some other kind of sexual violence against women, and when it gets to the point where I notice it as much as Alma does (when she's predestined, for multiple reasons, to be the one most aware of such a trend), that's just a really big problem.  Some of the bigger issues:

* An entire bonus on a song called "Date Rape."  Sure, the song isn't actually advocating date rape, but why include it at all when it's on such a touchy subject?  We're talking about a song off the first album of a band (Sublime) that's really only famous for their third.  We're not exactly talking about a Beatles or Stones or Elvis song here.  It's bad enough writing a whole bonus about a single obscure song, but when that song is also about date rape, it becomes a matter of why one would want to write a question on it, period.

* A tossup on Tawana Brawley.  The situation here isn't quite cut-and-dry either; Brawley evidently made up her story.  But is this really the right subject matter for a question?  Even if she was totally full of it, I don't know that this constitutes "pop culture trivia," and the fact that it manages to work in rape yet again - and this was already, at tossup five in Round Three, at least the second sketchy question of the day - is even more problematic.  I guess part of the debate on this one is whether or not you think the outcome of that case would have affected whether it was a question now.  And because of Al Sharpton's presence, I'm not sure it would have, even had Brawley actually been gang-raped.  Yet would you ever see a Trash tossup to which the answer was, say, Matthew Shepard?  (You sure shouldn't.)

* Not one but two rape clues in the penultimate match.  Each clue - one about the plot of Dune, the other a bonus part about singer Connie Francis - would have been relatively legitimate on its own.   But put together, and stacked on top of one another in Game One of the finals as they were, they stuck out like a sore thumb.

* The Rick Reilly tossup.  Though it was obviously combined with the rest of the tournament, the two clues in the finals really seemed to push Alma over the edge, especially as she had mentioned the overabundance of them on Saturday to TRASH people at the end of Day One and we had been assured that the group was going to have a meeting about it.  The one that really got to me, though, was the 14th tossup of Round Eleven, the last of the first day.  The answer was "Rick Reilly," the back-page columnist in Sports Illustrated.  Now, it's true that there was a situation involving a high school party at his house at which a girl claimed to have been raped.  But that was the lead-in to the question.  I understand that it's something that happened involving him and thus is technically fair game - but it just felt so bizarrely unnecessary.  There are literally hundreds of clues you could use there.  I don't recall any mention of Reilly's books in the question, for example, or the fact that he and his wife traveled to South Korea with their adopted daughter to meet her biological mother.  (A very emotional column, by the way, but I digress.)  Tons of things might have led into that.  But no - it's the rape clue.  And again, maybe if that had been the only questionable clue in the whole tournament I wouldn't really have thought about it.  But as the crest of a wave, I was dumbfounded by it.

I'm not saying here that any mention of rape must be forever excised from any packet.  That's not it at all.  There are any number of legitimate films, songs, and books whose plots could not very well be described if you attempted to do so without any reference to violence against women (Straw Dogs, "Janie's Got a Gun," and To Kill a Mockingbird, to name just one of each).  It's more a matter of how it came up, and how often it came up - and it wasn't even just rape, but other things that maybe shouldn't be considered "trashy" fare, like "gang bang" and "anorexia," both of which were tossup answers.

The main problem, it seems to me, is the makeup of quiz bowl as a whole, and Trash in particular - a lot of males, and a lot of, to put it somewhat bluntly, males who are not always the most emotionally or socially healthy individuals.  I don't want to lay that at the feet of the organization, since few if any of them fit that description in the way certain players do, and there are multiple females in the TRASH hierarchy - but you're talking about an audience that, by and large, is not going to push back when the questions head towards the edge.  Some players, I've heard, have suggested there be more porn questions.

This game is and always has been mostly aimed at and played by men.  That's just how it is, enough so that some Trash tournaments hand out the "Title IX" award for top female scorer, which I've always thought seemed a little bit patronizing.  (It's one thing when you're talking about actual sports and women's sports just don't get the same kind of funding because they aren't as marketable.  There's no real reason a woman couldn't finish top ten in scoring at a major trash tournament, but having a Title IX award at all almost seems like a "nope, you're not good enough" prize.  I know that's not the intent, but it's not always about actual intent.)  Trash tournaments should be trying to draw a more diverse crowd, though, not actively ostracizing half the population.  And this isn't even TRASH now, this is really the community at large, academic and trash alike.  Enough with the "Oh, you have a girl on your team" if we get a question on "chick lit."  Do I say "Oh, you have a redneck on your team" when you get a NASCAR question?  There has to be a balance somewhere between "condescendingly congratulatory" and "Spanky's treehouse," doesn't there?  We just need people in the community to start finding it.  There's still time.

So what's the point of all this?  Basically, people need to be more aware of how the current state of the game isn't the most conducive to new female players.  To their credit, the TRASH people were very apologetic and understanding of Alma's (and to a lesser extent my) complaints, even if two more clues slipped through on Day Two after the initial airing of grievances.  Still, I believe the TRASH people are sincere in preventing any future packet sets like this one, so that, on this front, is good enough for me.

Back to the usual...
    Favorite Tossup: Probably Chris Shelton.  Just one of those answers where you know it's going to come up, and after the opening clue giving his stats at the University of Utah, I buzzed in as soon as the Pirates were mentioned.  Other good ones for me: #3 (got it off Ken Daneyko's number being retired by the Devils), Snakes on a Plane (how could it not be?), an audio tossup where I had to identify that it was Stephen Colbert and Keith Olbermann talking about Bill O'Reilly (fortunately I happened to have seen that episode of The Colbert Report), the Allan Houston Rule, Captain Tenneal (still nailing the MXC questions), Hermes (from Futurama), Say Anything (see below), Puppy Bowl (I take it back, that may well have been my favorite of the entire tournament), and Dizzy Dean (off the opening clue "He was the last man before Denny McLain to win 30 in a season," and I had written a question on Dean for last year's Burns).
    Favorite Bonus: I wrote down one from Round Seven about baseball players who got booted off the Hall of Fame ballot after last year.  The first two (Willie McGee and Dwight Gooden) were fairly easy, but I was somewhat impressed with myself for coming up with Walt Weiss for the third part.
    Worst Neg: Just two negs to go along with 50 tossups this year.  The first was annoying - Nabisco Open for Kraft Nabisco Open, and also I totally could have waited since the other team didn't get it.  The worse of the two was an awful reaction buzz with "Reunion" when the answer ended up being "Guiding Light."
    Game(s) of the Day(s): In Round One, we trailed NYU 235-100 with just five tossups left.  We proceeded to take all five (Colby had three and Alma and I had one each), but the 80 total bonus points were just enough for us to lose by five, 235-230 (the bagel on #19 was the dagger).  After dropping another heartbreaker in Round Four, we sat and watched as the UT house team answered six of the first seven tossups (the seventh dropping dead after they negged).  After tossup eight, they led 95 to -5.  We took the next five tossups to lead 125-90 through 13, but two of the next four dropped dead and they got the other two to go up 140-125 with three tossups left.  In my second-finest moment of the tournament, I nailed all three remaining tossups (Michelle Rodriguez, Loretta Lynn, and Snakes on a Plane) to help us to the 205-140 win.
    Round Nine was another back and forth affair with a team from Colorado.  They led 110-(-5) through three and 180-15 through six, but Colby and I each took two tossups to close the half, and we went 20-20-30-30 on the bonuses to trail just 180-155 through ten.  Three of the next four went unanswered, and then Alma answered two of the next three (F-Troop and Goofy) to help us to a 215-200 lead with three to go.  We went down again after they picked up all 40 points on the 18th cycle, and even when I got #19 (Amelie Mauresmo), we only got ten on the bonus to trail 240-235 with one to play.  The 20th tossup was read all the way to the end, but when I froze up Alma jumped in with her third tossup of the match, winning it for us with Rachel Bilson.
    In Round Ten we held off eventual champions Tom DeLay Industries by answering the last three tossups after holding a 210-205 lead through 17.  This was a pretty good game, but I really mention it here because we beat the eventual champions!!!  That team beat us in the playoffs last year, too, so that was nice.
    The first playoff round was also great.  We led 105-60 at the half, but picked up just two tossups (and a meager 20 total bonus points) in the first seven of the second half, going down 160-140.  We took the lead 170-160 on #18 (Colby with Great White), then they took it back 180-170.  Tossup 20 was tense, but I got it (Say Anything), and then squeaked out one of the three bonus points (Sergio Leone as director of Once Upon a Time in America) to give us the 190-180 win, our only sub-200 game of the tournament.

Round Robin (Mullet Division)

Round One: Got Villains? 235, License to IL 230
Round Two: BYE
Round Three: License to IL 355, If Colvin Could Dunk 15
Round Four: Where is Your God Now?! 235, License to IL 200
Round Five: License to IL 205, Vince Young and the Wonderlic Twins 140
Round Six: License to IL 340, Alcoholics Synonymous 175
Round Seven: Two Guys, a Guy, and a Pizza Place 300, License to IL 200
Round Eight: Mike Keenan Employment Agency, LLC 280, License to IL 200
Round Nine: License to IL 255, J is for Genius 240
Round Ten: License to IL 280, Tom DeLay Industries 205
Round Eleven: License to IL 350, Opus Dei and the Knights 175
Round Twelve: License to IL 245, Pride (in the name of TRASH) 180
Round Thirteen: License to IL 245, O Clapton, My Clapton 150

Prelims Record: 8-4, fifth place, Yoda Division - advanced to third playoff bracket

Playoffs

Round One: #B5 License to IL 190, #A6 You Can't Spell Sinclair Broadcasting Group Without Sin 180
Round Two: #B5 License to IL 355, #A5 Michigan Overrated 30

Final Record: 10-4 (ninth place out of 26 teams)

Personal Stats: Questions Answered

   No one's asking you to care about it.  Powers would be in bold if they existed in Trash, neg-5s are in italics with the real answer following.  Anything in plain text was just ten.  Audio questions appear in red.

Round One
Nabisco Open (really Kraft Nabisco Open)
Curtis

Round Three
#3
Wolf Creek
Chris Shelton
Peter Benchley

Round Four
Thomas Harris
Albert Belle
Best Documentary Feature
One Shining Moment

Round Five
Continental Airlines Arena
Michelle Rodriguez
Loretta Lynn
Snakes on a Plane

Round Six
Terry Pratchett
Triple Crown
Meredith Vieira
Chad Johnson
Norton Juster

Round Seven
Fisting
Cillian Murphy

Round Eight
Monocle
Focus Features

Round Nine
Dante
Stephen Colbert and Keith Olbermann discussing Bill O'Reilly
Crop circles
Amelie Mauresmo

Round Ten
Allan Houston Rule
Reunion (really Guiding Light)
Soul patch
Adam West

Round Eleven
Dazed and Confused
Captain Tenneal
7-11
Rick Reilly
Brad (from The Rocky Horror Picture Show)

Round Twelve
Henry and June
Hermes (from Futurama)
Alexander Payne
Drop kick
Shia LeBoeuf

Round Thirteen
Michael Bay
Mr. Wick
Orr

Round Robin PPG: 34.17

Playoff Round One
Rose Madder
Say Anything

Playoff Round Two
Hungry Hungry Hippos
Spock's brain
Puppy Bowl
Garden State Bowl
Dizzy Dean
David Bowie

Playoff PPG: 40.00

Overall PPG: 35.00