"Macho Man" Randy Savage, 1952–2011

Say it with me: "From Sarasota, Florida, weighing 245 pounds…'Macho Man' Randy Savage!"

Somehow, this one actually bothers me. I don't usually get upset when celebrities die, because I don't usually know them personally, but occasionally, I feel a fan's true remorse. It happened when Rodney Dangerfield died, I recall. And now, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, one of the top names in pro wrestling back when I was a little pro-wrestling fanatic and, in my opinion, one of the most talented performers in the history of the medium. He died in a car accident this morning at 58.

In brief: Randy Savage (né Poffo, so yes, this guy was his brother) was the son of a wrestler and promoter, jumping into local wrestling in the Memphis region after his initial pro-baseball plan fell through. In the early '80s, as Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation expanded the "sport" into entertainment's A-list, Savage was brought in as an ideal villain. His talent was impossible to deny: Speed, skill, flash, and charisma, the guy had every tool in the wrestler's arsenal. He brought along his real-life girlfriend, the anodyne but beautiful Elizabeth Hulette, to be his manager/valet, "Miss Elizabeth," and the two worked a mildly abusive-boyfriend angle that attracted insane heat (i.e., the good kind of fan hatred). After a couple years, his appeal impossible to deny, Savage turned face (became a good guy) and became one of medium's most beloved good guys. He stayed on top for a decade, flipping back and forth between good and evil, but always in the plausible way that separates good wrestling from eye-rolling garbage.

My favorite Macho Man match: WrestleMania VII, 1991, a retirement match versus the Ultimate Warrior:

WWE Wrestlemania 7 - Randy Savage vs... by Joe81425


WWE Wrestlemania 7 - Randy Savage vs... by Joe81425

WWE Wrestlemania 7 - Randy Savage vs... by Joe81425

The adjective most often ascribed to Savage was intense. He perpetually seemed to be on the knife's edge, from his ominously whispered promo interviews to the furiously controlled way he carried himself in the ring. The reason I love this match is because it sets the stakes so high—the loser would have to quit pro wrestling, after all—and both performers play it to its hilt. (It's also my favorite Ultimate Warrior match, though that isn't saying so much.)

And to answer your question, wrestling nerds, yes, I do prefer this bout to Savage's epic showdown with Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat at WrestleMania III. Though that match deserves the epic, for sure:

Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat, WM3, Part 1. by akim93


Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat, WM3, Part 2. by akim93

Savage was a great villain (as seen above), a great hero, a great athlete and a great storyteller. He might have been the perfect 1980s wrestler: a colorful and exciting figure who helped bring the medium to its worldwide success, yet still a consummate physical performer who maintained the integrity of its athletic tradition (when it came to actual wrestling, he could work circles around Hulk Hogan, and more than held his own against Ric Flair). He was a world-class entertainer, someone with bona fide star power, which is very sadly in too short a supply these days. One last time:

He really IS a genius!

A quick note to direct your attention to yesterday's Wall Street Journal, with an article about a youth chess team coached by a figure familiar to avid BQT-goers: the ever-gregarious Jonathan Corbblah.
I've said it before, but Jonathan is perhaps the smartest person I know. The guy teaches chess, plays poker professionally, won Jeopardy! and—oh, yeah—is 25% of New York City's undisputed trivia champions. He's also an especially dedicated Big Quiz Thing fan, which you know I love. He missed the last NYC BQT, but should be back on May 23, so make sure you're there if you have something to prove.

As for me, my chess activities will most likely be featured in no major newspapers, right-leaning or otherwise. I recently played my first chess game in at least ten years, winning a hard-fought victory against a ten-year-old. I also monumentally suck at poker, my father's most beloved game, so I should really work on it if I want any kind of inheritance at all. However, I bet I'd kick Jonathan's ass at a karaoke-off, so that's what gets me out of bed every morning. Hurrah!

More on the Big Quiz Truck

If you missed it, in late March I staged (stage is probably the wrong word) one of the most purely fun Big Quiz Thing events in its long history, when some loyal BQT-goers and I debuted the Big Quiz Truck, as part of the Lost Horizons Night Market. Yes, a game show in a truck. New York is the best, isn't it

Afterward, I was interviewed by a writer from the Brooklyn Spaces blog, and the story is finally up. Check it out here, and check out this:
Heh, heh, heh. We don't know when the truck is happening again, but I will be taking part in a wacky warehouse-party event with some of those wacky truck-market-related people on Friday, June 3. Details here when they're available.

NYC film history: In color

This is some serious amounts of amazing: The multitalented Bernie Hou—a BQT regular as a member of current NYC champions Cash Cab for Cutie and a Google-Proof Question devotee as @bernieh—also runs a ridiculously popular blog called Alien Loves Predator (aww…), featuring some exceedingly clever art. And today, this…
Icons/images from popular films, placed in the appropriate spots throughout Manhattan. Ninety-one movies total, and Bernie's sending a free poster to whoever can e-mail him the names of all 91 first…though knowing ye olde Internet, I'm sure some übernerd has accomplished this feet hours ago. I'm not even going to try, though I am happy to see my favorite NYC film represented. Enjoy, and consider just flat-out buying one (support the arts, you real New Yorker, you…).

Osama legends: The greatest hits

In honor of the occasion, a roundup of my favorite Osama bin Laden bullshit legends, courtesy of your pals and mine at Snopes. (Although, how does one rot in hell? Can something really rot if it's engulfed in flames? I prefer to imagine Osama right now sitting in the incredibly boring Hell-orientation seminar, listening to Vlad the Impaler drone on about the procedure about signing up to use the common rooms.)

The Bush administration has Osama in custody and will execute him live on HBO two weeks before the '04 election: I exaggerate a little, but the kernel of that idea was a popular legend in the heat of the Bush-vs.-Kerry battle. I don't know; I was no fan of Dubya, certainly, and wouldn't entirely put this past his team in theory, but I was a "I don't like Bush because he's incompetent" guy, more than a "I don't like him 'cause he's a raging prick" sort. I just don't believe they could've effectively kept something like this under wraps—someone would have squealed. (I mean, plenty of people did last night a good hour before the President spoke to us, though maybe Barry didn't care.) I wonder if most Americans would've seen through such a nakedly contrived campaign stunt, but then again, seeing through things wasn't a strong suit of a lot of Dubya supporters.

Osama owns Snapple, so when you sip Mango Madness, you sip with death: A mistruth that stems from an insane oversimplification—Snapple used to be distributed in Saudi Arabia by a company owned by some bin Laden relatives. They apparently had nothing to do with the guy, who had 54 siblings (I'm sure that made for awesome games of Sardines at Thanksgiving). My problems with Snapple are more due to the bullshit nature of a lot of the factoids on its bottle caps, but that's not quite terrorism, I don't think.

Osama has been spotted in Utah, where he's settled down because it's friendly to a guy with dozens of wives: This just sounds like a joke, and a bad one. I mean, yeah, Arches is beautiful, but really. Then again, if you want to disappear and never be seen again, Utah might be a decent choice.

We should protest Time magazine because they're considering making Osama Man of the Year for 2001: Well, they did consider that, but wisely realized it would be a PR nightmare (and went with this pathetic egomaniac instead). But becoming indignant about this betrays what can only be described as an utter failure at the basic task of reading comprehension. As Time has said again and again and again, Man/Person of the Year designates the individual or group (or, fuck it, computer) who had the supposed greatest impact on world events that year, for better or for worse. (No one in the USA thought Stalin was a nifty guy back then.) By that standard, yeah, absolutely, give it to Osama. It's not like he gets a plaque and a gift basket.

Stallone was going to beat the shit out of Osama in the new Rambo movie: Yeah, that seems about right, but it just wasn't true. No way in hell this movie would have been that interesting. Besides, we got plenty of that kind of thing from Stewie Griffin. And, going farther back, Captain America:

9/11 was Clinton's fault because he refused to go after bin Laden: Okay, keep thinking that. I used to sort of know a guy who was of this opinion, who literally told me that Bill Clinton should get the death penalty for 9/11. Think about that for a minute.

Osama and his goons are planning mass attacks on American 7-Eleven stores: Wha? I can think of plenty of reasons for hating 7-Eleven, but the randomness of this is kind of shocking. Starbucks would make a lot more sense if you wanted to crush the American spirit, don't you think?

Snopes has plenty more, if you care to browse, though I can't seem to find a particular favorite of mine: Several years ago, I read a completely untrue story about how a young bin Laden visited the U.S., picked up an American woman, and tried to have sex with her, only to be laughed out of the bedroom because he was a little light in the junk department. Granted, I'm not searching very hard for this; if you want to google "Osama penis" and "Osama sex," be my guest.

Emergen-C to the rescue

As you may know, I toil away several of my days at Time Out New York. If you turn to approx. page six of that fine publication, you'll find a list of everyone who worked to make the issue a reality (called "the masthead" in publishing parlance), alongside three particular employees answering that week's "Staff question." And a few weeks ago…
A close-up of my response…
That was about two minutes of effort on my part. They e-mailed me the question, I had a half-finished glass of fizzy green stuff on my desk and a whole bunch of BQT events on my metaphorical plate. I did no research on the contents of Emergen-C, figuring nobody reads this nonsense anyway. Boom.

And lo, yesterday, I received a handsome gift bag, stuffed with four boxes of Emergen-C: tangerine, raspberry, lemon-lime, and—your favorite—"Blue." And a note from Lauren Castelluzzo of Hunter Public Relations, reading:

"Hi Noah,

"I recently came across the Time Out NY piece where you mentioned that you look forward to 'many a glass' of Emergen-C, and I thought you might like to try a variety of flavors!

"Also, just so you know, Emergen-C is naturally delicious. There are no artificial flavors or sweeteners. Each pack contains seven B vitamins, so there is no caffeine and more importantly,
no crash.

"Please feel free to contact me with any of your Vitamin C needs.

"Enjoy!
Lauren"

That last line is among the nicest things anyone has said to me in the past year.
I like Emergen-C, I really do; I'm drinking some tangerine right now (although I find it odd that it's a distinctive shade of sea green). I meant it when I said I figured that it would carry me through the spring, and a perusal of the ingredients list comfortingly indicates that Lauren is correct: This does not seem to be chock-full of the most evil substances known to man (the familiar catchall "natural flavors" seems to encompass much of the tangerine- or other-fruit-ness).

So I'm sorry, not only because I really should be aware what I put into my body without a publicist telling me, but also because these particular comments were for print, a medium I still consider sacrosanct when it comes to, you know, being factual. Then again, my sloppy journalism ended up scoring me four free boxes, so there's that.
But if I may, I think the official and rather impressive Emergen-C website should trumpet the non-artificialness more (hooray for Lauren, then, really doing her job). I mean, it's acid-smelling powder that somehow fills you with energy—you think they'd be constantly advising people that it won't fry your brain like flapjacks.

Yeah but, do I try some of the Blue flavor?

The Big Quiz Truck

I tweeted it, and it's true: Last night might have been the single most enjoyable BQT event I've ever hosted. With the help of stalwart BQT fans from team Jefferson Davis Starship, I took part in the fifth Lost Horizons Night Market. Seriously: Twenty-three teams of creative types each parked an unmarked box truck on a corner way out in Greenpoint, and each truck was its own self-contained lounge/art gallery/show space. The Noodle Truck, the Japanese Tea Truck, Smash Truck (pretty much what you're imagining), even the Hot Tub Truck. And, for the first time, the Big Quiz Truck.

Setting up at Lowe's. Smart!

We met early afternoon in the parking lot of a Lowe's in Brooklyn, the genius idea of team member Sherry—worked out well when we realized that our we-don't-want-to-mess-with-a-generator plan was going to result in an ominously dim Quiz Truck, and we needed to purchase the finest 300-lumens camping lanterns $50 could buy. Red satin cloth on the walls, the old-school BQT banner in the back, shiny streamers all around. By 8pm, we were parked in the desolate Greenpoint corner, between the Campfire Truck and the Stillness Truck, ready to go. And despite the distance and bone-chilling weather (I had a fleece on under my quizmaster uniform), I downed a Five Hour Energy shot and got ready to go.

And go we did. Four straight hours, as hundreds of cold but happy people filtered in and out of our extremely intimate, extremely blinged-out truck lounge. Three players at a time, ten questions per round, with as many bodies as we could stuff into the truck watching and cheering along (and no, I did not repeat questions. I asked about 270 total by my estimation). Everybody got candy and one of the new BQT stickers, while the winner got his/her choice from our selection of that musical format of the future—the compact disc.

Nearing setup completion. Damn, it was cold!

The competition was heavy, the hilarity extreme, especially as the night wore on and the surfeit of BYO booze took maximum effect. I'm proud to say I knew what this crowd wanted—this was the single best received question of the night:

What weeklong annual event is administered by an organization called Black Rock City, LLC?


I mean, who else would come to an event like this?

And no, we didn't make any money—the Night Market has a strict no-charging policy, you're creating art. Although we actively solicited donations, and plenty of folks complied, including a smart-ass with a $2 bill.

A major-league photographer snapped quite a bit; those photos as soon as I get them. (We were hoping to take more of our own, but more pressing needs intruded.) Apparently, The New York Times was there too, but I've no idea if they made it into our truck—the chill made people reluctant to wait in line when a particular truck was at capacity. (Damn, I so wish I got to go in the Hot Tub truck this time. Bath oils and naked women on a street corner in Brooklyn, it don't get any better.) In the meantime, here are a series of shots from the Market; only one of the Quiz Truck, toward the bottom, from the outside (with the billowing red curtains).

Are we hoping to do it again sometime? Oh, dear God, yes.