Danehy

Trivial Pursuit: Tom has a quiz for us this week!

Danehy
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We're being bombarded with "information" these days, but in the 24-hour news cycle, a lot of it is the same old crap delivered by a different panting fool. In the process, we're missing out on some of the stuff that used to make our lives fun, if not necessarily fulfilling. Remember when we used to know lots of dumb stuff? Nowadays, we can't even remember what movie won Best Picture this year.

So, I'm offering this little quiz to help tear your beleaguered brain away from the cable-news onslaught. See how you do. (Answers below.)

1. Which of these is a Top 25 hit song this week?

a. "Lil Baby" by DaBaby and Baby

b. "Baby" by Lil Baby and DaBaby

c. "DaBaby" by Baby and Lil Baby

Bonus Music Question:

The biggest-selling musical artist of the 21st century is:

a. A white soul singer from England

b. A white rapper from Detroit

c. A black cowboy from Georgia

2. Which of these men was the leader of an African nation during this century?

a. Canaan Banana

b. Goodluck Jonathan

c. Sylvanus Olympio

3. Legendary film director Martin Scorcese touched off a firestorm when he said he didn't watch Marvel super-hero movies. "I tried, you know? But that's not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks."

He may have a point as to what has become of the film industry. In the past 20 years, only once was the top-grossing movie of the year not one that involved super heroes, fantasy, or animation. That movie is:

a. The Passion of the Christ (2004)

b. Bridesmaids (2011)

c. American Sniper (2014)

4. Which of these is NOT the name of a current college football player:

Legend Brumbaugh, Yo'Heinz Tyler, Bumper Pool, Brodarious Hamm, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Storm Duck, Markaviest Bryant, Rakavian Poydras, and Quindavious Monday.

5. Outside of Tucson and all those "communities" in the God-awful Valley of the Sun, which of these places has the largest population:

a. Flagstaff

b. Yuma

c. The combined Prescott and Prescott Valley

Answers: 1. Of course, it's b. If you're from a certain generation, you might be surprised to learn that both DaBaby (Jonathan Kirk) and Lil Baby (Dominique Jones) are guys. DaBaby is on quite a roll. In the Billboard Hot 100, DaBaby has songs at 13, 19, 20, 21, 26, 28, 43, 47, 49, 51, 55, 63, 69, 73, 79, and 89. I listened to two of them, but at the risk of sounding old, I feel like I listened to all of them.

There is definitely a generational thing here. When I was a ballplayer in my youth, my football and basketball coaches always used to yell "Get big!" And if somebody drove by you and made a lay-up in basketball, people would shout "Too little!" That's why I never understood why guys would want to have low-rider cars in which they would sit way down low to the point where they looked like a shrunken grandma behind the wheel.

Likewise, I don't understand why a rapper would want to be Too Short or Lil Anything. But, different strokes. If I were a rapper, my name would be Green-Eyed Devil because it's a hip reference to Malcolm X and my eyes are...you know, green.

Bonus Music Question: Depending on conflicting sources, it's either a. (Adele) or b. (Eminem). However, that "Old Town Road" song by Lil (there we go again!) Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus is STILL in the Top 10 after 31 weeks. It entered the charts the first week of March. I've managed to avoid ever hearing the song because I've been told that it is the Ultimate Earworm From Hell.

2. a. Goodluck Jonathan (the greatest political name of all time!) was President of Nigeria until 2010. (His wife's name is Patience.) Back in the 20th century, Olympio was President of Togo and Banana was President of Zimbabwe.

3. c.

4. Trick question. They're ALL college football players. The thing is, after Key and Peele did their famous College All-Star bit, it's impossible to be shocked by these names any more. I was up in the Press Box at a UA football game where they have a strict No Talking policy because some people are pretending to work. Some guy from UCLA made a tackle and the guy who announces the game in the box had a sudden name seizure. I looked in the media guide for the name that he was trying to pronounce and it appeared to have more syllables than letters. The announcer guy tried two or three more times like he was engaging in Name Calculus, approaching the proper pronunciation as a limit but never actually getting there. Finally, I said, out loud, "Ozamataz Buckshank." Everybody laughed. I was given a No Talking ticket and told that I could only have one cup of Diet Coke in the second half. It was worth it.

Here's how old I am: One of the years that I played college basketball, my teammates—all African-American—had names Tommy, Bill, Mike, Randy, Kevin, Jesse, and the other Mike. Nary a Brodarious.

5. b. Nearly 100,000 people endure Yuma. No one knows why.