GRAB BAG
November 2017
By Mike Bentley
Round 5
Tossups
1. Haskell Wexler turned down an offer to film this event, recommending Albert and David Maysles instead. A young George Lucas was one of the cameramen filming this event, although his camera jammed and none of his footage made it into the final movie. This event was briefly going to be held at Sears Point, but the owners of that venue demanded a $300,000 deposit, so it was moved to a venue owned by Dick Carter that was (*) accessible only through a two-lane road. The Grateful Dead decided not to play this event at the last minute. One group was given $500 in beer money to provide their services for this event. After a fight broke out, one band stopped playing "Sympathy for the Devil". This event was originally scheduled to take place in Golden Gate Park. Meredith Hunter was killed by a Hell's Angel working security at this "Woodstock West". For 10 points, name this infamous Rolling Stones show at a California speedway.
ANSWER: Altamont Speedway Free Festival [accept the 1969 Rolling Stones American Tour in the first sentence]
2. In the opening scene of this film, one character taps a metal tool to the starter of her broken car to fix it and get an unexpected police escort to work. One character in this film appeals to a judge who was the first in his family to go to college to get a court order allowing her to attend night classes in Hampton. A character in this film gives a lecture to her kids on how her taxes pay for books in the library to justify stealing a book on (*) FORTRAN. A melodramatic scene in this movie has Kevin Costner’s character taking a crowbar to a bathroom sign. Several of the characters in this film work as “computers”. The climax of this film centers on the re-entry of the Friendship 7, which is piloted by a saint-like John Glenn. For 10 points, name this film about the African American women who helped make calculations for the space program.
ANSWER: Hidden Figures
3. In the 1910s, the Daily Mirror sponsored a Silver Cup for the winning team in this sport. A man named Tommy Thompson helped organize a match in this sport named for coffee. The British budget label Top Ten Hits cashed in on this sport newly being aired on Channel 4 with a 1988 videogame. One non-American team in this sport is confusingly named for fashion label NewYorker. During World War II, a Canadian team in it competed against a US team at a "Tea" event in White City Stadium in London. German teams such as the (*) Hamburg Blue Devils have won multiple championships in a European league of this sport, although that league has recently been supplanted by the BIG6 league. Since 2007, International Series games in this sport have been played at Wembley Stadium. For 10 points, name this sport, whose European leagues produced Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa, Philadelphia-area celebrity David Akers, and Kurt Warner.
ANSWER: American football
4. This man got into acting when he started writing roles that called for Mick Jagger and Prince impressions that he could do himself as a writer on the show Skitz. In a rom-com, this actor played a graphic novelist who, on his twin daughters' fifth birthday, walks in on his wife having sex with a shirtless, fat monologue-deliverer named Gary. A character played by this actor explains his preference for (*) virgins with the line, "I think of it like this. If you are going to eat a sandwich, you would just enjoy it more if you knew no one had fucked it." This actor played Will Henry in James C. Strouse's 2015 film, People Places Things. He also starred as Vladislav in the delightful vampire film, What We Do in the Shadows. In his best known role on an HBO series, this actor raps, "They call me the Hiphopopotamus, my lyrics are bottomless" before awkwardly ending the rap. For 10 points, name this co-star with Bret McKenzie on Flight of the Conchords.
ANSWER: Jemaine Clement
5. There was a fifteen year gap between David Ritz's boring official biography of this musician and his juicier unauthorized account. A legendary 1972 concert film of this artist has never been released, in part because director Sydney Pollack screwed up the sound syncing. Her first #1 of the '80s notes "When my baby calls I got jump to it". This artist's father was known as "the king of the young whoopers" and the (*) "Jitterbug Preacher" who organized the Walk to Freedom with Martin Luther King, Jr. Barack Obama wiped a tear from his eye during a 2015 Kennedy Center performance where she dramatically removes her mink coat. Her hit "Chain of Fools" appeared on 1968's Lady Soul. Although popularized by Dusty Springfield, the song "Son of a Preacher Man" was written for--and eventually recorded by--this artist. For 10 points, name this "Queen of Soul" who popularized "Respect".
ANSWER: Aretha Franklin [or Aretha Louise Franklin]
6. Thomas Van Parys credits a partnership between Charles Pathe and William Randolph Hearst in ushering in the era of non-ekphrastic works of this type. One of the more notable sci-fi works in this medium contains some incidents set at Tosche Station and was ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster. A best-selling 1982 work in this medium by William Kotzwinkle based on a Melissa Mathison story includes a surprising scene where the title creature lustily eyes (*) Elliott's mother. A Terry Brooks work in this genre tweaks a quote about "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate" and provides more information on a race in which Sebulba causes the hero to crash some equipment owned by Watto. Brooks's work of this type was released a month before the George Lucas project of the same name. For 10 points, name these type of books that have titles such as T2, Free Willy and Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.
ANSWER: movie novelizations [or movie adaptations; or movie tie-ins; or novels based on films; prompt on books; prompt on novels; anti-prompt on Star Wars novels; anti-prompt on E.T. novels; do NOT accept "Star Wars extended universe" novels]
7. Early in her career, this woman adopted the alias of Pepper January to deliver "Comedy with Spice". This woman first achieved mainstream success after creating an autobiographical character called Rita. Shortly after the death of her husband Edgar, she joked that she'd spread his ashes at Neiman Marcus so that she'd find time to visit him five times a week. This comedian's willingness to take any gig was explored in a 2010 documentary subtitled "A (*) Piece of Work". In perhaps her best known role, she once claimed that Kate Winslet's fat arms sunk the Titanic. Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien kept up the ban on this woman's Tonight Show appearances enacted by a vindictive Johnny Carson, despite her having served as Carson's frequent backup host. For 10 points, name this comedian and host of Fashion Police.
ANSWER: Joan Rivers
8. A girl who once lost her contacts in high school uses a radio DJ to dedicate the most famous song with this title to the narrator of Haruki Murakami's debut novel, Hear the Wind Sing. The title group in another song of this name "ain't broke, so they put on airs / The faux folks sans derrieres / They breathe coke and have affairs / With each passing rock star" according to a track on Distortion by the Magnetic Fields. The singer of one song of this name declares, "I dig a (*) French Bikini on Hawaii island / Dolls by a palm tree in the sand". The rap verse on a different song of this name has the clever rhyme "Bikinis, zucchinis, martinis, no weenies" and was delivered by Snoop Dogg. A song with this name contains a lyric about how "Midwest farmers' daughters / Really make you feel alright". For 10 points, name this Beach Boys song about females in a certain West Coast state.
ANSWER: "California Girls"
9. I was one of the people described playing a demo of this game "tucked away in the northeast corner" of the PAX Prime 2013 Indie Megabooth with an "emergency box of Kleenex" in a Wired article on it by Jason Tanz. The original ending to this game involved the player adjusting a series of levers not connected to anything. Funding for this title, which contains a scene of a floating man grasping at an arcade machine, partially came from the Ouya console. It was the subject of the documentary, Thank You for Playing. The genesis for this game was an incident when the lead developer couldn't stop his (*) son from crying. One section of this game has you reading get-well cards in a hospital room. For 10 points, name this game by Ryan and Amy Green, titled for the disease that took the life of their son, Joel.
ANSWER: That Dragon, Cancer
10. While giving his mother a birthday call, this film's protagonist sticks his phone between his hat and his ear to plausibly claim he's using his ear piece while driving. In this film, the protagonist's daughter asks, "what's a carb?" after her father promises to take her to Chuck E. Cheese's. In an early scene, its protagonist rings up his grandmother to advise a young white woman on what to buy for a fish fry at a grocery store he was recently fired from. In a flashback scene set in a jail, its protagonist has a conversation about his daughter asking for "dark butter" with his mom, played by (*) Octavia Spencer. The credits of this film reveal that the officer who kills the protagonist claimed to mistake his taser for his gun. This film opens with grainy cell phone footage of the protagonist being shot. The director and star of this film would later team up for Creed. For 10 points, name this Ryan Coogler film starring Michael B. Jordan titled for the BART stop where Jordan's character is killed.
ANSWER: Fruitvale Station
11. A '70s British sitcom set in one of these places centered on the conflict between Mr. Mackay and Norman Stanley Fletcher. A more recent BAFTA-winning British program set in one of these locations starred Lennie James as Lee Kingley and was titled Buried. An American program set in one of these locations features a silent character named Gary and his companion Bird, as well as the transgender (*) Alice, voiced by Christy Karacas. Season 1 of a show set in one of these places gets complicated when Larry Bloom gives an NPR interview; other incidents in that season include a plan to implicate Pornstache as the father of Daya. Uzo Abuda won an Emmy for playing a character nicknamed Crazy Eyes on a show set in one of these places. For 10 points, name this setting of Orange is the New Black.
ANSWER: a prison [accept equivalents like jails]
12. This director’s stage work includes a Pulitzer-nominated 2001 play where Eileen Heckart played an Alzheimer’s afflicted grandmother titled The Waverly Gallery. He punched up the screenplay for Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, and his stepfather had a mob colleague who underwent therapy, inspiring his screenplay for Analyze This. A young Mark Ruffalo starred in his first film as a director, You Can Count on Me. He was commissioned to write the script for his most recent film by John Krasinski and (*) Matt Damon, but scheduling conflicts prevented them from starring in it. This director cast Anna Paquin as the teenage star of his troubled second film, Margaret. Lucas Hedges's character plays in a band called Stentorian and comes under the guardianship of his father, who moved to Quincy to be a janitor after his children died in this director's most recent film. For 10 points, name this director of the Casey Affleck's Oscar-winning turn in Manchester by the Sea.
ANSWER: Kenneth Lonergan
13. A good ZX ("zed-ex") Spectrum title developed by Malcom Evans centering on this subject has the player trying to complete his objective without stepping on grass or getting hit by a car. A job that Derf Backderf held in the late '70s inspired his graphic novel on this subject. In a performance art piece, Mierle Laderman Ukeles shook the hand of all 8,500 people who worked in this industry in New York City. In Toy Story 3, it's revealed that Sid works in this industry. Two men who work with this stuff hope to open a surf shop in a 1990 comedy starring brothers (*) Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez titled Men at Work. The speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop" was given by Martin Luther King, Jr. in support of a strike of Memphis men who worked removing this stuff. In the US, this stuff is often placed into compactor trucks. For 10 points, name this stuff collected by dustmen from bins.
ANSWER: trash [or garbage or waste or equivalents]
14. This artist wrote, “Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine” in a viral letter written to the dying woman who inspired his lyric “But let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie”. He spent extended time on Mt. Baldy studying Zen Buddhism. An album which opens with the track “First We Take Manhattan” titles Sylvie Simmons’ biography of this man. This man’s first song was turned into a hit by (*) Judy Collins and describes a woman who “feeds you tea and oranges / That come all the way from China”. This artist was contrasted with Bob Dylan on a Malcolm Gladwell podcast that examined his biggest hit, whose singer describes how “You saw her bathing on the roof” and “Baby I’ve been here before / I know this room, I’ve walked this floor”. This artist recorded “So Long, Marianne” and “Bird on the Wire”. For 10 points, name this recently deceased Canadian artist of “Hallelujah”.
ANSWER: Leonard Cohen
15. In a 2005 documentary hosted by Matthew McConaughey, this man blamed Scott Truax's engineer father for a noted career failure; Truax is working on a project to prove this man wrong posthumously. This man was played in a 1971 biopic by The Gay Blade star George Hamilton which ends by proclaiming him to be "the last gladiator". A bike named for this man was the best-selling toy of the 1973 Christmas season. This man repeatedly called the owner of (*) Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas pretending to be different journalists to convince the owner he was famous enough to let him perform a show outside the casino. His son Robbie has taken up his mantle, performing on the USS Intrepid and on a Building-to-Building show. He once appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in front of the Snake River Canyon, which he soon planned to jump over. For 10 points, name this "Greatest Daredevil Who Ever Lived".
ANSWER: Evel Knievel
16. In one uncomfortable moment, this man gave a pre-recorded shill for Schlitz beer during an Emmy telecast. He adapted an Irving Wallace novel for a film where President Fenton dies in a palace collapse in Frankfurt, resulting in James Earl Jones' character becoming America's first black President. He wrote a script where Burt Lancaster's General James Mattoon Scott attempts to orchestrate a coup against President Lyman for signing a nuclear disarmament treaty. This man wrote the screenplays to The Man and (*) Seven Days in May. One of his scripts ends with a pilot asking, "All I ask is that you remain calm and pray" after spotting a World's Fair building; in another, a bank teller survives an H-Bomb attack on New York by being in a bank vault, but breaks his glasses and cannot do the reading he'd love to do. This man wrote the teleplay for "The Odyssey of Flight 33" and "Time Enough at Last". For 10 points, name this creator of The Twilight Zone.
ANSWER: Rod Serling [or Rodman Edward Serling]
17. One of the protagonists of this film complains that "Only assholes drink Mr. Pibb" after his brother fails to get him a Dr. Pepper. A caustic waitress in this film describes how "this asshole from New York ordered a trout, back in 1987" but apart from that, every other customer has ordered a "T-Bone steak and a baked potato". One character in this film lies and says that he just sold his car for cash when transferring money into casino chips. The protagonists have to bury a (*) stolen car on their property after an unplanned incident near a diner. One of the protagonists of this film earns enough money to place his ranch into a trust and avoid foreclosure from the Midlands Bank. That man's brother is killed by Ranger Marcus Hamilton, played by Jeff Bridges in this movie. For 10 points, name this 2016 film starring Ben Foster and Chris Pine as Texas bank robbers.
ANSWER: Hell or High Water
18. This track beat out U2's "The Hands That Built America" to become the first song in its genre to win a noted award. The "Nashville" episode of Master of None opens with Arnold and Dev discussing whether the third verse of this song is sung in character or not due to a reference to an actor.One of the more amusing parodies of this song replaces most of the lyrics with the phrase "mom's spaghetti". The rapper of this song compares himself to a snail, declaring that "I've got to formulate a plot, or end up in jail or shot". On Genius, the rapper admits that the third verse's reference to (*) Mekhi Phifer was "just about the rhymes" but then says it was to make him relatable to his character, Jimmy Smith, Jr. After a "snap back to reality" in its first verse, the rapper observes, "Oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked". Its chorus declares "You only get one shot". For 10 points, name this Eminem song from the Eight Mile soundtrack.