By Tim Rich
I recently caught up with Trash Panda’s Kelsey Barcomb who made TOTW in Week 11. Kelsey is a longtime OQL veteran and was the first Pop Solos Friendly Ambassador around the time when I started as the OQLUSA Secretary of Friendlies. She was on the first Friendly Writer team that competed in the Magnusson Trebek Trophy tournament.
I had to go back to Denver for the third time this season to get this exclusive.
Rich: What do you remember about the set last week and when did you realize you were putting on a TOTW worthy performance?
Barcomb: First, I should acknowledge that my teammate Andy Saunders also made TOTW and the whole team had a strong game! There wasn’t necessarily much that was strongly in my wheelhouse, but a couple of my questions I knew from having traveled to the pertinent locations (Switzerland and Alaska) and it was a rare instance in which I was in the right seat and would have done worse anywhere else.
Rich: How did you first get into OQLUSA? How was your regular team formed and how was your Regions team formed?
Barcomb: The Trash Pandas are an offshoot of a Geek Bowl team that first formed in 2019-ish. Andy was the first to hear about OQLUSA and suggested we play. It’s a great group and I love my Panda family!
Of the two Colorado teams for Regions season 1, I was placed on the Denver Blucifers. The Blucifers ended up joining forces with the Colorado H-Gons for season 2 and, as much as I like all of them, I felt like the team size was too large (I’m a bit of a selfish player who likes a smaller team in order to maximize play time). I was invited to join some of my east coast pals to form the MTA Straphangers for season 2. The name encompasses NYC and its surrounding environs to accommodate folks such as myself who grew up in New York State. It’s been a fun season so far and I’m always honored to be on a team with the wonderful Miranda Onnen.
Rich: There is a little known trivia fact that the acclaimed Jeffrey Seguritan was on the first Trash Pandas team.
I played in Trivia Bowl up in Albany with Francois Barcomb from Jeopardy! He said he knew of you and play tested a 1DS by you.
Have you ever been on any game shows? If so, which ones and have you tried out for any ones in the future?
Barcomb: I was on Jeopardy! in 2019 and Master Minds last year. Both were fun, positive experiences and I’d love the opportunity to be on more shows if possible. My dream would be to go on Pointless if anyone on the UK side can smuggle me in :)
Rich: How did you first get into trivia as a hobby?
Barcomb: I always loved game shows and growing up I would watch Jeopardy! every night with my family. When I got to college I started going to a weekly pub quiz and hosting a weekly trivia show on my college radio station. My pub quiz habits increased in grad school, when I would go 3-4 nights per week, and during my postdoc, when I started working as a QuizMaster for Geeks Who Drink. My fellow Geeks QM Jonpaul invited me to LearnedLeague and encouraged me to apply for Jeopardy!. He had recently appeared on the show and had a great experience, which was enough to finally encourage me to take the online test and the rest is history.
Rich: How many Geek Bowls, TCONA, Trivia Nationals, or SporcleCons have you been to and what is your favorite memory of each?
Barcomb: I first went to Geek Bowl in 2011 when it was at the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver (which also happens to be my least favorite concert venue in the city). I was just a baby quizzer at that point and had no knowledge of the wider trivia community. After that, I didn’t return until Geek Bowl Boston in 2018 where I worked the merch booth as a QM and didn’t actually compete again until Geek Bowl Vegas in 2019. I have a lot of great memories from the Vegas Geek Bowl. I had just started to become a member of some of the online social groups and it was my first time meeting most people in person. I went there by myself and was quite nervous about it, but I ended up having tons of fun and felt very welcomed by everyone in the community. Colorado local (and current Panda) Dustin Resch was someone I knew of from podcasts and I found him and his wife Brooke at an event and demanded that they become my friends (lucky for me they agreed). I also went to my first Jeopardy! Alum event, where we played some boards on a Jeopardy! simulator. There, I had a mini-reunion with my tape date buddies Anneke, Tim, and John and met my now teammate Bing Kao for the first time. I also found a pair of jeans at a Vegas thrift store for $3 that became my favorite pants for almost a decade.
Since then I’ve attended the cursed 2020 Geek Bowl in Chicago and both of the DC SporcleCons. The trivia is fun, but really the best part of the experience is getting to see and meet everyone in person and hang out in the lobby with the other lobby rats until the wee hours of the morning. I’m looking forward to this year’s SporcleCon in Detroit and the TWA Takeover in Denver!
Rich: What is the live trivia scene like in Denver? Is there a place you play every week?
Barcomb: Denver is mostly dominated by Geeks Who Drink, which got its start here, but there are also a few smaller companies, including the Denver Trivia League that is run by OQLer and game show veteran Julio Trujillo. Julio is a great guy and one of the people in the community that I’ve known the longest. I used to lose pub quiz to his team every week at the Irish Snug in the early 2010s. I no longer play every week (partially because I’m so busy with all of the online leagues), though there are usually a handful of options available every night. Sadly the scene is nowhere near where it was pre-COVID and a number of venues (including our beloved Irish Snug) closed down completely.
Rich: What Trivia podcasts have you been on and which do you recommend?
Barcomb: The Trash Pandas formed out of the trivia podcast community and I of course have to recommend the works of Jonathan’s Oakes Media Group, including Trivial Warfare and 4Play, both of which I have appeared on. I’ve also been on a handful of episodes of Triviality, Complete the List (shoutout Andy Saunders), and Beat My Guest (shoutout AJ Mass). The latter two are no longer releasing new episodes, though I’d certainly recommend checking out their back catalogs, on which you’ll hear many familiar voices!
Rich: What is the dining scene like in Denver? What is your favorite cuisine and beverage?
Barcomb: I think Jasmine summed up Denver dining fairly well in her interview. It’s a smaller city and doesn’t quite have the options of places like NYC or Chicago, but there’s good food to be found if you know where to look! The ‘cuisine’ that I always say Denver excels at is brunch. My go-to choice is a breakfast burrito smothered in green chili and a Bloody Mary with extra olives and a coffee and a water. It’s important to stay hydrated in the Mile High City.
Rich: What are your other hobbies and interests besides trivia?
Barcomb: When it’s not winter, I like to enjoy Colorado’s outdoor offerings, especially hiking, backpacking, and road biking. Aaron Wegner and I are Colorado Pika Patrollers, helping to collect habitat data and scat samples from pika sites in the mountains.
Aside from that, I enjoy board games, crafting, and going to concerts, movies, and other events around Denver.
I also can’t not mention that I have the number one world’s best dog, Maggie. She’s a beautiful Mississippi Dingo Fox and my primary interest in life.
Rich: I am partial to cats and enjoy seeing that grey tabby of yours who sometimes appears on zoom with you during games.
Of all the online trivia competitions, which is your favorite and least favorite?
Barcomb: COQL is easily my most favorite - the puzzles are so much fun and all of the hosts are delightful.
The one format that I haven’t loved is QuizNations. As indicated earlier, I’m a selfish quizzer who likes maximal play time and only getting one pair of directs per round is less than ideal for me.
Rich: I would like to acknowledge NBN. My team has played them in several QN friendlies.
What kind of music do you listen to and who are your top five favorite artists of all time?
Barcomb: I enjoy most music in the pop and rock genres and listen to both oldies and newies. I don’t have a clear list of favorites, but have been very into female-led indie rock lately and will share some of the artists that are currently on repeat for me:
illuminati hotties: Sarah Tudzin is amazing. Her music is, as she says, ‘all rippers, no skippers’ and one of my all time favorite concert experiences was her two back-to-back shows in Denver a couple years ago.
Madi Diaz: In the streaming era I sadly don’t spend much time listening to full albums from start to finish, with one of the exceptions being ‘History of a Feeling’ from Madi Diaz. It’s so good.
Caroline Rose: Caroline Rose has written some of my favorite songs from the past decade and I’m excited to see where they go with their career.
Wallice: Wallice, a singer-songwriter in her early 20s, has a lyric in her song ‘Hey, Michael’ that goes, ‘you don’t have to tell me that you like Pulp Fiction, I already know,’ and I am impressed that she has already realized that boys are boring. I wish I could have been so wise.
Chappell Roan: Chappell Roan is the one of this list that I’ve spent the least time with and haven’t seen live, but her songs are so catchy and I can’t get them out of my head lately. She recently performed an excellent Tiny Desk concert that I would recommend.
Rich: What movies did you watch in 2023? Of those, did you want anyone to win an Oscar that didn’t?
Barcomb: I watched somewhere between 30 and 40 new movies in 2023. My favorite of the Best Picture noms was Past Lives and I’m always rooting for Greta Lee, who will forever be Kai from New Girl to me. I wasn’t the biggest Oppenheimer fan and there were a handful of nominated films that were higher on my personal list, but I wasn’t angry about any of the wins.
On the nominations side, I would have liked to see more recognition for Cailee Spaeny in Priscilla, Kōji Yakusho in Perfect Days, and (of course) Greta Lee.
Rich: What are your top five Broadway musicals of all time and who is your favorite female and male performer?
Barcomb: This is a tough question because I have not seen many in person, especially when it comes to the classics. Most of my Broadway knowledge comes from cast albums and some of my favorites are Hairspray, Cabaret, Company, Chicago, and Hamilton. I have a particularly soft spot for Hamilton because my best friend and I both went to Hamilton College and we were able to see the original run of the show through some luck in the ticket lottery. We got to sit in the Jonathan Groff splash zone and it was an amazing experience.
Rich: I saw Groff in Little Shop of Horrors. He is a bigtime Sutton Foster stan. I have an early fond memory of OQL where in a friendly you commented you knew I really liked her as a performer too. Very astute
If you could have dinner with and play trivia with any five people in history, (dead or alive) who would you choose?
Barcomb: In the spirit of the question, I’ve put together a roster of individuals who I admire and also think would make a well rounded trivia team.
For a TV/Film expert, Joanna Robinson: My absolute favorite podcaster, Joanna is brilliant and seems like a generally amazing human that I would love to be friends with.
For a geography/history expert, Rick Steves: I’ve spent a good deal of time traveling alone and got in the habit of downloading audio guides from Rick Steves. I find his voice very comforting and enjoy the details he points out as I’m walking around a new city (as John Walker can tell you, I love a walking tour). He seems like the type of person that looks nerdy and unassuming from the outside but actually has very interesting stories and perspectives if you take the time to get to know him, so I think he would easily fit in with the trivia crowd.
For a science expert, Marie Curie: I have had a number of older female mentors throughout my scientific training that I admired immensely, especially when they would tell stories of what it was like being the only woman in the room. I’d love the opportunity to meet more of the pioneers and hear about their experiences. There are many good options but Marie Curie, being the first female Nobel Prize winner, would be my top choice.
For general knowledge, Victoria Coren Mitchell: I find Victoria Coren-Mitchell absolutely delightful. I don’t know if she’s actually as knowledgeable as she comes across on TV, but I really just want the chance to try to become friends with her.
Lastly, for sports, Buddy AKA Air Bud: I like dogs more than humans and have social anxiety, which can make being in group situations difficult. I’d love to have Buddy by my side for when I just want to be the weirdo in the corner petting a dog. And he’s played pretty much all the sports.
Rich: Recently in Trivia, my team had to name most of the Air Bud sequels and we failed miserably.
Are you a fan of any professional or college sports teams?
Barcomb: No. I play Fantasy Football but otherwise don’t much keep up with sports. I honestly find individual stories more compelling than an overall team, so I tend to support individual players rather than franchises, though I am happy when the local teams win.
Rich: What is your take on the current state of the trivia community, Learned League, all the online leagues? In 2024, will we see that new league that you and other women were planning?
Barcomb: Regarding OQL, I’m VERY excited to see where the league goes under the leadership of folks like Lindsay, Rose, and Jasmine. I have endless admiration for all three of them and am confident that they will do great things.
More generally, it’s obvious that the trivia community has a diversity problem. We can’t expect the leaderboards to become less homogeneous if we don’t make changes, many of which are well past due. I’ve seen a lot of people make a lot of great and interesting suggestions and I hope we at least try some of them. It’s better to make efforts that may end up failing than to just accept a broken system. I’m also a huge proponent of throwing out the canon and creating a new outline for content goals that reflects target levels of diversity.
As for the tentative new league, I’m certainly not at liberty to make any announcements at this time. What I can say is that we are carefully considering the information collected in our survey and taking the time needed to make something worthwhile.
Rich: Please tell me more about the trivioke event you are running at SporcleCon.
Barcomb: I used to go to a monthly Trivioke night when I lived in Rhode Island and it was one of my absolute favorite activities (shoutout to the hosts John and Desiree). Their format had 5 rounds: three standard trivia, one solve a clue and answer by singing, and one performance based karaoke challenge. For the karaoke challenge, they provided a list of prompts such as performing a song while blindfolded or while doing an impression of Judge Judy or while pretending to be a drunk bachelorette. As a terrible singer, I appreciated there were options that didn’t require talent and also got to enjoy some of the most amazing karaoke performances I’ve ever seen.
I’ll be working off of that general framework that mixes karaoke and trivia but will make some adjustments to fit better with SporcleCon and hope that people enjoy it!
Rich: Regarding trivioke, If my team performed a number and had professional choreo, matching costumes and the lyrics memorized, how much would that count towards our score?
Barcomb: I have not yet put together a scoring rubric but you never know what songs you’ll be asked to sing, so I wouldn’t recommend hiring a choreographer just yet ;)
Rich: What are your top five “go-to” karaoke songs?
Barcomb: Take On Me, Fat Lip, I’ll Make A Man Out Of You, You Oughta Know, Teenage Dirtbag
Rich: Who are you rooting for in the Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament?
Barcomb: Obviously Victoria Groce.
Rich: Thank you for these twenty questions. Good luck next season.
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