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Thank you.

Hey, welcome to Gumbands.

I'm Rick Sebak.

We're at WQED.

This is a podcast.

This is the video version of the podcast.

The audio version is also available on our website at wqed.org slash gumbands.

Or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is going to be a talk with Jared Evans, a friend of mine.

We've known each other for probably a little more than five or six years.

And we're gonna talk about his business, Radical Trivia.

We're gonna talk about his martial arts teaching and training.

And we hope that you enjoy this, learning a little bit more about interesting Pittsburghers on a Pittsburgh centered podcast called Gumbands.

Let's first talk about, I, I think I met you at a wedding.

- I believe that's true.

Yes.

- And it was at the Children's Museum on the north side.

You were in the wedding and I was officiating.

But I think it was one of the first times I ever officiated a wedding.

- Well, - Maybe the first.

- You did a great job.

It was a great wedding.

- It was a great wedding.

- Shout out to Mark and Bree, by the way.

- Mark and Bree got married that day.

They had asked me, and I can't remember, but that's when I learned the whole rigamarole that in Pennsylvania you can officiate a wedding if the bride and groom get a, what is called, a Quaker license or a self marrying license.

- Hmm.

- I don't have to be ordained or, you know, online and ordained or anything like that.

Anyone can be the officiant in a wedding if it's based on Quaker tradition.

- Right.

You heard it here first.

(chuckle) - So since then, I've probably done 25 weddings.

But, you know, and it's always interesting and fun.

- Well, who wouldn't wanna have you doing their wedding?

- [Rick] Well, - I mean, that's just, right?

For the, for the listeners out there.

Wouldn't you wanna have, you know.

So now you know that Rick is out there doing weddings.

You're now you're gonna get a million more requests.

You know that.

- So, (light laughter) but I think after that, I think maybe the next time was I was on a podcast with you.

- [Jared] Yeah.

I believe that's, yeah, yeah.

- At your house.

- No, no.

So actually, if my memory serves correctly, I saw you at the podcast for, for Drinking Partners.

- Oh.

- And then, - Day Bracey and Ed Bailey.

- Yeah, yeah.

Cuz we had spoken and so we- At the wedding I had you, I had the brilliant idea of, I'd be like, Rick Sebak's standing right in front of me.

I should have him do my voicemail for my phone.

(light chuckle) - Oh.

- And so if you recall, you did a voicemail.

- Okay.

- And, and people over the moon love it.

Like they, they, they, I, I'm not- - It's not still there?

- I think I got a different phone.

- Yeah, I think so.

- I'm gonna have to have you do it again.

- No, no.

(laughter) - But they, they'd call me and then they'd, if I didn't pick up, they'd say, oh, I had to call back cuz I thought I got WQED.

(light laughter) - Wow.

Okay.

- So then, Then I, then we saw each other at the- Day Bracey's - In Allentown at the coffee shop up there?

- No, no, no, no.

It was, it was the one where you did the one with Fetterman and with, it was downtown.

- Oh, that was the hundredth, - Yeah.

- I think it was their hundredth episode of their, their podcast Drinking Partners.

- Yeah, yeah.

And we were talking outside.

And I was like, hey I do a podcast too, if you ever wanna come on.

It's like a book club kind of comic thing.

You were like, oh, that sounds like fun.

- Yes.

It was comic books.

- [Jared] Yes.

- That was at your house.

- [Jared] Yes.

- And it, it had a bunch of people.

- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Grown up human comic people.

Yeah.

- Grown up human comic people.

- It's like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

- I see.

- But.

- Oh, okay.

Grown up.

- Grown up human comic people.

(chuckles) - Does it exist still?

- No.

Unfortunately, we stopped doing it just cuz it was a lot of, a lot of work to get five people.

I mean, we just sat here and, you know, organized two people talking to each other.

Having five, you know, just organizing everyone's schedule, and all that kind of stuff, kind of became a little bit much.

So we stopped doing it, but it was a lot of fun.

I miss doing it.

- Are they still findable?

Can you find them online?

- I think so.

They should be on YouTube for sure.

Yes.

Check out the grown up human comic people if you wanna, you know, go and look out the old podcast.

We, yeah, we, we'd sit down, we'd read like several books and I, the one you were on, we, you know, I'd said, Hey Rick, here's the book.

And then you read it and we sit down and talk about it.

And it's like a book club.

- Cool.

So can you remember how long ago that was?

Is it five years ago?

- Probably something like that, it might have been more.

It might have been six.

I don't know.

Something like that.

Yeah.

- All right.

And then, I don't think at that time you were doing Radical Trivia.

- No, I was, I've been doing that for a long time.

- Really?

- Since probably about 2009 or 10.

- Oh, okay.

- It's been a very long time.

- So when I met you, you were, - Oh yeah.

- the host of Radical Trivia.

- Yeah.

- So you must like this.

- Oh it's a lot of fun.

Yeah.

I feel very lucky to be able to do this particular job.

Cause it's, I essentially just go out and yell at people on a microphone and, you know, I get to express myself and be creative and kind of do- It's, it's almost a little bit, little bit of crowd work.

You know, almost like a, it's not improv comedy, but it's along the same lines.

You know, you kind of take what the crowd's giving you and try to make people have a good time.

- Well, I, it's funny because I, in thinking about this and talking to you, I know that my Aunt Margie passed away, but she used to always say, you should be a game show host.

She, she thought that was something I would be good at.

- Mhm.

- And that's essentially what you are.

You're a game show host.

- Yeah, that's exactly, in fact, that's exactly the wording of the, how I got into doing this in the first place.

I was on Craigslist, of all places, Craigslist.

- [Rick] Okay.

- And I, I saw an ad.

I was just looking at, I was just doing stupid, whatever normal jobs at the time.

And it was, it said, do you wanna be a game show host?

And I said to myself, what could this possibly be?

And so I answered the ad and it was actually a national, like trivia company.

They have like a franchise.

And I started working for them and, you know, it was fun.

But I realized like, you know, I'm in there every week at whatever place it was, whatever the venue is.

And people are, you know, having a good time.

And more and more people are showing up every week.

And they're, after the show, they're like, yeah, that was great.

That was a great job.

We had so much fun.

And then the bar would, you know, slap a pile of money in my hand and then I'd turn around and take like, you know, maybe two thirds of that money and give it to somebody else.

And I'm like, All I need- - I could be doing my own business.

- Yeah, yeah.

So that's what happened.

- Huh.

That's interesting.

I don't, I didn't know.

So bars like trivia because it brings people in on slow nights, is that it?

- Correct.

That's, that's the whole thing.

- Interesting.

So do you remember the first bar that you did?

Well, I guess you, but you did the first for another company and then you began your own business.

- Yeah.

So I trained with, with people at several different locations, like different hosts to give me an idea of how they do their show.

And so I wanna say the first one might have been Southside Mario's with Arnell.

Shout out to Arnell, who helped me to learn how to, how to kind of- And also to Adam who hired me initially.

Adam and I are great friends.

But, so I started training.

I think, I wanna say it was Southside Mario's initially.

And I think they still do that one, actually.

- As a Radical Trivia?

- No, no, no, no.

This was a different company.

Yeah, this was the other company.

Yeah.

Radical trivia I started several years after.

Maybe like a year and a half or two years after I had been doing it for the other company.

- And by then some of these bars knew you and would say, hey.

And you said I'm gonna change the way this is set up?

- I wouldn't say they knew me, but I was doing like a, I was doing my show in a different, sort of a more extreme way than everybody else.

For like, within that company.

Cuz everyone else, they're kind of, they're out there at like a TJI Fridays.

And they're like, Hey everybody, this is a family friendly show and stuff.

And I'm at Southside bar, you know?

And so I'm like swearing and, you know, telling people they're stupid and all kind of stuff.

And, you know, just making it more, more, not necessarily specifically aimed at adults, but more casual and more fun.

You know, people can yell at me, I yell at them.

You know, that kind of stuff.

And so that I think is why it's, my company's been successful, is because it's not just like someone sitting at a, you know, a table like, and the next question is... That's not, you know.

- Well I always feel bad cuz I haven't, I think I've seen you perform like two or three times and it's really fun.

And certainly at the end, especially, you make the end really extravagant and wonderful and dramatic and all of that.

Do you then amass a large quantity of questions, that you use over and over again?

Or how do you, you know, how do you deal with that?

Where do the questions come from?

- So, I do amass them, and I try to, I'm always writing them.

So pretty much as I write them, one thing is I try to make them not necessarily like timely because that doesn't always, if I have to use them later, it's not gonna work anymore.

You know, so people, if it's like a, like a fact that, of something that just happened right now, in like three years no one's gonna remember anything about that.

It's like a stupid news article or something.

Like that's not- - So no current events.

- Usually not, unless it's something really big that happened like a, you know, some kind of Supreme Court thing or something like that, you know, where it's like, oh, if you don't know this, where have you been, kind of thing.

- Okay.

- But usually not like, you know, like celebrity stuff or whatever.

That's not really helpful.

I also try to stay away from, you know, sorry to all the kind of mainstream sports trivia people.

Like that's such a niche thing where you can't win if you ask, in my opinion.

It's hard to win when you ask sports questions cuz especially in this town, right?

So you got people who either know everything about sports and they're like, that's too easy.

Or you have people who are like, I don't know, I don't watch sports.

- [Rick] That's me.

- Same.

I mean, same.

Really.

Yeah.

I mean, I might do sports, but I don't really watch 'em.

So it's where do you, there's no middle ground there.

So that's, I, if I do sports, it's usually like, we're talking about Jai Alai today or you know, bungee jumping or something like that.

It's not gonna be like in 1967, this member of the whatever, like, I'm not doing that.

- So, but do you have like favorite topics or you, I mean, I think, you know, the night I saw you over at OTB you were doing like movie stuff a lot.

But it's funny, so- Yeah, let's talk first about topics.

- [Jared] Okay.

Okay.

- I think I saw a thing that you had posted recently that said like, French cooking, movies, and love songs or something like that.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So everyone is a, is a variety of questions.

- Absolutely.

And so some of my favorite ones to write are actually the ones where I have to be more creative.

So like, I'll do one that's not necessarily just a category, but it's like a, it's like a brain teaser category.

So one of the ones I do a lot is, I'll call it different things too, like wrong characters or movies by plot or something like that.

So for example, the clue would be describing a movie, but the characters in the clue are not the ones that are in the movie that we're talking about.

They're played by the actors in the movie that we're talking about.

So, for example, well off the top of my head, Lex Luthor kills Garfield.

So I'll just give it to you.

So it's, - Ha ha!

I'm glad you'll give it to me.

- So the answer in this case is Zombieland, Lex Luthor is Jesse Eisenberg, Garfield is Bill Murray.

- Oh.

- So those are a lot of fun to write.

Just to- - Yeah but that, that requires like IMDB in your mind.

- Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, and I'll do, you know, other categories.

Not movies, but like things like that where it's like, oh, this isn't just like the question, this is, you're gonna have to access other information that might or may or may not be in there.

And sometimes like a team has to assemble the answer together.

You know, it's having like four people might be more helpful than like one.

Cuz somebody else might be like, well Jesse Eisenberg is Lex Luther.

Right?

And then you might be like, oh, it's gar, it's, you know, so it's more of like a collaborative effort.

- That would, that would've totally lost me.

- Well that's why you don't play it by yourself.

- Oh, I see.

Yeah.

That is usually teams that you have.

And like everybody who comes to the bar is on a team already, or?

- Not necessarily.

In fact, that's another great little thing that happens.

One of the things that I love so much about the job is that that happens.

You know, people, they're like, I'm gonna get some friends and we'll come every week.

But this happens a lot when I first start a show, is that someone just happened to be there and they're like, just listening.

Maybe they're watching TV also and having a drink.

And they'll be like, oh, I know that.

And then they're talking to the person next to 'em and they're like, Hey, do you wanna play?

And like, they'll start to talk to each other.

And like, then eventually you have a team of four or five people who, they didn't know each other before this at all.

And now you have like a group of friends who just like met at trivia and they come every week and it's fun.

- Yes.

No, actually over there at OTB, when I saw you, I remember I knew one answer and I gave it to the people that were sitting right in front of me.

I said, Hey, I know that answer.

And so, that's fresh every week?

- Yeah, usually, I write a lot of questions.

I don't write like a whole game at once cuz there's like 26 questions in a game.

- [Rick] Oh, that's cool.

26 questions.

- Yeah.

I'll usually write like one category and I'll take a break and do something else or, you know.

- And then when, in a week you're at different bars.

- Mhm.

- And, I think, You're still online one night?

- Yep, Tuesdays.

Tuesdays.

- Tuesdays nights online.

- Yeah.

- And do you use the same questions at those bars that week?

- Oh no.

- Or is there overlap?

- No, no, no, no, no.

If I- - Everyone is different?

- Yeah.

I've written more than a thousand games.

So I can, you know, kind of, if I have, maybe I used this one recently, then I'll, you know, I won't use it again for a long time.

And I, I save them on my, my computers, so I know when each individual one was used.

So I can just look back and be like, oh, I used that one down the street like two weeks ago.

I'm not gonna use that one.

You know.

- But one that's two years old, can you use it again?

- Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll do some, I'll scan it over first to make sure that all the questions are still accurate.

- Okay.

- You know.

And every once in the blue moon I might use an old show and I get like halfway through and I'm, you know, there's, I'm multitasking.

So as I'm doing a million things, you've seen what I'm doing.

- Right, right.

- And so I'll get to, I'll read the next question and I'll be like, oh, I should have changed that one.

And I have to on the fly, you know, conjure something new or change a detail or whatever.

- So do you, I mean, and so, I know that when people ask me to talk, I will often say to them, can I just ask trivia questions?

Because I think it's better and it engages the audience in a way that me standing up there talking doesn't work.

- Sure.

- And I, you know, so I have also written questions and I think, you know, cause everybody has a phone.

What do you do about that?

You're not allowed to use your phone?

- Well, so at the beginning of the show, I immediately shame people.

(quiet laugh) So, so one of, so one of the things that I say at the beginning of the show is no cheating.

I shouldn't even have to say that.

First of all, why would that be fun for you?

Secondly, maybe if you're out with other people you should put your phone away and quit being a piece of garbage.

- Oh, okay.

(laughter) - And, and every time, as soon as I say so, and I, I use more colorful language than that, but every time I say that there's always somebody who's just like at the moment on their phone and they're just like, they just kind of look around and put it down.

(laughter) - No, but I found out that it was better to ask like, sequential questions.

Which of these is biggest?

You know, put them in order.

- Yeah.

- Or like, which of these happen first?

- Sure, sure.

- And you must end up with favorite questions.

- Sometimes.

I can't think of any off the top of my head.

But, the style of the questions, like you just said, that's, that is important.

Like a multiple choice is always great.

Or one of the ways I design questions is actually, it's sort of, I think of it as like a triangulation where if I have three facts that all point to each other and don't point to anything else, then that's a good question.

Right.

Because then I can say, for example, if I want, I could change the question, right?

So like, maybe I'll give you these two facts and they both point to the third one.

That's the answer.

I could then, if I wanted to change the question, I could just rotate the facts and then, you know, switch the positions of them and have sort of a different question.

But it's all three of the same information, you know?

And it also kind of makes it so that someone can't be like, well it could also be this.

Cuz people, as I'm sure you can imagine, all the time, they're like, actually.

I'm not, yeah.

We're not arguing about this free trivia that we're- - What about the age of your audience?

It must, it has to have, be a factor.

- Absolutely.

- And like, how do you judge that?

Or you know it in advance because I'm going to this bar and these people are gonna be younger.

Then if I go to this bar in Carnegie, it's gonna be older crowd or?

- Right, right, right.

Yeah.

And sometimes that's a matter of what happens when I get there.

I don't even necessarily know what the crowd is gonna be even at a bar that I go to all the time.

Cause sometimes it'll be an older crowd.

Sometimes it'll be a younger crowd.

So you never know.

I try to write the question so that they're like, you know.

- Because by your age, you know different songs and - you know different movies, - Absolutely.

- and you know, all of that.

And it, because, and that's the thing that I find with some of this stuff, I think like, I don't know anything about this and I never even saw that movie.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So some, So, I think part of part of it is like thinking about the enjoyment of the crowd rather than necessarily them getting all the questions right or wrong.

You know, cause that's really the goal is to have people have fun.

And so even if the question might, say it's an older crowd, and like, there's a question that I don't think any of them are gonna know, I might just joke about it and be like, I'm not sure if anybody's gonna get this.

And if you do, I'm gonna be very impressed.

You know?

So like, even if they don't, none of 'em, nobody gets it.

I, I warned them and said like, you're not gonna get this one.

You know.

So they're still having a good time and they're still like, well he told, he said we weren't gonna get it, that he was right.

You know.

- And so at the, at the end of the evening, I remember your sort of like, you know, tribute at the end where you do, I think the night I saw you, you were quoting Braveheart.

(dramatic music) - At least a while and dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade every day from this day to that for one chance?

Just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our drinks, but they may never take our trivia!

(cheering) - Is it always Braveheart?

Or are there other things, or?

- There are others, yeah.

There, I have several of them.

But I try to take, you know, speeches or things from movies and stuff that people know and then just alter them to apply to trivia.

- [Rick] Trivia.

- Yeah.

So you got Braveheart, you got Lord of the Rings, Independence Day, Conan, things like that.

- Okay.

And like what, what do the people win?

What, you know, what does the team win?

Just the bragging rights?

- Well, it depends on what the venue is.

You know, each venue kinda gives out their own prizes.

- [Rick] Oh, okay.

- So I usually recommend for the venue to give out gift certificates for the venue.

Cuz then, you know, people, they come back and they, they're gonna come back next week anyway.

Right?

And so, and you can actually, most places will make it so you can't use it that night.

You have to use it at least the next day.

So it's like, you got this prize, you gotta come back.

- [Rick] Okay.

- And people don't mind cuz they're, you know, they had fun.

They're gonna come back next week anyway.

So they might as well get two or three free drinks or a appetizer or something.

- Excellent.

I don't know that I was even aware of that.

And you have people write things down and then turn them in?

- [Jared] Yes.

- After each, - [Jared] Every question.

- Every question?

- [Jared] Yeah.

- Okay.

And then, so you keep a tally on your computer as you go along.

- [Jared] Yep.

- And there's also an element of music.

- Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So between each question to kind of like, fill in the, the dead air we play, I play a song every, every time.

And that's a lot of fun too.

You know, like, I, to keep myself interested.

Cause I've done this a lot of times.

And I, unless there's a lot of people playing, if there's only say four or five teams, and I'm just like kind of standing there, you know, waiting for people to answer.

- [Rick] But you have to give them time to think about it, too.

- Right, yeah.

So I usually give 'em two, two and a half minutes, something like that.

And then I'll play a song during that time.

And it, and again, it's fun for me cause I get to be creative of what songs I play.

And I can make the song either have to do with the question or maybe it's a hint.

Or, I mean, it's sometimes absolutely a trick.

And that's my favorite thing to do.

And once, so, and then the game becomes like a meta game.

So when people first sit down, they don't, they may not realize who I am and why, what I'm doing.

But they're not just playing a game.

Like, I'm also messing with them.

So I'm sort of like a, I think that I've been described as like a super villain, where it's like, they're trying, they're not just trying to win against the other teams.

Like they're trying to beat me in the mind games that I'm playing with them.

So I might play this song to intentionally mislead people down this path.

And then I get everybody, almost everybody, with maybe except for one or two teams.

And then I just laugh at them.

(laughter) And then they go, oh, we hate you.

And it's kind of extra.

- And so that super villain thing, you've got your glasses here.

When you do promos on Facebook and Instagram, or I don't know where else you are, are you on TikTok?

- No, TikTok is evil.

I'm not, I'm not gonna jump down that, that rabbit hole.

That's not, get off TikTok everybody.

It's making you dumber.

But actually, so the reason why I wear these is actually because when I'm doing stuff at home and I have to have light lighting like this, like I don't have nice soft lights like this.

So a lot of the lights are like, you know, really bright.

Especially at trivia online.

So like this actually, cuz for trivia online I have to look at like several computers while also having these lights.

So it's much easier for me to see the screens with, and they, it deflect the light from the, the lighting I have to use at home.

So I'm not just being a jerk by, you know, trying to wear some stylish glasses.

- Yeah but it gives you like a robotic look almost.

- Oh yeah.

People love the glasses.

Yeah.

- And where'd you get them?

- So this is not my original pair.

My original pair, I was at, shout out to Dan, I was at, in California with my buddy Dan, and we were on Venice Beach, and we were just, while walking saw a stand with glasses.

And they had a bunch of cool ones and they had, they had a pair of these.

And so I just, I was like, I gotta.

They were like 10 bucks.

Yeah.

- And so the, I mean I love the little promos that you do online.

Are they principally on Facebook, or Facebook and Instagram?

Both?

- I usually upload it to Instagram and then it, it shares it over to Facebook.

- Okay.

And a lot of them are black and white.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- And some are color.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Just different filters.

- Just a, a whim - Yeah.

- Yeah.

Just whatever I feel like that day.

You know, depending on what the background is, what I look like.

- And, and that's mostly just to say, Hey, I'm gonna be here tonight.

- Yeah.

- And, you know, come by.

You always mentioned the fries at OTB.

- Yeah.

Oh yeah.

They've got some good fries there.

- And so like the other places, like Ruggers.

Are there things that you promote there, what do you get at Ruggers?

- Oh, so one of my favorite things to say for Ruggers is, cuz shout out to everybody at Ruggers, so they have a, it's a secret menu item.

It's not really a secret, but I mean it's, it's just sort of like a staff design item.

It's not on the menu.

I won't, you know, I'm not even gonna tell you what it is.

You're gonna have to go there and ask for it.

- [Rick] All right.

- Go there and ask for it.

- [Rick] Ask for the secret recipe.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- [Rick] The secret menu item.

- Yeah.

And they might pretend like they don't know what you're talking about, but they know.

(laughter) - Okay.

So those are two that I know, OTB and Ruggers, and I'm not sure what it is.

Ruggers is on the south side?

- Yes.

They're both, both those are on the south side.

And then I personally do Carnegie, it's called Elly's out in Carnegie.

It's on Mondays at 10.

And then we have a lot of, I have people who also host in for me, too.

So we have a bunch of locations around the city.

Radicaltrivia.com has all the schedule.

- Right.

You have employees who do what you do.

- Yes.

- Do they write their own questions?

- Sometimes.

I mean, I supply them with the question and then if, like, they can call the same audibles as me.

So if they, you know, I send 'em the questions and then they sit down at home and they're like, oh, I don't know if this will work for this crowd, then they can change them.

I'm not a micromanager.

I don't, I don't think that's helpful in most scenarios.

So as long as everyone's happy and the job is getting done.

- And, and, and those people do they play music as well?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- In the same way.

So you're, you're kind of a DJ and a game show host.

- Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

For sure.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Well then also, I wanted to talk a little bit about your martial arts, because that's obviously very important to you.

- Absolutely.

- And how did that start?

I mean.

- So I've been in martial arts like, sort of my whole life.

Not, not deep though.

I would kind of casually take like a, when I was a kid, like some karate classes, some other, like, various things I was interested in.

But then I, so my friend Dan, I mentioned earlier, you know Dan?

- Yeah.

Dan Dongilli.

- Yeah.

- [Rick] Okay.

- So he and I were, we, we met doing actually what's called Budo Taijutsu or it's, for the, the organization's called the Bujinkan.

It's like, basically it's Ninjutsu.

It's like people trying to be ninjas.

- Sort of.

- Okay.

I'm not surprised.

- Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not either.

But, so we've started to, we did that for a little while.

And that's more of a traditional martial art where you're learning kind of, I jokingly, some call this sort of thing like LARPing.

Like a live action role playing.

- [Rick] Okay.

- Where, you know, someone will, they'll, they'll do like a theoretical motion.

They're like, if someone punches you like this, then you do like this sequence of things.

But there's very little like live resistance - [Rick] Okay.

- training.

So years went by, we stopped doing that.

And then we were at some, I think it might have been at his parents' house.

We were like on a trampoline.

And like some of our friends were like just wrestling around on a trampoline.

And he was just like smoking all of us.

Like, just like, I felt like a child.

Like I couldn't do anything.

And I'm like, what?

He had been doing jujitsu, and he had only been doing it for maybe a few months.

And so I was like, well I can't, I need to learn whatever it is that he's doing to me.

Cuz I can't have other adults being able to handle me like this.

You know, I won't have that.

So I started training jujitsu.

And yeah, if you wanna learn how to handle other adults in a physical way, that's the way to do it.

- The things that I've watched that you post, it seems to start sort of mildly.

- Mhm.

- And gets more intense.

- Yeah.

So you can, you can grapple in any number of different kind of ways, like styles.

So for me, jujitsu means efficiency.

And I think that everyone can understand, with enough practice, how it works because it's all a physics equation.

It's not, in fact, if you're using like muscular strength, that's not what you want.

That's really not what you want at all.

What you want is you wanna know all the different places you can kind of either attack or stop somebody before they get started.

So that it, to them it feels like everything they do is the wrong thing.

It's very interesting.

It's, to someone who doesn't know what they're doing against someone who really knows what they're doing, it feels like you're drowning.

Like, they're like, there's not no good move that you can make that's not putting you in a worse position than you just were in.

- Well, and you teach this too?

- Yes.

Yes.

- To younger kids?

To adults?

- I teach adults.

I haven't taught any, the youngest person I taught was my neighbor who he, he started when he was 16.

So, I mean, that's the youngest person I've, shout out to Jeff, but that's the youngest person I've, I've taught.

Usually adults.

- Okay.

Yeah.

I think one time we were having lunch at Oak Hill Post in Brookline.

- [Jared] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- And the guy came by and he knew you from Martial arts.

- Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Always jujitsu?

- Usually, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Cause that's what I've been doing that for several years now.

- Okay.

And, and so that's a specific one.

And sometimes you do these with a coach, coach Mike?

- Mike!

Oh my, yeah.

Shout out to the general Mike Wilkins.

So Mike and I actually went to, to high school together.

And well we, we've actually known each other since like, like coach pitch baseball.

- [Rick] Okay.

- But yeah, so we've been friends for a long time and we were never like in the same kind of close friends group, but like, we were like in kind of side by side friend group, friend groups in the same neighborhood.

So when I first went down to Stout, I'm looking around, I'm like, I, who?

Is that?

And then he comes over, he's like, dude!

I'm like, oh man!

And so that was cool because he was already, I think a brown belt at the time and he got his black belt soon afterwards.

So it, I was very fortunate to know somebody who was kind of farther ahead and was willing to like, personally train me.

- Oh, see, so he actually is your coach?

- Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

Like he and I get together.

We try, we've been getting together once a week, if we can, for years now.

So shout out to Mike.

He's been giving me a lot of jujitsu.

- Excellent.

So, and now, and this fascinates me just because I'm sort of interested in like how this got started, but you've also developed a clothing line (short laugh) that sort of capitalizes on both the trivia and the martial arts.

- Yes.

So during the pandemic, I actually started doing that because I mean, I couldn't really go out and do as many trivia shows.

So I actually, I started doing two on Zoom every week, like Tuesday and Thursday, and I still do the Tuesday one.

But yeah, I found one of the websites where you can upload designs.

- [Rick] Okay.

- And just, they'll put 'em on clothing and print 'em out and, you know, you've got all kinds of cool stuff.

- Yeah.

And like they're, they're totally one of a kind.

- Mhm.

- I mean, no one else has a Jerry's shirt do they?

- Not that I'm aware of, unless they stole one from me.

- And this symbol, is this your design?

Or, I think it has something to do with support martial arts or something like that.

- So this design is, it's a funny story.

This is a, it's an interesting story.

So first of all, shout out to Alexa Miller who designed the font, but the logo itself, so this is the Yinzu Force logo.

I'll give you the breakdown.

Okay.

So this is sort of an- - You're gonna tell me what Yinzu Force is?

- Right.

I'll tell you sort of in a roundabout way.

So, - Is this yinz from Pittsburgh?

Yinzu Force?

- Yes.

Oh, of course.

- Okay.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

So the team of the gym is, is Renzo Gracie, it's R E N Z O, Renzo.

In Portuguese, Rs are Hs.

So Renzo Gracie is the team.

The logo, if you know what the Renzo Gracie logo looks like, it's, it looks like the Thundercats logo, if you remember what Thundercats is.

It's like a anime from Japan from the eighties or seventies.

And so it looks like the Thundercats logo.

And so I was like, okay, if I'm gonna make my own logo, I'll take another anime logo.

And so this isn't exactly the logo, cuz the, it's not exactly the Thundercats logo.

This is a very close to something from Dragon Ball Z, which if you know Dragon Ball Z, there's a, there's a group called the Ginyu Force.

And so this, their logo, it's more of a, an equilateral triangle with the circle surrounding it.

So I took the triangle and made it, elongated it and shrunk the, made it into an oval behind it.

And it's called Yinzu Force, cuz we're in Pittsburgh.

So yin, yinz gotta come down here and train.

So that's where the logo came from.

- Okay.

And so, and then you offered those things on your website.

- [Jared] Mhm.

- Yeah.

And I think Radical Trivia website has all, an access to, I'm not sure if I'm gonna remember what you call your, your store.

- Oh, it's the radical store.

- Oh, the Radical Store.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

In fact, in fact we, I've printed out several custom things for the two of us, so.

- Yeah, yeah, I know.

And I didn't realize that's actually your exclusive font.

Because I recognize it now.

I was like, oh, that's one of the Jared's things.

- [Jared] Yeah.

- And no, I have one that says always get the special, which I always say is the best advice my father ever gave me.

- And that's the best advice I've ever gotten about food from anybody else.

This guy right here.

Always get the special.

- Always get the special.

(laughter) And my dad said, you know, cuz he was a traveling salesman.

I mean, he traveled around and he sold, well, pipes, valves, and fittings.

So it was industrial kind of stuff.

But he said, you know, lunchtime, you go into a little restaurant, you gotta go get the special.

- [Jared] Mhm.

- Everybody has a special, but it's probably the freshest, best thing they got.

- [Jared] Yep.

- And so, you know, and, where does this all go?

I mean, like, you know, do you wanna be on TV?

Or I, like, I'm trying to decide like, you know, what's Jared's dream to, I mean, do these things stay separate and, or do they combine?

Or, you know, do, do you have any idea about all that?

Like, - So, - It's like I'm, you know, interviewing you for a job and you say, where do you see yourself in five years?

- So my my philosophy is more like this, right?

So I watched, I watched two movies when I was a teenager that really, really hit me in a, in a special way.

- [Rick] All right.

- One was office space and the other one was The Big Lebowski.

- [Rick] Okay.

- So Office Space for the reasons that, so, my dad Ken worked at Mellon Bank downtown for years and years and years.

And it was just like wearing on him.

He hated the job.

It's stressful.

He'd dread to go to work every day.

You know, just like, it affected his health actually.

And so, like, I saw that movie and like, he, I also, I was like, you gotta watch this movie.

And so he watched, he's like this is my favorite movie ever.

Because it's, he was actually doing that exact job of like, trying to turn over the new millennium computers.

Like the job that they're doing in the movie is actually sort of what he was doing.

- Okay.

- So that really struck home.

But what Peter and the main character in the movie says is, I don't, have you seen the Office Space?

Okay, so long story short, he gets hypnotized, so he doesn't care about anything.

And he starts going to work.

And right before he was real stressed out and he, he didn't, same thing, didn't wanna go to work.

But he gets hypnotized and then he's just like, kind of like super chill.

And he's, it's impossible to un-hypnotize him cuz the hypnotist had a heart attack or something.

So he's like, just kind of coasting through life, just like, you know, cruising.

And everything actually ends up working out a lot better for him because he's just relaxed.

And so he ends up, he gets like a promotion even though he hasn't even been showing up at work because he's just a cooler guy to talk to.

Right?

Like the guys who are doing the promotion, or doing the evaluations.

He just sits down and like talks to 'em for a while.

They're like, man, we really like that guy.

He has nothing to do with his actual work, which is a great life lesson.

- Right.

Right.

- All the, cause all he had to do was get these two guys to like him.

And they were like, Hey, all right Peter, have a great day.

You know, let's have, you know, we'll see you next time.

- You know, you often hear that.

You hire people that you like.

- Yeah.

Of course.

And, and so that lesson, and then the Big Lebowski.

I mean, the dude.

Right?

How do you, you can't be cooler than the dude.

Right?

And, and the, the whole reason why the Big Lebowski, the whole impetus for his, the, the movie and him going through a bunch of wild stuff is that all he had to do was just like, wash the rug.

You know, like they got the rug peed on, you know, and then, and because he listened to some bad advice from his friend Walter saying like, they peed on your rug, man, that's not right.

This can't stand.

The dude, without Walter's intervention, the dude would've been like, well, I guess I'll get a new rug.

And nothing would've happened.

Right?

And he would've cruised along just fine.

But whenever you like, let other people just like, you know, chirp in your ear sometimes, you end up in some kind of wild adventure that you wouldn't have had anything to do with otherwise.

So like, those two lessons kind of like really hit me.

And so I think they developed a philosophy for me where it's like, I just kinda wanna take it easy.

And I feel like that, like being relaxed actually allows you to be yourself more.

And if you're just trying to have fun, to answer your question, there is no goal.

I just do these things cause I like them.

And when you like to do things, I think actually, you're a great example.

Being enthusiastic about things and liking things that'll get you everywhere in the world.

You know, like just being interested and listening and, and relaxed and, you know, friendly and stuff.

Like that's the, that's the way to be in my opinion.

And so, yeah, there's no, I'm not trying to be famous or anything like that.

It's like, no, I like doing martial arts, I like teaching people and I like to go out and yell at people on a microphone and be creative, write questions.

It's fun, you know?

And if it, I think because it's fun, I enjoy it and I keep doing it and I, and I end up wanting to work harder at it because it's fun.

And then I do better at it because I'm working harder.

And then it all kind of like, works itself out.

- Well.

I, I'm totally happy and, and as always, I learn things when I talk with Jared.

And what I wanna say is, thank you for, for, for doing the Gumbands with me.

- [Jared] Of course.

- I have a couple questions I always ask.

In all these things that you do, both martial arts and the trivia, do you use a rubber band?

- Do I use rubber bands?

I do, I do use rubber bands.

I use them to, so the little cards that, that people turn the answers in, when I cut them up I use the rubber bands to, I use gum bands to hold 'em together.

(light laughter) So yeah, that's probably my, that's probably my most frequent use of, of gum bands.

- I'm sorry, people turn in their answers and then you put the- - No, no, once I cut them, like before I distribute them, like, you know, so I'll give you each person like a stack of little answer slips.

But in, in the little box I have in my bag, I just like, I have them- - [Rick] With rubber bands.

- With rubber bands, yeah.

- [Rick] And you hand those out to the people so they have something to write on.

- Yes.

- And do you remember, like as a kid, learning about gum bands and Pittsburghese and all of that?

I mean.

- Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

I mean, I, in fact, I wanna say in like seventh grade we had, maybe it was eighth, I dunno, some junior or high school experience, we, like, someone brought in like a book or the teacher did like a whole class about all the yinz or words.

And, you know, we had printouts of like, the definitions for those words, like redd up, which is, I feel like that's one that I actually just, I heard it in the wild the other day.

Someone actually said it, not joking.

They said, I had to, yeah, I had to redd up my house.

- This room needs redd up.

- Yeah, yeah.

And, and I was like, oh, I'm sorry.

Wait, who are you?

Where are you from?

(laughter) - No, I, I know my mom said that.

- Yeah.

- You know.

And actually, I always say that the one Pittsburgh-ism that I sort of like and wasn't aware of, I mean, I grew up in Bethel Park, I lived in the Carolinas for 16 years, then I come back here and I was writing something here at WQED, and my boss at that point, Nancy Lavin, looked at this thing I'd written, she goes, look, oh, this Pittsburgh-ism here.

And I said, what do you mean?

She goes, you dropped the verb to be out, you know?

- Oh, yep, yep, yep.

- This needs done.

- Yep.

- And I, you know, I wasn't at all aware that we did that.

But Pittsburgh's, Pittsburghers like to drop 'to be'.

- Oh.

I have this exact same story.

And in fact it might have been in that, in that class I just mentioned where they were like, oh yeah, and also we never say 'to be'.

And I like, it's one like those moments where you're like.

- [Rick] It's so much more efficient to not say it.

- It's easier not to say it, or you don't, it's not necessary.

(light chuckle) - Or you have to put the -ing on the end of the word, it needs doing.

- Oh, oh, yeah.

Or, or if it's, if it's a store, it's a, it's the possessive version of the store, with apostrophe s. Aldi's, Giant Eagle's, going down Costco's.

- Okay.

Yep, yep, yep.

And the other questions, things that I like to ask people, why do you live in Pittsburgh?

- Why do I live in Pittsburgh?

Well, I'm probably biased since I'm from here, but also I've, I've visited, I like to travel, you know, I've been to a lot of places and this place always, it's just really great to come back to Pittsburgh for so many reasons.

Like, it's not that expensive compared to other similar, similarly sized cities, I think.

It's really the, I really love the people here.

I was just reading something in the, and they described us as, it was like aggressively friendly.

(light laughter) - Oh, interesting.

Okay.

- It, like with a bit of northeast and Midwest, like combined because like, you know, northeast people are, I've heard them called like they're, they're mean, but in a, they're, they're nice, but in a mean way.

And then people in the Midwest are nice in a mean way.

- Oh.

Okay.

- But we're the, we're both.

Like, we're, - We're somewhere in the middle of that.

- We're somewhere in the middle of that.

Yeah, yeah.

Because like someone, say you're in, you know, northeast somewhere, like someone, if you, your car breaks down someone, they'll definitely stop to help you fix it, but they'll call you an idiot for, you know, or like point out a bunch of stuff that you did wrong.

But then, you know, or even southern, like Southern, they'll be like, oh, bless your heart, they're not gonna help you.

They're gonna be real nice about not helping you.

But we're nice and aggressive and we'll also help you.

- Okay.

That's that weird texture of Pittsburgh.

And, and the whole, you know, we don't consider ourselves Midwestern, but we think Cleveland is Midwest.

- [Jared] Absolutely.

- And it's like 10 miles west of us, you know.

North, it's north and west.

But, I think we identify more as Eastern.

- We have hills too.

I think that's a big, that's a big, to me, differentiating aspect of that.

You know, like when I think Midwest, I think flat.

- Right.

Okay.

No, and actually I, I think topography probably has more of an influence on us than we think.

And, you know, yeah.

When you get in the Midwest, you think like, you know, how do they remember where to turn?

- So that's, I, that's my complaint every single time is whenever I go somewhere east of here where it's flat, someone will say like, okay, you're gonna go north for this many miles.

And I'm like, ah, I don't know.

Do I look like a compass?

How do you, how do I know which?

Like, it's not nighttime.

I don't know where, I can't see the sun right now.

How do you, yeah.

That doesn't, tell me where to turn.

Tell me, in fact, even better, tell me what that building used to be as you tell me.

- Yes.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Turn at the old Isalys.

- Exactly.

Yeah.

- And my, my third question, and I always preface it by saying that, you know, it's based on the fact that I know that my great-grandmother in the late 19th century, her sister had saved the money to come to America.

And my great-grandmother stole her sister's money and came.

(light chuckle) Okay.

And like, I think we all have these unexpected family stories, ancestral stories.

- Yeah.

- Do you know anything like that in your family?

Like a story that it's not so, it's not terrible, but something that might surprise us about your family and their history?

I probably should have prepped you a little bit.

- No, I think you did mention this one.

I, I did, I forgot about this question.

No, so maybe not like that I didn't know, but like, some interesting things maybe.

So my dad actually trained with Muhammad Ali as a boxer.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- And would that have been here in Pittsburgh?

No.

- I think he went, he went from here when he was in Deer Lakes, I wanna say.

He was training in Deer Lakes.

And so he went up and trained with him.

There's a picture on the internet you can find.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Of your dad and Muhammad Ali training.

- Yeah, If you look up Bazemore, B A Z E M O R E, Muhammad Ali, it'll, there's a picture of them standing there looking at each other like that.

It's pretty cool.

- All right.

Very cool.

Yeah.

Unexpected.

And I, I just think every family and certainly, you know, in Pittsburgh here, there's this weird texture.

- Oh yeah.

- And so, all right.

Well, very good.

I'm totally happy and I thank you for all of this and- - Well, I brought you some things, too.

- I know you have things in the bag too, and I, I think we'll look at those as we wrap up.

- Okay.

Yeah.

- All right.

- Yeah.

So I, I brought, let's see here, this, this should be the right, no, that's not, not that one.

- Oh don't tell me you brought me a present.

- Well, you know, I mean, we always bring each other.

- This Gumband's podcast is made possible by the Buhl Foundation, serving Southwestern Pennsylvania since 1927.

And by listeners like you.

Thank you.