In honor of our newly released CMEpalooza Fall 2022 agenda (Wednesday, October 19!), I put together a little trivia game for everyone because, well, mostly because I was sitting around waiting for an email and needed something to do. Mind you, this is not trivia about the actual CMEpalooza agenda. No offense to our wonderful panel of speakers (we love you all!), but that would be pretty boring. No, this is is trivia focused on 80s (and a smattering of 70s and 90s) pop culture, because that is what we do here at CMEpalooza. We might not be good at a lot of things, but we are good at 80s trivia.

This is how it works: There are eight trivia questions, and the answer for each question relates in some way to one of the agenda sessions. For each question, you get 1 point for the correct answer and 1 point for naming the correct CMEpalooza session, for a total of 2 points for each question. Two of the trivia questions have two-part answers, so you get 1 point for each answer, plus 1 point for the CMEpalooza session, for a total of 3 points. There are a total of 18 possible points. (Note from Scott: “There was one for Mr. Body in the study, 2 for the chandelier, 2 at the lounge door, and 1 for the singing telegram. 1+2+2+1” – name the 80s movie for a bonus point. Math rules!)

This is all for fun, so there are no prizes and you can track your own answers. I’ll give you two days to think about it and then reveal the answers on Friday. Good luck!

NOTE: I just realized none of these are actually worded as questions. Whatever. You all know what we’re doing here. This ain’t rocket science.

Question 1
This article of clothing, made from PVC plastic and featuring numerous colors, was one of the biggest fashion hits of the 80s.

Question 2
This 1989 movie predicted that in 2015, the President would be a woman, cars would fly, and the Cubs would win the World Series. All were wrong.

Question 3
The 80s were weird. People would pay $2 a minute to dial these four digits (followed by a standard seven digit phone number) to listen to pre-recorded messages from Hulk Hogan, Paula Abdul, He-Man, and others (not to mention the various party lines and psychic options that were available.)

Question 4
This popular 90s sitcom included a character named Wilson Wilson (yes, that’s his name) and his catchphrase “Hi-di-ho, neighbor!”

Question 5
The star of 1980s hit show The Fall Guy also starred as astronaut Steve Austin in this even more popular show from the 70s. One point for naming the actor and one point for naming the show.

Question 6
This person dominated tennis during the 70s and 80s, winning 18 major singles titles, 31 major doubles titles, and 10 major mixed doubles titles, for a combined total of 59 major titles, the most in the Open Era.

Question 7
This song from 1985 was written for a movie of the same name, by the same person (Danny Elfman) who wrote the theme song for The Simpsons. One point for naming the song and one point for naming the band who sings it.

Question 8
In 1984, a Mister Softee ice cream truck driver memorized the board patterns of this game show and won more than $100,000, record winnings at the time.

Last week I went with the fam to see Top Gun: Maverick at my local cineplex. I admit to a bit of initial skepticism over all the rave reviews its been receiving, but wow — that was a fun night at the movies!

There were old faces, new faces, old faces made to look new, and new faces made to look old. My daughter swooned over Miles Teller; my wife swooned over Tom Cruise; and I swooned over Tom Cruise’s ability to still run like the wind (How does he do it? The man is 60! Don’t you dare suggest it was a stunt double. Tom Cruise will be 90 and still run like he’s being chased by the devil.) It was a familiar formula with just enough twists and turns to make it feel new and fun.

Now, you may be asking yourself how I am going to transition from Top Gun to announcing the agenda for CMEpalooza Fall on October 19. Am I going to compare the rugged handsomeness of Mr. Cruise to the rugged handsomeness of the two co-producers of CMEpalooza? Hahahahahahahahahahaha…no. But I will tell you that the CMEpalooza Fall agenda has some old faces, some new faces, and a familiar formula with just enough twists and turns to make it feel new and fun. There may even be some running/walking involved, but we will save details on that for later.

There will be many more details and updates to come in the following weeks. For now, take a look at the agenda and mark down the date of CMEpalooza Fall in your calendar (it’s Wednesday, October 19). One of the new twists that I hope to add is that we require all faculty to pick a call sign (like Maverick, or Goose, or Viper) and use that instead of their names during the sessions. I haven’t told Scott about this yet, but I’m sure he’ll love it (mine is going to either be “Zeus” or “Hoss”. It’s hard to narrow down to one.)

I recently returned home from our family’s much-delayed summer vacation abroad (you can guess the reason). For the last 5 years or so, we’ve become big proponents of AirBNB Experiences when we travel to new places, not only as a way of acclimating ourselves to each city, but also to get unique perspectives on the lives of those who reside there. You can book some really interesting activities – over the last few years, we’ve done some hands-on to learn how to make Montreal-style bagels, create our own scented soaps, and become a beekeeper for a few hours.

But the majority of the “experiences” that we book involve walking tours of some variety. Fortunately, I have a very curious and outgoing 11-year-old who likes chatting with tour guides so he’s always happy to come along (the wife likes them, too). On our most recent trip to Amsterdam, we went on five different walking tours over the course of a week. They all had a unique theme – one was a food tour, one took us out to a town with several windmills and a wooden clog factory, one was a canal cruise, one introduced us to the more “adult” side of Amsterdam (the boy was excluded from that one), and one was a more general historic overview of a nearby city.

As some of you may be aware, I also serve as an occasional volunteer tour guide in the historic area of Philadelphia during the summer, so I have some experience on both sides of the “walking tour” experience, which perhaps give me a bit more of an expert perspective on the issue. Maybe. Let’s just pretend either way, shall we?

A few days ago, I began thinking a bit more about all of the walking tours that we’ve been on through the years, and especially some of the qualities that separate a good tour guide from a bad one. I quickly realized that there are a lot of parallels between a good tour guide and a good CME faculty member. After all, both roles focus on education and engaging an audience. So here are some of my takeaways on what it takes to succeed in either role.

1. Be prepared. Know your subject. You don’t have to be the be-all, end-all expert, but you need to do your research. It might even be a good idea to practice your delivery.
2. Be a storyteller. No one is interested in a litany of names and dates alone (or detailed clinical trial data). Give your information some context and explain why it’s important/interesting.
3. Have some personality. Don’t be a drone. If you look like you are checked out, guess who else won’t care?
4. Be passionate about your topic. I had a mother come up to me after one of my recent tours and ask if I was a history teacher. When I told her that I wasn’t, she said, “You should be. You really seem interested in what you are talking about.” Alas, not making a career change.
5. Tailor your talk to your group. This is much easier when you are dealing with a small gathering of 5-10 people and you can get to know the people a little bit, but anyone can take the pulse of even a larger room to get a sense of who is listening to you. That’s what our demographic ARS questions are for, right?
6. Find the people who are most interested and focus on them. If you are in a room or leading a tour with a group of 20 people, not everyone likely wants to be there. That’s OK. Identify the people who seem most engaged and keep them in your corner. Often, they’ll be the ones to bring in those folks who showed up because someone else dragged them along.
7. Invite curiosity. Maybe you get questions that you think are stupid or of little interest to you. So what? Once you shut a person down, they are going to tune you out. This happened on our last tour during our vacation. You could tell the tour guide just wanted to get things over, and walked far ahead of the group between landmarks. When anyone asked him a question, his responses were clipped and a bit off-putting.
8. Laugh. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at your surroundings. And get other people to laugh. Remember, you are there both to educate and to entertain.