Sid Pink strolled into the bar clad in a three-piece gold polyester suit and shoes so white they looked like they were polished with Clorox.
It was one of the grander entrances the Pink Elephant had seen that week.
Anika Zappe, who manages the lounge at East Colfax Avenue and Madison Street, sized up the situation right away.
“You look awesome,” she said. “But my grandmom wants her drapes back.”
Pink grinned and hit the bar.
It was Thursday and 7 p.m. on the dot. Time for Freak Show Bingo — a.k.a. Trivingo — a weekly combo of bingo, trivia and banter that Pink was hosting with his buddy, the prankster Lorin Partridge.
About 15 people showed up for beverages and a good time.
Pink’s day job is video producer, and for several years, he put on live game shows in area clubs. He and Zappe concocted Trivingo night for kicks and as a way to raise money for sundry charities, which change monthly.
“Bingo and cocktails, what’s not to like?” Pink said. “And you get these swell prizes.”
He held up a pink magnifying glass and a plastic whirlygig straight from a dime-store toy aisle.
This is not your Aunt Edna’s bingo game. For starters, the Pink Elephant is the sort of irony-infused room where patrons wear sunglasses at night and Doris Day’s “Que Sera, Sera” drifts from the speakers.
Pink ran down Trivingo’s rules for the crowd.
“The word travels from us to you, much like the pope or the president or Pee-Wee Herman,” he said, just so the players knew where they stood.
The game works like ordinary bingo, save for the bonus trivia and some offbeat rules.
Among them: If a call or a question bugs you, you can yell “Outrage!” It won’t do any good, but you’ll feel better.
Pink’s instructions turned ominous. “If you announce a false bingo, you have to eat five of these,” he said, brandishing a package.
The crowd gasped. It was a bag of Circus Peanuts, the vilest candy ever invented.
Fair warning and game on.
“I-17.” “G-38.”
“B-8,” Pink said. “One of the lost vitamins of Atlantis.”
The B-8 proved a magic number, for a free round of pineapple rum shots arrived.
“G-51.” Scattered “yays.”
I’m unsure how it happened, but a discussion erupted on curmudgeonly actor Wilford Brimley’s views on cockfighting. Apparently, he’s for it.
Two minutes in, Pink asked who was close to bingo.
Player: “I am.”
Pink: “That’s an outrage!”
The crowd cracked up.
“There’s a whole lot of unnecessary mirth in here, considering it’s bingo,” Pink said. He pulled another letter ball from the bingo tumbler. “O-12.”
“No ‘N’s?” someone lamented. “That’s an outrage.”
“I like your sales pitch,” Pink said.
Finally, a winner. Carlo Ferri, fresh from his job at Sysco, won the whirlygig.
“Fabulous,” he said.
Back at the bar, amid vintage posters of pop culture icons from Elvis to Audrey Hepburn, Zappe assessed Freak Show Bingo.
“People really enjoy it, and we’re trying to grow this night into something bigger,” she said. “I hope we can.”
Up the street, there was a long line of potential Trivingo players entering the Bluebird Theater, whose marquee touted the evening’s spelling-challenged entertainment: “Hooters Bikini Pagent.”
Tarts outdrawing Trivingo?
Outrage!
William Porter’s column runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1977 or wporter@denverpost.com.
