Elastica – "Connection" (1994)

I don’t understand how the last card is played

But somehow the vital connection is made

2 or 3 lines has been getting a lot of reader e-mails asking about how my trivia team has been doing lately.

I don’t believe in humblebragging – simple old-fashioned bragging is more my style.  So I’ll respond to those reader e-mails by saying my trivia team has been killing it recently! 

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In a typical week, over a thousand teams show up for the Pourhouse Trivia competitions in the Washington, DC area.  Of those thousand-plus teams, about 200 – including my Einsteins – qualified for the playoffs.

Some 52 of those teams qualified for the Pourhouse playoff finals, and you’d best believe the Einsteins were among them.  We know that we have no real chance at winning the Pourhouse championship because many of the teams in that competition are made up of trivia obsessives who spend most of their waking hours in front of a computer studying lists of trivia factoids or playing in online trivia contests.  By contrast, the members of the Einsteins actually have lives.  (At least, most of them do.)  

So 0ur goal is to finish in the top ten – which would mean we were in the top 1% of all Pourhouse teams.  We fell a bit short this year, but 18th place is nothing to sneeze at.  We may not have made the top 1%, but we ranked in the top 2% – which isn’t too shabby.

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The final category in this year’s trivia finals was “Celebrity Beefs.”  

I’m an expert in beefs involving rappers – go ahead, ask me about the Drake-Kendrick Lamar beef, or the rivalry between Jay-Z and Nas, or the “Bridge Wars,” and I’ll quote you chapter and verse – so I was hoping the final question would be something along the lines of “Name the East Coast-West Coast rappers whose beef culminated in both being shot to death?” (the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur) or “What female rapper threw her shoe at a rival at a 2018 New York Fashion Week party, and who was her target?” (Cardi B and Nicki Minaj).   

But the final question wasn’t about rappers:

Going viral in 2019, name either of the two social media influencers whose beef culminated in one posting the YouTube video “Bye, Sister.” 

I was clueless.  But fortunately for the Einsteins, one of our team’s members is a young woman who spends an inordinate amount of time viewing beauty-related videos on Tik-Tok, Instagram, and YouTube.  So she knew that “Bye, Sister” was a 43-minute YouTube video posted by beauty influencer Tati Westbrook that ripped fellow influencer James Charles a new one.

James Charles and Tati Westbrook

Here’s an AI overview of the Westbrook-Charles beef:

The Conflict: Tati Westbrook, who was a mentor figure to Charles, felt betrayed after he promoted a competitor vitamin brand (Sugar Bear Hair) instead of her own company, Halo Beauty.

The Accusations: In the video, Westbrook detailed feeling “blindsided” and accused Charles of using his fame to “coerce straight men into sex.”

The Fallout: Charles lost a record number of subscribers, while Westbrook's channel saw rapid growth.

Charles' Response: James Charles posted an apology video titled “tati,” followed by a 41-minute video named “No More Lies,” where he addressed the allegations, denied the accusations of grooming, and provided evidence to clear his name.

Long-Term Impact: The event . . . is considered a landmark moment in YouTube drama history, prompting debates on influencer responsibility. 

There were a lot of points riding on that question, so thank goodness we got it right – we would have fallen from 18th to 26th place if we had missed it.

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Click here to listen to Elastica’s 1994 hit, “Connection,” which allegedly borrowed its catchy initial riff from Wire’s “Three Girl Rhumba” (resulting in a lawsuit and out-of-court settlement).  

Click here to listen to “Three Girl Rhumba” if you’d like to judge for yourself if Connection was guilty of plagiarism.

Click here to buy “Connection” from Amazon.

Elastica – "Connection" (1994)

 

I don’t understand how the last card is played

But somehow the vital connection is made

For $99, the genetic-testing company 23andMe will send you a vial to spit into so it can analyze your DNA.

By comparing your DNA to that of the zillions of other people who have sent in their saliva sample, 23andMe can figure out which of those people are related to you.

To date, 23andMe has sent me the names of no fewer than 1501 of its customers who are related to me.

The closest relatives that 23andMe has identified are five first cousins, once removed.  

First cousins, once removed are from different generations.  For example, your first cousin’s child would be your first cousin, once removed because you are from different generations.  

Likewise, your parents’ first cousins are your first cousins, once removed.  

Because my mother is only child, I have no first cousins on her side of the family.  But she has a number of first cousins, who are my first cousins, once removed.  

By contrast, my father was one of eight children, so I have quite a few first cousins on my father’s side – which make their children my first cousins, once removed.  All five of the first cousins, once removed I’ve learned about through 23andMe are children of my paternal first cousins.

This chart should clear everything up:

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23 andMe has also given me the names of ten second cousins (people with whom I have a great-grandparent in common), 168 third cousins (people with whom I have a great-great-grandparent in common), and a whopping 1318 fourth cousins (people with whom I have a great-great-great-grandparent in common).

Given that each of us has 32 great-great-great-grandparents, it’s not surprising that I have over 1300 fourth cousins among 23andMe customers alone.  According to my calculations, the average American of my generation has about 50,000 fourth cousins.  (Don’t ask me how I came up with that number – it’s a l-o-n-g story.)

Which means that you very well may be acquainted with one or more of your fourth cousins and not even realize that you’re related.

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Elastica released “Connection” as a single in 1994, which was the year that Britpop really got off the ground.  (Britpop giants Blur and Oasis both released their debut albums that year.)

“Connection” kicks off with a really catchy riff.  Unfortunately, it appears that riff was “borrowed” from “Three Girl Rhumba,” one of the tracks on Wire’s legendary Pink Flag album. 

Click here to listen to “Three Girl Rhumba.”

Click here to see the official music video for “Connection.”

And click on the link below if you’d like to buy “Connection” from Amazon: