The Wake

Alfred M. Butts didn’t have public access TV or intoxicated students in mind when he invented Scrabble in 1948. Six decades later, Butts’ classic word game is attracting precisely this crowd thanks to Hamil Griffin-Cassidy’s weekly public access show, Totally Scrabble Tuesday. Every Tuesday night at 11 p.m., Minneapolis is pitted against Hamil in a rambunctious citywide Scrabble game broadcasted on Channel 17, the Minneapolis Television Network.

How does an entire town play a timeless board game against one slick-tongued videographer? It all starts with Hamil and his merry crew of co-workers (and co-conspirators), who aim video cameras at a Scrabble board and row of tiles. Viewers at home can see the board on their TV sets and call the studio. Whoever gets through first takes a turn for Minneapolis by instructing a revolving array of guests (from Rock ’n’ Roll Ray and rapper Mr. Nasty to Hamil’s mom) where to place the letters. Hamil’s “Vanna” of the night then tallies the score on a clipboard and digs up more tiles. Next, Hamil plays a word, and the pattern repeats for one hour.

Hamil’s casual dress reflects an equally laid-back demeanor. In a white undershirt, brown pants and a moustache grown specifically for “moustache month” (August), he downplays his role as the host, demurring to a more pedestrian title of “traffic controller” for calls. Most callers watch the show with a self-made team (although all teams points stack up under the score for Minneapolis), and calls range from incessant hollering over the line to a girl describing her summer break on a farm.

Although Hamil insists he doesn’t prescribe to a regimen of energy bars or calculate his carbohydrate intake to prepare for the 11 p.m. taping (like professional Scrabble practitioners do to stay on their game during tournaments), he will down a Red Bull before air time, and he once memorized every three-letter word in the dictionary. Well, the several hundred up until “D,” that is.

On an idyllic Tuesday night in August, Hamil spoke with The Wake outside MTN’s St. Anthony Main studio about Osama bin Laden, team “B is for Bong,” and “shitragu,” before the show began, and the shit really hit the fan.

The Wake: What do you do when you’re not playing Scrabble?
Hamil: I do community events [like working on other MTN programs to “keep the whole ‘free speech’ wheels greased”], I do art programs and document various dances and performances around town.
And we do other call-in shows. We do call-in karaoke. We’ve done “Shoot Osama,” which is where I dressed up as Osama bin Laden and ran around in front of a brick wall. People would call in, and we put up a little plus sign on the screen. It rolls around, you shout ‘bang,’ and we grab a still frame to see if you saved the Western world from the ‘crescent sword.’
We did pin the tail on the donkey with callers … where you would guide a guy around the studio, which kind of plays a lot with perspective. When you’re doing the camera, it really doesn’t show anything that accurately, so people were missing all the time.

Did you think of these call-in shows? Martin “,Hamil’s little helper,” thinks of a lot of them. He has a real good brain for concepts. Scrabble was his idea. Karaoke was his idea. They had done a “shoot me” game. And so then I just try to add what little things I can.

How did you get involved with Scrabble? Martin said “We could do a show, and if you want to do it, it would be easy for you. You wouldn’t have to think about it. Nobody sees you, you just have to man the phones.”

That night there was a guy who called in, who was like, ‘Awe, this is a great show, this is really cool, this is like the best thing on TV,’ and he kept calling back. Originally we were gonna switch [shows] every Tuesday and do something different. This is where all those other ideas came from. Usually after we’re off the air we still get other calls for another hour, of just people talking to you. That guy called back again, and we had to promise him we would do Scrabble like three more times, so we did the show four times in a row — and then kept doing it.

How long has TST been on air? Since the beginning of 2004. We’ve only missed a few.

What teams stick out? Well, there was team Tony Danza. They called in a lot. They liked to say “Who’s the boss?” and I’d have to say, “Tony Danza’s the boss.” There’s somebody who would play a cue at the beginning of the call — team Fresh. Princess Tigerlily? Team Tigerlily? They’re from a Christian college downtown, and they’re really good, and super contemptuous of all the other players, and I have to give them shit.

How do you feel about callers using computers to cheat, by looking up words online? Oh, I don’t care. I think actually, if Minneapolis won more, it would be better for the show. All that stuff doesn’t matter. No one analyzes this and can come and tell me that market research shows that people don’t care that in the preamble of the Constitution we were imbued rights for stoners to play the word “shitragu.” It doesn’t exist.

In a media-saturated world, why do you think people tune in to play a classic 50s board game instead of, say, playing a video game? I don’t know why. There are a lot of video game nerds who actually watch. There’s a team, “Grove Street,” based on Grove Street in the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game, and they were, like, way into it, so they all had green hoodies, which was the gang color, and they said “Grove Street” in these awesome, bad-ass letters, and they all had a skull in a different spot on them.

Why did they like it? I had no idea. They were all, like, artist kids. I think there’s something alienating from a video game, just because it’s not something you could easily make yourself. I think people are charmed by stuff they could do, and I think that’s a nice thing. And interaction is huge. That’s why all the other shows we do tend to be interactive. People love to be their own entertainment.

Have any memorable words been spelt on the air? “Shitragu.” It’s like the word ‘shit,’ and then the product “Ragu.” It’s not a word. It’s a word that [slipped through], because at the end of the game we were just trying to get something done, and these guys were laughing so hard at the prospect of playing “Shitragu” that we made it a Scrabble word, because we can have house rules, and we can do what we want.

Any other house rules? I think there’s a certain lax when people use other dirty words, like ‘jiz,’ ‘cunt,’ and these things, because they’re also recognized, I think, in the real book.

Do you have it? No, you have to be a National Scrabble Association member and pay dues.

There are about 10,000 tournament players in the NSA. Oh man. I just recently decided to read the book Word Freak, and saw the documentary, Word Wars, which were roughly about the same thing. It’s like a cult. These guys are, like, chess addicts. They just have that same game-brain where they don’t want to do anything else.

Do you know if any of your callers are in the NSA? One time, this lady called in and told me ‘residua’ was a perfectly good word. Actually, everybody called in, but she’s the president of [NSA] chapter whatever. She was very nice — she never called, but she always watched, after playing three games with her chapter on Tuesday. So she called in once, and it was to correct me. [Laughs.]

Do you get much fan mail? Not a lot. I’ve gotten weird things. People made triple word score and double letter score buttons for me once, and left them in an envelope. I don’t know exactly who gave it to me. And then there’s a guy who corresponds with me and has ideas for shows … He started sending pictures of himself, saying, “Since I know what you look like, now you know what I look like.”

It’s nearly 9 p.m., and Hamil enters the Studio A control room. He sits in a wheeled chair, facing a wall of variously sized old-school computer monitors and panels of color-coded buttons, knobs, and switches. A program isn’t responding, so Hamil reaches under the table and flips the power switch off and on. “It’s all part of the fancy system,” he cracks.

The next room is a vast rectangular studio. The ceiling is flush with lights, and there’s a talk show-like set with three immense green chairs propped on an upraised platform. This is not where Hamil’s headed. Nearby are two small, mismatched end tables holding a Scrabble box, the toothy skull of a “Gar Fish,” which Martin pronounces “Gaaargh,” like a pirate, and a mini wind-up robot. Hamil and Martin plug in three mics, and roll the video cameras into position. Just as they’ve finished setting up, Rock ’n’ Roll Ray strolls up, gushing about push-up contests, and everyone heads back outside.

A red button-up encases Ray’s barreled chest, and his short dark hair winnows into a peak at his forehead. Ray’s mouth is forever thrown open in a loud remark or even louder laugh, the kind that causes your eyes to crinkle, head to launch backward at break-neck speed, and feet to bounce on the floor. “Did you see last week, with the rubber-glove action?” Ray asks, referring to the lewd sexual gestures his latex-encased fingers flashed across the screen. “I rode that glove really well I think,” he adds, before suddenly careening downstairs in search of a Red Bull.

“Little kids have called in before, which is really fun,” Hamil begins, as Ray disappears. “But I feel kind of bad, because people swear and stuff. Ray invites a little more of that because what we do controls how people act, to a certain extent … It’s really weird how you can control the tone just by what you say. If I start swearing, people are more comfortable swearing. Ray is, like, doing penetration jokes over and over, but he’s great because he’s super enthusiastic and laughs at everything.”

Mr. Nasty, “the funky face froster” behind MySpace tracks “I Dooz It Anal” and “How Nasty Do I Do,” shows up next. He soon launches into a serious-looking conversation with Ray (back from his sugar-search) on ways to corrupt the upcoming show. At eight minutes to 11 p.m., we re-enter the studio, only to find members of team “B for Bong” hollering through the studio window while waving a half tie-dyed plastic tablecloth. Several team members are dressed as if for a zombie parade—fake blood-splattered wounds and bandages stick to their flesh, and they later flash Dracula and Frankenstein masks before their faces in an ode to the undead — and Hamil, who obliges his grotesque groupies desires by pressing his hand against the window and gazing into their eyes.

Hamil’s phone rings, interrupting the moment, and Come On Hamil’s Mom, a dedicated team of U of M students, kick off the game with a 12-point word. Next, Hamil spells “play,” and team B for Bong calls in — while still standing in the hallway outside the window.

To fill the time while either team is planning their next move, Ray yells at the toy robot Hamil sends slowly scuttling across the board, sings “Gin and tonic calling me,” and hoots like a Girls Gone Wild producer attempting to entice a crowd of drunken college women to take off their tops. As he cackles at his own antics, his skin seems to suck the red dye from his top until his neck and face are flushed with color.

In stark juxtaposition to Ray’s over-the-top bravado are Hamil’s slick jabs at callers, and obscure pronouncements. At one point, he motions toward a spot on the board and describes a “burn mark” from when he “ate a toe flap and put hot sauce on it.” He also discusses the advantages of naming a future son “No Fear Kilowatt Griffin-Cassidy-(add future partner’s name here)” and shares a stack of drawings he developed of outer space, a skull, and a man proposing to a woman with a toaster ring …

Although the night appears to be nothing but fun and games, Hamil sees a nobler purpose behind MTN’s interactive television program. “There are communities who would never be represented on TV,” he says, if it wasn’t for public access stations and even shows like Totally Scrabble Tuesday.

It’s a noble cause indeed — even when those voices are simply using the time slot to goad Hamil into growing a Burt Reynolds-esque moustache.

www.totallyscrabbletuesday.com
www.mtn.org

(Totally Scrabble Tuesday was first mentioned in a 2005 article in The Wake by Taylor Eisenman, titled “Too Cold To Go Out: I got stoned instead.”)

Sources:
www.totallyscrabbletuesday.com
www.mtn.org
www.scrabble.com
http://www2.scrabble-assoc.com/