June 15 , 2005

I'm No Ken Jennings

So, you may remember from past journal posts that I'm a huge Jeopardy fan. You may also remember that it's my life-long dream to appear on the show as a contestant. If you continued to visit my site after that particular bit of nerdism, you've got nobody to blame but yourself. (Hey! It turns out that, according to the Microsoft Word spellchecker, "nerdism" is an actual WORD! How about that?)

My initial plan was to raise enough money to go to Los Angeles to take the contestant exam. I had no idea when the next Contestant Search was coming to Toronto...and besides, those are based on a lottery system.

Well, my friend Laurie from Top Five emailed me a couple of months ago to let me know that they were, in fact, having a Contestant Search in Toronto. So, what the hell, I threw my name in.

Unlike the last two times they've been in town, they actually DREW MY NAME.

I'm not kidding...that email from them was literally one of the biggest thrills of my life. They wanted to see me...ME! I could potentially be the next Ken Jennings. No, wait, I'd be BETTER than Ken Jennings! After all, he's a teetotalling Mormon who always struggled on the "Potent Potables" category...and if there's one thing I know, it's booze!

Of course, it was far from a slam dunk. I had to study. Things like State Capitals were a mystery to me...after all, I'm Canadian, right? I also studied my Presidents and Vice Presidents. I figured those three would be my achilles heel.

But, naturally, there were wrinkles.

The day before the big audition, I was out on location producing a segment for The Show. It was the launch of a new videogame called "Forza Motorsports", and we were invited down with cameras in tow to actually ride in real, honest-to-gosh race cars. It was a blast.

However, it was an OUTDOOR event. Being late April, I didn't even think twice about sunblock. After all, this is Toronto, right?

Mistake.

I was at the event for about 3 hours. Thought nothing of it. Morn picked me up later that night and we went to the opening of "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy". On the way into the theatre, she remarked to me "Hey Naked...looks like you got some sun today." Thought nothing of it.

Then, after 2 hours of disappointment, we left. As we exited the darkened theatre into the well-lit lobby, Morn turned to say something to me, stopped cold, and said "Oh shit."

"What?"

"Isn't your Jeopardy thing tomorrow morning?"

"Yeah."

"Um..." then the uncomfortable silence. "You should probably go look in a mirror."

I bolted for the bathroom and looked at myself...and then screamed "OH FUCK!"

I was burnt. Badly. My face was redder than Karl Marx's blood. From the very edge of my receding hairline, to the base of my neck...lobster red. The ONLY part not affected was the thick band across my eyes where my sunglasses had been. I looked like a photo negative of Robin, The Boy Wonder. And it was RIDICULOUS.

Not me, but not far off.

Stewing in the car, I mumbled "I can't go."

"Oh Naked, stop it. It's not that bad."

I turned to look at her...and even in the darkened interior of the car, it was bad enough that she couldn't stifle a laugh. As I sat there, sulking, she tried to cheer me up. It was almost working, until she couldn't contain herself any longer and said, in her best Adam West voice, "You're a handsome young crime-fighter, old chum."

If you were on my jury, you wouldn't convict me, right?

The big morning rolls around, and I decided that I couldn't NOT go. So, making lemonade out of lemons, I made the best of it. On my "Five Interesting Things About You" list, I wrote "I almost didn't show for the audition because of this RIDICULOUS SUNBURN."

But I went anyway. It was 9am on a Saturday, marking the ealiest I'd been up on a Saturday morning since grade school. I got to the hotel, took a deep breath, and went up to the floor where they were holding the auditions.

Holy. Sweet. Mother. Of. Fuck.

I'm a nerd. I admit it. I was in "Gifted" classes in school, I love comic books and sci-fi, and one of my favourite TV shows is "Justice League Unlimited". I've been to Sci-Fi, Horror, Comic, and Anime conventions. I review video games for a living. I used to play in a Pub Trivia League. Yet NONE of this prepared me for the display of utter dorkery (again, a word recognized by spellcheck!) when the elevator door opened.

There were about 100 people milling about in the hallway, and I swear to Christ that I was one of about nine present who had ever known the touch of the opposite gender. I've PARTIED with TREKKIES at a convention, and still I was unprepared. The stench of virginity hung heavy in the air (if you're wondering, that scent smells a lot like hand lotion with a vague hint of bleach and assorted proteins).

In one corner, one unfortunate young man was quizzing another with - I swear this is true - Periodic Table Flash Cards.

Many of these would-be contestants had suitcases in tow...they had travelled from Buffalo, Montreal, and other cities in order to be there for the freakin' TEST. I laughed to myself about this, until I remembered that I was willing to fly to LA to take the damn test. Then it dawned on me...I was ONE OF THEM. I couldn't even comfort myself for being slightly better looking than them, because none of THEM had a fucking reverse-raccoon SUNBURN. I have no doubt that when I wasn't looking, some of THEM were pointing and laughing at ME.

Before I could launch myself out the window to my death, a brassy woman with the show invited us all in to the testing room. I got a SLIGHT hint of dignity back when I noticed that many of my fellow wanna-bes were walking a little awkwardly...no doubt a result of years of atomic wedgies.

Inside the test room, we sat down in front of a huge projection screen. In front of each of us was a really nice pen with the Jeopardy logo on it. I felt a slight pang of shame knowing that, one way or another, I really wanted to steal this pen if we weren't allowed to keep it. Brassy Lady then welcomed us to the audition and asked if there were any questions. All 100 hands went up in the air. The first person asked if we could keep the pen, and Brassy Lady told us that we could. The next time hands went up, there were only about 7. I'm mildly ashamed to admit that mine wasn't one of them. But hey...free pen!

We were then introduced to the middle-aged black lady from the Clue Crew, who was about 10,000 times less annoying than she is on TV. She bragged that she probably has the best job in the world, because she gets to span the globe just to be videotaped asking trivia questions. I wanted to say "Oh yeah? Well I got to see Christmas With The Kranks for FREE!" Thankfully, I didn't.

After some softball "sample" questions about Toronto, we were given our test papers and asked to begin. The questions (or answers) were actually read by the recorded voice of Alex Trebek himself. Geek heaven!

Ah, the test. As I said before, on the contestant exams included with the video game, I have always kicked ass. I'm proud to say...I kicked ass again. Apparently, 35/50 is considered a "pass"...by my count, I got 41 or 42 easily. It could have been more, or it could have been less. I know I got at least ONE wrong, because I put one answer down and realized about 5 seconds after handing it in that I'd given the wrong answer.

LITERATURE
A: At the end of this novel, the title character marries Edward Rochester.
MY RESPONSE: What is Emma?
CORRECT RESPONSE: What is Jane Eyre? (Those fucking Bronte sisters! Always a thorn in my side!)

Just for fun, here are a few sample clues. I don't remember the wording exactly, but it's been a couple of months, so bear with me:

ROYALTY
A: This second wife of Henry VIII was the mother of Queen Elizabeth I.
Q: Who is Anne Boleyn?

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
A: This electronic artist is a direct descendant of Herman Melville
Q: Who is Moby?

LANGUAGES
A: The Russian alphabet is made up of these characters.
Q: What is Cyrillic?

And so on, and so forth.

So yeah, I'm 99% sure that I nailed over 40 of these questions, which is supposed to be a pass. But, after "grading" us (which took far less time that you'd think) they came back in and told us they were taking the top six in to play "mock" games, to see how we look on camera. I got ready to stand up, because if I'd gotten over 40 of the questions right, I HAD to be in. Right?

Wrong.

So, I got a verbal pat on the back for trying, and crammed into the elevator with the rest of the also-rans. Now, of course, there was a new scent to the group, adding to the scent of virginity. It was the bitter, caustic stench of failure. And I got to drink it in for 17 stories. To be honest, with my self-esteem issues, my personal failure stench was probably the headiest of the bunch.

Then I went home, rubbed Aloe all over my face, and tried to sleep. But of course, I'd told everyone I knew that I was going to the audition, so every 20 minutes, someone was calling asking how I'd done. I then had to break it to these good friends of mine that I was apparently not Jeopardy material. It was hard, but for some reason my friends seemed to take the news better than me. I know it must have been hard for them to deal with the news, but they all seemed to be a whole lot better with it than me. Plucky folks, let me tell you.

Ah well...there's always next year. I plan on booking my flight to LA and hotel soon in order to beat the rush.

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