Jeopardy Audition Day

I took the day off from work today so I could audition for Jeopardy. Jen, Jasper and I were going out to breakfast when I started remembering all the weird superstitions that I used to have before academic competitions when I was a kid. I remember having to use the same Blackfeet Buckskin #2 pencil and wear the same pair of white Puma sneakers every time. I also remember having to listen to side one of U2's War album on my Walkman. (I'm old, so what?) So I took it as a bit of serendipity when there were two questions about U2 during the audition.

I got to the hotel where the auditions were being held about an hour early. I told Jen that I was more nervous about being there on time than about the auditions themselves. I was first to check in and fill out the paperwork. They took a Polaroid picture of each of the potential contestants. During my session there were about 25 of us. The demographics certainly seemed slanted to white middle class. I suppose this is who watches Jeopardy, after all. There was one African American woman, a young Latino law student, me and a bunch of Caucasian doctors, nurses, lawyer and students. Those four occupations made up 90% of the population.

We each got a freebie Jeopardy pen and set off on the 50 question written test. I only came up blank on two or three questions. Seriously, I studied poetry and I don't think I could come up with ANY Edna St. Vincent Millay quotes, much less they one they were looking for.

Then we each played a round of Jeopardy with the buzzers and opponents. I got to go twice, as our group was not divisible by three. I got to play in the last two rounds. At first, I found that I was going blank and not really seeing the clues. After a minute or two, I got rolling. I ran a category or two. The contestant coordinators told me I had very good energy. I felt very good about my performance.

I felt a little weird in that everyone else in the room clearly watches Jeopardy everyday. They gave out DVDs to whoever could name the person who defeated Ken Jennings in the Tournement of Champions, and who finally beat him in the run of play. I had NO idea. I can't name anyone involved with Jeopardy besides, Alex Trebek, Merv Griffin and now Maggie, Robert and Mike (the contestant coordinator crew).

Some of the other contestant hopefuls told me that they were impressed with my breadth of knowledge "for a young guy". At the end of the session we found out that we'd all passed and we're all in the contestant pool for the next year. It's sort of like being in a jury pool. We may or may not be called in the next 12-18 months. Well, here's to hoping. If nothing else, I had a good time and got a Jeopardy pen.