Second Place is the First Loser

Well, now you've all seen it, so now it can be told. No Ken Jennings, this girl. And yes, I can hear the little speech from the Weird Al song right now, only in my head it sounds like Johnny Gilbert, not Don Pardo:

"That's right, Al, you lost. And let me tell you what you didn't win: a twenty volume set of the Encyclopedia International, a case of Turtle Wax, and a year's supply of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat. But that's not all. You also made yourself look like a jerk in front of millions of people. You brought shame and disgrace to your family name for generations to come. You don't get to come back tomorrow. You don't even get a lousy copy of our home game. You're a complete loser!"

Okay, this is not actually how I feel about it. If I was really worried about disgracing my family name I probably wouldn't have gathered 50 pals, colleagues, and acquaintances to watch the show from a bar in the East Village last night. Honestly, I'm happy with how I did. I didn't finish in the red, I didn't get anything egregiously wrong, and I didn't swear on camera.

I'll save the detailed show commentary for another time, since you probably watched it if you're reading this now. But I do have something funny to impart, namely that I suspect my Jeopardy appearance was cursed. Here's why.

So they called me, and booked me for a taping, and I bought my plane ticket, made my reservation, etc. And then circumstances beyond my control forced me to postpone the trip for a month. It was actually a better time to go, and I had more time to study and shop for something cute to wear on the show, so I had no complaints about that.

So I got there, a month later than I'd thought, and the day before my taping, my parents and I decided to go to Disneyland. It rains in southern California 12 days out of the year, and that day was one of them. We soldiered on, though, and rode all the rides in the rain (no lines for anything!!), and had a blast. And then on the way back, the car we'd hired got a flat tire in the middle of the freeway, about five minutes from the hotel.

And then there was the taping itself - bar none, the singular most fun thing I've ever done, even if I didn't wind up taking home sixteen grand. (By the way, I'd be remiss here if I didn't give Ed Angleton some mad props. He was a Jeopardy powerhouse with reflexes like a cat.) So I can't say much about the taping, except that I would have liked a category about pop music, or the Bible, or African capitals or something I'm, like, good at. C'est la vie. It was still awesome.

I returned to New York, and my parents returned to Montana. The week of the air date approached. My parents checked their local listings. No Jeopardy. The NCAA tournament was pre-empting it. After, of course, they'd told everybody in northcentral Montana to watch! But some well-placed phone calls got them an "encore presentation" on Saturday. So if you get KRTV, that's when to watch.

As for me, the show was airing exactly when it was supposed to, so I started rallying the troops to gather for a viewing party. For a venue, I found this awesome bar on St. Mark's place that sold lambic (the best drink ever) and had a big TV and friendly management that was happy to accomodate us.

And then I got to the bar last night to find that it had been shut down literally the day before. Something about their liquor license, I believe. So I put up a little sign on the door and a coworker found a new venue with a smaller TV and staff that I think was a little blown away by the crowd, but it all ended up working out in the end.

So maybe not cursed, but definitely this is the kind of stuff that would have happened if Clark Griswold ever appeared on Jeopardy!

Now I get to see life through the eyes of someone who fought the good fight and lost. And there is one fundamental truth I seem to have forgotten about my beloved quiz show - namely, a lot of people watch this show for the smug sense of superiority it gives them. Myself included. I think I am now getting karmic payback for all of the times I heckled contestants for not knowing that the capital of Mongolia is Ulaanbataar, or that "Waterloo" was the Abba hit that won them the Eurovision Song Competition and launched them to stardom...because right now I feel like everybody in the entire world knows James II. Everybody. Everyone except me. It's like knowing the sky is blue. It's a wonder they even let me on the show with such an egregious gap in my knowledge bank, if you ask the various online message boards.

So yes. You ARE smarter than me. But I did get some lovely parting gifts, and I got to hang out with Alex Trebek, and you didn't. So there. Well, actually, maybe you did...and if so, kudos. Jeopardy rocks. I'd feel that way about it even if I'd lost horribly and gotten every question wrong. And I'll keep on watching the show for as long as Trebek's doing his thing. I may tone down the Sean Connery impressions, though.