by Bob Harris
I don’t remember the exact details, but I made some small comment about professional sports. Two of the men eagerly displayed how much they knew in response, announcing their prowess to the room. One of the women pooh-poohed the exchange, claiming that Jeopardy! rarely asks about sports. This was attempted display number three.
A little later I got up to fetch a diet soda, and another player began talking about how bad the chemicals are for you. Another swore he never touched the stuff, claiming such drinks always had an effect on his concentration. And therefore, he seemed to be saying, my concentration would falter, if I cared to notice his comments.
Bizarre. Were these people all that focused on beating me? Obviously, yes—not me personally, of course, but winning is why we were all there.
Still, I wondered if maybe I was cracking slightly, if my pre-game jitters had caused an unusually high spike of self-absorption. These people all seemed too friendly and bright and good-humored to be engaged in this sort of gamesmanship.
At least consciously.
So I made some open joke about Jeopardy! being bloodsport—roughly that once we got onstage this would be like the James Caan movie Rollerball, with motorcycles and spiked gloves on our buzzer hands. The Jeopardy! theme would even be replaced with Bach’s creepy Toccata in D Minor (the Rollerball theme, high on the meager list of classical pieces I could recognize). Immediately, the conversation moved to one-upping tales of listening to, attending, and playing famous Bach pieces. And all of these comments seemed spoken carefully loud enough for me to hear.
Oh, my. Yes. The game was afoot.
This wasn’t Sony, this was the Sahara, and only the fittest would survive. Twelve sets of ears pricked up when I spoke, seeking out weakness. Twelve pairs of eyes scanned my every move.
As I scanned them all back, I began to feel confident: their body language and vocal tones were all about seeking status and reassurance. There was no sign of an Ivy League Serial Killer to fear, no Berkeley assassin, no cold-blooded genius of general knowledge. I only saw stress, as intense as my own had been while waiting to play my first game.
What had worried me most about Matt was how calm he appeared to be. I had feared his experience as much as his head. I had feared my own nerves even more. Appearing relaxed, therefore, was a tool I could use.
I sank back in my chair and made a point of laughing at everyone else’s jokes, letting them see me smile. And I said little else. How I wish you could have seen the effect: in this green room octagon, a single jiujitsu maneuver was throwing the others off their feet.
Soon, I actually became more relaxed. I just grinned and begged them to go on, delighting in whatever they said. So they said more. Probing and displaying, hunting and regaling, tiring themselves out with nervous energy. I listened intently, nodding in agreement, begging for more detail, giving back nothing but calm and a smile.
Resting. Ready for a long day ahead. Smiling was almost easy now.
I was already winning.
Seconds before we all marched out for the first game, I turned to my opponents—a law student from New York and a librarian from Iowa—and in a reassuring voice, instructed them not to be nervous.
I’m a little ashamed of this now. I’m not a big fan of mind games. Notice that this was a triple cruelty: reminding them both of my own previous experience while focusing their attention on their own nerves—and looking like a nice guy in the process.
I was shocked at myself, honestly. This may have been the single most manipulative flourish of my entire life. I regret it now. Someday I will be attacked in the street by a gang of well-educated people in suits and dresses. They will slap me to the pavement, steal my wallet, and clean out my bank account, all while reciting the monarchs of Spain in chronological order. And perhaps I will deserve it.
But in that moment, it seemed obvious at the time, the game had already begun.
And I wanted more.
Alex came out. No costume. Just his usual serious business suit. Halloween was over. In broadcast time, this show was a Monday.
It was time to go to work.
The luck I assumed would run out sometime soon showed no sign of abating at all. The first round included the following category:
STAND-UP COMICS
I attacked the category instantly, since I had personally worked with, opened for, or spilled something on at least a few dozen possible responses. The very first clue, in a coincidence I wouldn’t appreciate until writing this book, was this:
BEFORE 1997 SHE WAS BEST KNOWN FOR HER STANDUP, HER SITCOM & HER BOOK “MY POINT…AND I DO HAVE ONE”
I hadn’t met Jane yet, and won’t for a few more chapters, but at the very moment this clue was revealed, she had stopped naming carbonated beverages that rhyme with “Squeema” for a living. Instead, she was working as a writer on a particular TV sitcom.
Starring Ellen DeGeneres.
Everything really does connect to everything else.
I later realized that attacking STAND-UP COMICS (while possibly a good idea in general, especially if they use a guitar or a large box of props) was for me a tactical Jeopardy! mistake.
Many players dive straight into their strongest subject, hoping to run up a score before hitting a Daily Double, thinking this is the best way to maximize those opportunities. I know that’s what I was thinking, anyway. But I was also just trying to get comfortable, and thus reaching for the familiar, so the strategic explanation was really just a rationalization.
I had not yet realized that by attacking your weakest category immediately, you’ll probably get the hardest clues off the board with the least possible amount of money at stake. If there’s a Daily Double in the weak category, it will barely matter, while hitting it late puts you in a difficult betting situation. And if the Daily Double is in a stronger category, you’ll be more likely to hit it when it can do you the most good. If you hit this Daily Double late in the game, you’ll have significant control over the outcome.
I’m tempted to elevate something like “attack your weaknesses” to a step on the Eightfold Path, but it occurs to me that attacking your weaknesses is sort of what the Eightfold Path itself already does. And I have a real weakness for metastuff.
On the second clue, the librarian from Iowa actually beat me to the buzzer. However, when he made his first choice on the game board, his voice wavered, and his hand reached up to touch his face. This odd gesture of intense stress is the sort of thing any good poker player would recognize as a “tell.”
A few moments later he was actually working up the game board, not down, seeking the comfort of easier clues. He was very, very nervous.
So I probably owe the guy dessert, too.
During the first commercial break, I mentally played ahead again, letting my mind roam the category THE OLD WEST while making small talk with Glenn, Grant, and the twenty-three makeup commandos keeping my forehead de-shined. I continued thinking all the way through the contestant interviews, a habit that might account for the fact that I always wind up blithering, no matter what Alex asks.
This paid off moments later on the $300 clue:
CIBOLA, AS IN THE 7 CITIES OF CIBOLA, IS THE SPANISH WORD FOR THIS LARGE ANIMAL OF THE PLAINS
At the time, I spoke almost no Spanish, and so the only hint for me was this:
LARGE ANIMAL OF THE PLAINS
How many large animals actually roamed the plains of the Old West? There’s only one obvious response, of course: the buffalo. But that’s assuming there weren’t also vast herds of, I dunno, oversize something-elses following the Sioux back and forth. Normally I would have needed another second to double-think my response. I would have scanned my mental inventory of old movies for stray packs of rhinos, hippos, or giant albino squirrels roaming the Dakotas, buzzing in only after finding nothing but the buffalo. I would have been a second late.
But I’d been thinking ahead, and this had included a two-second replay of Kevin Costner stumbling around on his knees hollering “Ta
tonka!” in Dances with Wolves. This word had been crucial in the film as the single initial common ground between his character and the Lakota Sioux. So, buffalo had to be the large animal of the Plains.
What is the buffalo?
—forever cemented my intention to play ahead in every spare moment of any game.
At the first commercial, I had $3000 after responding to only six clues, again keeping my hand off the buzzer for roughly a third of the game so far.
The other two players, each of whom had buzzed in on expensive clues and missed, had $400 combined.
As the first round ended, this was the $500 clue in the category “NUT”S TO YOU:
IT’S CONNECTICUT’S “SPICY” NICKNAME
I knew nothing about spices, and a few weeks earlier had known only about half of the state nicknames. Even given the letters N-U-T as part of the response, this would have been impossible for me.
But there had been a complete list of state nicknames in Chuck Forrest’s book, which I had just glued into my head with enough gratuitous action to fill Jerry Bruckheimer’s dreams for a decade.
What’s the nutmeg? I responded, my mind flashing pictures of Little Women, giant scissors, and insurance adjusters trying to protect their groins.
The law student from New York and the librarian from Iowa, on the other hand, seemed to be well-adjusted people living normal lives.
They didn’t stand a chance.
In Double Jeopardy, my Festival of Chuck continued.
Who is Poseidon? for $200.
Who is Ares? for $800.
Who is Anubis? for $1000.
Two grand in the first category, on three responses I couldn’t have guessed at just one month before. The first two were straight from Chuck’s book. Not bad for a twelve-dollar investment.
This particular clue would have been completely impossible a few weeks earlier:
THE TYBEE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE MOUTH OF THE SAVANNAH RIVER IS NAMED FOR THIS GEORGIA FOUNDER
But there I am on the tape, confidently banging in: Who is Oglethorpe? for $800.
To this day, I couldn’t tell you Oglethorpe’s first name. No idea. But I did have a clear mental picture of Ted Turner—a famous Georgian—founding a state as a good place to leer lustfully while getting drunk and throwing up. Georgia. Ogle. Throw-up.
Chuck’s book and a few others, my study of how memory works, and a gleeful mental shamelessness were providing about one-third of my entire score.
My good fortune continued as well. Thanks to one particularly unhinged romance, a couple of the clues in PSYCHOLOGY were entirely too familiar.
Suddenly, even my truly horrible experiences were popping up and proving themselves useful. I was starting to wonder if it was possible to screw up your own life so frequently and memorably, in so many different ways, that eventually you can only succeed on Jeopardy!
That’s probably your call more than mine.
Still, keeping my hand off the Jeopardy Weapon was again the only way I could win. I had no idea whatsoever of the responses for a full one-third of the round. However, when I did ring in, state-dependent retrieval did its stuff: checking the tape, my light came on fourteen times out of eighteen attempts.
I didn’t know the exact numbers during the game, of course. But I do remember noticing that my light coming on wasn’t even surprising anymore.
As the game wound down, several clues were “triple stumpers,” leaving all three of us staring vacantly into the middle distance. This sort of Zombie Jeopardy slows down the game considerably. Rounds with multiple triple-stumpers often run out of time before all of the clues have been played.
Soon, only six clues were left on the board: four in AROUND THE HORN (about brass musical instruments) and two in MOVIE BIOGRAPHIES. I had $11700, the librarian had $5200, and the law student had $2500. I was nearing a second runaway, and it seemed that only a few of the remaining clues would be played.
But then I made yet another tactical error: I forgot to consider the remaining Daily Doubles. Both were still hidden somewhere on the board. It had not quite occurred to me to keep track.
However, since Jeopardy! never puts two Daily Doubles in the same column, there had to be one in AROUND THE HORN, and the other in MOVIE BIOGRAPHIES. To finish off the game, I only needed to take them out of play—just hunt around the bottom where Daily Doubles live, making small, safe bets—and the game was over. Since MOVIE BIOGRAPHIES only had two clues left, I had a fifty-fifty chance of finding a Daily Double immediately.
Instead, because we had played slowly already, I glanced up at the game board, saw the scores, and decided to try to run out the clock by playing cheaper clues. For just a moment—a period of perhaps three seconds in real time—I was no longer trying to win; I was trying not to lose.
Less than ten seconds later, the law student had control of the Daily Double in AROUND THE HORN; she would also have a fifty-fifty chance of finding the other on the very next clue.
Even as far behind as she was—she now had $2900—two correct responses could bring our scores roughly level, with just a few clues left. I had let my fear of losing control over the outcome lead directly to losing control over the outcome.
That’s so philosophically perfect I could just plotz.
And so, our next step on the Eightfold Path of Enlightened Jeopardy, one that quite plainly belongs at the end:
1. Obvious things may be worth noticing.
2. Remember the basics: the basics are what you remember.
3. Put your head where you can use it later.
4. Doing nothing is better than doing something really stupid.
5. Admit you don’t know squat as often as possible.
6. Everything connects to everything else.
7. You can often see only what you think you’ll see.
8. Just play each moment. Let go of outcome.
You’ve probably already noticed that most of these steps are applied over and over, and that my own successes and failures correlate generally with how closely they’re followed. This will continue.
I’ll only point it out occasionally, but it’s there all the time if you look.
You might have also noticed a few similarities between the Path of Enlightened Jeopardy and certain Eastern philosophies. Maybe by now you’re starting to think that’s what this book is really all about.
I refer you to step number seven.
Still, you might wonder if I’m covertly trying to share some ideas that extend beyond learning stuff and being a good quiz show contestant. Maybe I’m even planning to start a cult. Perhaps I hope someday to have a squadron of smooth-skinned young devotees mindlessly chanting inside my armed compound, while aging celebrities burn their infomercial money seeking my counsel during the moments I can spare between bribing politicians and taking unseemly advantage of pert new initiates. Before long, I’ll dissolve into hedonistic twilight, finally dying surrounded by people who adore me for all the wrong reasons, trading cheap constant pleasure for what could have been greatness.
Come to think of it, that sounds fantastic. I’ll get right on it.
On the other hand, it’s possible that useful ideas are inherently universal, and so of course there’s some resemblance. Similar bland counsel about being observant and modest might exist in books concerned with everything from hair care to jet repair. But that’s still not the explanation.
In simple fact, most Eastern philosophies descend directly from Jeopardy! (n., uncert., prob. deriv. from ancient Pali Djeh-paa-deh, ca. 550 BCE, lit. “buzz of life”), a Tibetan Zen-like tradition of students providing answers in the form of more questions, leading them on a path toward wisdom, liberation from suffering, and a new Chevrolet. In each generation, one master—the Merv—reincarnates to spread the teachings, which are written on fig leaves and preserved in a set of hollowed-out coconuts. The Merv, it is said, will announce himself to the world in song.
You know the rest of the story from there.
You ma
y choose not to believe this. But it’s more fun if you do.
The legend also speaks of a trickster-mentor who will stand at a Podium of Judgment. About this figure, little else is written, but according to tradition (and I quote):
“You will know him by his Oooh.”
The Oooh came soon for the law student, who received her own Zen-like clue requiring close observation of her surroundings.
FROM THE GERMAN FOR “WING,” THIS HORN, HEARD HERE, WAS POPULARIZED BY CHUCK MANGIONE
This was followed by the familiar Think Music itself, played on a trumpetlike instrument with a fatter, mellower sound. I’d heard this horn many times while doing all-night jazz shows at a college radio station back in the Snow Belt.
The librarian, however, had probably been doing productive work or enjoying functional relationships on those many cold nights. “What is the flugelhorn?” eluded her. And for the second time, I had won.
A total of $3300 worth of responses—the margin that clinched the runaway win, in fact—were the direct result of speed-cramming my head full of horny philosophers, popes on rampages, and every one involved being eaten.
For the second time, I was standing with Alex and the other contestants at the center of the stage, letting the some-contestants-receive list roll by.
Bruce’s Yams! and Phazyme gas medicine! and Breath-A-Sure endorsed by George Kennedy! and a Honeysuckle Roast Turkey! caressed in a disturbingly sensual massage by undulating female hands! later, it was over.
