COLUMN: Jilted By 'Jeopardy!'

From Lee Bailey's "The Immaculate Perception?", Fall '95 From Lee Bailey's "The Immaculate Perception?", Fall '95In a world where knowledge expands at the speed of light and information technology works even faster, one would presume that the know-it-all is experiencing an identity crisis. What's so amazing about some nerdy braniac who can recite the properties of those unnamed elements on the periodic table when such data is readily available to almost any American at the touch of a button? Such human caches of trivia quail unimpressively alongside the world wide web; it's like comparing Speak 'n' Spell to that supercomputer in 2001. I use the past tense because my dreams are shattered. It all started in August. Unlike many couch potatoes, I actually left the sofa to get that pencil and paper -- I sent a card to the show's Culver City headquarters. I would be watching the next Jeopardy! college tournament from the other side of the camera, and I was going to win! Imagine my elation when I opened my mailbox, threw out the ubiquitous American Express application, and discovered underneath it an envelope from the show. I felt like Roald Dahl's Charlie, discovering that I held the golden ticket to the chocolate factory. The letter informed me that I had been randomly selected to audition for Jeopardy! in New York. Visions of studio audiences, applause signs and me, waving from the driver's seat of a new car filled my mind. Midterms came and went, but who cared? I was going to win Jeopardy! The audition was this past weekend. As I emerged from Penn Station, the excitement indigenous to New York descended upon me. Starry-eyed as a chorus line hopeful, I rushed uptown to the designated hotel, where literally hundreds of would-be contestants crammed the lobby, waiting for the show's representative as though she were the second incarnation of God (or the first -- many students were Jewish). After a few minutes, we were ushered into "the room." Here we were to be given a 50 question test which would be used to determine who qualified for further auditioning. Before the test was administered, the chatty collegians bantered about their own Jeopardy! aspirations and experiences. One girl from NYU commented on how Alex Trebek's suits had changed over the years; no longer clothed by the unknown designer Mr. Guy, Alex now sports two-pieces by Perry Ellis (apparently she gleaned this from the show's credits). There was one self-admitted loser who had tried out for the esteemed "Teen Tournament" four times. I suppose he was determined to be yet again eliminated from the next echelon of trivia prestige (he was from Yale). I snickered inwardly, knowing somehow that I would be the one. Then the test began. After the fortieth question, I was confident that I had done it -- I could answer every question. But then, it all ended. Pride goeth before a fall, and boy, did I fall. As soon as Alex Trebek had enunciated in that regional accent of his the 41st clue, I knew Jeopardy! was but a pipedream. The clue: "She founded the first chapter of the Girl Scouts in her Georgia hometown." Girl Scouts? Since when was Girl Scouts a category? My doubts were only quashed more savagely by clue No. 43: "In 1855, this future president was elected to his second term as governor of Tennessee." I know, I know. U.S. Presidents is ALWAYS a topic, but I was hoping that my deficiency in this category would be counterbalanced by acumen in other fields. "Pencils down!" the haughty proctor demanded. I knew then my fate. Forty-two correct answers wouldn't cut it -- there had to be at least a few kids with perfect scores. My eyes darted from face to face, wondering which one of these vipers had usurped my divine right to Jeopardy! glory. I didn't have to wait long. When my name was not one of the six listed for call-backs, I sauntered out of the Hotel Dorset onto 54th Street. Several of my fellow losers were commiserating about their respective travesties of justice ("My dad made me a practice buzzer when I was 10 -- this can't be!"), but I ignored them. Who cared about those dorks anyway? I was just depressed because I was going to have to find another way to finance my Caribbean Christmas vacation. Suddenly, New York had mutated from a city of dreams to a cesspit of despair. I boarded my train in a bitter temper, but then, in the neighboring passenger's TV Guide, there was an ad for Wheel of Fortune?