Books! Actual books!
"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"
-- The Wall Street Journal
"Pulls you in like a good sports story"
-- The New York Times Book Review
"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"
-- New York Newsday
"A surprisingly touching memoir"
-- Entertainment Weekly
"Snappy and informative"
-- Associated Press
"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."
-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."
-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life
"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."
-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game
"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"
-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All
"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."
-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history
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“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”
— Boston Globe
"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."
— New York Observer
"Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”
— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs
“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”
— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."
— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review
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Main  Dennis Perrin
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A Pudu Among Giraffes |
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Wednesday, 18 July 2007 |
Returning now to the Gratitude SummerFest:
I spent most of this last Saturday hanging out at the Game Show Congress and a party thrown by the former Game Show Network, both of which meant spending some quality time with the one and only Ken Jennings, winningest contestant in the history of Jeopardy!, author of Brainiac, and damn fine blogger.
We even did a joint signing of our books; I'm proud to say that despite our competitive instincts, we did not race to see who could sign fastest.
We did, however, compete to see who could have the reddest eye-flash.
Neither one of us can muster a laser thing quite yet. But we're working on it.
If you've read Prisoner of Trebekistan, you know that there's sort of an informal fraternity among many former contestants. Since our books came out within about a week of each other, Ken and I have struck up an increasingly friendly correspondence, and I've come to learn that one of the oddest things about Ken's Jeopardy! experience must have been his lack of opportunity to get to know any of his opponents the way that tournament competitors frequently do. Instead, it was apparently day after day of "welcome everyone, here's the 58-day champ about to terminate your hopes and dreams and take all the money, say hi" and then it was over.
Not a lot of emails exchanged with new friends, I imagine.
But here's the thing about Ken: he's taller than me, younger than me, richer than me, he already has a loving and happy family started, he's very possibly also nicer, smarter, and funnier than I am, and the guy even has better hair. And yet I actually still like him somehow. Apparently one of us is some kind of freaking saint. (And even that probably isn't me. Well, hell.)
Anyhow, despite it all, in person, the Creature from the Great Salt Lake has the ability to make me laugh until milk comes out of my nose, even when I'm not drinking milk. (I should probably see a doctor about that.) So I'll put up with his general excellence, the way friends always put up with each other's worst qualities. And the rest of the frat seems to have welcomed Ken just as eagerly. This is good to see all around.
Still, we did have a chance to play a game strongly resembling Jeopardy! and yet enough not like Jeopardy! to avoid any drive-by gunfire from Sony attorneys. For a few moments, I had thoughts of at least being able to claim I beat Ken at Schmeopardy! or whatever it is.
Unfortunately, Schmeopardy! is not a two-person game. The man on the right is Ed Toutant, whom Trebekistan readers will recognize as the fellow who beats me in Game Show Congress exhibitions every single year, usually by a ridiculously narrow margin seemingly contrived to torture my soul. (Before winning almost $2 million on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, Ed worked for IBM. Possibly as a supercomputer.)
What you're looking at, then, is a showdown between players with a total of over $5 million in quiz show winnings. Pretty cool, huh? Of course, that sentence would still be true whether or not I'm standing at the table.
Eventually, Ed thrashed both Ken and me on the buzzer. (This surprised me, actually; the one time I'd ever played Ed in a Schmeopardy! format, I'd actually won fairly handily. So the big guy is just getting better. Eek.) Our final scores, in the end, were roughly proportional to our heights.
So much for the grand battle of the Jeopardy! memoirists. Still, Ken and I did manage to surprise each other during the game, as I outscored the Mormon in The Old Testament, but Ken replied with an outlandishly hip "what is crunk?" So you never know.
For next year's competition, the organizers have announced that Ed will be divided into four equal teams. I will probably still lose by one dollar to his left leg.
After my annual defeat by Ed, we all headed down to the Beverly Hilton, which Trebekistan readers will instantly recognize as the hotel (a) once owned by the Merv himself, and (b) where I spent a nigh-delirious night trying to remember all the vice presidents while suffering through a raging fever. (It's an intertwined world, this Trebekistan.) On arrival, we were all shuffled off to a fabulous Hollywood party inside, complete with a terrific live band, gymnasts cavorting inside giant inflatable balls, and various attractive young people reluctant to make eye contact with the likes of you. Plus, booze.
We contestants pretty much hung out in the back near the poker tables and watched it all with a mixture of cool-kid amused distance and utter geekdom. A splendid time, all in all.
Ultimately, gratitude is owed here: to Bill Schantz, king of the Schmeopardy! simulator; to Ed, for keeping my ego in check for another year; to Ken, for being so cool that he even insisted on splitting the gas and parking money for the drive to the convention; to Paul Bailey, organizer of the Game Show Congress; to a half-dozen other former contestants I got to hang out, laugh, and catch up with; and to megaproducer Michael Davies, responsible for the existence of Grand Slam, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, and a party where a curvaceous girl in tights spun twenty feet in the air from a giant towel for no reason in particular. Hollywood, man.
My hearty thanks to all.
UPDATE: On Wednesday evening, I was on Main St. in Santa Monica, and I am 99% certain that I saw the exact same young lady riding by on a bicycle. My god, what a small town L.A. is sometimes. I didn't realize where I'd seen her before until she was half a block past me.
Gymnast miss, should you ever read this: if you want people to recognize you more quickly, please ride your bicycle upside down, twenty feet in the air, with a live band accompanying you. This will be a big help.
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Loan a Few Bucks, Change a Few Lives
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