When The Weakest Link open casting call came to town I decided to audition, even though I’d never seen the show. Roommate Dave warned me that “the host is Satan incarnate,” but he also said that you don’t have to put your answer in the form of a question. So I headed to the Back Bay Hilton brimming with confidence—as it turned out, misplaced confidence:
    I show up a half-hour early and there is already a long line. The people at the front of the line look as if they meant to audition for a show called The Missing Link. These poor troglodytes arrived four hours early. Their dedication is certainly admirable, so I almost feel bad that I am about to play the role of sinister apothecary, using the mortar and pestle of my ruthless intellect to grind their dreams to dust. A few of them must sense the greatness in their presence, because they leave before they even get their identification numbers. Either that or they are put off by the hour-and-a-half wait. Who knows what fleeting whims govern the mind of a Weak Link? Certainly not I.
    After the requisite wait I’m ushered into a large room with about 150 other people. We begin filling out forms while the two guys running the show remind us that this is an audition. “If you don’t have a personality, it doesn’t matter how well you do on the trivia test,” they tell us. Everyone will get 10 seconds to introduce themselves and prove that they have a personality.
It quickly becomes apparent that this is a cheesy crowd. One guy stands up and says, “Hi, I’m Al, I’m 32, and even though I’m from Boston I don’t pahk my cah in Haavahd Yahd,” and everyone laughs. I’m too worried about my introduction to laugh, even at that kind of no-holds-barred hilarity. When my turn comes around, I blurt, “I want you all to know that I have callipygian buttocks. Thank you.” I quickly find that most people in the room are apparently unaware that “callipygian” is an adjective meaning “having shapely buttocks,” although one voice in the crowd shouts, “That sounds tasty!” The casting guys, however, are not as impressed with my high level of discourse.
    Next comes the 20-question test. (If any of you are planning on auditioning for the show elsewhere, beware that I am about to ruin the fun and suspense of Test 5A for you). The first question is “This electronic device is implanted in the chest to regulate heartbeat.” I write “pacemaker” and start to ponder the other difficult questions I’ll soon be facing... such as which color leather will look best in the interior of my new Porsche.
    The next question is “This 1979 Francis Ford Coppola movie starred Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen.” Oh oh. Curse ye pop culture questions! Next I am befuddled by “When you are troubled or burdened, you are said to have this type of bird around your neck.” I write “chicken.” Then comes, “In ‘The 12 Days of Christmas,’ what did my true love give to me on the ninth day?” I scrawl “Nine doves a-singing.” Are there even any doves involved in this song? There’s definitely a partridge.
    By the time I finish the test it is clear that my performance has been an unmitigated disaster. I query the guy next to me, Owusu, about his answers. “Where was the conflict that escalated tensions in the Vietnam War in 1964?” I ask.
    “The Gulf of Tonkin,” says Owusu.
    “What about the movie with Brando?”
    “Apocalypse Now.”
    “Who played Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October?”
    “Alec Baldwin.”
    Owusu also tells me that the Louisa Alcott book that was made into a movie starring Winona Ryder is Little Women. The question after “Mary, Mary, quite contrary” is not “How did you get so fine?” but “How does your garden grow?” And if you’re troubled, you have an albatross around your neck.
    “The first one was ‘pacemaker,’ though, right?” I ask. Owusu looks at me a little sadly and nods. By night Owusu is a bouncer at Sophia’s, so it’s appropriate that right now he’s throwing my rowdy ignorance out of Club Knowledge.
    After the Weakest Link people score the tests, they come back and announce the 15 contestants who will move on to the next stage of casting. I am not among them. Neither is Owusu. Some of the people leaving are quite upset about being weak links, but I’m not too bent out of shape. After all, not making the cut on a game show is no reason to have a chicken around your neck. *