Josh Hill, Contestant on Jeopardy | Ep 106 | September 21, 2018
Josh Hill is a networking engineer and recent MBA graduate. He resides in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he has been active in the Central Arkansas Furs Association since its inception in 2005.
His alter ego "Bucktown Tiger" is well known among "furry convention" goers. He is a lyricist, keyboardist, and comedian who specializes in furry-themed hip-hop songs, voice overs, and freestyles, as lead shopwrecker of Paw Recognize Paw Studios.
Earlier this year, Hill appeared on the game show Jeopardy and was a seven day winner, with a prize total of $163,721. Oddly enough, the category that dethroned him as reigning champion was Entertainment!
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How to apply and win on the popular game show Jeopardy
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EPISODE 106
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:08.8] CC: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. Through storytelling and conversational interviews, this weekly radio show offers listeners first-hand insight into starting and running a business, the ups and downs of risk-taking and the commonalities of successful people. Connect with Kerry through her candid and informative weekly blog, where you'll read, get tips and may comment on life as a wife, mother, daughter and entrepreneur.
Now, it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:39.5] KM: Thank you, Chris. Like Chris said, I’m Kerry McCoy and it’s time for me to get up in your business. Before we start, I want to introduce the people at the table. We have who you just heard from, Chris Cannon, my co-host who will be managing the board and taking calls. Say hello, Chris.
[0:00:53.5] CC: Hello.
[0:00:55.3] KM: Recording the show to make a podcast available next week is our technician Jayson Malik from Arise Studios in Conway, Arkansas. If right now you're sitting at your computer, you might want to watch us live on flagandbanner.com’s Facebook page. It's fun to see what goes on behind the scenes. This is real-time reality radio.
If you were watching a few minutes ago, you got to see my guest, Josh. He'll do a little rapping, because he was doing that for the people on Facebook. If you have to miss any part of this show, or want to hear it again, there's a way, and Chris is going to tell you how.
[0:01:29.8] CC: Listen to all Up In your Business past and present interviews by going to flagandbanner.com and clicking on radio show. Also, by joining our e-mail list or liking us on Facebook, you'll get a reminder notification the day of the show with a sneak peak of that day's guest. Back to you, Kerry.
[0:01:47.6] KM: Up In your Business with Kerry McCoy began as a platform for me, a small business owner and a guest to pay forward our experiential knowledge in a conversational way. Originally, my team and I thought it would appeal to entrepreneurs and want to be entrepreneurs, but it seems to have a wider audience, because after all, who isn’t inspired by everyday people's American-made stories?
To see people in their totality is humanizing. We all thirst to connect and make sense of an over-complicated world. On this show, we have the luxury of time to go deeper than a soundbite or a headline. It's no secret that successful people work hard, but other common traits found in many of my guests are the heart of a teacher, belief in a higher power and creativity. My guest today is the unassuming and highly intelligent, Mr. Josh Hill, who was shot into the Arkansas limelight when he in the summer of 2018 became a seven-time winning contestant on Alex Trebek's long-running game show, Jeopardy!
By day, Josh is a network manager and he looks like one. By night, he portrays his alter ego as the Bucktown Tiger in his friend group, the Central Arkansas Furs Association, founded in 2005. This may sound like a hunting club, but it's not. It's role-playing by creative people. Josh, or should I say Bucktown Tiger is well-known among furry convention goers as a lyricist, keyboardist and comedian who specializes in furry themed hip-hop songs, voiceovers and freestyle. Like I said, we got a little bit on Facebook right before the show. We're going to get some more by the end, aren’t we?
[0:03:30.2] JH: Maybe.
[0:03:32.8] KM: Today, we're going to find out about the road to jeopardy, how hard it is to get on, what goes on behind the scenes, the pressure, the preparation and what it's like to win. Are you ready? $163,000 on national TV. Go Josh. Go.
[0:03:47.8] JH: Yeah.
[0:03:49.3] KM: At the bottom of the hour, we're going to play – I like this word. Madison made this word up, Quash Josh, with our questions. Get your question ready for calling in. We'll give you the number later on. At the end of the show for our other animal interested furries, and there are a lot of us out – a lot of you out there, I've discovered. We’ll talk about his hobby and he'll give us some samples of his hip-hop songs, I hope. It's a pleasure to welcome to the table, the super interesting and original seven-time winner of Jeopardy, Mr. Josh Hill.
[0:04:23.2] JH: Well, hello Kerry. Great to be here with you. Thanks for the invite and the warm welcome.
[0:04:27.9] KM: Thank you. That sounded just like he was on Jeopardy. I think that’s exactly what you said when I saw you on Jeopardy. I love original people and you are absolutely certainly that. Before we get into all your hobbies and your successes, let's talk about your early life.
[0:04:45.9] JH: Sure.
[0:04:46.5] KM: Did you know you were always smart?
[0:04:49.8] JH: Not really. I was just trying to be the best person I could. I was told that I was smart, but have to not necessarily believe everything that you hear, because there's always someone out there that knows more than you, that's better than you, and there's always things that you can improve upon. As a person from a young age, I always try to become a better version of myself, particularly when it comes to academics. I was lucky to be raised in a family and household. My mom was a teacher. She's recently retired; public school teacher. She always – she and my grandma always stressed the value of education and ensure that I prioritize that above no other likes and things I might want to do, hanging out with my friends, which I did as well, but I always made sure my homework was done first. I'm just thankful to have that background.
[0:05:49.8] KM: With family.
[0:05:50.9] JH: Yeah. It’s I guess, got me pretty far.
[0:05:53.7] KM: Families are really important. When you have, after I watched you in Jeopardy and I saw the depth of your knowledge, I couldn't help but wonder how someone like you who literally knows a little bit, or a lot about everything, can decide what they want to choose as the career in college. How did you decide to hone down what you want to do? You got a master's in business, I believe.
[0:06:15.1] JH: I do.
[0:06:16.6] KM: How'd you decide, okay business is what I'm going to do? Because you could do anything. You're one of those people that could do anything.
[0:06:22.5] JH: Well, when I first went to the University of Arkansas, and one of the reasons I chose U of A was because they had the most majors on offer in the state. I had no clue what I want to do out of high school. I thought I wanted to go into economics. Then I ended up think declaring political science when I first got there and realized, I don't know if I really want to do that. I switched to almost a computer science. Then I switched to history. I was all over the map.
[0:06:51.0] KM: How long did you go to school?
[0:06:53.2] JH: Just four years. A couple summers.
[0:06:55.4] KM: Just 20 hours of semester, I guess.
[0:06:57.5] JH: Pretty much. I switched to electrical engineering my second semester, basically following in the footsteps of my father. He was an electrical engineer; spent some time working at Chrysler. I thought it would be really cool to deal with technology. All of my peers in college were like, “You're going into engineering? Wait a minute, do you understand what you're doing?”
[0:07:22.8] KM: Why? What's wrong with that?
[0:07:24.3] JH: Because people were leaving engineering and going to other majors, because the science and the math load.
[0:07:31.0] KM: Oh, because it's hard?
[0:07:32.2] JH: Essentially.
[0:07:33.2] KM: You know it's one of the degrees that there's not enough people graduating. If you're an engineer, you're pretty much going to get a job.
[0:07:38.1] JH: Pretty much. I really hope that more people consider majoring in engineering, studying the sciences, the maths, because there is a need here in America for really talented people in those technological fields. We have to keep a competitive advantage on the global stage. Only way we're going to do that is with homegrown talent. I'm really glad I got my electrical engineering degree and I've been working in the computer telecommunications networking field since college for 14 years now.
[0:08:10.7] KM: Where do you work?
[0:08:12.9] JH: I work down the road at a cellphone carrier. They're the ones that at one time said – asked you if you could hear them. Good?
[0:08:25.0] KM: Can you hear me now? Is that the one? That says, “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?”
[0:08:28.8] JH: I'm not sure what the current catchphrase is, but yeah, it's a pretty large network.
[0:08:34.4] KM: What’s your day look like? When you're an electrical engineer, what does your day look like? I actually got to call you a network engineer.
[0:08:42.0] JH: Network engineer.
[0:08:43.6] KM: You get an electrical engineers’ degree to be a network engineer?
[0:08:47.2] JH: Well, I have an electrical engineering degree. You can have a computer engineering degree; some people have computer information systems. There are even some mechanical engineers, engineers in other fields. There are some people who just studied independently and took all the certification exams that they needed from various vendors, CISCO, Juniper, Microsoft certifications. There are also some of the up-and-coming technologies, open source, some vendors, OpenStack, Mirantis, Red Hat.
[0:09:20.7] KM: Wow, you listed them all. I don’t think you missed one.
[0:09:23.6] JH: I’m sure there are plenty out there I haven’t mentioned.
[0:09:27.0] KM: You’re a network engineer for a big telecommunication company, what does a day like that look like for you?
[0:09:34.1] JH: Well, mostly dealing with deploying new infrastructure. If you get matching routers and switches that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, I can't give the exact amount obviously, it’s proprietary. Taking those routers and servers that cost a lot of money and virtualizing them. The future of internet is virtual.
[0:09:54.3] KM: Does that mean putting them on the cloud? Virtualizing them means putting them on the cloud, or segmenting them in the computer, in the server?
[0:10:03.0] JH: Kinda, sorta not the public cloud in the sense of you no longer have control over your data, but having those services of network services be handled in an automated, virtualized fashion. The infrastructure can be much more flexible. You can take a server and program it to be whatever router you need, whatever switch you need.
[0:10:24.3] KM: I guess, they're called virtual because you can have a whole lot of them on one computer, on one –
[0:10:28.0] JH: You can.
[0:10:28.7] KM: That makes them virtual. Instead of one computer having one – running one machine, you've got five machines running on one – what would that be called? Not one network. On one server?
[0:10:40.3] JH: Yeah, on one server, one hypervisor. You can also in downtime for example, if you're in the busy hour where everyone is trying to use their phones and you need all of that computing power to handle phone calls, versus in the middle of night when we're all asleep, or making new rap songs, or whatever you’re doing. Then you can use that computing power to take database backups, or to do other network changes, improvements.
[0:11:09.7] KM: Okay, you've got a wonderfully interesting life. I want to take a quick break, because I want to come back and I want to talk about Jeopardy and what it's like to be the seven-time winner on Alex Trebek's Jeopardy. I want to talk about the preparation that went into it. I want to talk about the audition. I want to talk about behind the scenes going on. Then I also want to talk about your community of furry friends at the Central Arkansas Fur Association, which like I said, you might think it’s a hunting club, but it's not. Instead, it celebrates these furry friends at parties, conventions and other venues by role-playing and costumes on and other theatrics.
Last, this is the funnest part to me, we're going to play Quash Josh, and the listeners get to call in with questions. I asked Arkansas Flag and Banner employees to all send in questions. We've got some good ones for you. Stay tuned, we'll be back right after the break.
[BREAK]
[0:11:57.3] KM: Want to create excitement for your business, or event? Do it with affordable advertising from arkansasflagandbanner.com. We have tear drop banners, retractable banners and table drapes, we have street pole banners, museum and exhibit banners, we have custom flags, event tents, tailgating poles, auto graphics and window scrim. Don't forget, welcome home and sale banners. Consult the experts at arkansasflagandbanner.com. Go online for a free quote, or drop by our historic showroom at 800 West 9th Street in Little Rock.
[0:12:28.9] CC: You're listening to Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. Over 40 years ago with only $400, Kerry McCoy founded Arkansas Flag and Banner. During the last four decades, the business has grown and changed, starting with door-to-door sales, then telemarketing, to mail order and catalog sales, and now a third of their sales come through the internet. This past year, Flag and Banner added another internet feature, live chatting.
Over time, Kerry’s business and leadership knowledge grew. As early as 2004, she began sharing her knowledge in her weekly blog. Then in 2009, she founded the nonprofit Friends of Dreamland Ballroom, and in 2014, Brave Magazine, who’s next publication is slated for October 2018. Today, she has branched out into radio with this very production, podcast and live stream on Facebook.
Each week on this show, you'll hear candid conversations between her and her guests about real-world experiences on a variety of businesses and topics that we hope you'll find interesting and inspiring. If you'd like to ask Kerry a question, or share your story, send an e-mail to questions@upyourbusiness.org. That's questions@upyourbusiness.org or send her a message on flagandbanner.com’s Facebook page.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:13:52.8] KM: You’re listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with Mr. Josh Hill, network engineer and the only person I know who is a seven-time winner of the game show Jeopardy. I don't even know a one-time winner. Before the break, we talked about what it's like growing up smart, what great parents you had, how you pick a career when you could do anything you want to do and that you picked electrical engineering and that you're a network administrator or manager – network engineer, I guess, technician.
Now, we want to talk about Jeopardy. I love Jeopardy. Obviously, lots of people do. It's been on the show how long? How many years?
[0:14:27.8] JH: This is season 35 they're currently in.
[0:14:29.8] KM: Wow.
[0:14:31.2] JH: That's on the syndicated version. Of course, there was a version I think it was a weekly version before that and that lasted about 10 seasons and they brought it back in 1984.
[0:14:41.0] KM: Trebek's always been the same guy. He's always been the same one.
[0:14:43.7] JH: It’s always been Alex Trebek.
[0:14:44.6] KM: That’s great. You always wanted to be on Jeopardy. I heard you saying to someone that you always wanted to be on there and that you spent a long time applying, I think I heard you say. How do you get on Jeopardy?
[0:14:56.1] JH: At one time when I was a teenager, the application process was you sent in a postcard and they would draw random postcards, at least for the teen tournament, which I was a teen back then. They would draw postcards out and invite you to an in-person audition. I was lucky enough to be selected for one, when I was 15, or 16. It was a long time ago. I got down there and you have to pass a 50-person test, 50-question test.
[0:15:23.8] KM: 50 questions.
[0:15:24.5] JH: Yeah, 50 person is –
[0:15:27.2] KM: You get to go and you get to go. All right.
[0:15:30.5] JH: You’d have the 50-question test and if you pass it, then you play a mock game three at a time just like on the show. They interview you, ask you what you what you would do with the money, a little bit about yourself. During the mock game in that teen tournament audition, I wanted to answer a question and they called it on a different competitor. I did this number. I did that. They're taping everything. They stopped the proceedings and called that out, “You cannot do that. You cannot show disapproval if you don't get called in. You won't get in every time.” I was like, “Well.” I said that with a goofy grin on my face. I was like, “Well, there goes my shot.”
[0:16:05.8] KM: Was it, did there go your shot?
[0:16:07.6] JH: Oh, yeah.
[0:16:09.5] KM: That’s an immaturity thing. There's a lot of really talented smart people out there, but they don't maybe get to the success they want because of this immaturity level that we all have.
[0:16:18.5] JH: Absolutely. I lost composure there. 20 years until I got another shot like that.
[0:16:24.9] KM: No. Did you keep applying after that?
[0:16:27.6] JH: I kept applying for the teen tournament. I applied for the college tournament. I went to Memphis when I was in college to, what they call it? The brain bus, back then when they used to drive around to different cities. Went there, failed the test. Tried a few times online. I guess, I failed the test online when they started doing it online.
[0:16:45.6] KM: How’d you get in this time? What happened this time that let you got in?
[0:16:48.3] JH: I guess, I passed the 50-question online test when they started doing that a few years ago, instead of just selecting post cards. They have an online test and the people that pass that test then get selected at random for an in-person audition. Mine was in Houston this time. I went there and I had to pass another 50-question test once I got to Houston and they want to make sure you were legitimate, I guess.
Then after that, was the same mock game and contestant interview. I knew I wasn't going to do that time. I was like, “I’m not going to roll my eyes. I'm not going to get in every time.” It turns out at the Houston audition, Alex Trebek was there. He usually doesn't come to auditions, but he came to that one. He surprised all of us. He’s just a really jovial person. Really good with not just contestants, but also the audience. He took questions from all of us.
Then the local affiliate KAHOU was filming our 3X3 contestant mock games. I was actually one of the ones playing and Alex was being interviewed in the background and they made a joke and everyone laughed in the room. I'm standing up there. This was on their camera. I turned and I was like, “What's going on?” I look. I got this goofy deer-in-the-headlights grin going on. The other competitors looked. Luckily, the contestant coordinators also looked. It wasn't too much of a disruption, because we’re at this inside, they’re in awe at Alex.
Anyway, we got back to the interview and I guess I did okay. That was on a Friday. We drove over to New Orleans to watch the Saints beat the Carolina Panthers. Who’d at. My wife's a huge Saints fan and I married and who that family, who that nation. Came back on Monday. Then Tuesday, when we got back I was getting lunch a tropical smoothie right there on Broadway. I pull my phone out to check Twitter, both Twitters. The rap Twitter and the –
[0:18:47.6] KM: Tiger up. Tiger Josh Hill Twitter.
[0:18:49.7] JH: All of them. Yeah. Facebook, Instagram. I only have Instagram. I noticed I had a missed phone call from a 310 area code number. They told us at the audition, if you get selected we'll call you and it'll be a 310 phone number. It's not a telemarketer. I saw the phone number; I was like screech. I stopped what I was doing. Called them back. Ryan, one of the contestant coordinators answered the phone. I said, “Oh, I'm sorry I missed your call. I missed your call.” “Oh, it’s okay. We just want to finalize some things on your applications. Are there any dates that you wouldn't be available?” I said, “Well, I'm doing a marathon the first weekend in March.” This was in December, by the way, of 20 whatever year it was.
[0:19:33.7] KM: 17.
[0:19:34.3] JH: 2017. Thank you.
[0:19:36.7] KM: You’re welcome.
[0:19:38.4] JH: I can't think of any other days I wouldn't be available. Ryan says, “Okay, thank you very much for your time. Oh, and by the way, we want to invite you out for a taping of Jeopardy.” I’m in the middle of a tropical smoothie and I have to do everything I can not just go jumping around, flailing and screaming like, “Aah, the sky is falling.” Everything just became, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” He could have said, “Hey, I want your left arm, your left leg.”
[0:20:03.6] KM: Your firstborn.
[0:20:05.7] JH: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. He went over the details. It will be January 24th. You’d had to fly out. Then if you do really –
[0:20:15.3] KM: More auditions again?
[0:20:17.5] JH: No. See, at the time, I didn't know that I was telling people well, it's just a taping. They may not select me. I’m trying to tamper down expectations. They told us to bring three changes of clothes. I didn't have three changes of clothes that were camera-ready, so the first thing we did when we got there was we went to the mall. My wife and I and found a couple extra wardrobes to take for the next day. I don't think I slept very much that night.
When we got to that morning, there was a bus downstairs and all contestants were there. I get on, there's something 12 of us on the bus. We get to the studio and we get to the gate. The guy there said, “Yeah, you're not supposed to be here.” I’m like, “What do you mean?” Because the guy thought we were the audience, I guess. We're really, really well-dressed audience. Took us to a gate where the audience supposed to come in. After 10 minutes of looking through the logs, he said, “Oh, wait. You all are contestants. You’re at the wrong gate. You all need to go around to a different gate.” We sat there for quite.
Finally they let us – I’m in a lot when you got to the right gate. Then after that, there was a couple of rehearsals. Before that, one of the contestant coordinators, Maggie, probably the most high-energy person you can imagine, really high-energy, really great person to be around.
[0:21:48.3] KM: How old is she? Is she young?
[0:21:50.6] JH: I know she's been on the show – with the show for almost a whole 35 years. Jeopardy has no turnover. If you get on a Jeopardy, you pretty much stay there.
[0:21:58.9] KM: The rest of your life.
[0:21:59.6] JH: Yeah, more or less. Why would you leave? It’s the dream job. She went over all the rules, where everything's going to happen, rehearsal, enunciate, make sure you enunciate, answer in the form of a question. Try to start at the top of the board. They mentioned that multiple times.
[0:22:14.5] KM: Oh, really?
[0:22:15.3] JH: Yeah. You don't want to start at the –
[0:22:16.9] KM: $,1000.
[0:22:17.6] JH: $2,000, $1,000 on a clue. You have no idea what the category is about. That was one, in one of my games, the camera was lakes and rivers. I'm sitting like, “Geography. Yeah.” Turns out, the first question was this comedian was one of the co-hosts of the Dank Show –
[0:22:34.0] KM: What does that had to do – Oh, lake Who is that?
[0:22:37.0] JH: Joe Rivers.
[0:22:37.4] CC: Joe Rivers.
[0:22:39.3] KM: Oh. I was trying to think of a lake.
[0:22:41.4] JH: I started at the bottom of the category, it would have been someone I've never heard of. Let’s start geography. They tell you to start at the top. I tried to start at the top. They went over all the rules and what would happen if we were found to be ineligible, even brought in an auditor to make sure that we were who we said we were. We all went out and rehearsed. We got to write our name on a little scribbly pad. We got to play a few questions, all 12 or so of us, including the returning champ. There's always a returning champ.
[0:23:12.8] KM: Always? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[0:23:14.9] JH: Yeah. Then they call it the first two competitors to go against the returning champ and it wasn't me. Okay, I got to sit in the audience and watch. The first guy's name was Osman and he wiped the floor with everyone. Yeah, ended with 333. That was his winning score. No one want to face against him. I was looking to my – they guy sitting next to me. His name is Jeff. We didn’t want to go against him. Jeff was called next along with another competitor.
[0:23:44.7] KM: You’re like phew.
[0:23:46.6] JH: Yeah. Jeff ends up taking Osman down. I was like, “Wow.” Then I ended up getting called. I was like, “I got to play against that guy?”
[0:23:54.3] KM: You got played against Jeff?
[0:23:55.6] JH: I played against Jeff. It’s like, oh, well, it’s not going to be good. We went out there. It took a few questions. My heart rate was around 160, 165. Eventually, it just got back to – I did quiz bowl in high school and in college. Once I got back into that no competitive mode, being started to make sense again, if you will. I did okay, I guess.
[0:24:23.4] KM: What times it start? Was that the one that we saw in the summer was actually recorded in January?
[0:24:27.6] JH: It was recorded in – well, the one you saw in the few months ago was in recorded in February, because basically what happens they do five episodes a day. That was the third episode of the day. Monday through Friday, that's one taped day. They tape two days a week. That was a Wednesday taping, so the Wednesday episode I ended up winning. We went to lunch, so I have the status of the returning champ at lunch, and so everybody's giving me side eye like … No, I’m just playing. We were all really, really friendly, all the competitors.
[0:24:56.2] KM: I wondered about that.
[0:24:57.4] JH: Oh, no. We all are Facebook friends now.
[0:24:59.5] KM: Oh, that's sweet.
[0:25:00.6] JH: It’s really cool. Thursday, ended up winning that episode and Friday. I flew back home. I have to fly back out two weeks later. That's the one that was in February, second time I flew out.
[0:25:13.7] KM: Why didn’t they just keep you going into the next week? Why do they skip you a week and make you come back?
[0:25:17.5] JH: Here's why, because Jeopardy is in one lot on Sony Pictures Entertainment Studio’s lot. Wheel of Fortune is across the street, and so the same camera crew, the same cameras, they used to film jeopardy on Tuesday, Wednesday, they use those to film Wheel of Fortune on Thursday, Friday.
[0:25:32.9] CC: Did not know that.
[0:25:33.5] KM: I did not either.
[0:25:35.1] JH: Yeah, so they tape –
[0:25:35.7] KM: Budget cuts.
[0:25:38.7] JH: Well, I can’t speak for their budget.
[0:25:40.9] KM: They're not making enough money going around. Okay, go ahead. Then you fly home and – I bet that actually is good for you, because you get to study?
[0:25:49.4] JH: A bit.
[0:25:49.7] KM: Did you study? I bet you did.
[0:25:52.6] JH: I somewhat. I knew my weak areas. I was trying to work on some things I need to work on.
[0:25:57.4] KM: Then you fly back out. Then you do the next –
[0:26:01.6] JH: At that point, you're the returning champ and the three-day returning champ. I try to keep that under wraps as much as I could. Eventually got out.
[0:26:08.6] KM: How do you do that?
[0:26:10.1] JH: When I got back to the set and Maggie says, “Hey, champ.” I was, “Okay, now the secret's out.” She then started asking how many days did you win and I was trying to play coy. Eventually when we started rehearsing, they run the tape from the previous episode in a show how much, because it's also a rehearsal for the camera crew, for the sound crew, for the judges, it's also a rehearsal for them.
[0:26:35.1] KM: They do a rehearsal before they actually go live and get everybody relaxed. I wondered how they did that.
[0:26:39.6] JH: Yeah, they do a rehearsal. After lunch, there was another rehearsal for the contestants that are still there.
[0:26:44.5] KM: They’ll get you relaxed again and back in the groove, get all your burps over with after lunch.
[0:26:48.7] JH: Yes, ma'am. In the announcement, I was a three-day champ with, I think it was $88,000 at that point, or $83,082 something, 82, 86. Then all contestants were like, “Wow. I hope I’m not the first to lose to you.” I’m like, “Every game is a different game. It’s different categories.” Really, one question can turn the trajectory of a whole game. Had Jeff gotten the final Jeopardy question right on that very first episode, Jeff would’ve won and I would’ve walked away with the second place $2,000 price and that had been it.
[0:27:22.7] KM: Yup, you won a lot of – you won all those final Jeopardy once, I think every one I watched. You never lost one, did you?
[0:27:30.5] JH: Well, there was the one at the end.
[0:27:32.0] KM: Oh, there was one. Oh, no, no.
[0:27:34.0] JH: There were a few. Yeah, I was only four for eight on the final questions. I didn't do that as well as I wanted. I'm just real fortunate.
[0:27:40.0] KM: The one you lost on everybody lost on. I think it was one.
[0:27:42.9] JH: Basically, yeah.
[0:27:43.6] KM: It’s been a few months since I watched.
[0:27:44.8] JH: There were a lot of what we call triple stompers, where none of the three new –
[0:27:48.1] KM: It didn’t matter.
[0:27:49.0] JH: Right. Luckily, I was in the lead and had a big enough lead to where strategy behind that as well, if the second place is close enough to you, they can be at zero. That means you have to get it right, so you're going to have to get enough to drop below them. Luckily, I had a big enough lead in those times where essentially, second place have to get it right and then I have to miss it.
[0:28:12.5] KM: Yeah, because you're over there doing the math. Part of that Jeopardy is figuring out the math that goes with it.
[0:28:17.5] CC: Yeah, your bid, or what you’re going to put on that.
[0:28:19.2] KM: On your bid. Sometimes they’ll do $1. I wondered about how they kept you from being stressed out about it. I mean, to keep you relaxed. They trained you in one day. In one day, how many shows do you do?
[0:28:35.2] JH: Five.
[0:28:36.2] KM: Does that count the ones they do to get you relaxed?
[0:28:42.2] JH: It doesn't count the ones for relaxation. Now there are two of those, so two rehearsals. There's a rehearsal in the morning and then three live episodes –
[0:28:50.0] KM: Five take. Five take.
[0:28:50.8] JH: - three taped episodes. Yes, ma'am. Then lunch and then another rehearsal and then two more after lunch. Two more tapings.
[0:28:57.1] KM: That’s seven?
[0:28:58.0] JH: That would be seven, if you count for rehearsals.
[0:28:59.9] KM: You’re exhausted when you go home?
[0:29:03.5] JH: I was pretty tired at the end of the second tape day when it was five episodes in a row, because you don't really get a break. The returning champ, they take them backstage, you change clothes, because it looks like another day. You have maybe 10 minutes to get your makeup redone, re-mic, back out onstage.
[0:29:19.1] KM: You don't have time to think about it.
[0:29:20.3] JH: Not really.
[0:29:21.4] KM: The categories that are chosen, I always wonder if they – you've taken all these tests, they know what your strengths are. Do you think they're rigged to try and make people get out?
[0:29:31.9] JH: Absolutely not. In fact, there are six episodes that are written out by the question writers. They pick five at random. Those are sorted at random before the tape day is even over, even started. Then they select the contestants at random, so it’s random contestants, random take days. In fact, there's always at least one contestant on each day that doesn't get selected. There has to be a sense of randomness about it. They always bring in at least one alternate on the first day. I think there are two alternates there. Then they stay in case someone drops out. Then at the end of the Wednesday tape day, often some local area.
[0:30:09.2] KM: Always local for the alternate, so that they don't have any air travel.
[0:30:12.3] JH: Correct. At the end of the second tape day of the week, one of those alternates will be selected to go on. The other one won't. They'll come back at a later tape session and then they’ll get on.
[0:30:22.1] KM: Is it in California? Is that where the local is?
[0:30:24.5] JH: Culver City, California. LA area.
[0:30:26.5] KM: Do they pay your airfare to go out there?
[0:30:28.1] JH: They don't.
[0:30:29.2] KM: Everything’s on you.
[0:30:31.4] JH: If you're a first-time contestant, you pay for airfare, you pay for hotel. Of course, you're already paid to get to the audition. If you have to fly back out, like if you were returning champ like I was, then they'll pay for your airfare to get back out to LA.
[0:30:45.2] KM: You know how you talked about a few minutes ago how you made that sound of disapproval. I've seen guys do that about the buzzer, like hit the buzzer with their finger and then somebody else gets it, then they look at the buzzer, like something wrong with their buzzer.
[0:30:57.8] JH: At the end of every commercial break, the first thing that Maggie and Lori do, the contestant coordinators, they come and ensure that we all, and Glenn, they make sure that each one of our buzzers works. Have us all ring in one by one, just to let you know, “Hey, your buzzer does work. Maybe you just weren’t quite fast enough, or maybe you were too fast, you were too early.” Because what happens after Alex reads the clue, one of the judges has their own lockout device where they enable the buzzers. If you ring in before the judge enables the buzzers, you’re locked out for a quarter of a second.
[0:31:30.9] CC: I've seen that happen. I've seen people doing this, but they're not getting anything.
[0:31:35.4] JH: They’re not getting in, because they went too early.
[0:31:37.5] KM: You can't hit your buzzer while he's reading.
[0:31:40.8] JH: Correct. If you accidentally do, you're locked out for how long?
[0:31:45.1] JH: A quarter of a second.
[0:31:45.9] KM: Which could be the difference between the guy next to you in it.
[0:31:48.0] JH: Absolutely. About half of the questions was my experience. About half the questions, all three contestants know the answer. It’s just a matter of who gets in first.
[0:31:56.0] KM: Really? I can’t believe there’s that many smart people in the world.
[0:31:59.7] JH: Oh, absolutely. There are people way smarter than me out there.
[0:32:03.2] KM: 35 years of contestants and lined up trying to get in. It took you 20 years to get in. All right, let’s talk about the big money. You got a $166,000.
[0:32:13.5] JH: After taxes, maybe a hundred bucks.
[0:32:16.3] KM: That’s not true. Do they hold the taxes out before you leave?
[0:32:20.3] JH: They hold California taxes.
[0:32:21.7] KM: Oh, those are not good.
[0:32:23.2] JH: Yeah, California that I think is 7% withholding. The federal is on you. Then any state tax you would owe to your home state is on you. Not to mention –
[0:32:33.8] KM: You have 7% on top of your regular income tax.
[0:32:36.8] JH: Ordinary income. Street is ordinary –
[0:32:38.9] KM: They don't hold that out. That's on you.
[0:32:40.3] JH: That’s on you.
[0:32:41.0] KM: You have to put that on your ink. They write your check minus your 7% to California?
[0:32:46.4] JH: Well, they would send that check and then you do whatever you –
[0:32:49.2] KM: Oh, they mail it to you.
[0:32:50.5] JH: Then on April 15th, anything you owe Uncle Same, or I don’t know what the Arkansas equivalent of Uncle Sam is and owe the state.
[0:32:59.4] KM: It’s your loss.
[0:33:01.3] JH: There you go. I would come out at that point and then you write a check, unless you pay early withdrawals, or early disbursements. I don’t know if I want to reveal my financial strategy here.
[0:33:13.5] KM: No. Let me ask you this, can you tell us how this money and this experience changed your life?
[0:33:20.2] JH: Well for one, of course being a college student, I have a couple degrees, my wife has a couple of degrees, master's and –
[0:33:28.2] KM: You have a couple of degree?
[0:33:30.0] JH: Bachelors and the masters. Then my wife has bachelors and masters. It has helped us a lot with taking care of some of the debts we incurred getting those degrees, because college is not cheap.
[0:33:39.8] KM: School is expensive. Paying off college expenses.
[0:33:42.9] JH: Somewhat and then also of course, home improvement. As a homeowner, I’m sure you’re aware that they can be money pits at times, so some things that we've been wanting to do. Of course, travel. We both love to travel, and so we're looking forward to coloring in the last two states on our map, which are Alaska and Hawaii. We've been to the all the contiguous 48 states. I think, I said continental on the episode. That was a mistake. Alaska is continental as well, technically. The contiguous 48 and we've been all of them and haven’t been to Alaska and Hawaii.
[0:34:16.7] KM: That's what you’re going to do.
[0:34:18.4] JH: That's our big vacation plans. Then from there, we start coloring in the rest of the countries.
[0:34:23.9] CC: Right. There you go.
[0:34:24.9] JH: I don't know if we'll get to every country, but at least hopefully every continent.
[0:34:28.1] KM: I’ve never been to every state in America. You’re young to have done all of that.
[0:34:34.4] JH: Well, I guess do that again.
[0:34:36.1] KM: It’s a goal. It’s a goal. That’s a nice goal. All right, this is a great place to take a break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with network engineer, Mr. Josh Hill, seven-time champion of Alex Trebek's game show Jeopardy. Do you get to go back now that you're a seven-time winner? Do you go back now? You get to play in some championship games?
[0:34:53.8] JH: The Tournament of Champions, I'm not sure when it’s going to be held, but I would assume they would invite me, unless I do something to mess that up. I hope I don't. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting an invite and competing again. The top prize for the Tournament of Champions is $250,000.
[0:35:09.9] KM: Oh, come on Josh. Listen, I just jumped up and down watching you. I recorded, come home from work, watch it, then you'd win again. I'd be like, “Oh, my gosh.” I feel I'm going to pile on this.
[0:35:20.6] JH: Thank you for watching.
[0:35:22.2] KM: Oh, you're so welcome. Thanks for doing it. It was great for me. In this next segment, I want to learn about Josh's community of furry friends at the Central Arkansas Fur Association. This is not a hunting club, just the opposite. This is a group of like-minded people who celebrate their furry friends at parties, conventions and other venues by role-playing in costume song and other theatrics. We'll be taking questions for Josh on our Quash the Josh segment.
First, I want to remind everyone we're broadcasting live every Friday afternoon at 2:00 PM central time on both KABF 88.3 FM, the voice of the people and flagandbanner.com’s Facebook page. That after one week of every shows airing, a podcast is made available on all popular listening sites and YouTube.
[BREAK]
[0:36:07.9] KM: Boost morale and patriotism with a new flag or flagpole from arkansasflagandbanner.com. We have poles, hardware, accessories, maintenance support, installation and custom flags. We have flags of all kind; for the sports enthusiast, the world traveler, or history buff, we have them all. Bring in your old flag and get $5 off a new one. Consult the experts at arkansasflagandbanner.com. Come shop at our historic location at 800 West 9th Street in Little Rock or visit us online at flagandbanner.com.
[0:36:40.4] CC: Flagandbanner.com is proud to underwrite Up In your Business with Kerry McCoy, where listeners are offered firsthand insight into the humanity and commonalities of successful people shared in a conversational interview with Kerry. Along with this radio show, flagandbanner.com publishes a free biannual magazine called Brave. First published in October 2014, Brave magazine harnesses the power of storytelling and human empowerment. The Department of Arkansas Heritage recognize Brave magazine’s documentation of American life and micro-fishes all editions for the Arkansas State Archives. Brave magazine will be in your mailbox and hitting newsstands October 2018. Free subscriptions and advertising opportunities are available at flagandbanner.com by selecting magazine, where you can read previous stories and learn about advertising opportunities.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:37:33.2] KM: You're listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today to Mr. Josh Hill, network engineer and the only person I know, the only person I know to be in Jeopardy and he's a seven-time winner on the game show. If you've got a question for Josh, make a comment on flagandbanner.com’s Facebook page, which I do not have on my – I don't have my laptop here. Someone's going to have to tell me if you do. The best way though if you've got a question for Josh today is to call in. Write this number down and call.
[0:38:03.4] CC: 501-433-0088.
[0:38:07.2] KM: Say that one more time.
[0:38:08.9] CC: 501-433-0088.
[0:38:12.1] KM: If you're shy, you can just creep on my weekly blog about life as a small business owner at flagandbanner.com, or as I said earlier, you can listen to our podcast. I want to take this opportunity to give a big shout out and a thank you to Centennial Bank for partnering with the Friends of Dreamland Ballroom and sponsoring this year's Dancing into Dreamland, which is Friday November the 2nd. Tickets and a few tables are still left available online. Thank you, Centennial Bank.
Before the break, we talked about Josh being a smart kid. 15-years-old, the first time he applied to go on Jeopardy. Because of his immaturity, he didn’t get on. Then we talked about what it was like to actually get on Jeopardy and the audition, the live show, how the goings-on behind the stage, behind the scenes, not really behind the stage, and that they shoot five in one day. I think that's really interesting. That they share their equipment and their – I don’t guess their roadies, but their technical programmers, people, their videographers with what was the show you said –
[0:39:19.8] JH: Wheel of Fortune.
[0:39:20.5] KM: Wheel of Fortune. Yeah, with Wheel of Fortune. I think that’s cool. I didn’t know that. love your behind the scenes stuff. That Alex Trebek is very nice.
[0:39:27.8] JH: Oh, absolutely.
[0:39:28.4] KM: That's really good to know too. That the categories are not rigged.
[0:39:34.7] JH: Oh, no. They're definitely not rigged. In fact, there are federal laws back in the 50s and 60s, they were wreaking game shows to try to drive the narrative, and so they may pass some federal laws to make that illegal and punishable by I think it's five years in prison.
[0:39:48.8] KM: Well, good. I’ll quit trying to figure out if they’re rigged or not. I do, so I would think about that. All right, now in 2005 the Arkansas Central Arkansas for Association was formed. Were you part of that?
[0:40:00.7] JH: I was one of the founding members. Yeah.
[0:40:01.6] KM: I figured you were. Tell everybody what it is.
[0:40:04.9] JH: Essentially, I went to Brinkley High School, the mascot was Tigers and stuck in a way. Essentially when I reached adulthood, you start trying to find people who you can click with, people who have similar interests. I was able to find some people who are also interested in anthropomorphic switches.
[0:40:33.2] KM: Is that what it’s called?
[0:40:33.7] JH: Anthropomorphic. Yeah. Essentially, if you take your favorite animal and you fashion an animal, there's a humanoid with human characteristics. If you think of Bugs Bunny, or Daffy Duck, or there was a recent Disney movie, Zootopia that was a pretty big box office hit, characters such as that is what anthromorphics are about. Essentially, the furry fandom is a celebration of those characters and entertainment and arts centered around that.
One of the unique things about the fandom is we create our own characters with their own defining features and their own talents and interests. A lot of us have our, I guess we call it fursonas, like a persona, except as animal selves, if you will. As far as the local community, we’ve –
[0:41:25.8] KM: There’s a lot of you.
[0:41:27.3] JH: Yeah, there's quite a few. We first started in 2005, but we've done various charity events.
[0:41:33.1] KM: What do you do at a charity event?
[0:41:35.4] JH: Sometimes we’ll costume, and we'll bring smiles to the kids’ faces and help raise money for various charities at conventions. We've raised millions of dollars around the world.
[0:41:46.8] KM: Really?
[0:41:48.3] JH: Yeah, for various – usually animal-related charities. People will try to have tigers, lions as pets. They're really cute when they're kittens, but they grow and they cost a lot to feed and they could kill you. A lot of them have to give those animals up to various sanctuaries. There's one really good one up in Eureka Springs, on Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge. Venues like that, as well as other animal-related, like pit rescue locations and other different outfits. We've helped raise money for them. There's one in Texas called Care. There's one in Tennessee called Tiger Haven. There's quite a few all across the country. We've raised hundreds thousands, millions of dollars for those.
[0:42:35.9] KM: You’re Bucktown Tiger. That's your name.
[0:42:38.3] JH: Yeah.
[0:42:38.6] KM: How come Bucktown? What’s Bucktown?
[0:42:40.4] JH: Nickname for Brinkley.
[0:42:42.1] KM: Oh, is that right?
[0:42:43.4] JH: Always. Yeah. Bucktown taking over, a lot of us we refer to our hometown as that. We'd have a lack of creativity, yet come up with a name and it seemed to work pretty well.
[0:42:55.0] KM: I can’t believe you have a lack of creativity. I mean, you do so much. I went on – if you go online and type in Bucktown Tiger, you will find that you have an album.
[0:43:07.7] JH: Well, six albums of the counting.
[0:43:09.0] KM: Oh, never mind. Six albums. I'm counting. Yes, six albums. What are these albums like?
[0:43:15.6] JH: Three of them are instrumental piano albums.
[0:43:19.2] KM: Because you play the keyboard.
[0:43:19.7] JH: Keyboard. Yeah. When I mentioned the tiger suit thing on Jeopardy, it’s like, it’s an actual thing. They opt-in for a recorded natural album quality. They're instrumental covers of various genres from classical to classic rock, all sorts of genres in between and some countries, some alternative rock. Then there are albums about my experience as a tiger enthusiast and in the furry community and some more experiences, as well as other formative experiences growing up from my background on my rap albums.
[0:44:02.1] KM: You do freestyle and I looked at some of the names on your album. Give us some names, because everything's a play on word. I mean, this tiger persona has got some great play on words.
[0:44:11.8] JH: Yeah, there’s quite a few. I mean, of course there's Rafer the world, obviously that album. There's one called Purrfect Pitch.
[0:44:21.3] KM: Purrfect Pitch.
[0:44:22.4] JH: Yeah, two Rs in Purrfect.
[0:44:25.0] KM: Every time you say the word for, it’s fur.
[0:44:27.6] JH: Of course. Yeah. Even just casual conversation, I'm saying fur in a slur a little bit. Yeah, I'm ready fur a dinner.
[0:44:37.1] KM: Does your wife do this? Is she a hobbyist too?
[0:44:39.2] JH: Well, I mean, she's been very supportive of every one of my endeavors throughout our nearly 14 years together, and really appreciative of her everyday.
[0:44:51.2] KM: Do you hear that honey? He’s giving you a shout out.
[0:44:54.0] JH: Well, of course. I love her.
[0:44:55.5] KM: She’s smart as you are too.
[0:44:58.9] JH: Oh, yeah. If we teamed up in trivia, I think she's really good at all the areas that I'm not good at. I think we'd be a pretty dynamic force.
[0:45:09.3] KM: You want to give us a little sample of rap? A freestyle, something freestyle.
[0:45:13.9] JH: Well, I did a song on Jeopardy that I rap about, not just – first, I put also network engineering stuff. It's not easy writing a rap about rap protocols, but there's some when I'm popping tags.
[0:45:29.0] KM: You go in the server room and start rapping to the guys. What do you say to them?
[0:45:33.1] JH: I’ll be like, where your tags at? Gone Papa Matt. Send them to my P router, we could swap them out. Send them to my PE, so we can drop them out. And if they kill your connect fast, reroute. Haha. It’s like popping tags. It has nothing to do with clothes at all. It’s completely MPLS with EBGP. We move packets like brick serving, all y'all see ease popping tags.
[0:45:57.4] KM: Popping tags. I like it. I love it. I just want to tell everybody right now quickly, you're listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy and I'm speaking today with Mr. Josh Hill. That's who you just heard rapping about his network engineering business.
[0:46:11.9] JH: Chill.
[0:46:12.3] KM: Chill. Whatever that means. I don’t know. What’s that mean?
[0:46:17.1] CC: That’s another way to say yeah.
[0:46:19.7] KM: Oh, okay. Okay, it’s time to play. We’ve got 10 minutes. It’s time to play Quash Josh.
[0:46:28.5] CC: Say that again.
[0:46:29.2] JH: Quash Scotch? Where? Where?
[0:46:30.9] KM: Yeah. I had a hard time saying that.
[0:46:31.2] CC: That’s okay. Say it one more time.
[0:46:32.4] KM: Quash Josh.
[0:46:34.3] CC: All right, there we go.
[0:46:36.2] KM: Quash Josh. What is that? Was that Jeopardy?
[0:46:39.3] JH: Yes.
[0:46:40.0] KM: It’s Jeopardy music. Oh, it is. Quash Josh. Quash Josh. All right. All right, so let’s give out the number if anybody wants to call in again.
[0:46:51.2] CC: Okay. That is 501-433-0088. Again, 501-433-0088.
[0:47:00.3] KM: Everybody’s been listening to Chris today. He’s my co-host. This is his question. I’ll send an email out to everybody and – I know.
[0:47:09.3] CC: Way too easy. Josh, you're going to get this.
[0:47:11.6] JH: Sure.
[0:47:12.4] KM: It’s juvenile is what it is. It’s very juvenile. That’s the category. The category of this is juvenile, all right? From the sun, this is the seventh planet in our solar system.
[0:47:26.1] JH: Okay, I got to make sure I say this correctly, because I don't want this to go viral. I want to say Uranus?
[0:47:34.2] KM: That’s not the way to say it.
[0:47:35.1] CC: No, is that it?
[0:47:36.6] JH: Because I meant to say Uranus. I get it. My anus. Wait, what? What? No.
[0:47:41.8] KM: Not your anus.
[0:47:42.8] CC: No, Uranus.
[0:47:45.9] KM: All right, this is category came from my office. Yeah, she's my bookkeeper. I know. If he knows this, he's a genius. I'm going to give you a category, because the category helps. This category is called vexed.
[0:48:02.6] JH: Uh-oh.
[0:48:04.6] KM: This term, meaning the study of flags previously considered part of heraldry was formalized by the US scholar and student of flags, Mr. Whitney Houst – Mr. Whitney Smith.
[0:48:15.2] JH: Whitney Houston?
[0:48:16.0] KM: No, I’m sorry.
[0:48:16.4] JH: Nice.
[0:48:17.9] KM: Mr. Whitney Smith in 1961 in his publication The Flag Bulletin.
[0:48:22.5] JH: Okay, so the category is vexed. Jeopardy does this a lot as well without the answers, where the correct responses would be in the clue. What is Vexillology?
[0:48:34.2] KM: No. How do you say that in rapper music sound? Boom. I don’t know. What do they say?
[0:48:41.9] JH: Vexillology, scientology.
[0:48:45.3] KM: I can't believe that that is correct. Vexillology with three Ls people. All right, here's an easy one. This would be called sounds, category sounds.
[0:48:55.6] JH: Okay.
[0:48:56.7] KM: After a few hours in the hot sun, I'm ready to drink a cold beverage this way.
[0:49:02.3] JH: Me too.
[0:49:03.5] KM: Also an engine sound.
[0:49:09.4] JH: After a few hours in the hot sun, I’m ready to drink a cold beverage this way.
[0:49:14.6] KM: Also an engine sound.
[0:49:16.5] JH: Ooh, that's a tough one.
[0:49:19.9] KM: Yeah, the easy ones you’re going to get in.
[0:49:21.7] JH: Yeah, goodness. It’s not chill. I can’t think of an engine that says chill. I mean, I chill. What is it? Hummed. I don't know.
[0:49:37.9] KM: Okay, here's another one in the category of sound. Well, actually I'm going to give you a hard one because you'll probably get this one. This one came from our purchasing from Niki in purchasing. I didn't know this. I just think this is interesting for all the listeners. Once a significant source of income for the state of Kuwait, this legacy has seen a steep decline since the 1990 Iraq invasion.
[0:50:04.9] JH: For the state of Kuwait, this legacy – I think of Kuwait is all what is all.
[0:50:12.4] KM: That's what everybody thinks of.
[0:50:14.0] CC: Yeah, that’s what I always thought.
[0:50:15.1] KM: I know. Everybody I've asked this question have said oil. What is pearl diving?
[0:50:18.8] JH: Really? Come fast pearls. Wow.
[0:50:22.9] KM: She said that there were – when you would go to Kuwait, one of the museums was all these old, old pearl diving boats and it was one of their biggest tourist attractions they had. They're all been blown away. No, history lost.
[0:50:39.8] JH: Yeah, that’s sad.
[0:50:40.4] KM: That is so sad when you think about all the museums. Then recently, a museum burned up in another city.
[0:50:45.6] JH: Brazil. Yeah.
[0:50:46.0] KM: Brazil. Yeah, with so many relics and then I just don’t –
[0:50:51.2] JH: 200 years.
[0:50:52.9] KM: Terrible. All right, here’s another in the sound category. Hearing this hyphenated sound of tiny feet means you have kids in the house, or mice.
[0:51:04.1] JH: What is pitter-patter.
[0:51:06.8] KM: Very good.
[0:51:07.9] CC: Do you see how he got enunciated on this round?
[0:51:10.4] KM: That was the best response to do with it.
[0:51:13.6] JH: I know there’s an episode recently where the guy, who was it, Coolio question and he said, “What is gangster's paradise?” They called it correct and they went back and said, “No, you said gangster, instead of gangsta.” We're going to take away $3,200. Yeah. Yes. Gangster. Gansta.
[0:51:34.0] CC: It blurs to the rules.
[0:51:35.1] KM: Well, they do that all the time. They go, “Hold up.” Then they, “Go, okay let it go.” All right, here this is an easy one. I hope all the listeners need to get this one. This is for the listeners, but you get to answer it, Josh. In a mother Goose rhyme, rub-a-dub-dub, there the three-minute a tub.
[0:51:58.6] JH: Who are the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker?
[0:52:02.1] KM: Very good.
[0:52:03.6] CC: I wouldn’t have known. Not at all.
[0:52:05.2] KM: You would not have known that?
[0:52:06.2] CC: I don't remember that thing. That was too long ago.
[0:52:08.8] KM: You have any kids, Josh?
[0:52:10.5] JH: No kids.
[0:52:11.8] KM: You remember that.
[0:52:14.6] JH: It came up recently in some trivia book I was studying. We do study for these things.
[0:52:19.7] KM: Do you really study trivia books?
[0:52:21.1] JH: Oh, absolutely.
[0:52:22.1] KM: Is there another game show you love?
[0:52:24.7] JH: I love pretty much any trivia show. It is legitimate trivia. There are some shows I won't name it, or basically just shots in the dark, those are frustrating. There are a lot of shows that are really good. I still think Jeopardy is the best. It's the longest-running obviously, but is also really well-written. The clues are entertaining, they're accessible to a wide variety of audiences. I just really enjoy the experience being on. If you're listening out there and you ever wanted to be on Jeopardy, go for it.
[0:52:56.2] KM: Yeah, because it took you 20 years. How often did you apply? Every year, or once a month?
[0:53:00.7] JH: Well, there was a time when I stopped applying. I just given up. A few years ago, I decided to start trying again.
[0:53:06.8] KM: Once a month, or how often did you play?
[0:53:08.9] JH: They offer the test round once, maybe twice a year.
[0:53:12.4] KM: Oh, so you can only do it twice a year.
[0:53:14.2] JH: Mm-hmm.
[0:53:16.1] KM: You just Google that up, when's the Jeopardy test? How did you find that?
[0:53:20.5] JH: I watched Jeopardy and during the episodes on commercial breaks, they have a test coming up, they'll mention when the test is going to be.
[0:53:27.7] KM: Give you the address. All right. Here's another one. First developed in 1912. Oh, this one. This one came from my son in –where is he? In the Ohio State in Columbus.
[0:53:42.1] JH: The Ohio State.
[0:53:42.8] KM: The. That’s right. The Ohio State. You’ve got so many interests. You love sports. You love music. I don’t know how you decide what to do in life. All right, this one came from my horticulturist son, that’s your category, horticulture. First developed in 1912, this unit of measurement is still used to determine heat level in chili pepper.
[0:54:05.4] JH: It is the Scoville unit.
[0:54:08.8] KM: Oh, my gosh. How do you know that?
[0:54:13.4] JH: It's another one of those trivia nuggets. I think is capsaicin has really, really high, has 300,000 Scoville units or whatever. Ghost peppers are really high. Anything harder than bell peppers, I try to avoid.
[0:54:27.1] KM: I gave this question to my husband. I said, “Honey, your son sent this. First developed in 1912, this unit of measurement is still used to determine heat level in chili peppers.” He said, “What is the tongue?”
[0:54:40.6] CC: That’s a good answer.
[0:54:42.1] KM: I was quick.
[0:54:43.3] JH: 1912.
[0:54:45.7] KM: Yeah. Only since 1912. We only got tongues in 1912. All right, here we go. The only American – Oh, this is another one of Chris's. This is easy, but you have to have some easy ones, because if you don't, the listeners can't play.
[0:54:59.6] JH: Exactly. Right.
[0:55:01.0] KM: Okay, the only American state to begin with the letter P.
[0:55:07.0] JH: Wow, there's only one state. I've never thought of it. Wow. What is Pennsylvania, which is also home to the – well, one of the world's largest furry conventions.
[0:55:16.7] KM: Is it really?
[0:55:17.1] JH: Yeah.
[0:55:17.8] KM: How many people?
[0:55:18.5] JH: In Pittsburgh. They were around 9,000. Their last –
[0:55:23.4] KM: I feel that's harkens back to your childhood, because my kids all wore tails. When they were kids and they would play in the yard and stuff, I'd have to pin tails on them all the time. They'd have a dog tail, or a tiger tail. One of them had a devil tail, the little pitchfork on the end of it. It does harken back to being a kid and wanting to dress up in costumes and stuff. I bet you love Halloween.
[0:55:49.7] JH: Halloween is a very celebrated –
[0:55:53.0] KM: Furry holiday. Everybody go online and you can go online and see Josh in his Tiger, in his – what is it? Buckhead?
[0:56:01.8] JH: Bucktown, I think. Yeah.
[0:56:03.8] KM: Bucktown outfit. Ain’t that hot?
[0:56:06.4] JH: It can get very hot inside. Yeah, in fact some of them, they designed them with fans inside to try to at least have some modicum of coolness. They can get really hot and especially when you're on stage performing in a concert, they get really hot. In fact, there are some OSHA regulations where you're not supposed to be in stage lights in full-body suit like that for more than 15 minutes, an hour and a half long concerts in suit on stage.
[0:56:29.2] KM: Lost 10 pounds.
[0:56:30.8] JH: About 10 pounds. Yeah. Usually, especially the one in Pennsylvania, usually I lose about 10 pounds each year.
[0:56:37.7] KM: You perform in all those – you perform in a lot of those conventions.
[0:56:40.7] JH: I have in the past. Yeah, we've done shows. Well, that's from coast to caost.
[0:56:46.0] KM: That is so cool. How do people get in touch with you?
[0:56:49.5] JH: Various ways on Twitter. I'm @JoshTigerHill on Twitter.
[0:56:52.8] KM: JoshTigerHill on Twitter.
[0:56:54.9] JH: Yup. Really, that's –
[0:56:57.4] KM: That’s the best.
[0:56:58.1] JH: - most of my online communications there.
[0:57:01.1] KM: You charge people, right? Or do you do it for free, because you just love it?
[0:57:04.7] JH: Well, the money either gets dealers booth where I can sell CDs, or various other methods.
[0:57:11.5] KM: Do you sell a lot of CDs?
[0:57:12.7] JH: There are quite a few. I had a map up in my studio from everyone that had my CD. I end up having to get a globe to put pins in Australia and Malaysia, South America, all over Europe.
[0:57:26.8] KM: You're so interesting. I just love it.
[0:57:29.9] JH: We're all over the world.
[0:57:31.1] KM: I love it. Could you have a – don't you also have a studio? Not a studio, a recording – didn't you said, paws something? Could I see that?
[0:57:39.3] JH: Yeah, this is a moniker I made up. It’s basically my basement.
[0:57:43.5] KM: Oh, it's called paw studio?
[0:57:45.8] JH: Paw like a paw.
[0:57:47.1] KM: P-A-W. Yeah.
[0:57:49.5] JH: There’s my basement.
[0:57:52.4] KM: Okay. I have a gift for you. I should give you one of the globe. It's a desk set.
[0:57:56.3] JH: Oh, nice.
[0:57:57.4] KM: US and Arkansas.
[0:57:58.5] JH: This is awesome.
[0:57:59.7] KM: Yeah, for your desk, for everybody. You have everybody in Facebook. Hey, see his desk set?
[0:58:04.1] JH: The two best flags that there are for all you vexillologist.
[0:58:08.3] KM: Good job. I can’t believe you did that actually. That’s very good. Hey, Chris. Who is my guest next week?
[0:58:13.6] CC: That’s going to be Ryan Harris, the executive director for Oxford American Magazine.
[0:58:18.9] KM: He's not from here. I think he's from St. Louis, where was a bookie. He booked bands in St. Louis. I do believe that's where he came from. He has a big following and is well-known as a booking agent around the south. Even though he's the executive director for Oxford American, he also books all the bands at South on Main. Have you ever been to South on Main, Josh?
[0:58:42.1] JH: South on Main is really exciting.
[0:58:44.2] KM: It's very exciting. Well, he books all those bands that come through.
[0:58:47.3] CC: Wow.
[0:58:48.0] KM: He knows his stuff. He books them usually – there's a series you can get on with them. He'll tell us about it next week. It's Thursday nights and he gets bands that are coming from New Orleans and going to Chicago. Because he knows so many people and he's so connected, he gets them to come here on Thursday nights and we get these really big bands in that really small venue.
[0:59:07.9] JH: It's impressive.
[0:59:08.5] KM: It’s very impressive. Thank you again, Josh.
[0:59:11.5] JH: Thank you, Kerry.
[0:59:12.2] KM: You’re welcome.
[0:59:12.8] JH: Thank you, Chris.
[0:59:13.9] CC: Thank you.
[0:59:13.9] JH: Thanks for having me here. This has been a lot of fun.
[0:59:16.7] KM: You've been a blast. I've been grinning since you got here. I want to take another opportunity to thank Centennial Bank again for sponsoring this year's Dancing Into Dreamland, November the 2nd. Tickets are still available online. If you have a great entrepreneurial story that you would like to share, I'd love to hear from you. Send a brief bio or your questions to – or your contact – actually, or your contact information. I don't need your questions –
[0:59:46.4] CC: That would be questions@upyourbusiness.org.
[0:59:50.6] KM: Finally to our listeners, thank you for spending time with us. My hope today is that you've heard or learned something that's been inspiring or enlightening and that it, whatever it is, will help you up your business, your life and your independence. I'm Kerry McCoy and I'll see you next time on Up In your Business. Until then, be brave and keep it up.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[1:00:12.8] CC: You’ve been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. If you missed any part of the show or want to learn more about UIYB, go to flagandbanner.com and click on “Radio Show.” Or subscribe to her weekly podcast wherever you like to listen. All the interviews are recorded and posted the following week with links to resources you heard discussed on today’s show. Kerry’s goal, to help you live the American Dream.
