The Expert

The process of becoming a "resident expert" on television is easy, according to John Hodgman, The Daily Show's resident expert.

"There are two steps," he explained. "First, you declare yourself an expert. And then you go on television. Once you go on television with (text) underneath saying you are an expert, then you are an expert. I think if you watch television -- that's the box in the corner of the room with the talking faces.…"

Sorry to interrupt, but aren't most TV sets nowadays flat and on the wall instead?

Pause.

"Never correct me again," Hodgman said.

"I think if you watch television -- that's the flat thing on the wall with the talking faces -- you'll see people called experts, and their authority is absolutely accepted because of the title.

"While it may not be very good for our culture, it has been very good for me."

Hodgman has developed a loyal following for his work on The Daily Show, where he appears once or twice a month; his appearances as the PC guy in a popular series of Mac commercials; and his books, The Areas of My Expertise and its follow-up, More Information Than You Require.

More Information has just been re-released in paperback with new material. Hodgman will appear at a Bookmarks event Nov. 13 to read from the book, and answer questions from the audience.

Both books -- as well as his planned conclusion to the trilogy, That Is All -- are compendiums of fake trivia and absurd concepts. They include historical anecdotes, tips for avoiding (or committing) scams, and plenty of lists.

"I love trivia and strange facts, and I love storytelling," Hodgman said. "I love to write short things, oftentimes stories that are just a few paragraphs long, or sometimes barely even a complete sentence. There wasn't much of a market, it seemed to me, in incomplete sentences and lists of strange things."

He left his career as a literary agent to write magazine articles. "It kind of allowed me to become a serial expert when I was a freelance magazine writer," he said. "I would write about food, wine, cheese -- which is a kind of food -- knee pain, the city of Omaha, the list goes and an on. You learn a lot about a single subject. Essentially, having declared myself an expert time and time again on subjects I knew very little about, I realized it would be very easy for me to make up the information."

And so he began working on what would eventually become The Areas of My Expertise.

"Once I started, I knew this was the book I wanted to write, and I hoped there was an audience out there that would appreciate it, and by no means is that a given."

One thing he didn't expect, though, was that he would become, as he calls it, "a very, very minor television personality" along the way.

That happened when he went on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in 2005, shortly after his book had first been published.

"How to write a hit book is a very simple formula: Go on television," Hodgman said. "A lot of people watch it. In particular, if you are able and lucky enough to go on The Daily Show, by all means do that. My book is a strange little book.

"Thanks to Jon Stewart's intervention, a lot of people found my book that would not have," he said. "He told people, this person John Hodgman is not merely insane. It is OK to like what he is doing."

The publicity helped Areas of My Expertise rise to No. 7 on the New York Times best-seller list. And Hodgman also became a recurring guest on The Daily Show, using his deadpan delivery and intellectual tone to provide often-dubious "expert commentary" on the news of the day. He works with writers for the show on his segments.

"I have always enjoyed a collaborative hand in the process," he said. "But I am in awe of the … (pause) … incredible speed and … (pause) … quickness of wit of the Daily Show writers. And what makes me not a Daily Show writer is, that sentence had a lot of long and awkward pauses that would never have happened if I was a Daily Show writer."

Hodgman's celebrity status increased thanks to his role as PC in the Mac commercials, an ad campaign that began in 2006 and is still going strong. He plays the fussy PC guy to Justin Long's easy-going Mac guy.

"Unquestionably, more people recognize me from the Mac and PC ads," he said. "It's a simple matter of math. Those are on lots and lots of networks, including broadcast networks, on shows that millions and millions of people watch. When I am walking down the street, more people do recognize my face, but they probably have no idea what my name is."

He often gets people coming up saying that he looks like "the guy in those ads."

"And I will say, ‘Well, that's because I am that person,'" he said.

The latest iteration, which happened just last Friday, took place in the hallway of his book publisher when, he said, someone finally got his name right.

"A man said to me, ‘You look like John Hodgman.' I said, ‘Yeah, that's true, I do.' He said, ‘No, you do, it's uncanny.' But because this was Halloween, this man was dressed up as Conan the Barbarian. There he was, dressed as Conan, eating orange Halloween cake, confusing me for myself. It's not a bad life, I can tell you."

But why stop at three books in his series? After all, couldn't a compendium of world knowledge, even made-up knowledge, keep going and going?

"Knowledge is always happening, always being generated," he said. "But honestly, after three books, I'll have all of it, for sure. Three books, that's got to be pretty much everything."