Loserville, USA

Just thinking about actor Ed Begley Jr. makes me wince. It's nothing he did. I was a contestant on "Hollywood Squares" a little more than a year ago, and in a moment of deer-in-the-klieg-light stupefaction, I failed to choose the veteran actor for an obvious block. It should have been a simple move, the kind a third-grader yawningly makes with a pencil. My opponent had two Xs lined up (Kathy Griffin and Dionne Warwick). Begley sat where I should have placed the O. Not calling on him cost me the game.

Initially, it was easy to forgive myself for the tick-tack-duh. Making a mistake on "Hollywood Squares" is like being at fault for the tiniest fender bender--over in an instant with no lasting impact. Besides, who can think straight while standing on a vertiginous, railing-less dais, facing a giant, brightly lighted grid of stars? But watching television that evening, I surfed right into the movie "Best in Show," and there was Mr. Begley Jr. in his role as the hotel manager.

I suddenly realized that I hadn't left my failure in the past. Just as Begley's fine performance was preserved, so was my egregious one. Leaving my mistake behind was impossible--because eventually it would be broadcast on television. My misplaced O would happen all over again. And then again and again in reruns.

I know I'm not alone. Los Angeles must have more game show also-rans than any city in the country. It appears that contestants jet in from all over the U.S. to partake in the Olympiads of acquisition, but that's because the programs often identify players by their former hometowns instead of their current local addresses. Some podium grippers and buzzer pressers really do come from Tampa and Albany, but after the tapings most people head home via the freeways and not the friendly skies.

L.A. is a place where transplants like me try to shed the "loser" skin we lived in before we arrived. I don't just mean the superficial tabula rasa of the lunchtime chemical peel--I'm talking about the sloughing off of sad or unlucky personal histories, the dermabrading of bad habits and the exfoliating of underachievement. We come to this balmy climate to win. After all, Los Angeles is the town that took tick-tack-toe from paper scrap to soundstage. Here it seems as if even the most insignificant of us have the chance to become players.