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.

Now I find myself encased in a layer of permalost--along with thousands of others who didn’t get the Big Money, select the correct final answer or match what the survey said. We are citizens of Loserville, a municipality that, like a downscale version of West Hollywood or Beverly Hills, sits within L.A. without being a part of it. We walk under the same bright sun we did before, but the best rays are reserved for the winners just outside our borders. They drive grand prize cars and sport tans from trophy trips to Cabo. Even their memories seem more sublime--the long term filled with happy scenes of all-expenses-paid horseback riding trips to Ireland, and the short term fortified by how much better their morning orange juice tastes when it comes from their new stainless steel refrigerators.

Which brings me back to Begley, who is permanently etched into my brain’s picture tube. He was on the board of directors at an environmental organization where I worked when I first came to Los Angeles, and I’d sometimes see him arrive for meetings on his bicycle. Now, whenever I place an aluminum can in a curbside bin, Begley pedals in my head, reminding me that I’m as likely to get a chance to correct my mistake as a Styrofoam packing peanut is to be recycled.

Contestants from other shows are surely stuck with more painful associations. A “Wheel of Fortune” loser might flinch at the letter E, which makes more appearances than any celebrity, starring in hit words such as “the” and “freeway.” Someone who got it wrong on “The Price is Right” might avoid the marina, unable to bear the sound of what could have been her prize personal watercraft.

For a while I consoled myself by thinking that as time went by, and my airdate receded into the past, I would be able to view old Begley-studded “St. Elsewhere” episodes without cringing. But then, watching television one evening, I surfed right into “Match Game 74,” and there was a woman about my age losing the game. Still losing. Thirty years later. I realized that, thanks to reruns, my status was permanent. It was time to start paying property taxes in Loserville.

I sometimes think my neighbors in this down-and-out burg are responsible for much of the rude behavior in our town. The woman who knocked me out of my intended spot in the checkout line with her shopping cart was attempting to best her poor performance on “Supermarket Sweep.” The guy who repeatedly cut me off in conversation was trying to prove that in real life he could buzz in anytime he wanted--a feat he couldn’t accomplish on “Jeopardy!” The woman who pulled across two lanes of traffic and held up a line of cars as she waited to make a left-hand turn was just showing she could block--something she, like me, didn’t do on “Squares.”

But even if my fellow citizens are not always the most appealing group, I’m comforted to know that I am just one of many. I only wish that we parting-gifts people had a secret sign we could use to recognize each other--maybe the thumbs-up signal, modified by repeatedly miming the pressing of an unresponsive buzzer. It would be reassuring to see the faces of others who know the terrible truth: No matter how long we live in a city in which it seems we can laser away our losses, some of us are never going to win.

Back in my old hometown, people think that just being on “Hollywood Squares” is a huge success. “You’re not a loser!” they say. But they didn’t see that flawless Mercedes parked on the set without so much as a speck of dirt in the tire treads. (Surely it had enough torque to make a tight U-turn so I could race off in the other direction if I saw Ed Begley Jr. on his bicycle.)

I may not own that car today, but one reason I stay in Los Angeles is my belief that it’s always possible to trade up here. One day I will move out of Loserville to a neighborhood where every door opens to reveal fabulous prizes, where I will have a mahogany living room suite and a grand piano, and where no one wants to be a millionaire because they already are a millionaire. A place where I, too, will be a winner.