I woke up reluctantly, groggy from a virtually sleepless night. I didn’t fully awake for some time until, looking out at the drizzled palm trees whizzing past me on the 10, the strange promise of the day fully sunk in. I’m gonna be on a game show. Hot damn.

Courtesy of Comedy Central Ben and Jimmy broke up in 1999.

For the next few hours, until that intense trivia bloodbath, sweating under the hot lights of a Hollywood soundstage, my thumb twitching with nervous anticipation over the buzzer, I was in the peculiar state of grace experienced by Schrodinger’s cat. I speak of that unfortunate animal which some decades back was plucked up by its master, probably in the middle of scarfing its Kibbles or maiming some lovable, witless little woodland animal, and subjected either to a lethal dose of radiation or harmless puff of fresh air. The point of this sadistic little fit of pique was to illustrate that, when the outcome of a variable process (specifically the movement of subatomic particles, or in this case a 50% faulty cat-slaughtering device) is unobservable, both outcomes exist simultaneously. Thus, Schrodinger’s cat is both alive and dead until the box is opened.

But returning to the story at hand, I was simultaneously $5,000 dollars richer and a dirt poor loser until it came down to the wire. My features an outlandish blend of triumph and despair, I demanded that the shitty techno coming through the car speaker be dealt with, and then settled back to catch up on some rest before doing battle with the infamous Ben Stein.

Strip-malled suburbia gave way to the glittering hallucination that is Sunset Boulevard, dulled that day to a sultry glow by that SoCal rarity, a steady downpour. As the car pulled up to the imposing gates of KTLA studios, I noted Hollywood’s profusion both of expensive boutiques and sleazy liquor stores, satisfied that SoCal would provide for me, win or lose. Security guards approached the car, "He’s a contestant…on Ben Stein," piped up Jason. He was driving. I was briefly afflicted with the gruesome image of myself actually on Ben Stein, but banished the freakish thought. Medical research has shown that excessive sleep deprivation can cause frightening hallucinations.

The guards directed us to ‘Producer’s Lot A’, and walking back down the damp sidewalk, kicking a forgotten Big Mac box to the curb, Jason and Sara kept the pre-game warm-up to a minimum. I think they sensed my growing intensity as I swelled in my determination to defeat the evil forces of the Stein and reclaim his ill-gotten booty for nobler purposes.

Some time later I found myself within the studio, ferried around for the most part by young, hip looking production assistants as elsewhere in the compound, I imagined, Ol’ Ben prepared for the coming ordeal. Maybe he’s chanting mantras, I thought and pictured Ben, in his gray flannel suit, bespectacled eyes downcast, sitting lotus style in a zen rock garden chanting, Money money money money money money money money money money.

Courtesy of ComedyCentral.com

I soon found myself in the ‘green room,’ downing scads of coffee and a maple frosted donut as I assessed the eleven other contestants, all considerably older than I. When a group of total strangers are thrown together, forced into a close knit society for a brief period of time, a strange psychological dynamic emerges. We all became comrades, sharing memories of old stories from 15 minutes ago, noting differences in our origins and commiserating over the occasional frustrations of the grueling backstage life. Somewhere in the back of our minds we knew that we’d never see each other again, but still we joked and compared theories of buzzer techniques as if we were the members of a tiny cadre of professional trivia geniuses, roving from show to show and bumping into each other day by day. Also below the surface was the knowledge that we were, in the end, KTLA’s fresh batch of game-show gladiators, who in the minutes or hours to come would scrap like hell against each other to be the one with the booty at the end of the day. So, while the savage tiger adjusted his tie in parts unknown, we ate, drank, and were merry, all the while clinking our wine jugs together, mixing the balm of each so that any potential poisoner must fear his own venom. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

We watched the first two episodes on a closed circuit TV, ushered from free food and beverages by the diligent production assistants. The show, as one might expect, looked little different there than it did sitting on the couch back at Pomona. Except that every so often the show would stop dead in its tracks as the show’s new co-host, Nancy Pimento, misread a question or a category, and the producers called out for a re-read.

Moments of confusion over an ambiguous answer were smoothed out by the wonders of television technology, and if Ferris Bueller had leapt onto the set and lipsynched ‘Danke Schoen,’ with a crew of leggy German-Americans, that probably would have been edited out too.

Same if Jimmy Kimmel had wandered on cradling a Shamu pinata with a glazed look on his face, asking if it was his birthday and if he was late for his taping. The really weird stuff never makes it to the screen.

It’s amazing how thin those set ‘walls,’ look from behind, all painted in solid black. I’d been on stage before, so when they led me down to that temple of fun and money the audience didn’t throw me much. I just pretended that the looming mics and cameras were especially robotic audience members, in an attempt to mitigate my nervousness.

What really set my stomach to fluttering was how close I was either to fabulous wealth (relatively speaking), or failure and despair. I thought again of Schrodinger’s cat, and I wondered whether it had a bright light, like a surgeon’s lamp, glaring hot and bright from the top of its box, and whether, maybe, it had a laugh-track going on in there.

As I shook hands with the black clad, stylishly handsome executive producer I was secretly thinking about that cat. For all the fuck Schrodinger knew, there was a live studio audience and a panel of witty illuminated question categories in there. There could have been a squat little podium with "Max," printed on it, and a somewhat obscure character actor from an eighties cult-classic could be shaking his hairy paw and saying, "Now I will do battle against these pirates by taking my place as a common contestant!" And the cat could by saying, in its mind, "What the fuck is this shit?" I mean, before Doc opened the box.

Ben came out to shake hands and ask our names before gettin’ down to business, and though it may sound silly, he’s exactly like that in real life. You know what I mean. But of course, that’s the secret of his success.

The exact details of the ensuing mayhem are a little unclear in my recollection. Exhaustion, caffeine, adrenalin, and the omniprescence of the essence of television, like Obi Wan’s disembodied spirit, blurred my senses, and the game became a jumbled kaleidescope of disconnected images.

My thumb spastically jamming the green plastic buzzer, Pavlov-like, as I struggled to conquer the all-consuming trivia.

Nancy Pimento, whose make-up and fake eyelashes look bizarre off-camera, doing a flawless Cartman impression and jibing that I was checking out her melons.

Red sweatered Jim, the stay-at-home husband who ended up taking home 5K from the Steiner, taking my sorry ass back to school in the second round, $1400 to $350.

Big money rolling in and twinkling away, numbers on a screen, which through the sublime calculus of college I converted into cases of beer, ounces of grass, double cheeseburger combos at In-n-Out. Smiling and outwardly confident, I gave props to my school at the beginning, and at the end, shaken and dazed, I stepped out onto Sunset, sunset already passed, and breathed deep with an indescribable relief.

Jason had to leave an hour before, so Sara and I had to get transit directions from a strange old woman, a professional television audience member we ran into on the bus. Many hours of L.A.’s hellish public transportation system later, back in Wig basement, I watched my fan spin around until it seemed to be going backwards, and silently thanked Hollywood, California for giving me $150 dollars credit on Ticketnow.com. I also wondered about Schrodinger’s cat, and what really went on in that little box.