Ben Stein's Diary/Supportive Encounters
Stein, Benjamin J.
Thursday 1 'm scared. I've been back in Dublin—my third trip in three months—for three days now, and it looks this time as if I'm really going to testify in the high court, Room 25, Third Floor of...
...The scene is a huge wedding, a huge elaborate 1974 (the year Nixon resigned) Jewish wedding...
...I felt sad...
...Look at how small the people look down there...
...Later that night, on the basis of that advice, Channel 13 gave me a chyron as "adviser to call girls...
...Now, check this out, because this tells you something about why the Irish are the best people on the face of the earth in my book: The clerk of the court was a lovely red-headed young woman with an intelligent face—the Irish have hands-down the most intelligent faces I have ever seen...
...It led to many, many other parts...
...No," I answered, "only on the silver screen, but I do teach law and economics...
...I can truthfully say I have never been quite so frightened...
...Television, television, newspaper, television...
...What's keeping us up, Daddy...
...Last night, Mr...
...We flew up on Friday so that he, the maharajah, could go to the seaside amusement park here for his birthday weekend...
...He was president, and he was very kind to me...
...Out of forks...
...Eamon de Valera, waiting for another witness to finish...
...Sunday L ittle Tommy and I are in Santa Cruz...
...Here it's still beautiful...
...Example: on the plane, the stewardesses routinely came by to talk to me and ask me what they could bring me, and asked all kinds of questions about Los Angeles...
...I liked that dream...
...Movie stars don't really have time to pay much attention to anyone but themselves—and certainly don't want to unless pressed...
...That's right...
...call to a dreary block not far from Pershing Square...
...Thank you," I said...
...Occasionally, Howard calls for "atmosphere," i.e., extras, to leave the set and he follows me around the room with a Steadicam operator, plotting various moves...
...Nine floors down, at Sixth and Main, right in front of our location, right on the corner we walked by to get to our trailers and our makeup, there were four gunshots, bangbang-bang-bang...
...In fact, the same is true for a lot of men and women in Los Angeles generally: they want attention and they want sex, but they don't want to give anything in return for it...
...Then a crew from Channel 13 came over and asked me about the scandal involving Beverly Hills madam Heidi Fleiss...
...Hughes asked me to ad lib a whole lecture about economics, which I did, and the bit became an instant cult memory...
...There's an atrium, elegant woodwork around an immense skylight, airy rooms with immense sash windows in a half-moon shape...
...It's hot, although not humid, and we're doing one take after another, and Howard Zieff is guiding me in very elaborate moves—I have to walk and talk and take pictures and remember my lines and make faces and look nerdy...
...To a wealthy person, the price of a call girl is so trivial that it might as well be zero, and the emotional cost is, once again, zilch...
...It's a recurring dream, I think...
...Anyway, why should anyone be surprised that movie stars want to have call girls visit them...
...People think I know about her because in this column I've written about a highly disguised neighbor "named" Sally, who's a madam...
...I'll give you a bigger tip if you put on your air-conditioner...
...That means they would rather trade money—of which they have a large amount—for sex, rather than trade their time, of which they have very little, or personal feelings, of which they want to give up as close to zero as possible except for their art...
...This is swell stuff...
...On the way to the hotel after "work," my driver told me his life story...
...Except in my dream, it was 1993, and I was still there...
...The Sky Glider...
...It was a hot day, but he refused to turn on his air-conditioning...
...Good for me, good for you...
...Our flight glided into JFK, and I was soon reminded I was back in America...
...We rehearsed, shot, had lunch, shot more, and were getting pretty hot and tired...
...I politely declined, but all night long I thought of her great phrase...
...This isn't real life...
...Most of all, I hate rip-offs...
...De Valera, watched the River Liffey flow by, saw the clouds load up in the sky over the Dail, and then went back tomy hotel...
...On that terrifying ten-minute ride, my companion, age six, kept saying, "Isn't it beautiful, Daddy...
...God, I hope that eternity is like this...
...I don't like it when people rip off my voice...
...I'm an actor, like you...
...I talked for a long time in the hallway with Dr...
...Usually, they work and they offer decent value...
...After he left, everyone wanted to be my friend...
...The drama we were shooting suddenly seemed a little less dramatic...
...We flew up to San Jose on a strange little airline called Reno Air, and drove a rented Toyota Camry the rest of the way...
...I was terrified at every stop light until I got to West Hollywood...
...I had another dream as well...
...Now, it's D-Day, Der Tag, the day I do it...
...It was like a dream of being dead.Monday T oday, I'm playing a psychiatrist in a movie called The Mask It's about a nebbish who finds a mask that makes him into a tough guy...
...I keel you, black sonofabitch," he screamed...
...Perfect conditions for a market in flesh...
...At about 4:30 in the afternoon, there was a diversion...
...The economics are perfect—a large supply offoolishly willing women and a large supply of well-to-do men and a moral vacuum...
...The people from the product are here (a huge company called Abbott) and the agency people and the production people, and I'm the only actor...
...I had never gone to Santa Cruz as a hippie, never had a conversion and worked for RN, never been a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, never come to Hollywood to have adventures, soar, get tortured, and then keep struggling...
...There's nothing below you, and if you look down and have vertigo, as I do, you lose your mind...
...Far more useful than anything I learned in Bucharest...
...Maximizing our utility...
...We finished work at almost 9 p.m...
...Racial balance...
...One day, while Chinich and I were having lunch at Paramount, he and Hughes asked me if I would be a voice-over of a teacher calling roll in a new movie to be called Ferris Bueller's Day Off...
...Wednesday T his is living...
...There was endless arguing about whether I was to be allowed to talk, then more arguing about what documents I could use, all done with exquisite politesse, with a startlingly thoughtful manner on all sides, especially the side of the judge, Mister Justice Baron, a smart fellow indeed...
...Why should others be able to pilfer some of the value of the original...
...That was a good economics lesson," he said...
...Prolife," the barrister had said, "but not Christian...
...It was swell...
...Now he's driving a car and wondering what hit him...
...I'm in Texas, on the set of a commercial for a wonderful product called Clear Eyes...
...At this moment, I'm sitting on the almost incomprehensibly uncomfortable back bench of the courtroom, next to Dr...
...I feel like a character in Day for Night or 8-1/2...
...The driver had worked his way up from floor sweeper to estimator to project manager at a building company...
...It was frightening...
...Now, really, to me that spells "consideration" with a capital C. The actual testimony was difficult...
...Right...
...I told each caller I'd be happy to go on TV and talk about call girls and madams, but I would tell all interviewers the same thing: it's a terrible, self-destructive world...
...I got a Romanian immigrant cab driver...
...I never buy generics unless there's no choice...
...Now, on a day like today, almost nothing can make me upset...
...Scope, A&W Cream Soda, Selsun Blue, Minute Maid Orange Juice...
...D inner at The Mansion on Turtle Creek, a truly fabbers hotel...
...I was accosted in the bar before dinner by a young woman who told me she loved me from "The Wonder Years...
...Are you an economics teacher...
...That last one is like a front porch swing that's dangling from a wire about eighty feet above the ground...
...There I met a very smart guy named Eddie Bleier, who had been Safire's roommate at Syracuse University (along with Mort Janklow...
...Alan "King" Berger was also a casting guy, and an astonishing wit...
...Tuesday T he genealogy of a great day: Twenty years ago, when I was a speechwriter for Richard M. Nixon (by the way, I don't "like" Nixon...
...Three months later, his wife ran away with her boss and left him with their 12-year-old son...
...Perfecto for the folks who live in a moral desert...
...They also filled in for some deceased people in 'Ludes...
...My part is really wonderful...
...I truly love that car...
...Acting lessons...
...I auditioned three times, twice for an old friend named Howard Zieff, who's directing, and got the part...
...I have entered the Realm of the Blessed...
...Why should it be big news that there is commercialized sex in the world center of commerce and sex...
...she asked...
...We'll both be better off...
...I went to the set and hung around and then read the roll...
...A few months ago, Alan called me to have me audition for the part of a nebbishy Jewish wedding photographer in a Columbia/Sony movie to be called My Girl II, sequel to My Girl...
...You think one day is sufficient...
...Maybe something to help you relax after your long day's work," she said in a soothing Fort Worth accent...
...Well, actually closing my eyes and praying...
...Now I have to go home...
...Maybe after dinner...
...This has to be a high-water mark in human incompetence, and I'm glad I'm there to see it...
...He—the shooter—just ran to the corner, took out a gun, fired it at random, and then ran away...
...I handed him a twenty...
...Even then, if a carload of Hispanics was next to me, I was pretty scared...
...I can make it greater," she said...
...The food was great, out there in the grove near the Performing Arts Center, and Tommy had a hot dog, but they were out of catsup...
...I' was very lonely, and none of the English kids would talk to me...
...I love Nixon), I went to a wonderful dinner party at the home of William L. S afire...
...Plus, if there's a problem, there's a name and place I can go to and complain...
...The Romanian—whose name was Vlad—put on the air-conditioning in a great, great hurry...
...I've been back in Dublin—my third trip in three months—for three days now, and it looks this time as if I'm really going to testify in the high court, Room 25, Third Floor of the Four Courts, in the case entitled Irish Press, Plc v. Ingersoll...
...I did it, portraying a pitifully nerdy surplus store manager, and then went on my way...
...I don't like living in fear...
...His mother had found him, then she had suffered a nervous breakdown...
...Great...
...My interviewers somehow did not have that in mind...
...Nice, huh...
...It's a fabulous commercial mainly because it has little me playing the lead...
...Daddy's sleeping...
...This is a tip just for having the air-conditioning on," I said...
...he asked...
...Getting back to my trailer alive and unharmed was the real test for the day...
...Revenue enhancement...
...Look," I said, "I'm the customer...
...We're in a stage at the Las Colinas Studios, a vast project like something out of ancient Egypt, only we're in the middle of the prairie between Dallas and Fort Worth...
...Bleier and I talked about made-for-TV movies, and he introduced me some months later, when I was at the Wall Street Journal, to a fiendishly poetic and lively fellow named Steven Greene...
...I wrote about them a lot in my diary books Dreemz and Diary of a Mad Screenwriter...
...Today, back at the Catalyst, they're out of salt...
...Maybe I'll go to bed and dream about Ireland...
...eanwhile, last night little M Bonaparte and I walked up and down the boardwalk (which is made of cement) and rode many scary rides: The Haunted Castle...
...His mother had been impregnated out of wedlock by a wicked man who then tried to sell him to a couple who wanted to adopt...
...My heart is pounding right now as I describe it...
...Linson heard my voice and asked me if I wanted to do a small part in the sequel to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a movie called The Wild Life...
...There are about 300 extras, dressed in seventies-style tuxedos and dresses, a band imitating the Beatles, lots of petit fours that we can't eat, dozens of crew, makeup people, wardrobe, props, gaffers, grips, electricians, and I'm the star of this scene, along with the two kid leads who are the real stars of the movie...
...This is Valhalla...
...When he was at Universal, we used to laugh and scratch all day long in his tower office and occasionally try to make a picture fly...
...The shooter, a young Hispanic lad, got away, though...
...I am really happy about it...
...This being me, I took a nap instead...
...Anyway, I told the interviewers that I had two words of advice for women who were call girls or thinking of becoming call girls: "It's degrading, awful work, slow motion suicide, and don't do it—or if you're doing it, stop and go to law school...
...I was walking down M Street, in the midst of bureaucrats, secretaries, and interns, wondering if someone else with my name was living a better life out in Hollywood, maybe making movies, laughing on the set while I went back to my windowless fiberboard-walled office...
...There's a reason why brand names last...
...It's being shot at the lovely Riviera Country Club...
...They wanted juicy details...
...This is Santa Cruz...
...Chinich is a highly regarded casting guy who has had a series of powerful studio jobs...
...At lunch—served under a tent next to the Riviera's tennis courts—I watched while at the next table Howard Zieff and his wife, a major agent named Rhonda Gomez-Quinones, entertained Stanley Donen, the genius director (Singin' in the Rain), and Willard and Gloria Huyck, the screenwriters for American Graffiti...
...Friday A nother great flight on Aer Lingus, the best airline I have ever been on: The reason is simple: the people who work for the airline are about a hundred times more attentive and thoughtful than the folks who work for other airlines...
...Later that night, when I really was asleep, I dreamed I was at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar...
...This being Ireland, I was invited out for sandwiches and a pint of Guinness with my counsel...
...If someone spends a lot of stockholder money identifying public trust with a certain brand, it doesn't seem right for discounters to come along and simply use all that good will to sell their cheap imitations...
...If someone's got a brand I'm used to and trust, I am not going to play games around it for a few cents...
...The Cave...
...An Arab woman fresh off a plane cursed at a cab driver who did not want to take her to Brooklyn and threatened to kill him...
...Would you like for me to come visit you in your room after dinner...
...It was dark downtown...
...In 1988, at a party at Michael Chinich's home, I met a great pal of Chinich's...
...Then his division was sold and he was fired...
...I met Heidi at a party last Christmas, and she yelled at me for criticizing Michael Milken, whom she said she really admired...
...It makes your eyes feel and look good when they're puffy from allergies and smog and germs...
...One of Steve's longtime friends was and is one of Hollywood's handsomest, most epigrammatic men, Michael Chinich...
...Outside the international terminal, where I went to get a cab, a Hispanic dispatcher threatened in vivid terms to kill a Haitian cab driver...
...The juicy details," I told one caller, a friend of thirty-four years' duration, "are that the girls all get wrecked one way or another, by drugs or by disease or by self-hate, and they would do well to just save the middleman and swallow poison...
...Steve Greene moved to Los Angeles while I was still slogging along in Manhattan and used to call me and tell mehow great things were in glorious Los Angeles, When I moved there in 1976, Steve and his wife Denise became among my best friends...
...Supportive encounter...
...Afternoon testimony was quite easy...
...The same is true for wealthy Far Easterners and Middle Easterners, as far as I can tell...
...Not for his nibs...
...That's not the great part...
...Anyway, then back to heaven for more shooting, more rehearsals, more playback, more speed, more action...
...I don't think so...
...It's amazing what people go through...
...He told her to go to hell...
...Perfect and I went for a long hike in the redwoods, and afterwards, we went to have a box dinner at the Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival...
...I truly love any good brand name...
...But as I slept, an attendant told everyone near me, in a whisper, to keep their voices down so as not to disturb me...
...In a few minutes, there were police everywhere on the corner...
...I compare this workmanship with today's and I cringe...
...Hey, I forgot...
...In fact, I make it a practice to buy only brand-name things...
...I play opposite a frantic Jim Carrie, one of the stars of "In Living Color," and a really funny guy...
...Many passengers say that and few come through," he said...
...But it all worked out, and then it was suddenly luncheon recess...
...I'm sort of puzzled by the whole business, anyway...
...I was in Washington, at 19th and M, at the Office of Economic Opportunity, where I had toiled twenty-three years ago as a lawyer...
...Finally, I got to testify, and there was a problem because the documents I had were paginated slightly differently from Justice Baron's...
...The restaurant had hamburgers and meatloaf, but they were out of forks...
...Only this isn't life on earth...
...The other witnesses had sworn on the King James Bible, but when it came my turn, I noticed that this beautiful child had somehow found in Dublin a Hebrew-lettered Bible, which she handed me for me to take my oath on...
...I cut your f---ing head off, mon," the Haitian said...
...An Irish family with two kids Tommy's age came in, and they voluntarily were silent to let me sleep...
...It must be quite a place...
...If British Air is the worst airline in the world, which it is, then Aer Lingus is its polar opposite...
...In 1985, Michael and I were having lunch in the Universal Commissary when a rising star producer/director named Art Linson happened by...
...Then we would start one shot and then another, and all the while I was being followed around by a cameraman and a sound man and lighting people and makeup people...
...I drove downtown for a 7 a.m...
...We had dinner, in my dream, and then he left...
...Shh," I said...
...I sometimes sue over it...
...The Sky Glider takes you for about a quarter of a mile down a long traverse of the amusement park, lifts you higher, then lower, and finally, after an eternity of terror, drops you down at the other end...
...The cross-examination was stunningly courteous, and then, bang, I was excused...
...I was just still there shuffling papers, ready to get my pension, wondering why I had never done anything interesting with my life...
...B ack at my apartment, there were four messages asking me about Heidi Fleiss...
...A beautiful makeup woman named Rae made me up, and I wore nerdy professor clothes, and I stood in front of a blackboard for many hours, and then had a lunch of yummy chicken out in the hallway...
...Example: our flight was delayed, so I took a nap in the Gold Circle lounge...
...Hmmm," I said...
...My day was great," I said...
...I want to go somewhere where it's not frightening...
...I love Ireland and don't want to leave...
...I still don't know what I was doing there...
...Anyway, I pulled up to The Catalyst, a restaurant in Santa Cruz, right on Pacific Mall, where many of the buildings are still down because of the earthquake of '89...
...The student extras thought my voice was so funny that they couldn't stop laughing...
...The building was finished in 1923, I'm told, but the windows are still perfectly counterbalanced and slide smoothly up and down with minimum pressure...
...Movie stars are busy...
...Look at the light of the moon on the ocean...
...I have to have dinner with someone...
...In 1986, Chinich became head of John Hughes's production company...
...Then Bill Clinton came in...
...When I was tired, they made a point of not even coming near me...
...One of the makeup women saw it happen...
...It's really amazing how Toyota can make such a great car, and make it here in America, in Kentucky or Tennessee, I think...
...We were in what was once the headquarters of the Southern Pacific Railroad and is now an empty, miserable shell until you get to the top floor...
...She had moved in with a jailbird, and he,the driver, had spent much of his youth in an orphanage called the Buckner Baptist Home...
...Ah, America: The melting pot...
...When I'm starring and getting paid and people are being incredibly nice and everyone is working together, that's a bit of paradise...
...Think of it as a supportive encounter...
...I had noticed her carefully studying my face beforehand and asking one of the banisters on my side of the matter just a few things about me, one of which I later learned was whether I was a Christian...
...Oddly enough, a woman on the set had also spent time at the Buckner Baptist Home...
...Choice...
...To my humble ears, it sounded like a .38 or bigger...
...This is heaven., I flirted for a long time with various extras, especially one who stood in for the 12-year-old female star, a 25-yearold who weighs only 85 pounds, or about the same as my wonder dog Trixie...
Vol. 26 • October 1993 • No. 10
