Ben Stein's Diary/Full Service
Stein, Benjamin J.
Full Service by Benjamin J. Stein Monday A call from my pal, Lenny. He's been my bud for almost twenty years now. I've seen him go up and down on the income ladder, as a big executive at United...
...Don't look down at your skis...
...he asked with a lewd chuckle in his voice...
...Now he's a major celebrity and a major player...
...It's not illegal to use slang racial terms...
...courthouse for the jury...
...Mommy wanted to tell me that Tommy had bought a Russian dwarf hamster and was dying for me to see it...
...To keep them amused...
...Benjamin J. Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Malibu and Hollywood...
...Then I read my little part...
...If one could do five books a minute and one could do two books per minute and there were seventy books to be reshelved, how long would it take...
...That was a beaut...
...He could do fairly complex "short" division in his head in a flash...
...She would do anything for me...
...She's an ace cross-country skier, married to a truly ace downhill skier...
...Give me that popcorn," I said...
...He's Clinton's lawyer, and could really use your sense of victimization...
...nor anything that is thy neighbor's...
...I put it in the dishwasher.' " " 'Well, I just ate a whole bunch of your leg wax,' " Ronny said...
...There I am, out in the beautiful sun48 The American Spectator June 1995 shine...
...We were in the Groundlings together...
...But it stinks," I said...
...Tuesday 0 ff to an audition at Imagine, a hugely successful production company founded and run by Ron Howard and Bryan Grazer...
...Girlfriend of drug dealer...
...And, as Richard Nixon used to always say, "If the mother is smart, the son is smart...
...Then Tommy came in and actually grabbed the bag away from me and starting eating it as fast as he could...
...But when it was over, the war was won...
...I like it a lot...
...I took them home, then I took Tommy and me to the Safeway, "serving Sandpoint since 1950...
...I could feel that all around me, and it felt great...
...Could you lend it to me...
...They're active, taking risks, using the skill God gave them, pushing the envelope on their possibilities...
...As the months wore on, she moved into a tiny apartment near my condo in West Hollywood...
...And there you have it...
...No one noticed that the Holocaust Museum in Washington used the exact same approach to studying the genocide...
...If she called for instructions and didn't get a return call right away, she called to ask if she had offended me...
...Very good," I said as we ate our crab cakes...
...I walked over to the Panida...
...The people who died and lost limbs so that I could ski in peace with my boy in an Idaho night...
...I made myself some microwave popcorn and started to eat it as I sat down to read...
...In the rented Buick on the way from Spokane to Sandpoint, Tommy asked me to quiz him on division...
...To the Vienna Institute of Psychoanalysis...
...I asked...
...Lenny arrived with a wild look on his face...
...This often depressed her and wore her down...
...It's humiliating to sell your body...
...Then Tommy did one of the cutest things he ever does: he threw himself onto my lap and when I grabbed him to kiss him and hug him, he said, "Let go, Daddy, you big honkernose of France...
...I waited while another actor did a hilarious imitation of Dennis Franz from "NYPD Blue...
...Plus after I was finished with my two-hour lesson, I was vouchsafed a half hour to eat a very rare cheeseburger, sign autographs—including two on the actual hands of two young girls—and stare at the real skiers...
...It's protected by the Constitution...
...I didn't like the car that much anyway...
...When the golden calf is the only god, every other value will be trivial...
...And there you have it...
...You genius," I said...
...I was the one who told you about it originally...
...Tommy remembers every word...
...To test how smart she was, I asked her the same question about the trains...
...It's not hard...
...It's not illegal to use slang racial terms...
...It's here...
...So I asked my friend, `Ginny, did you use the saucer for your self-administered leg wax?— " 'Maybe,' " she says...
...It's actually here...
...We flew up this afternoon...
...Unto you is a psychoanalyst born...
...And I want an apartment with air conditioning, for when it gets hot this summer...
...Anything...
...I held the little animal...
...No way," I said...
...I thought I would probably return it and write another check to get a new car...
...Let him sit there and dispute with the elders...
...Then, when she struggled endlessly with it, I asked her what about two boys kept after school to reshelve library books...
...Pahrump, Nevada, to be specific...
...Player, so to speak, in X-rated movies...
...The snow was icy though...
...I was angry...
...One kiss, one candy...
...There is a lot of evidence that he did...
...I was jealous...
...My teacher in school," he said simply...
...What now...
...No one's accusing them of pro-Nazi sympathies...
...You have a future in Washington...
...Her car often broke, and when it did, she had to borrow money from me to get it fixed...
...It's hard for me to believe that even Judge Ito, Johnnie Cochran's favorite judge, would allow this line of examination...
...I pay her FIFTEEN DOLLARS PER HOUR...
...Months later, years later, he recalls every detail and compares the story I am telling then with the story I told before, even long before...
...Seven thousand Marines and soldiers and pilots dead...
...I have been onto this deal where I sell platinum over the phone, and I'm making some real money, and it shows all over me...
...I made myself some microwave popcorn and started to eat it as I sat down to read...
...And I'll never make that kind of money except turning tricks...
...Perfect and his pals...
...I think the concussion is attacking me...
...Judge Ito is a fan and he's arranged forus to do a comedy skit this Saturday down at the O.J...
...Or anyway, more secure...
...Well, it was a lot of money for a used car...
...Look straight ahead at where you want to be...
...Well, I bought a used Acura and I gave them a fifteen-hundred-dollar down payment, only the check was no good...
...You want it...
...The lawyers for the guy who apparently cut his wife's throat are allowed to try to crucify a public servant not on the basis that he actually did anything illegal—but on whether or not he used a slur in casual speech...
...And then there's this girl, Aviva, a devout Sanskrit scholar, really not a girl, more of a woman, who's about forty...
...Poor Ms...
...Incredibly brave Marines, sailors, and soldiers fighting the Japanese for eighty-two bitter, horrible days in the most bloody battle of World War II in the Pacific...
...She's a single mom...
...But, somehow, in this horrible, Orwellian nightmare world of political correctness, the whole focus of the trial has changed...
...Give that teacher a Cadillac.Friday I daho...
...Damned good advice...
...Mother sick and absent...
...It had thawed and then frozen and then thawed and then frozen until it was superfast...
...I know what counts...
...She's latched onto me...
...It's protected by the Constitution...
...You think they ripped you off...
...You know what...
...Now it's about whether a policeman and former Marine who has spent his entire life protecting people might have used a bad word...
...I've figured out what women want: Me, when I have money...
...Wow...
...Then a true epiphany...
...That's the ticket...
...Back at my apartment, I had a call from an attractive young woman I know...
...I've seen him go up and down on the income ladder, as a big executive at United Artists, as a screenwriter and producer, as a phone sales guru, and unemployed...
...I turned on the TV and watched some highlights of the O.J...
...It's all connected with that poor woman, Christina Jeffrey, who was going to be House Historian, and got blacklisted for supposedly being pro-Nazi because she wanted the Nazi point of view examined in Holocaust studies...
...Or maybe it was the concussion again...
...But still with the rock music boyfriend and all that implies...
...How long does it take for the trains to converge...
...One goes fifty miles an hour and one goes a hundred miles an hour and they're on a straight line...
...She was just not making enough money as my messenger...
...Let him sit there and dispute with the elders...
...Did you think to clean it afterwards?' " " 'Well, I tried, but it was really hard to clean...
...Then back to the Edgewater, the world's friendliest hotel, and then to bed with my angel next to me snoring away and holding his hands up in the air like a sleeping dog...
...I'm really in trouble," she said...
...Overwhelming evidence...
...She looked at me and immediately said, "That's the same problem...
...The dogs gathered around and lunged at me for the popcorn, like sharks attacking a smaller fish...
...The Oscars are on ABC with a billion people watching...
...Finally, I found it, and then back to earth except that I had lost my parking ticket...
...He's very clean, Daddy," Tommy said...
...I've seen him married and divorced, with beautiful girlfriends and by himself...
...Now they're after me, and they say they'll treat it as a stolen car unless I come up with the money pronto...
...It's part of human expression...
...You genius," I said...
...Tommy is snow-boarding and I am getting another lesson from my new best friend Jacqui O'Neill...
...Thank you, God, for taking that burden off my shoulders...
...He said, "Daddy, teach me what algebra is...
...She giggled often...
...Her car often broke, and when it did, she had to borrow money from me to get it fixed...
...She seemed genuinely sensitive to the moods of people around her...
...It's funny, but I forget them as soon as I tell them...
...Let me tell you something...
...A nice one like a Range Rover...
...I said I was in love...
...Stand-up comedy for a jury in a murder case...
...Look in almost every great novel...
...He put the little rodent on my chest, on my pants, even put him on my face while I was lying down...
...The Oscars are on ABC with a billion people watching...
...Amazingly, they were the Ten Commandments...
...The theater started me thinking about the Oscars, coming up in two days...
...What must he think of us foolish humans...
...Deserted by the father...
...Wow...
...The comedy group...
...You can only kiss and hug me if you buy me candy...
...Who's getting ripped off...
...I know what counts...
...I need it...
...Of course I know it," I said...
...I am, because the price was too high anyway," she said emphatically...
...Yes, but I want to get a new car...
...I didn't say I was happy...
...There I am, out in the beautiful sun48 The American Spectator June 1995 shine...
...He's trying," said the actress...
...In his cage, he always poops in the same place...
...Wow, did that make me happy...
...A haven...
...Well," she said, pointedly not correcting me, "it was fun...
...But it stinks," I said...
...This goes back to what I have long believed: that of the people in the Old Testament who worshipped the golden calf while Moses was getting the Ten Commandments, some of them wandered off, founded L.A., and continued to worship the golden calf...
...That's what I told her, and do you know what she says...
...She says, `So, didn't you eat the wax on waxed paper when you were a kid...
...Meet...
...I have something big to tell you...
...Is that how much a new car means to you...
...No, Daddy," he said with a glow on his face...
...All around me are people having fun...
...Man is a physical and not just a mental being...
...That's right," I said...
...I need it...
...Well," says I, "suppose you have two trains heading for each other from three thousand miles apart on a straight line...
...You don't need it...
...Why aren't I a successful Hollywood writer...
...Giants with pink flesh and teeth as big as his whole body...
...Then I read my little part...
...Bailey is dredging up weird "witnesses" from places around Los Angeles—some of whom deny ever having talked to Bailey—to claim that once, in some conversation or another, Fuhrman used racial epithets...
...Come to think of it, that's what I think, too...
...Tuesday A call from my pal, Ronny, as rain pours down outside...
...Who's getting ripped off...
...Mommy wanted to tell me that Tommy had bought a Russian dwarf hamster and was dying for me to see it...
...Then, when she struggled endlessly with it, I asked her what about two boys kept after school to reshelve library books...
...One kiss, one candy...
...Anyway, it's what I know...
...I was envious...
...I used to be partners with Bryan, years ago...
...That's a better deal...
...If one could do five books a minute and one could do two books per minute and there were seventy books to be reshelved, how long would it take...
...Saturday W e're up on Schweitzer Mountain, just north of Sandpoint...
...Well," says I, "suppose you have two trains heading for each other from three thousand miles apart on a straight line...
...No one's accusing them of pro-Nazi sympathies...
...Give me that popcorn," I said...
...I have had her working for me for about six months...
...I guess there's a lesson there about being a parent...
...I knew she was smart...
...ThoughtCrime...
...Money worries can really break your spirit...
...There is no possible way to connect the use of such words with any prohibited conduct at all...
...They're active, taking risks, using the skill God gave them, pushing the envelope on their possibilities...
...Plus after I was finished with my two-hour lesson, I was vouchsafed a half hour to eat a very rare cheeseburger, sign autographs—including two on the actual hands of two young girls—and stare at the real skiers...
...Then back to the garage...
...Very nice," I said...
...Tommy was literally glowing with excitement at having his hamster, a tiny little fellow he calls "Tornado...
...If you kill someone and the cop who gathers evidence against you is not sufficiently P.C., you go free...
...But you didn't pay it...
...She was always short of money, always worried about paying her utilities...
...I would send her out on errands and she would return in minutes, not hours...
...I was jealous...
...I used to be partners with Bryan, years ago...
...She was working at a swimming pool supply house just before I met her...
...I deposited Tommy and his friends at the theater and walked to a tiny park next to the cinema...
...If he knew F. Lee Bailey, he'd really wonder about why we're in charge...
...Tuesday 0 ff to an audition at Imagine, a hugely successful production company founded and run by Ron Howard and Bryan Grazer...
...Anyway, by the time I was through watching this charade from the Ministry of Love, I was seething...
...Monday B ack in L.A...
...The sun comes in those big windows surrounded by blond wood...
...Then they spread all over the map...
...You're on my mind all day long, every day...
...No, the new defense is that the policeman who helped make the case was a ThoughtCriminal...
...Tonight, they were having the Brigham Young University Dance troupe dancing away...
...Some kind of discovery that will make all your fancy friends sit up and take notice even though I didn't go to Yale like some people...
...You have a future in Washington...
...Then to pick up little Mr...
...He actually looked relieved...
...Yes, but I want to get a new car...
...It's basic to human nature...
...Suffice it to say, he was about ten times as cagey as I was—and that's true of just about everyone in Hollywood—and soon left me gasping in the dust...
...When you start to slide, just lift up your hands in front of your face and point your fingers at the place you want to wind up...
...Well, I bought a used Acura and I gave them a fifteen-hundred-dollar down payment, only the check was no good...
...Big, bright, full of food, friendly checkers who know me and Tommy and don't mind if Tommy climbs up on the counter...
...It's funny, but I forget them as soon as I tell them...
...Tommy thought and thought, and I suddenly remembered something...
...I always try to teach him that...
...Punishment of people because of what they might think...
...There was a long pause, and then she said...
...They were superb...
...Tens of thousands more injured seriously...
...Bailey is dredging up weird "witnesses" from places around Los Angeles—some of whom deny ever having talked to Bailey—to claim that once, in some conversation or another, Fuhrman used racial epithets...
...You don't have to be broke...
...Come to think of it, that's what I think, too...
...As I did, I started to lose my Idaho calm...
...Wants and needs are two different things...
...If he knows numbers well, he will always be secure...
...But still, I thought, how interesting...
...Then, Journey into Self-Obsession and what seemed like a sincere effort to pull her life together...
...Simpson trial...
...I waited while another actor did a hilarious imitation of Dennis Franz from "NYPD Blue...
...I think you could afford a small apartment with an air conditioner on what you make now...
...He's a true impresario," I said...
...Now, not only do I loathe the prancing, self-important foolery of Bailey, who is the textbook definition of a stone fool...
...You don't need it...
...No, Daddy," he said with a glow on his face...
...In Farmin Park, in Sandpoint, Idaho, there were the Ten Commandments, with big stars of David all around them, and the note that they were given by the local Fraternal Order of Eagles: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house...
...The comedy group...
...But when it was over, the war was won...
...Because I pay her rent, which is nothing to me, and it's everything to her...
...Poor Ms...
...Well, you had no idea how right you were...
...Now, not only do I loathe the prancing, self-important foolery of Bailey, who is the textbook definition of a stone fool...
...Stop complaining.' I think I'm in love...
...Tommy is snow-boarding and I am getting another lesson from my new best friend Jacqui O'Neill...
...Then they spread all over the map...
...To keep them amused...
...One goes fifty miles an hour and one goes a hundred miles an hour and they're on a straight line...
...Loser," I said to myself...
...Are you crazy...
...Anyway, by the time I was through watching this charade from the Ministry of Love, I was seething...
...Well, it was a lot of money for a used car...
...Numbers are your friends...
...It's standard in movies and comedy acts...
...46 The American Spectator June 1995 Still, there was something girlish and engaging about her...
...Would you lend me the money for the ticket...
...I guess I vaguely recall that," I said...
...Have you considered working for Bob Bennett...
...And I'll never make that kind of money except turning tricks...
...nor anything that is thy neighbor's...
...Could you lend it to me...
...Thursday A call from Mommy's car phone while I was watching TV (the trial again, of course...
...I felt self-loathing...
...Tens of thousands more injured seriously...
...She was just not making enough money as my messenger...
...I skied back and forth, watched the downhill skiers racing along, and felt happy...
...I glided the farthest I have ever glided and only fell a few times...
...I am, because the price was too high anyway," she said emphatically...
...I would send her out on errands and she would return in minutes, not hours...
...The kids in sixth grade are learning it and I want to know, too...
...Perfect and his pals...
...Speaking of prostitutes, that creep F. Lee Bailey is grilling Mark Fuhrman about whether the detective might possibly have used the n-word in any conversation the past ten years...
...0 50 The American Spectator June 1995 Still, there was something girlish and engaging about her...
...Or maybe it was the concussion again...
...Now he's a major celebrity and a major player...
...She did her work almost too quickly...
...I was angry...
...Eight years ago, Mommy and I first met Tommy's Mom...
...The remembrance of Okinawa is on C-Span...
...She seemed genuinely sensitive to the moods of people around her...
...It's not hard...
...I pay her FIFTEEN DOLLARS PER HOUR...
...The other one was a rip-off...
...Give that teacher a Cadillac.Friday I daho...
...All right," Lenny said...
...But, somehow, in this horrible, Orwellian nightmare world of political correctness, the whole focus of the trial has changed...
...When I let go, he jumped out of my arms and then back in and said, "Let me go, Daddy...
...That and the atom bomb...
...Her son is eight months old...
...Stand-up comedy for a jury in a murder case...
...She was a chain-smoker, looked a little weary, but seemed smart to me...
...Eight years ago, Mommy and I first met Tommy's Mom...
...Man is a physical and not just a mental being...
...You're kidding," I said...
...Judge Ito is a fan and he's arranged forus to do a comedy skit this Saturday down at the O.J...
...courthouse for the jury...
...Wants and needs are two different things...
...Even his poop doesn't smell bad...
...But I was so crazed by the audition that I forgot where my car was...
...It's just a way of examining problems," I said...
...If she called for instructions and didn't get a return call right away, she called to ask if she had offended me...
...She looked at me and immediately said, "That's the same problem...
...I told him algebra was basically a way of solving problems using some addition, some subtraction, some division and some multiplication...
...She's teaching me some great lessons about cross-country...
...Don't look down at your skis...
...I knew Freud would be jealous...
...A few months ago, this blonde woman who had just moved to L.A...
...Look in almost every great novel...
...One thing TV does incredibly well when it bothers to do it at all: remind us of our history, of what's really important...
...Finally, I found it, and then back to earth except that I had lost my parking ticket...
...The other one was a rip-off...
...Wow, did that make me happy...
...He put the little rodent on my chest, on my pants, even put him on my face while I was lying down...
...The defense of a man credibly accused of murder: not that he didn't do it...
...Why aren't I a successful Hollywood writer...
...Punishment of people because of what they might think...
...Wait a minute," I said...
...You get it from the mother...
...When you start to slide, just lift up your hands in front of your face and point your fingers at the place you want to wind up...
...Tommy thought and thought, and I suddenly remembered something...
...It's humiliating to sell your body...
...I'm dating this woman, you know, and I wasstaying at her house, and I went to get a slice of cheese...
...That's right...
...And in return, I help her pay for her rent, and she's like totally devoted to me...
...Like, imagine this, only it's real: You know my building, the condo I live in near Ocean Boulevard...
...What's converge...
...What a character...
...What's converge...
...What do women want...
...Where did he learn that...
...That was a beaut...
...I always try to teach him that...
...Now it's about whether a policeman and former Marine who has spent his entire life protecting people might have used a bad word...
...Back at my apartment, I had a call from an attractive young woman I know...
...Lenny Brown when he has money...
...In fact it makes life easier...
...You got the car and gave them a bad check...
...WHAT...
...But, of course, he does...
...Wednesday I'm really upset...
...You think they ripped you off...
...In the corner of the park were two tablets...
...In the corner of the park were two tablets...
...Instead of the Oscars, I watched a show on TV about the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Okinawa...
...He actually looked relieved...
...I love that store...
...But you didn't pay it...
...Pahrump, Nevada, to be specific...
...What a character...
...As I was walking into the lobby, I met a woman...
...Damned good advice...
...I told Tommy Ren and Stimpy stories the whole way...
...We put him back in his lavishly furnished cage, so stuffed with hamster toys there's almost no room for the little devil to lie down...
...There was a long pause, and then she said...
...He was extremely good at it...
...Improv...
...The snow was icy though...
...Overwhelming evidence...
...To test how smart she was, I asked her the same question about the trains...
...I just can't take being broke anymore," she said...
...I deposited Tommy and his friends at the theater and walked to a tiny park next to the cinema...
...But, of course, he does...
...Some day you'll learn that...
...More prison...
...She was already pregnant with little von Neumann, and we wanted to meet her and see what kind of person she was...
...Amazingly, they were the Ten Commandments...
...That and the atom bomb...
...We put him back in his lavishly furnished cage, so stuffed with hamster toys there's almost no room for the little devil to lie down...
...No, the new defense is that the policeman who helped make the case was a ThoughtCriminal...
...Why don't I have a series...
...You know what...
...It's part of human expression...
...A haven...
...He's Clinton's lawyer, and could really use your sense of victimization...
...When I let go, he jumped out of my arms and then back in and said, "Let me go, Daddy...
...It's actually here...
...He's a true impresario," I said...
...Yeah, and Judge Ito also arranged for John Williams, the conductor, to put on a little music, and then for a group of actors to do something from Moliere...
...I met her at the 7-Eleven on Sunset near my son's school...
...I asked...
...Why aren't I part of the in-crowd...
...Yeah, and Judge Ito also arranged for John Williams, the conductor, to put on a little music, and then for a group of actors to do something from Moliere...
...Not to me," she said...
...Prison...
...The theater started me thinking about the Oscars, coming up in two days...
...No way," I said...
...Wholesome and totally clever choreography, especially a number about knee slapping that was an expression of different kinds of personality...
...I held the little animal...
...I was envious...
...Jeffrey, who was just trying to be a good historian, who had spent years studying Judaism and was best pals with her local rabbi and head of the Anti-Defamation League, gets nailed by Big Brother just as a way to smear Newt, just because the left can't bear to swallow the truth that the voters don't want them anymore...
...What a story...
...Or anyway, more secure...
...Jeffrey, who was just trying to be a good historian, who had spent years studying Judaism and was best pals with her local rabbi and head of the Anti-Defamation League, gets nailed by Big Brother just as a way to smear Newt, just because the left can't bear to swallow the truth that the voters don't want them anymore...
...What now...
...You wrote a bad check for a car and you think they cheated you...
...It's standard in movies and comedy acts...
...Simpson stands accused of virtually cutting off the head of the mother of his children and murdering a totally innocent wayfarer...
...At lunch, it's pretty close to perfection...
...ThoughtCrime...
...Giants with pink flesh and teeth as big as his whole body...
...Instead, she was going to work in the legal brothels of Nevada...
...You don't have to work in a brothel...
...It had thawed and then frozen and then thawed and then frozen until it was superfast...
...There are flowers everywhere...
...I'm really in trouble," she said...
...Then back to the Edgewater, the world's friendliest hotel, and then to bed with my angel next to me snoring away and holding his hands up in the air like a sleeping dog...
...Oh, well...
...I'm glad you're happy," I said...
...This often depressed her and wore her down...
...Improv...
...Would you lend me the money for the ticket...
...Why don't I have a series...
...She worked for me as a messenger...
...abandoned by her father...
...I turned on the TV and watched some highlights of the O.J...
...His heart was beating powerfully through his tiny ribs...
...Suffice it to say, he was about ten times as cagey as I was—and that's true of just about everyone in Hollywood—and soon left me gasping in the dust...
...So, to get a new car instead of an old car, you're moving to a brothel...
...Uh-huh...
...Money worries can really break your spirit...
...Thank you, God, for taking that burden off my shoulders...
...He said, "Daddy, teach me what algebra is...
...If he knew F. Lee Bailey, he'd really wonder about why we're in charge...
...But I do have eyes and ears and that counts for something...
...0 50 The American Spectator June 1995...
...Then Tommy did one of the cutest things he ever does: he threw himself onto my lap and when I grabbed him to kiss him and hug him, he said, "Let go, Daddy, you big honkernose of France...
...They leave at the exact same moment...
...What's humiliating to me is to be poor...
...The dogs gathered around and lunged at me for the popcorn, like sharks attacking a smaller fish...
...One thing TV does incredibly well when it bothers to do it at all: remind us of our history, of what's really important...
...Give me an example," said little Newton...
...Stop kissing me...
...And then there's another girl who's in my building who's a former model, and she used to sneer at me, and now her old man left and she's broke, and suddenly she has to make dinner for me and walk my dog...
...No one noticed that the Holocaust Museum in Washington used the exact same approach to studying the genocide...
...Quick...
...Grrr...
...Five thousand sailors dead in kamikaze attacks...
...I guess he thinks we're pretty silly and scary at the same time...
...They leave at the exact same moment...
...The lawyers for the guy who apparently cut his wife's throat are allowed to try to crucify a public servant not on the basis that he actually did anything illegal—but on whether or not he used a slur in casual speech...
...Speaking of prostitutes, that creep F. Lee Bailey is grilling Mark Fuhrman about whether the detective might possibly have used the n-word in any conversation the past ten years...
...She was a chain-smoker, looked a little weary, but seemed smart to me...
...We spent many an afternoon talking about her sad life...
...Not to me," she said...
...I guess he thinks we're pretty silly and scary at the same time...
...As I did, I started to lose my Idaho calm...
...The kids in sixth grade are learning it and I want to know, too...
...My teacher in school," he said simply...
...There is no possible way to connect the use of such words with any prohibited conduct at all...
...Let me tell you something...
...You could be a receptionist...
...I felt self-loathing...
...Now they're after me, and they say they'll treat it as a stolen car unless I come up with the money pronto...
...So now I have this deal with her, and she comes up every morning just as she's getting off her shift and wakes me up by, well, 'cuddling' with me...
...A nice one like a Range Rover...
...Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife...
...There is a lot of evidence that he did...
...It's here...
...Months later, years later, he recalls every detail and compares the story I am telling then with the story I told before, even long before...
...I thought I would probably return it and write another check to get a new car...
...And she does...
...In Farmin Park, in Sandpoint, Idaho, there were the Ten Commandments, with big stars of David all around them, and the note that they were given by the local Fraternal Order of Eagles: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house...
...I took them home, then I took Tommy and me to the Safeway, "serving Sandpoint since 1950...
...Nice way to begin the day, huh...
...It's hard for me to believe that even Judge Ito, Johnnie Cochran's favorite judge, would allow this line of examination...
...This goes back to what I have long believed: that of the people in the Old Testament who worshipped the golden calf while Moses was getting the Ten Commandments, some of them wandered off, founded L.A., and continued to worship the golden calf...
...What's humiliating to me is to be poor...
...Anyway, it's what I know...
...Even his poop doesn't smell bad...
...He's very clean, Daddy," Tommy said...
...Big, bright, full of food, friendly checkers who know me and Tommy and don't mind if Tommy climbs up on the counter...
...The remembrance of Okinawa is on C-Span...
...The people who died and lost limbs so that I could ski in peace with my boy in an Idaho night...
...You could be a receptionist...
...Thursday A call from Mommy's car phone while I was watching TV (the trial again, of course...
...Tommy was literally glowing with excitement at having his hamster, a tiny little fellow he calls "Tornado...
...I love that store...
...Meet...
...If you kill someone and the cop who gathers evidence against you is not sufficiently P.C., you go free...
...Why aren't I part of the in-crowd...
...Some day you'll learn that...
...But I was so crazed by the audition that I forgot where my car was...
...I happen to know that this is the second car you've taken under false pretenses, not to say 'stolen.' I don't think I want to lend money to an admitted car thief...
...You're kidding," I said...
...You can only kiss and hug me if you buy me candy...
...They were superb...
...We were in the Groundlings together...
...Numbers are your friends...
...But still, I thought, how interesting...
...Loser," I said to myself...
...Where did he learn that...
...Yesterday she called me up to tell me, in a trembling voice, that she had to quit...
...My assistant is quit- ting...
...I told Tommy Ren and Stimpy stories the whole way...
...Tommy remembers every word...
...She was already pregnant with little von Neumann, and we wanted to meet her and see what kind of person she was...
...You wrote a bad check for a car and you think they cheated you...
...I could hear her crying as she spoke to me...
...As I was walking into the lobby, I met a woman...
...What must he think of us foolish humans...
...His heart was beating powerfully through his tiny ribs...
...Quick...
...When the golden calf is the only god, every other value will be trivial...
...In fact it makes life easier...
...Hi," she said...
...After dinner, I took Tommy and some friends to see The Brady Bunch...
...I put it in the saucer, and when I bit into it, it tasted waxy...
...Then to pick up little Mr...
...She had scary, interesting tattoos on her ankles, and a cultured Southern voice that did not match...
...I glided the farthest I have ever glided and only fell a few times...
...You got the car and gave them a bad check...
...Stop kissing me...
...If he knows numbers well, he will always be secure...
...Then back to the garage...
...Well, remember how you said it was a 'full service' building...
...Then Tommy came in and actually grabbed the bag away from me and starting eating it as fast as he could...
...In his cage, he always poops in the same place...
...But I also loathe the direction this trial has taken...
...Wait a minute," I said...
...She's an ace cross-country skier, married to a truly ace downhill skier...
...Life is just cool...
...You're on my mind all day long, every day...
...Not only am I not even remotely involved in the ceremony, but I wasn't even invited to an Oscar party at Morton's, where I am probably their best customer...
...It works, too...
...You get it from the mother...
...I was not very good at it, but it was fun...
...Unto you is a psychoanalyst born...
...You don't have to be broke...
...He's trying," said the actress...
...That's a better deal...
...You don't have to work in a brothel...
...Well," she said, pointedly not correcting me, "it was fun...
...Seven thousand Marines and soldiers and pilots dead...
...Have you considered working for Bob Bennett...
...Makes big sculptures of me whenever she has a chance...
...Grrr...
...Well, that's all right," she said, not missing a beat...
...Who taught you that...
...Simpson trial...
...So I have women chasing me like I was the last man in L.A...
...I think the concussion is attacking me...
...I want to meet you for lunch," he said...
...I think you could afford a small apartment with an air conditioner on what you make now...
...The defense of a man credibly accused of murder: not that he didn't do it...
...Hi," she said...
...I could hear her crying as she spoke to me...
...Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife...
...It's all connected with that poor woman, Christina Jeffrey, who was going to be House Historian, and got blacklisted for supposedly being pro-Nazi because she wanted the Nazi point of view examined in Holocaust studies...
...Runaway...
...Is that how much a new car means to you...
...And I want an apartment with air conditioning, for when it gets hot this summer...
...I just can't take being broke anymore," she said...
...Incredibly brave Marines, sailors, and soldiers fighting the Japanese for eighty-two bitter, horrible days in the most bloody battle of World War II in the Pacific...
...It's just a way of examining problems," I said...
...I told him algebra was basically a way of solving problems using some addition, some subtraction, some division and some multiplication...
...But I also loathe the direction this trial has taken...
...I mean, she would do anything...
...All around me are people having fun...
...After dinner, I took Tommy and some friends to see The Brady Bunch...
...Teenage prostitute on the streets of New York...
...How long does it take for the trains to converge...
...So, to get a new car instead of an old car, you're moving to a brothel...
...To the Vienna Institute of Psychoanalysis...
...Yesterday she called me up to tell me, in a trembling voice, that she had to quit...
...No, I don't," I said...
...Wholesome and totally clever choreography, especially a number about knee slapping that was an expression of different kinds of personality...
...Simpson stands accused of virtually cutting off the head of the mother of his children and murdering a totally innocent wayfarer...
...Well, that's all right," she said, not missing a beat...
...You want it...
...Saturday W e're up on Schweitzer Mountain, just north of Sandpoint...
...You know how Sigmund Freud said that of all the problems he had confronted in psychoanalysis, the most difficult was: What do women want ?" "I recall something like that," I said...
...And, as Richard Nixon used to always say, "If the mother is smart, the son is smart...
...WHAT...
...I met her and talked to her a lot, and I learned that she was dead broke, desperately needed to make some more money...
...It's basic to human nature...
...Instead of the Oscars, I watched a show on TV about the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Okinawa...
...Monday B ack in L.A...
...She giggled often...
...Then a true epiphany...
...Instead, she was going to work in the legal brothels of Nevada...
...She did her work almost too quickly...
...Tonight, they were having the Brigham Young University Dance troupe dancing away...
...Loves to feed me...
...Give me an example," said little Newton...
...That's right," I said...
...I could feel that all around me, and it felt great...
...I walked over to the Panida...
...She's teaching me some great lessons about cross-country...
...The American Spectator June 1995 47 I got myself organized and headed over...
...What a story...
...Look straight ahead at where you want to be...
...He could do fairly complex "short" division in his head in a flash...
...She was always short of money, always worried about paying her utilities...
...Five thousand sailors dead in kamikaze attacks...
...We met at Morton's...
...I didn't like the car that much anyway...
...Oh, well...
...I guess there's a lesson there about being a parent...
...he hissed...
...That's right...
...He was extremely good at it...
...I was not very good at it, but it was fun...
...I knew she was smart...
...I skied back and forth, watched the downhill skiers racing along, and felt happy...
...That's the ticket...
...It works, too...
...The American Spectator June 1995 47 I got myself organized and headed over...
...In the rented Buick on the way from Spokane to Sandpoint, Tommy asked me to quiz him on division...
...I happen to know that this is the second car you've taken under false pretenses, not to say 'stolen.' I don't think I want to lend money to an admitted car thief...
...from Ohio came to work as our nighttime phone answering person...
...Not only am I not even remotely involved in the ceremony, but I wasn't even invited to an Oscar party at Morton's, where I am probably their best customer...
...That might not be the exact quote, but it's similar...
...We flew up this afternoon...
...Who taught you that...
Vol. 28 • June 1995 • No. 6
