Ben Stein's Diary: Gut Checks
Stein, Benjamin J.
ben sTeIn’s dIaRy Gut Checks by Benjamin J. stein Monday H H ere i am at the taj hotel in boston. It used to be the Ritz-Carlton but the Ritz moved to more elegant...
...I felt sick as can be, which seems to be my default position, health-wise...
...But here’s the amazing part: there are a lot fewer benJaMIn J. sTeIn of them than there were even a month ago, and way fewer than three months ago...
...The murderers can just hide out in Pakistan, come over the border, or fire rockets and mortars across the border at us...
...I sucked on it and immediately felt better...
...I went to the pre-speech cocktail party, the prespeech dinner, gave a speech that got great response, or what I will boast of as great response, then went back to my room...
...But we got to friendly little Spokane and then rented our friendly Cadillac from super Avis and headed the back way up Route 200 to Sandpoint...
...They complain less about missing limbs and intestines than I do about my hiccoughs or the stock market...
...Then burst out once the U.S...
...Then, to bed, but up all night with food poisoning or a bug or something...
...Fate...
...It was mobbed...
...It gets worse...
...Great service...
...An Indian company bought the building, did absolutely zero to improve it as far as I can tell, called it the Taj, and here I am...
...Why is management closing 600 of them...
...I hope Olbermann with all of his hatred is this happy...
...He prescribed a powerful antibiotic called clindamycin...
...I hope and pray, but I have a bad feeling about it...
...ben sTeIn’s dIaRy Gut Checks by Benjamin J. stein Monday H H ere i am at the taj hotel in boston...
...sePTeMbeR 2008 THe aMeRIcan sPecTaToR 61...
...It was paradise...
...The only guest who was difficult was Katrina vanden Heuvel, a real leftist and angry as can be...
...I am used to that, but far worse, I have hiccoughs that have been going on now for about five hours...
...Of course, bear in mind I am often mistaken about every single subject there is...
...Pray for them that despitefully use you...
...I flew up to Spokane with Phil DeMuth...
...At about four, a sound crew came to put me on the Larry King show...
...I was awakened by the sound of jackhammers tearing up the swimming pool of our next-door neighbors...
...Her father was an immense power in Hollywood and now she is a big power at the Nation magazine...
...By a cruel fate, as I got about fifteen miles from Newport, Washington, my stomach began to hurt...
...We stopped in Calimesa, in the High Desert, to have some dinner at McDonald’s...
...Back to my room(s...
...I have a very bad feeling about Afghanistan...
...Yes...
...I am a happy guy...
...Very much so...
...Well, I couldn’t...
...60 THe aMeRIcan sPecTaToR sePTeMbeR 2008 “Is it bothering you...
...Plus I am in a hotel room far from home...
...I read on the Internet that Keith Olbermann had mocked me for my asking if it’s the American way to give an acceptance speech in front of 75,000 screaming fans or if it’s a bit totalitarian...
...I guess I seem strange to them, wanting air conditioning in a totally enclosed store on a day of cruel heat and humidity...
...I put on my sacred Bob Dylan “Shelter from the Storm” to drown out the jackhammers and went back to sleep...
...ben stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu...
...As you know, I love McDonald’s...
...Then it bothers me,” he said therapeutically...
...On the other hand, things are a mess in eastern Afghanistan...
...We had some sharp words about that...
...Actually, the porta-potty was really clean and fine...
...It had worked for me before, although with some digestive problems, so I thought I would be fine...
...I have never done that before...
...I stopped taking it...
...he asked...
...This heat must be driving you crazy,” I said...
...THuRsday N N ot a good day...
...I bought some socks...
...The Arabs are a patient people...
...Tuesday T T ime has passed...
...The clerk had a dazed look on his face...
...They are always mobbed, all of the time...
...Then wifey dragged herself out of bed and off we went back to L.A...
...Then I went on to Priest River, stayed drinking tea at Mama Max for about an hour and a half—Mama Max is a gas station, cafe, and general store with super friendly people working there...
...Awakened at our home in Rancho Mirage...
...They haven’t done a thing to upgrade this hotel’s plumbing in thirty years,” he said...
...Fairly soon, wifey and I were the only customers...
...My suspicion is that the terrorists in Iraq are waiting for Barack Obama to be president...
...I have always had a hard time with people from Boston...
...Oh, did I mention I could not keep even a cracker down...
...But I had a lemon sucking candy of the sort my old mother used to carry with her at all times...
...It was spectacularly hot...
...If the Russians, with unmitigated violence and hundreds of thousands of troops, could not win there, can we win there...
...Why bother to fight for victory over the USA and die when he’s just going to hand them the country on a silver platter...
...Dinner at Burger King, which has an amazingly good chilled chicken salad, and then shopping at Wal-Mart, then home to my condo...
...I got dressed about noon and staggered out into the worst heat I have ever experienced...
...That stuff can kill you...
...Still, I love visiting Walter Reed...
...I would rather eat a burger alone with my wifey at McDonald’s in Calimesa than eat at any billionaires’ club in Manhattan or Indian Wells...
...Bless them that curse you...
...Just wifey and me, no alcohol served, and two quarterpounders with cheese...
...Really, perfect...
...She is upset about the U.S.—to paraphrase her—“occupying Moslem lands...
...I called for an engineer...
...Wrong...
...Shall I cancel it...
...Hiccoughing getting worse...
...I took myself to the drugstore and bought some Zantac and some other stomach meds, especially Mylanta...
...forces are gone...
...I am not saying they’re wrong...
...Why not just lie low...
...Insane question...
...The plane from SEA to Spokane was a dreadful, cramped, awful Q400 Bombardier...
...As always, they stagger me with their courage...
...I dragged my pitiful old self down to the lobby and demanded a backup room, which they cheerfully gave me...
...twice, visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed...
...A pleasant old guy appeared with a plumbing kit and fixed the problem but said it would probably happen again...
...Then back to Sandpoint...
...Be careful about strong antibiotics...
...Plus my lungs ache...
...I went to Starbucks...
...Just sitting next to her I hear angels singing...
...My wife was in bed because she hurt her foot falling down a very small—mercifully— flight of stairs...
...So, should I stop taking it...
...It’s the worst night of my life, or at least in a long time...
...This one is really good...
...I wonder how many times Barack Obama has been there.… Tuesday A A great, great day...
...So I just swam, moseyed about the house, wrote, and read the paper...
...Fairly empty...
...I called my doctor...
...In the morning, my toilet stopped functioning...
...I figure if Olbermann is after me, I have to be doing something right...
...Have been doing a fair amount of TV lately talking about the election...
...I drove like a madman to a gas station that had no rest rooms, only porta-potties...
...Now, here comes the miracle...
...It used to be the Ritz-Carlton but the Ritz moved to more elegant quarters...
...In minutes I was feeling quite well...
...Such is life in the recession, you see...
...I thought she did a good job...
...Great advice...
...I just lie in bed, listen to the wavelets off the lake, feel the breeze, and think of Big Wife at the Calimesa McDonald’s...
...I have been to D.C...
...Truly perfection...
...Hey, I have to speak in a few hours...
...The host of Larry King tonight was Joy Behar...
...Before I left L.A., I had the stirring of pneumonia, so I called my doctor...
...But I mean really, really hurt with ultra urgency...
...On the other hand, most of the ones who are at WRAMC are from Afghanistan...
...What shall I do...
...Wildly...
...Just a bit strange...
...Really bad...
...He told me the antibiotic might be giving me a certain condition in my intestines that would, well, well, it would kill me...
...I went to the Brooks Brothers next to the Starbucks, where the air conditioning was not working...
...How can we ever win that war...
...She also had the flu...
...Wow, was I happy to not be hiccoughing any longer...
...Every time I start to fall asleep, I am awakened by hiccoughs...
...I have a wildly sick stomach...
...Yes,” he said gravely, “and if it gets worse, we’ll get you to a hospital...
...But I guess it’s all showbiz...
...They are just on a different wavelength from me...
...Really clean-cut, cheerful help...
...Bad problem under the circumstances...
...I don’t even mind it—the stomach pain—that much...
...Plus I have a bad headache...
...They have decided their pool is not deep enough so they are tearing it out and putting in a new, deeper pool...
...There is something magical about my big wifey...
Vol. 41 • September 2008 • No. 7
