The California Spectator/Super Sunday
Stein, Benjamin J.
THE CALIFORNIA SPECTATOR SUPER SUNDAY by Benjamin J. Stein T is one of those mornings when I I can't stop my criminal brain from working. I'd like to. I'd like to just walk out the door and wander...
...He wouldn't know about beauty and he wouldn't know about architecture...
...At the Malibu McDonald's, there were almost no customers...
...How about that greatest of all books, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire...
...Price becomes value...
...They were rock 'n' rollers...
...No," she said, recoiling visibly...
...I asked...
...Just as I was leaving the for-sale house, a gleaming red Ferrari Mondiale came screaming up the driveway...
...The best documented, most provoca tive and informative AIDS book since And the Band Played On...
...One point four million...
...For that matter, the product of these women usually lacks perspective, proper proportions, or any kind of intelligence in observation...
...This is a big point...
...This is the ocean," I said...
...I asked...
...How is that different from the guy who made so much money selling the Pet Rock a few years ago...
...I'm doing art, not your yucky business stuff...
...In a way that neither of them could possibly have foretold, they have a SAFE SEX romance...
...But tell him that the ugliest Tehran lookalike rock pile cost five mill, and he's impressed...
...He's everyone's Daddy...
...Ever notice how many dogs come from Germany...
...Yummy, yummy, yummy...
...It's an art school, and I draw...
...For a freelance crank, that sounds about right...
...Daddy," Tommy said after a thoughtful pause, "God take me McDonald's...
...I could quite easily visualize Tommy becoming a major spiritual leader, finding his own spiritual peace for the rest of his life, beginning only with that one sage comment...
...They'd probably die from boredom anyway...
...Tommy asked...
...Like Lucy in "Peanuts," I would offer advice on a variety of subjects that any passing surfer might want to talk about: good breaks, the effects of high real interest rates on mergers and acquisitions, how to find a cute girlfriend—anything...
...Tommy bolted out of his car seat and came running across the front lawn to greet me...
...A pleasant young woman of about nineteen smiled and handed me herreal estate card...
...How do you like your new Mercedes convertible...
...Because you insist on making everything so complicated," Staci said...
...Booklist "A signal contribution to our under standing of the AIDS epidemic in the United States...
...A movie about a 16-year-old boy who is very shy, who gets serious head injuries in a car crash...
...That's the name on my birth certificate, 'Tristan Shout Brando.' No relation to Marlon...
...She still looks beautiful, even though she's worried about reaching the age of twenty-seven...
...Her father, a professor of finance ata local university, shrugged and they walked off...
...Like Tristan and Isolde...
...Alexander Langmuir, M.D., former Chief Epidemiologist, Cen ters for Disease Control "A merciless—though often legiti mate—indictment of the purveyors of panic...
...That comes out to roughly $14,000 per month, or about $168,000 per year...
...Well, not really," Tristan answered...
...It's a year or so later, and the house still hasn't sold...
...It's okay...
...E of that...
...Years of training...
...But the wind is roaring through the backyard palm fronds like a locomotive going through Central Jersey...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1990 29...
...1=1 Who will get AIDS...
...A New Republic Book Toll-free with credit card 800-638-3030...
...You're sick," she said...
...she sneered...
...It would collect specimens from the surviving Nobel laureates like Friedman and Stigler who have served the cause of laissez-faire...
...You're really sick...
...I drove Tommy back to Point Dume...
...I asked...
...There's a lot here...
...It was laid out as if it had been designed by an architect on angel dust...
...In this carefully reasoned analysis, he shows how the very real tragedy of the disease has been overshadowed by a collective hysteria often fueled by partisan politics and the naivete of the press...
...I attached Trixie, .1.- r the German Short-Haired Pointer of my dreams, to her red leash with her name on it, and headed down Dume Drive...
...What's God do...
...I promised Tristan Shout that I would think seriously about her house...
...At the end of my exclusive street (where I rent, and do not own), a hideous brick house has been built with the perfect Malibu name of "Whale's Waye" (sic...
...Yeah, they're okay," she said...
...There's such a thing as being too smart, so I let Staci rejoin her friend and Tristan Brando...
...Go McDonald's...
...They hire a beautiful out-ofwork actress named Scarlet to drive him there...
...But none of them has had any art courses...
...Out of it came a scary looking man in black leather and mirrored sunglasses...
...He's in a coma for months, and then he gets out and starts going to rehab...
...The scientific evidence indicates that it will not, according to Michael Fumento...
...It would overlook the Santa Monica Bay, and would be decorated only with photos and posters celebrating Nixon...
...Do you ever read basic texts like The Wealth of Nations...
...Let's go for it again...
...The Richard Nixon Cafe, also here in Malibu...
...I might also give lessons in ordering off a Chinese menu, which I'm pretty good at as well...
...Or maybe vice-versa...
...Me want ketchup, Daddy," he said...
...Then she goes back to her multi-millionaire investment banker boyfriend, and he goes back to high school...
...Let's face it: TV news was never as interesting as during the Vietnam war...
...A special free marketeers' sperm bank...
...I've seen you on those Western Union commercials," he said...
...No," I said...
...He's our Daddy," I said...
...Eddie Murphy turned around and looked at me and at Tommy...
...No, Daddy," he said...
...walk on the Great Wall of China...
...Maybe Morgan, Stanley would pay for it...
...That's a good looking boy," he said...
...See, Ben, this is why you just rent out here and don't own anything...
...A whole new generation of ideologues to serve Morgan, Stanley would be created...
...It's almost dark and you've already been to McDonald's once...
...Then, young madchen from the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation could be inseminated with the precious seed...
...All right," I said...
...she asked...
...We stopped and I held him up to look at the Ocean Blue...
...It doesn't signify to tell a friend that your house is beautiful and was designed by a classy architect...
...His kitchen debate with Khrushchev...
...Good luck on 48 Hours, II," I saluted, and off he went in a very snazzy black leather jacket...
...Alex, my tall, beautiful wife, and Tommy were still out when I got home so I read through my latest copy of Malibu Homes and Land, a sort of catalogue of houses for sale here in our little Malibu...
...Yumm," I said...
...Simulation is today's game, and we can all play...
...No...
...So I'm wired and I have to make a list of all of the genius ideas I've had that night: • A cable channel which would foment wars in remote parts of the world and cover them around the clock...
...The young woman looked at me through her steel rims...
...Tristan Brando," it read...
...He's a bearded fellow who month after month advertises the same half-finished house on the land side of Malibu Road, right across from where I used to live...
...And you're agenting a million and a half dollar house...
...Alex, his mother, smiled...
...In Litchfield, Connecticut, beauty, architectural grace, and charm all add value, and value becomes price...
...His mother and father are too busy to drive him there every day...
...More than a Pet Rock," I said...
...Here's a valuable point to recall about life: I spend a lot of envy thinking how much better other people's houses are than mine...
...That's why he's rich and you're not...
...It's okay," she shrugged...
...His Checkers speech...
...Tommy," I said, "these are your yummy french fries and this is your yummy Diet Coke...
...Somehow I just can't get out of my head the fact that these guys made billions selling worthless bonds...
...To expect a college student to read a book...
...Go know...
...I tied Trixie's leash to the nearest wrought iron fence and strolled in...
...Yes," I went on, "God is Daddy for all of us...
...An industrial bond is supposed to have some value somewhat near its cost...
...Well, it's acknowledged up front that a Pet Rock isn't really much more than a joke...
...Where modern minds meet the eternal sea, there you find "Whale's Waye...
...This is another thing I've noticed about Malibu...
...Daddy, Daddy, Daddy," he said, "Go McDonald's...
...How old are you...
...Right," she said...
...Take you, too...
...A huge problem," I agreed...
...Yumm," Tommy said...
...I saw you on your first 'Saturday Night Live,' " I said...
...28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1990 But I never think anyone has a better dog than I do...
...Tiny rooms not facing the ocean...
...God made it to be beautiful and to help us live," I said...
...That's a bad problem," he said...
...My favorite ad is from someone named Steve Karsh...
...Here's your ketchup...
...Past Martin Sheen's house, I saw a house for sale...
...Here in the Bu, where most houses are incredibly poorly designed, and where most buyers lack the education to understand just what a nice house is anyway, price becomes value...
...About a year ago, it was for sale for $695,000...
...Well, how many years of training have you had for drawing...
...I have to admit that I thought this was an almost unimaginably clever beginning for Tommy's spirituality...
...You're funny, too...
...You're funny...
...With him was none other than Staci, my former assistant, now a successful commercial real estate broker...
...This is typical of Malibu, where the usual two-million lot has a house designed by a ten-cent mind...
...I like it," he said, gesturing at the $80,000 car in the McDonald's parking lot...
...Well, to you it is," Staci answered, "but maybe not to Michael Milken...
...Just what is a bond supposed to be...
...Some day I'll tell Tommy about this and he won't believe it," I said...
...The paintings are like small children's finger painting, only the fingers have big jewels on them...
...It's not that kind of college," she answered...
...Back at home a neighbor and his daughter were strolling with their dog, a German Shepherd...
...Patricia Cohen, Washington Monthly "The arguments, statistics and perceptions that he adduces to support his position appear almost as irrefutable as they are controversial...
...I guess your folks were opera buffs, huh...
...Many of the women here call themselves artists and paint all day...
...For me to rent a storefront here in Malibu to dispense advice on any subject...
...None of them has had any formal training...
...Now it's on the market for $1,195,000...
...While her boyfriend, a sort of out and out bunco artist, toured the house with Tristan, I talked to Staci...
...It was open...
...She showed me around the manse...
...Are you taking any good courses...
...David $22.95 at bookstores or direct from Shaw, New York Times Book Review Basic Books 10 E. 53rd St., NY 10022...
...What are you working on...
...What's the ocean do...
...It has huge windows facing its driveway and tiny ones facing the ocean...
...For example, it might fund the rebels in New Guinea and then fund the government, and watch them kill each other...
...But here in Southern California, where few can read and everyone can count, the only common denominator that impresses is price...
...I saw you on Oprah, too, talking about schools...
...Let's see...
...he asked...
...A tennis court whose wall blocked the view of the ocean...
...If a few spear-chucking natives have to die, well, what the heck...
...I ordered for Tommy his Happy Meal and we sat down at a small table next to a black man with his back to me, talking cheerfully to a friend...
...Staci asked...
...Exactly," I said...
...Will AIDS spread to the general heterosexual community...
...I'd like to just walk out the door and wander down the Champs Elysees, going cafe to cabaret...
...Mary's College...
...On the stereo, we would have his greatest speeches on C.D.'s, and we would have Mexican Food Day on Thursdays, just the way we did back in the 1973 White House Mess...
...I said...
...I walked back to my adorable rented .1 house with Trixie...
...A huge kitchen with no appliances...
...His Benjamin J. Stein lives in Malibu...
...More like `Tristan Shout.' " "You're kidding," I said...
...As far as I can recall, the only two creatures that belong to me that seem to be uniquely fine are Trixie and my two-and-a-half-year-old son, Tommy...
...Kill My Landlord.' " "Yeah, that was funny," Eddie Murphy said...
...C'mon, Daddy, let's go...
...It's time to go home...
...Twenty," she said...
...A lex and Tommy pulled up...
...In a way too moving for words, the two of them start to have feelings for each other...
...Tristan Brando showed me the guest house next to the tennis court...
...Still writing those long articles about junk bonds...
...I asked Tommy if he would not prefer to climb to the top of Point Dume and see the ocean...
...I asked the daughter, a husky type with tattoos on her shoulders, how life was at Mount St...
...I think it had something to do with the Super Bowl on TV, but I could be wrong...
Vol. 23 • April 1990 • No. 4
