The Nation's Pulse/Day Two
Stein, Benjamin J.
THE NATION'S PULSE DAY TWO by Benjamin J. Stein January 17, 1991 M orning. I spent last night at my condo in the Shoreham Towers, the tallest apartment building in West Hollywood, by far. It's on...
...I took Trixie, the world's most perfect creature, for a walk...
...He got rid of his television about a month ago...
...Just because you were promised a part doesn't mean you'll get it...
...I've seen guys do just fine one day and the next day they can't perform no matter what...
...Carthago delenda est.' "What happens to me is not terribly important if only a few people in the whole world remember Varus," A. said, "and only a few thousand remember Carthage...
...Now she's a straight-A student at Santa Monica City College, and she counsels other children of alcoholics and drug addicts in Brentwood...
...Some kind of movie for an arcade or what...
...Both of Terri's parents were drug addicts and alcoholics...
...This is a tough business...
...O ff to another studio to try out for a part as a cruel head of an orphanage on a new sitcom that is openly derivative of "The Three Stooges...
...In a few minutes I read my part, and learned that the line producer is an old friend as well...
...wagged his tail at Trixie, so I brought her inside...
...At night, I can see from the skyscrapers of downtown to the ocean...
...We're like a shadow city within Los Angeles...
...Now I'm forced to do it...
...Reading makes me feel as if I have some company...
...You want the real thing or simulation...
...There's a whole city of people like me," he said...
...Lenny has an idea that he will make Larry an X-rated video, which he will send to Larry in lieu of flying out to Connecticut to create a bachelor party with strippers...
...I don't have enough time left to waste it watching TV," he said...
...If you would just let me do it with my girlfriend," the buffed man said, "I know I could perform...
...You must see an interesting mix of humanity," I said...
...Still, it's a beautiful day...
...I love the concept...
...Wondering why it happened...
...And sending them to the National Enquirer...
...You can't guarantee it...
...I was still thinking about that as I sat listening to a pitch about the school from the rabbi...
...A pathetic joke for any smartroach...
...He was a killer screenwriter, not just good but great...
...The lowly household spray...
...When the camera pulls back, we see that he's been briefing a huge auditorium filled with little roaches...
...A rush trip out to Van Nuys to help my pal Lenny with a peculiar errand...
...Another bad omen...
...I really want to do the scenes only with my girlfriend...
...No, just a video for a friend's bachelor party," Lenny said...
...A woman across Horn Street pulled up in a huge white-onwhite Cadillac and got out, wearing high-heeled white pumps, sheer white stockings to her thighs, a mini-skirt, and a T-shirt...
...Lenny looked at me in stark terror...
...Varus, give me back my legions...
...Which of you guys...
...I have to watch my reputation...
...When Terri was eight years old...
...Something like that...
...I start to throw up when I remember, and just seeing places we went when I was a kid brings it back...
...Plus, TV makes me lonely...
...He lies in bed for mostof the day reading books in Latin...
...Anyway, I found another suit...
...People with cancer...
...He had a spectacular red Porsche 911 in the parking lot near Fairfax and I recall marveling at that car, at his accomplishment, at the sleek glory of his life...
...I don't think he got any made...
...I have a mania about lists and it's getting worse...
...Wondering why it's us...
...I said it was horrible, but I hoped it would be over soon...
...It was like I had a tumor on top of my brain that was eating me up, only I put it there...
...What are you doing in here...
...Yes," he said, "but cars have seat belts...
...Actually, neither," Lenny said...
...26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1991...
...The commercial was, if I may say so, a damn brilliant proposition...
...This means I don't have a prayer...
...He would go into fevers and sweats for no particular reason...
...Actors aren't allowed in here...
...Three, don't take anything for granted...
...You can send Larry a Cadillac for his wedding...
...Then they said, "Could you read the copy as it is, please...
...I'll pray for you and you pray for me...
...Battles two thousand years ago that changed the world...
...Daddy, how come Trixie isn't wearing a seatbelt...
...He wrote a few moderately successful movies after that, but then he came into some money and moved to Carmel to rest and think...
...He had three tests before the results came back positive for human immunosuppressive virus...
...The Great Dane Benjamin J. Stein is a writer and actor living in Malibu, California...
...He shows a fogger and says, "Roaches simply leave the area...
...You know, when I was writing scripts, I used to look at Bill Goldman or Cameron Crowe and wonder why they got so much and I got so little for a script...
...There were men in the book, too, and they looked even more demented and tortured...
...The problem was that the lines didn't excite quite enough derision...
...When he told me about how to create a script, it was like hearing the words of Adam Smith about how free markets work...
...No one can guarantee it...
...I took a shower and looked for something decent to wear, not an easy task, since I wore my best suit to a wrap party last night and now it reeks of tobacco smoke...
...The human shoe...
...He shows a shoe and says, "Totally ineffective...
...Dinner with my pal A., a guy I worked with when I came to Hollywood in 1976...
...When I got inside, my phone was ringing...
...That's it...
...I'm trying to compile in my little brain a list of the useful things about life in general I have learned from acting...
...The proprietor, a thin, pockmarked man with a thin, black mustache, was smoking a cigarette at a metal desk...
...What's this for...
...I had a good time, regardless...
...Now I can do it...
...They love acting, and when they get a chance to do their own thing, they don't quibble about hours or conditions...
...It looked like it was success but it was really envy...
...I'm talking about professionals here, too...
...My suggestion was that we add sarcasm...
...Meanwhile, the plump woman was explaining to Lenny and me the way theagency worked...
...I have a rabbit that I carry with me when I meet the three-year-olds, and the rabbit's name is Rabbi Rabbit, and the kids all like that, and it makes Rabbi seem less remote and awesome...
...I have enough problems without that competition...
...I mean, that's who I would feel comfortable with performing in front of the camera...
...He shows a roach spray and says, "Roaches can easily hide...
...All very informal...
...The fogger...
...A visit to my three-and-a-half-yearold son's day school, which is part of a synagogue...
...I'll try to think of a few others...
...Who's going to perform with these women...
...I used to look at Tony Bill and say that it was a total rip-off that he got about fifty directing gigs for every one that I got...
...she asked...
...Well, but you know, with all the stuff going around today . . . " "That's the whole problem," the owner said...
...It's a stone crime Jim Baker wasn't there to hear us...
...Really, no one's going to touch them...
...The problem is," the proprietor said, "what if the director wants another star to perform with you...
...He's been taking aerosolized pentamidine for about six months now, but he's still deeply fatigued all of the time...
...She sounded scared...
...Terri's actually a success story...
...I like that a lot...
...thinking about what we should do with the rest of our lives...
...An expectation is a disappointment that you plan for yourself...
...It's an amazing story, but one no studio would touch with a ten-foot pole, because when you ask Tern how she did it, she says, "By turning my life and my will over to God...
...It was my pal Terri (yes, with an i), an accounting student I met at a twelve-step program in Malibu...
...I just can't stand to even be in the same town as my parents any longer...
...What if your lady friend isn't right for the part...
...ff to another audition, this one for a product that is made with sugar, but has fewer calories than sugar...
...A teacher at a screen is showing slides of various means people use to fight roaches...
...It's a production of my old pal, Steve Tisch, which means I'm in trouble...
...At a directed audition you get paid a few hundred bucks just for trying out...
...I told you the networks wouldn't touch it...
...Steve and I talked about the war, then he told me to wait for the audition in an empty office...
...There might be some kind of blackmail thing where they take your picture and then make you pay money to not reveal that you were there...
...Her mother would get drunk, take her to school, get lost on Mulholland Drive, and get so angry and crazed that she would put Terri out on Mulholland, far from any houses or buses or phones...
...Don't expect that just because you got an outrageous compliment from the director on a scene that the scene will stay in the movie...
...The party was for Soapdish, an upcoming classic I had just worked on as a "day player" for four days...
...I'm a lawyer...
...Then he shows the hero product, which has some kind of unique killing power, and says it's an invincible weapon, and we hear lots of little gasps and cries...
...I sat down and started to read my sides when a young development guy appeared...
...On the way out, the receptionist at WAVES asked me what I thought about the war in the Gulf...
...Get along and go along...
...Her mother would quarrel with her father, then go into her room and hit her...
...I turned on the radio and listened to news about the war...
...We sat next to his pool and watched the lights come on over Los Angeles...
...See...
...Each day that I have left, I'll live it just exactly the way I want to live it, and not compare it with anyone else's...
...I read some lines and the audio woman said she was sure I would get the part...
...On some nights, I can even see tankers out at sea, coming up from San Pedro...
...The party was at a place in West Hollywood called Poh-Na-Na-Souk...
...I just remember running into him at CBS...
...We try to keep everyTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1991 25 thing informal, on a person-to-person level here," he said...
...She flicked a burning cigarette into the gutter and walked into her house...
...Yes," I said...
...A moment later she reappeared, walking a scarily large Great Dane on a leash...
...The young man was arguing about a job...
...After a few minutes of explanation, she gave us three huge books of photos of "stars...
...Killing it dead...
...I can see the lights of the aerial freeway that brings jet airplanes into LAX...
...Lenny's best friend Larry, a lawyer in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, is getting married for the third time...
...As nearly as I can figure, the words mean "dark, noisy place where black people play loud, horrible music and gay people stand around smoking cigarettes or doing `performance art' by looking sad and holding candles in their hands...
...I took him along with me and Trixie in my battered old Acura...
...Cloud Drive along with my house in Carmel...
...He came back here about five years ago to start directing his own screenplays...
...After her parents split up and her mother went into a mental hospital, Tern started going to Alanon...
...Her father would quarrel with her mother, then go into her room and molest her...
...O ff to WAVES studio on Cahuenga to have a "directed audition" for a Combat roach-killer commercial...
...When I was in studio meetings about rewrites, gnashing my teeth about what some production executive was saying to me, I would look out the window at those grassy lawns they have there at Warner Brothers and wish I could just spend my day reading Horace...
...He looked at me narrowly...
...He ate his maguro tuna and I ate my shrimp tempura...
...Just reading about immortal things that happened a long time ago...
...I brought him sushi from Cafe Sushi, his absolutely favorite place...
...This AIDS is killing our business...
...Then the clincher, as the hero product is shown: "If you even see this label, you're history...
...The women did not look glamorous or appealing...
...The woman looked at us even more narrowly...
...I talked for a long time to Alan Greisman, a full-on genius who has done well here in the guise of a producer...
...The iron law of auditions: The better you know the decision-makers, the less likely you are to get the part...
...Let's just go," I said...
...Just sort of walking around topless...
...It's on top of Horn Street, the extremely steep hill that runs up between Spago and Tower Records...
...I'm trying out to play the guy who teaches the roaches what they're up against...
...My whole life was envy...
...You'll have to wait with the other actors in the actors' room...
...I'm only one-sixteenth actor," I said, but he didn't get the joke and I didn't feel like fighting with him...
...People who were just rolling along and suddenly their number came up in slow motion...
...They were just crazy about it for about ten minutes...
...You can be certain that the guy you condescend to this afternoon will be making a decision about a continuing part on a network sitcom tomorrow...
...What's that supposed to mean...
...Bust P. I. lawyer in Porn Model Agency Den.' The next Guatemalan who hurts his back on a construction site won't want to call you to represent him...
...It's like some scum-bag Iraqi briefing a bunch of Iraqi pilots on what to expect when they come up against the American Air Force...
...They looked down on their luck and sad...
...Actors will stand under hot lights doing one take after another, getting yelled at by the director and the assistant director, even without any lines, without a break, for hours on end...
...Over the phone to Chi-town (which is coming up a lot today) I worked with the writers to punch up the copy...
...Well," I answered in my most sincere voice, "dogs don't have seat belts...
...In the rain...
...Give us a break...
...As we studied the books, looking for a gracious way to leave, Lenny whispered to me, "Do you think they're taking our pictures...
...Lenny looked sad and I was sorry I had said it...
...About one year ago, he started to lose weight at an alarming pace...
...I'm starting in the spring semester," Terri said, "so I'll leave tomorrow to get moved in...
...I'm transferring to the University of Chicago," she said...
...If you've got it in the pancreas or in the lungs or in the brain, you're just as done for as if you had AIDS, or almost...
...We handed back the books and I told the plump woman that we would think about it all...
...That was like brain disease...
...They were extremely depressing and I was sorry I had even shown up...
...We'll have to ask the Van Nuys rebbe about that...
...The model agency was in a single large room on the top floor of a two-story building...
...I got into my Acura and headed back to Malibu...
...Across from him sat an incredibly muscular young man in sweat pants and a tank top...
...We doped out all the problems of the Middle East...
...I just can't stand to think about what my life was like with them...
...The agency is in Van Nuys, and Lenny is afraid to go there by himself...
...Neither of us," he said in a loud, firm voice, as if he were certain he was being recorded...
...I do," the muscleman insisted...
...Waiting to read...
...At the other end of the room a plump woman was smoking and filing her nails behind another metal desk...
...You can't know that," the mustachioed man said flatly...
...Networks and studios react to the mention of God the way vampires react to garlic...
...All along the way I could see the lights of fishing boats near the shore, laying down channels of light from their wooden hulls to the beach...
...It's a Paramount picture starring Sally Field, Whoopi Goldberg, Carrie Fisher, Robert Downey, Jr., Kevin Kline, Garry Marshall, and me—as a nerd, which is my usual part...
...Lenny has located a "model agency" that provides nude models who will, for a fee, do just about anything...
...She wanted to know what I thought about the war in the Persian Gulf...
...She pulled herself together beyond any realistic hope...
...Not just people with AIDS," he said...
...I'm trying to make every day into a little jewel of a day...
...Two, you get much more productivity out of people who are doing what they want to do...
...I'm furious that I'm sick, but I'm not going to envy anyone...
...I used to wonder how long it was going to be until I got a house on St...
...he asked...
...But there are thousands of us here in L.A...
...An insult to roach intelligence...
...I'll call you...
...The guys in Chicago loved it...
...That's just the way it is...
...One is to never, ever cop an attitude or get into an argument if you don't absolutely have to...
...The plump woman looked at us as if she had heard that before...
...Now that's out of my life...
...I can guarantee it...
...I went up to his house in the Hills to keep him company...
...You're just waiting to leave...
Vol. 24 • April 1991 • No. 4
