Ben Stein's Diary/On Location
Stein, Benjamin J.
On Location by Benjamin J. Stein Friday A trip to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, all by myself. I was going to meet a friend from Oregon; but she. got mad at me for telling her she was pretty and sweet,...
...Benjamin J. Stein is a writer, lawyer, economist, and actor living in Malibu, California...
...Six of them were walking abreast along the sidewalk, staring at me...
...got mad at me for telling her she was pretty and sweet, not glamorous and mean...
...I don't know anyone here...
...The woman was from Somewhere, North Dakota...
...I'm not, some kind of criminal, and I don't want to be on TV...
...You can't cut someone up with a knife and, not expect to go to prison...
...I'm new," the lovely clerk said when I complained...
...I like that part, but the bed on the floor part I can live without...
...The lifeguards, teenage girls and boys, knew everyone by name: "No roughnecking near the raft, please, Tim...
...No...
...Idaho is supposed to have lots of skinheads, but it took about five minutes before I saw any...
...She worked for a company called Torture Models...
...This isn't Beverly Hills," Ricky said...
...I don't live in the Colony at all," I said...
...I just worry if I ask it ofmyself even after I've opened my eyes...
...Down at the HBO studios on East 23rd Street, everyone was cheery...
...Yeah, like a big movie star would live in Coeur d'Alene," another said, and they moved on...
...I didn't give anyone permission to show me on TV...
...High praise indeed," I nodded...
...She was 24, and knew for a fact that her career was almost over...
...You know, 'Bueller.' " Giggling with relief, I said "Bueller, Bueller," and then thanked them for their interest in the movie...
...Cote Basque was deserted...
...It has about 300 inhabitants, a small grocery store, and a German restaurant...
...The American Spectator October 1992 45...
...Where in the Colony do you live...
...In front of the grocery store, called High Hopes, I met Ricky F. He is a lifelong friend of Paul's, and helps take care of his house when Paul's away coining money...
...There are lots of non-drug addicts, non-alcoholics, non-overeaters, but there are few non-media addicts...
...I'm really sorry...
...Ricky was about my age or slightly younger, wearing hiker's shorts and boots, driving an ancient pickup with a mountain bike chained to it...
...It's Ian Schrager's totally cool hostelry, and it's just a little too cool for me...
...At the resort, on the shores of Coeur d'Alene Lake, I encountered truly lovely clerks and the First Law of Lodging: the kind of room you get will vary inversely with the kind of room you requested...
...Monday Where am I? I keep asking myself this question...
...Al Franken was host, and he's funny...
...Also, I soon realized, the only one without stories about prison life...
...So...
...LAX was a madhouse, as usual...
...walked down the main street of Coeur d'Alene...
...It was like being high on calm, like being in a dream of what it's spoze to be...
...I'm here for the Comedy Central cable channel coverage of the Democrat Convention...
...From Los The American Spectator October 1992 43 Angeles...
...They gathered in a little semicircle around me and one of them said, "Say it, please...
...One big strike against rural living...
...As I passed the first stop light into town, I saw that the Sandpoint High School Cheerleaders were having a car wash and bake sale...
...Well, I would truly love that," I said...
...Sid Dauman is a genius designer and maker of point-of-sale displays, a world we all deal with every day but don't think much about...
...I strolled over at sundown and sat in on a meeting in progress...
...Now I remember...
...The absolutely most devoted fan on earth of Ferris Bueller's Day Off...
...Just as I was looking for a seat, a beautiful blond woman stared at me and said, "I am your biggest fan in the whole world...
...Saturday 1 nto my fabulous rented Toyota Camry for a trip to my real destination, Sandpoint, Idaho...
...It also struck me how rare it was to meet anyone who does not want to be on TV...
...It makes for a feeling of self-loathing that is impressive even for me...
...Fools' names and fools' faces are often seen in public places," this fool thought to himself...
...It's art and physics and light and psychology and 44 The American Spectator October 1992 commerce all in a piece of Incite...
...I went (her to Cote Basque, a very fancy rich person's restaurant on East 55th Street to meet my pal Sid for lunch...
...We went up a series of steep curves and soon found ourselves outside a huge gate at the end of an endless driveway...
...First class is always the same fare...
...Her quest in life was to find a man who would love her, understand her, and take care of her...
...At the beach, perhaps fifty people were lounging on the sand or swimming...
...There were three dogs," my guide told me...
...I live north of the Colony by quite a lot...
...Even so," she said, "I'd love to come out to visit you...
...No, in a much less expensive neighborhood than that...
...The whole room is black...
...There was a refreshment stand where two teenage girls fried hot dogs and greeted everyone who came in by name...
...She wanted mostly to ride horses and enjoy life...
...Now we just get shoe-horned in, fed from a pail of slop, and sent on our way...
...Much less...
...We people who don't drink also don't laugh a lot...
...A pal, Paul T., a producer and director of TV commercials, has built a house on a hillside, and he's been inviting me to visit for years now...
...They don't trash their bathrooms because their family will be using them...
...Much, much less expensive...
...I parked my car and strolled around the town...
...S pokane was like another country...
...The only famous person there was Katharine Graham...
...I noticed right away that I was the only man there wearing a cashmere sweater...
...The bathroom at the- refreshment stand was amazingly clean...
...Also the only one not smoking...
...Very far away...
...No...
...You won't believe what's happened," he said in that upper, upper-class accent that tells the world that he has always been rich...
...She was a model...
...But I learned a lot there, and when I got out, I thought I had better just kill my parole officer and go back in to learn some more, but then I remembered how lonely it had been . . ." A man next to me.asked me in a whisper if I was an Idaho probation officer...
...Yet none of them can use words...
...If we look at it closely, the world is a whirling ballet of inspiration...
...Then I noticed that I was the only man there without atattoo...
...I want to mention this because he's a uniquely smart guy, an artist of capitalism of a sort one rarely sees these days...
...Not like in L.A...
...She looked at me in a deeply sad way,as if she pitied me and also pitied the waste of time she had just put herself through...
...Even if we knew for sure who did it, there would only be a $200 fine...
...Well, Benito," said my pal Garth, "there it all is...
...Listen," she said, "no matter what, I really enjoyed you in Ferris Bueller...
...CI Tuesday A meeting with Garth, world' s richest human, at the Whiskey Bar at the Paramount...
...she asked...
...I dialed home and found that I had a call from my wealthy English pal, G. He was calling, frantic, from Palm Beach...
...An air-conditioner is vibrating loudly...
...I asked...
...The fare wars have stripped even the most trivial comfort from flying...
...But a neighbor got jealous of Paul and shot one of the dogs...
...Dauman's works are like sculptures that sell, that touch people's hopes and dreams and induce them to sample and then to buy...
...There were no scary people at all...
...I'm in New York at the ultra-hip Paramount Hotel, on 46th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues...
...Well, I can't afford first class," I said...
...Of course, it's summer, and a lot of restaurants were offering a $19.92 lunch special, which Cote B. definitely was not...
...Just me, no threat to any of you Aryans...
...No," she said...
...A stop in Portland, though, where I got to see a few sweet-looking human beings, redeemed all of the nastiness of the airplane ride...
...We sat in a corner, with Garth looking on listlessly, and talked above the din...
...I was even on for a few minutes talking about Hillary Clinton's hair...
...This town of 5,000 is about sixty miles north of Coeur d'Alene, on the northwest shore of a huge lake called Pend Oreille...
...Did they put the killer in jail for life...
...She looked distinctly alert...
...I went to the courthouse here to pay a traffic ticket, and there was a camera crew from the local TV station, and they took my picture and it's going to be on the evening news...
...There's a different attitude about dogs here...
...one of them asked me...
...Plus, they all recognized my fool's face from TV...
...Great view, but nothing like the Colony or Broad Beach...
...I got my car washed while the girls listened to some truly disgusting rap song on a radio...
...They were mostly kids...
...A fter lunch, we went to see Sid Dauman's atelier...
...She had distinct wrinkles already, which is death in her business...
...Norm Ornstein was on all night, and he's funny...
...drove about twenty miles along the lake to a tiny hamlet named Hope...
...The house sat at the end of a long flagstone driveway where two dogs lounged happily...
...Soon I was in a posh room with a view, far from anyone except right across the street, by coincidence, from a clubhouse for a chapter of my self-help group, Journey into Self-Obsession...
...Joe Queenan was a featured performer and he's really funny...
...Double yummy...
...The young women at the Hertz counter were all pretty, friendly, and competent...
...The girls sold me many brownies, said, "Oooh, we just washed a movie star's car," and then went back to talking about boys...
...So, it's an invasion of my privacy...
...If you give me about two weeks notice, I could probably find you a really super bargain fare...
...She had decided, she told me, that probably an older man would be the right choice...
...He designs display cases, mostly for cosmetics...
...Hmmm...
...There was a town beach next to a large, grassy park...
...I tried to look as if I hadn't noticed them, to blend seamlessly into the sidewalk, maybe look at the real estate window...
...Still, it struck me as I flew into Spokane just exactly how much we have lost when it's just accepted that anyone can be put into the meat grinder of television even if he doesn't want to be...
...Sid and my sister and Sid's son Claude and I ate our fish and talked about the recession...
...How would that be...
...In fact, I don't even worry if I ask it any longer...
...I'm in a room where my bed is on the floor, without legs...
...I hope you're kidding," I said...
...I was impressed and a little amazed, thinking that there must be a fair amount of such wizardry in American business that we Americans pay very little conscious attention to...
...So, I thought, rap, the AIDS of culture, has even reached northern Idaho...
...She called yesterday and left a message that she guessed she was "just too flat-footed for a movie star like you" and that she wouldn't be seeing me...
...I guess that's why they call this The Year of the Woman...
...Each case has to say something special and selling about the cosmetics, must have something new about it, and must fit in restricted spaces and restricted budgets...
...On 200 acres above Lake Pend Oreille, very far indeed from Hollywood and Vine...
...Then she got up and walked away...
...This was my pal Paul's lakeside retreat...
...They don't litter because it's their countryside...
...The town is right next to Hayden Lake, justly famed as world headquarters of the Aryan Nations...
...No," I said, "just a tourist...
...I saw her little blond bob from behind for a minute, and then she disappeared into a smoky place...
...They behave as if they were not just passing through...
...I returned his call...
...Instead, I got a small room with a poor view, and with a non-stop flow of people walking right by to the gargantuan ice machine next to it...
...I have to leave now...
...I know I did some bad things," one of the men said...
...Say what...
...They would ride their bikes to thesand, recognize their friends, then dismount and run into the lake...
...It's a fascinating place for a guy who doesn't drink, what with people drinking and smoking and laughing...
...It's bitterly cold, which surprises me because I think I remember that it's July...
...I had written, phoned, and asked in person for a large, quiet room with a lake view...
...So I'm going by myself...
...They may seem like just visual background, but they're not...
...She's probably not an aficionado of television commercials...
...You live up here, dude...
...It's a great favorite of mine to talk about how terrible things are while eating fresh sole with lemon butter sauce at Cote Basque...
...This is why I love the Northwest: people live there as if they had a stake in it...
...On Broad Beach...
...I told him that in godless, atheistic media-elite Amerika, the media pretty much make the rules for the wise men and the fools, and that he was out of luck...
...Don't play on the log, Tracy...
...She did not speak to me on the way out, but then she doesn't know me...
...Preferably a very smart one, and most particularly, one from Malibu, California...
Vol. 25 • October 1992 • No. 10
