Ben Stein's Diary/Breathless
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN'S DIARY Breathless Friday Everyone here has the flu and I thought I might be getting it, too. Hence a trip to Doctor B., who had been recommended by my friend Traci, a former...
...I asked...
...I didn't want to say any more...
...I'm in the folding box business...
...wire-rimmed spectacles...
...Uhh, don't cortisone drugs suppress immune reaction and help the virus spread...
...Saturday Through a friend, I was invited to take part in a transpacific Town Meeting of the Air, in which about a hundred Americans in Los Angeles got to ask questions of a group of supposedly influential and powerful Jap-anese in Tokyo...
...She was raped and then she got herpes and now it's spread all over her body and she's like having a nervous breakdown...
...No," I said...
...I know you're some kind of actor, and this is in case you have to play a week's gig in Vegas, say...
...We sympathize with your working 42 The American Spectator February 1992...
...Doctor B. was a portly man with a kindly look and steel Benjamin J. Stein is a writer, lawyer, economist, and actor living in Malibu, California...
...As I read, the two receptionists painted their nails and talked in normal tones, which I could easily overhear...
...If I have to play Vegas...
...As I was leaving, a receptionist said, "Don't you play on 'Charles in Charge...
...Doctor B. looked at me angrily...
...The hookup, at KABC, was complex and did not always work, but eventually we started to talk to the Japanese...
...That's someone else...
...Might he want to examine me...
...Perhaps it was depression, perhaps flu...
...In his examining room were still more piles of Vogue, Elle, Cosmo, and Sassy...
...Wow," said the first one, "and her Dad is that really famous lawyer in Beverly Hills...
...A sample of how the evening went: The Japanese host, a veritable caricature of a Japanese by the name of Tomio, would look into the camera and say, "Do...
...the first receptionist asked...
...She was called in to see the doctor while I read my Wall Street Journal...
...I can tell you're extremely fatigued...
...I often think that each day's Journal could be summarized in a few words: "Today there were some good people who made a lot of money and some bad people who made a lot of money, and it's very hard to tell which is which...
...Next to me on the couch sat a scared-looking teenage girl, idly thumbing through Sassy, yet another magazine...
...His waiting room was filled with issues of Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Bazaar, and Elle...
...Did you check out the woman who just went in to see the doctor...
...I'll give you dexamethasone, and that'll help you for a week or two...
...Next time I go to see the doctor, I think I'll give a false name...
...But it by Benjamin J. Stein has a tonic effect and it'll help you get back your energy for a week, so that if you have to play Vegas or something you can get through it...
...Then some of us would say, "No, we don't think that...
...Very nice...
...you Americans think we Japanese work too hard...
...Tomio would look at the camera again and say, "So you think we work too hard and you hate us for it...
...Isn't that a cortisone drug...
...Still, it's good to know, in our anonymous society, that someone is paying attention...
...Doctor B. was in a tiny suite in the Century City Hospital...
...It's not a long-term cure," he said evenly...
...Hmmm...
...I paid my $112 and went on my way...
...Yeah," the other one said...
...Yes, that's exactly what it is, and I think you have a low-grade virus and this'll help you...
...I told him I had been feeling extremely fatigued...
...Various members of our group would say that we thought it was great that the Japanese worked so hard and we wished more Americans worked hard...
...I asked shyly...
...Yeah...
...Hence a trip to Doctor B., who had been recommended by my friend Traci, a former cheerleader who now sells advertising space in a magazine (which in today's world is a good hard sell...
...Here's what I'll do...
...I don't need to examine you," Doctor B. said...
Vol. 25 • February 1992 • No. 2
