Ben Stein's Diary/Sugar Daddy
Stein, Benjamin J.
There are also cassettes, from which I chose "Elvis: The Christmas Album," even though it's February. I got up, paid my eight dollars to the lovely Robin, the hair stylist who usually takes care of...
...Tommy," I said, "that's a lot of sugar...
...Later we walked along Zuma Beach, with Tommy still carrying his net...
...He looked at me with a friendly reproach, like the particularly patient teacher Of a particularly slow child...
...It had to do with a certain tribe that invented the concept of monotheism...
...We ate at the bar...
...I think I saw it at Christmas of 1990...
...I'm following you, Daddy," he said...
...A woman called the Agency and said that she represented a super-rich guy in Singapore...
...Friday Dinner at Granita, Wolfgang Puck's stupendous restaurant in mid-Malibu...
...In September and October, I was taking in twenty thousand a month," she said...
...I think, uhh, uhh, probably fifteen K, net to you, would be about right...
...I was interrupted by my pal W., calling from Arizona...
...Then I knew the recession had hit because by December, which is usually a great month for me, I was only making about eight to ten...
...Money scares me...
...Up ahead there were swarms of yellow butterflies...
...See...
...Sunday I used to wonder how and why people who were not always striving, always slugging it out, got up in the morning...
...No, Daddy," he said...
...It's not a problem for me, Daddy," he said...
...Tommy ran back and forth, waving his net, singing, "Daddy, I caught one, a monarch, I caught one...
...We walked over to the Point Dume Pharmacy...
...I was absent when Big Brother explained about nutrition," I said...
...She comes from a small town in Montana...
...I asked...
...These country folks have a sense of humor...
...What a relief...
...I just got the cashier's check this morning...
...The price is too high...
...It's ultraviolet or something like that...
...It had been there for months, maybe years...
...You're already in the Party, my boy...
...Yes, but ultraviolet's not good for you either, because all of the businessmen destroyed the ozone layer...
...As I put the candy in my pocket, Tommy said, "Daddy, sugar isn't good for you...
...Why do you not know that...
...I'm gonna need that money forwhen I go into receivership and the banks attach my bank accounts...
...At school, Daddy," he said...
...The saleswoman looked at me narrowly...
...By a miracle of luck and young coordination, he actually snagged one in his net and started to jump up and down with excitement...
...That's the biggest joke I've ever heard in my life," I said...
...60 The American Spectator May 1992 "No," she said...
...It's not real sun," I said...
...Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder how you ever got where you are and swear that you can't go on another minute...
...I sat in a corner, facing an aquarium, and looked at my dinner companion...
...Wolfgang also has a restaurant, and it's got great, truly imaginative, clever food, but when business slows, he brings in busloads of tourists...
...He said, "Let me look that up for you, son...
...And this guy wants to have a few young American girls brought over for like three weeks, and we'll stay in his house the whole time, and she's only offering me $6,000 net, and I wonder if you think that's the right amount...
...We probably won't ever sell it, and we probably won't ever lower the price," she said hopefully...
...Now that's the difference between Peter Morton and Wolfgang Puck...
...Sara really likes you," she said...
...call from Sonja...
...No," said the saleswoman...
...As usual, it was a trashy crowd eating rich food...
...Let me ask you something," I said, just because I thought I might take my clothes off and recite the names of the Vietnam war dead in the Granita dining room...
...She thinks you're very good with money...
...She told me that she would only ever own a Mercedes, maybe two of them...
...What's worth living for if you aren't actively seeking to be famous or rich or both...
...The butterfly flew out of the net and went home to tell a story to its pals...
...Orange juice is good for you...
...I don't feel like I owe Chase a damned thing...
...She looks good enough to work for the Governor of Arkansas and then have enough left over to be a secretary for the President of the United States and stilldance at the Palomino in Las Vegas, the last of which is exactly what she does, part-time...
...I made breakfast for Tommy, Weight Watchers French toast...
...Well, that's less than three hundred a day, plus you probably wouldn't get much sightseeing in, plus you probably wouldn't be able to take drugs, because it's a capital crime in Singapore to bring them in...
...I heard it from the bedroom as it came on the answering machine...
...He walked about ten feet behind me in the sand, carefully stepping into the huge holes my enormous feet had left...
...At the prescription counter, I BEN STEIN'S DIARY Sugar Daddy by Benjamin J. Stein The American Spectator May 1992 59 said to the pharmacist, an older gent, "Excuse me, but do I need a prescription for intravenous Demerol...
...Or Peter opens the Hard Rock Cafes, and they're totally original and fun and light and cheery...
...Very sweet, Poppy...
...But sometimes in the middle of the day I think about it and I feel pretty bad...
...Peter makes a restaurant like Morton's, which he'd rather close down and burn than open up to busloads of tourists...
...I asked...
...She's five foot, eleven inches tall...
...After all, what makes a restaurant is the people who are there...
...Then some dudes rip him off and open Planet Hollywood, a K-Mart imitation of the Hard Rock, only dark and crowded and the food is garbage, plus it's hard to eat knowing that you're in an imitation of something you really like...
...I'm not old and fat...
...I'm sending my chauffeur to the Cayman Islands to put that money in my bank account...
...After lunch, Tommy, Trixie, and I walked up a riding trail...
...He ate his French toast and then just spooned maple syrup out of a cup into his sweetmouth...
...Now," she said as she picked at her smoked salmon pizza, "Sonja told me that you were really good with money...
...Speaking of people with Sara's turn of mind, and her excellent head for money, I see that my old pal Jim Lake, of Robinson, Lake, Lerer and Montgomery, PR monsters, has been named deputy head of the Bush campaign...
...I got up, paid my eight dollars to the lovely Robin, the hair stylist who usually takes care of me, so to speak, and then saw my little Angel Boy, Tommy, almost done with his haircut...
...Saturday Afour a.m...
...In the meantime, I've got a problem because I'm supposed to do a body double shot on a movie where the star I'm working with is married to a guy I've gone out with for ten years...
...I could well imagine what she was thinking...
...Hmmm," I said...
...I told you that...
...He was in the tanker pumping it out onto the shore...
...I told him he was a good boy for letting it go...
...This is basically a small town, so I said hello to lots of familiar people on the way...
...And Bush thinks he's the guy to present his best face to the voters and taxpayers...
...He sat and looked at it with his sweet, four-year-old face...
...I can't tell you what a great day this is," he said...
...I'm stepping in your footsteps...
...I learned that in school...
...Great," I said...
...Her name is Sara...
...Fifteen thousand, net to me...
...Where did you learn this...
...So, maybe it's not that good a deal...
...Nice...
...An enormous busload of tourists came in while their double-decker bus idled outside, making a throbbing, horrible noise...
...Soda is bad for you...
...This woman has a future as a political strategist for George Bush...
...You mean, based on my long experience bringing American girls over from Los Angeles to Singapore...
...I'm very bad with money...
...The old fella didn't even gasp...
...Plus the fact that Sonja said you were really good with money...
...Can you see, Daddy...
...Didn't you know that...
...Anyway," she said, "this is the story...
...I go help Senor pull up weeds," he said...
...He spent the morning running around my meager property here in Malibu looking for butterflies, and then helping the gardeners...
...At the candy counter, there was a handsome fake-Tiffany coach clock on display for $75...
...I had a chicken breast and he had French toast...
...W. asked in a combination laugh and gasp...
...I bought five small (that's right, small) packages of M&M's and paid for them...
...Daddy," he said, "don't you know that too much sun is bad for you...
...Do you think that clock might ever go on sale...
...Are we going to a party, Daddy...
...Young Psycho, as I call Tommy, had a butterfly net his Mommy had given him...
...I took him to lunch at the Malibu Riding and Tennis Club, which has a swimming pool where Young Handsome swims while I watch him like a hawk...
...No, he and his partners also desperately tried to get the taxpayers of America to buy ever more billions of Drexel junk through the FSLIC, by touting it to the nation's legislators and media honchos...
...I just sold that Jetstar that I'd been trying to sell for a year, the one that I have a $200,000 loan on from Chase that they're driving me crazy about...
...To Wolfgang, a restaurant is not the people who are there...
...Right...
...An nyway, Sara droned n and on about her uge cash-flow problems...
...She's very good-looking...
...As soon as she got rid of her Chrysler LeBaron, she was going to buy a 560 SL and a four-door 500 SEL, and maybe a new convertible, but never a BMW, because those are "wannabe" cars, even if the top end does cost $90,000...
...I beg the Party's forgiveness...
...CI The American Spectator May 1992 61...
...That is, Lake not only was there for "spin control" after the oil spilled...
...Sara smiled her killer-girl-nextdoor smile and said, "Yeah, I thinkyou're right...
...Are you crazy...
...I found out...
...Tommy ran after them...
...But it hasn't sold...
...Now you can turn the money over to Chase and they'll stop bugging you...
...I had already eaten, so I took out a Diet Cream Soda...
...You see how bad I am with money...
...Lake's firm not only repped BCCI and tried to explain what great guys they were...
...So you see the problem...
Vol. 25 • May 1992 • No. 5
