Ben Stein's Diary / Mind Games
Stein, Benjamin J.
Friday Graduation day. A big day in the life of Tommy Stein, age four years and ten months. He's graduating from pre-school at Temple Israel on Hollywood Boulevard. The school is throwing a bash...
...Besides, at every audition, there are a few dozen other people who also want to be liked...
...I do though, and I go to work...
...I guess that about covers it...
...As we waited for our plain cheese, Tommy asked me if he could go swimming in Mommy's pool after dinner...
...She can't pay her bills...
...I used to wonder about him, to put it mildly...
...I can see why people think acting is destructive to the self...
...You can move back to Florida and live with your parents...
...No frontal nudity...
...B. is always feverish...
...We've always divided our worries this way...
...I guess I'm out of dollars...
...No backal nudity...
...I'm really proud of having my office in my house...
...Wow, are you funny," they all said...
...In the advertising business...
...I'm really down on myself today," said another woman who recently inherited some money from a relative...
...Behind me, a family spoke Russian...
...About $400, I think...
...I was thinking about getting an acting role...
...Between there and my destination, a restaurant called "Ivy at the Shore," two more homeless people asked me for money...
...All right," he said, and he walked away...
...Plus, they'll put all those needles in my spine...
...We went to a Pizza Hut...
...A major part...
...You know," she said, "I came here and I was sure I was going to be a star...
...He told me that he would make a really great deal with me," Mommy said...
...Really, what a world...
...I can barely pay my bills now...
...Anyway, out to dinner with Mr...
...You're having a bad attack," I said...
...She's been noticing that all the tough, mean young people she knows are makMind Games by Benjamin J. Stein The American Spectator September 1992 47 ing money, and the ones who are nice aren't making money...
...Dorothy began to cry...
...If I'm lucky...
...I noticed that as she drank the Diet Cream Soda that I had given her, her hand trembled...
...I don't think so," I said...
...But by then the man had walked away...
...I am always tired...
...Young Milken...
...The rabbi went on about how we should thank our parents and teachers and our nannies, and we should...
...she asked between sniffles...
...Ben," he said, "love your work...
...You will go home and go right to sleep...
...I have a fair number of days when I just don't want to get out, of bed at all...
...My huge bougainvillea was blooming, shooting pinkish red petals all over the window and the railing...
...But will I get the part...
...Suddenly, I feel a lot better...
...No, I'm not," I said...
...The fourth one hit a dry hole...
...I still remember when I drove into town and I could hear about fifty differentradio stations, and I thought, 'Wow, I am really in the big time now.' I thought I was just going to be the biggest wheel in history...
...Yes," he said, all smiles...
...And all the boys were flocking around me, and I was going out with the top guys in my agency right away, and then I was going with a big agent and we were going to parties at movie stars' houses...
...Some kind of justice...
...As I turned onto Ocean Boulevard, on foot, another homeless person shouted at me...
...She went into her rap about life in Los Angeles for a single girl...
...It'll save us from having to worry about it while we're watching Tommy graduate...
...Is it the smog...
...Thursday B oo-hoo...
...Maybe," she said...
...My father says it's extravagant because it costs $500 a day, but I'm not going to let him bind me in shame...
...How much does this cost...
...T he ceremony was cute...
...You would be an evil psychiatrist who acts like he's the hero's friend, but really betrays him...
...I strolled down the street on a cloud...
...After a short while, Dorothy left and I started to make a list of all the people I know in Los Angeles who are sick in one way or another...
...A man came out and asked me if I would read some other lines...
...I asked...
...That's cruel...
...The other is for a miniseries called "Wild Palms," about a scary cult that uses psychiatrists and money to take over America...
...Oh, no problem," she said in her beautiful voice...
...At least now you consciously take care of yourself instead of consciously hurting yourself...
...Stay where you know the ropes...
...Guaranteed loss...
...No, that ad game...
...I would get some little bit of long-term disability payment from my job, but it wouldn't beenough...
...The rabbi told us how lucky we all were to have Benjamin J. Stein is a writer, lawyer, economist, and actor living in Malibu, California...
...Well, I just notice that Jewish people really pay attention to business, and that seems to be how they get rich...
...The casting company gets the space very, very cheap...
...The man laughed and I told him my rule of acting...
...I think today I'm just going to surf and pretend that I'm a little kid," said a man who has made an eight-figure sum off stock swindling...
...Yes," she said...
...The endless sunshine...
...We'll forget that detail for now...
...Still, I was out of ones...
...Did you really say that...
...Otherwise, how would we explain Ross Perot...
...Absolutely not," I said...
...A foray into the world of self-obsession at my self-help group...
...She has another one who's really mean to her but she sort of likes him...
...She has one boyfriend who loves her but she doesn't like him because he's too nice to her...
...The school is throwing a bash for the kids and the parents at 10:30 this morning...
...The pizza man called my number and off I went to get my pizza...
...I was never going to be so stupid as to try to be an actor, like you...
...Maybe that's what this is all about...
...Well," I said, "John D. Rockefeller was a Gentile...
...Quite a few...
...Today, I think I'll just be the best me I can and not worry about whether my husband thinks I'm extravagant," said the wife of a businessman who's about to go into Chapter Eleven...
...If he gives me the part, he's been saved...
...Without these guys, a great many of whom are dead, and a helluva lot more are still wounded and maimed, we Jews would be ashes floating around eternity...
...I read for my humble little part of nerdy boss, and the casting people laughed their heads off...
...I didn't get either part...
...s till, I thought, wow and double wow...
...Monday A call from my agent...
...Thank you...
...such great pre-K teachers, and we are...
...When I came back, Mommy was having an earnest conversation with young Adonis...
...Very rich indeed...
...Everyone in Los Angeles gets office space very cheap now...
...Sometimes," she said after a long pause, "I look back on my life and I try to think what I would have done differently if I knew that I was going to have MS by the time I was 30...
...How are you going to pay for this present you were going to bribe us with so that you could do what you wanted...
...But most of all, I wouldn't have done so many things to hurt people...
...To live in my basement room, with its old Sears bed, while my parents watched re-runs of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show.' While little by little I got to spend more and more of my time in a wheelchair...
...I guess Alex hasn't heard about the recession...
...Wow and double wow...
...There's such a thing as being too truthful," she said...
...Only one can he liked...
...I was just leaving you a note," she said, "thanking you for your card...
...Hasn't that happened already...
...Is there no end to it...
...I read recently that sunlight can break down the body's immunities...
...I think today I'm just going to pretend that I'm a little girl and ride my horse up at the club all day and just take care of me," said a middle-aged woman who is the heir to a major oil fortune...
...Hmmm...
...Oh, I don't know...
...I gave him one...
...What a world...
...You go around town begging people to like you...
...He said that if I let him go swimming, he would go buy me a really great toy first thing in the morning...
...It was my pleasure," I answered...
...When I think of all the time The American Spectator September 1992 49 I spent on guys who just wanted to exploit me because I was a blonde girl from the South, and how I hurt myself over them, I want to shriek...
...I worry about money and Alex worries about my criticizing her about money...
...Dorothy looked at me angrily...
...To my shock, as I walked Trixie down the hall to my apartment, there was my beautiful but wistful neighbor, Dorothy, walking her dog, a Bouvet de Flandres, and limping noticeably...
...It's pretty bad...
...Her right hand was stationary on her lap...
...Dorothy came in with her dog, which immediately found an oriental rug and fell into a sound, snoring sleep while Trixie hovered next to me...
...No sidal nudity...
...B ack at my condo, I met J., my former assistant, former full-on Val, now a saleswoman in the schmatte business...
...You probably are calling me 'nigger' in your head right now," he said, leaning towards me...
...It's far, far too late for you to go swimming...
...That's what I had sent her, and I meant what I said...
...Back at my apartment there was a message saying I was going to be offered the part in "Dennis the Menace" after all...
...Is it because I'm a Gentile...
...I read my part "as best as I could...
...Neither the evil shrink nor the nerdy boss...
...I asked...
...Now, if you get this, you have to play love scenes with Angie Dickinson...
...You notice that I'm Jewish and I'm not rich," I pointed out...
...How about ten dollars...
...So was J. P. Morgan...
...More power to her...
...John...
...It's quite a drive, past the ocean for about thirty miles, and then through some of the ritziest real estate in America, and then into West Hollywood, with its huge throngs of gay men and women, all of whom always look sad to me, and then to my little apartment in the mighty Shoreham Towers...
...That was going to be the ticket...
...This is Houston-on-the-Pacific...
...I had to drive across town to Santa Monica to read for "Wild Palms," a six-hour mini being made by none other than Oliver Stone...
...What would anyone do who's disabled and isn't rich...
...You and Mommy will give me the money," he said...
...He was a rich guy," I said...
...Hove your work," he added...
...In my little mind, I also thought we should give a great big thanks and a tip of the yarmulke to the millions of American men and women who fought against Hitler and Tojo and their many minions...
...I hired a video camera man to make a video of the ceremony...
...Now this is a really big part...
...I made this pledge to myself when I first entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art," I said, "in London, England...
...Wonderful and my Wife for Life (although she doesn't know it...
...I think I need a few days at Cottonwood Ranch, just to get a mental tune-up...
...Perfect to dinner...
...Morning in my little office in my basement in Malibu...
...Then the things I am extravagant about: cars, real estate, travel, dining, and gifts to blonde bad girls...
...he asked...
...Dorothy, who has MS, is a stunning blonde woman of about 30 from a town in the Florida panhandle...
...J. asked...
...I think we can be quite sure that on earth, there's no justice," I said...
...I said...
...That one cannot stop taking drugs...
...Is that all right...
...Who was J. P. Morgan...
...Or maybe he said Jill St...
...Then another homeless person approached...
...Dorothy put down her Diet Cream Soda and started to stroke her leg...
...The "Dennis the Menace" audition was in an ancient, prewar building with ornate plates for the elevator call buttons and an actual elevator operator running the lift...
...Trixie can't pay you anything...
...I'm trying to concentrate on not letting it get so bad that I have to go back into the hospital...
...I hope there won't be any frontal nudity," I said...
...Hello, fame...
...Not come to L.A., for starters," I said...
...It was her left hand...
...I'm afraid that if I have to go back to the hospital, I'll lose my health insurance and probably my job, too...
...Hello, I'm Ben and I'm powerless over self-obsession...
...Youwould be one of the main villains," he said...
...One of them...
...I'm sorry," I said...
...Dorothy sat on the sofa...
...This could be very major stuff...
...Hmnun...
...Well, you had better just lie in bed and rest," I suggested...
...Are you sure you're not calling me `nigger' in your head...
...Hello, monopoly rent...
...I think I'd rather throw myself off your balcony right now...
...Maybe it's the journey into self-obsession...
...I was genuinely scared of what might happen if I said no...
...Hmmm...
...A starring role...
...It's like going down Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica asking people for money, only worse, since most people would rather pass over a dollar than like you...
...Then another...
...I called Alex, my fugitive, once and future wife, to remind her to bring her camera because I had forgotten mine at the beach...
...she asked me...
...I knew I was pretty, and I knew I was smart, and I knew I was going to be a major factor in creative...
...I waited with an older woman who had baked cookies for the people who were "reading" her...
...Yes, well I'm not rich...
...She's broke all the time...
...One is for the movie version of "Dennis the Menace...
...This is the future...
...Lots better...
...If she could, you'd be rich, too...
...When I think of all the nice men I blew off just because they weren't mean and exciting, I feel sick...
...I read over my script as I waited in a cavernous empty room...
...I also waited with an old-time actor who had to have his practical nurse help him into the reading room...
...What makes people here so sick...
...Good-bye to poverty and anonymity...
...I'd rather you didn't...
...That would be great, wouldn't it...
...There we are...
...I'm sure," I said...
...Do you realize that I was just diagnosed two years ago," Dorothy said, "and now it's this bad...
...48 The American Spectator September 1992 After lunch with a man from the group who often talks about suicide, I drive into town to prepare to take little Mr...
...S. is always constipated...
...The boys and girls sang and pretended to be elephants and snakes...
...Never mind that I have lost on the house so far as much as I made in the first ten years out of law school...
...All around us in the auditorium, parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters and nannies aplenty laughed and beamed as the ceremony went on interminably, with bouquets for everyone in Hollywood from everyone in Hollywood...
...Why can't I ever make any money...
...You keep saying it, not me...
...God save us from the things that we know just aren't so...
...Don't hold your breath, Benjala...
...A homeless man came up next to me and asked me for a dollar...
...I puttered around on my deck...
...And I guess there's something from Social Security, but that's not enough either, except to maybe live in a slum somewhere...
...Yes, but that's because you spend so much time with Trixie...
...A. is always headachey...
...What if there's justice...
...In the pink...
...Another row back, a family spoke animated Hebrew...
...Occasionally the old man would gasp and look wildly around the room...
...I'm sorry...
...I think it fell in before that...
...Not one but two lavish auditions today...
...This one cannot get out of bed...
...Very non-extravagant...
...Everyone needs a card of the Nixon family from 1972...
...I sometimes try to make a list of all the things I'm not extravagant about: clothes, furniture, and office space...
...What would I do if I couldn't work...
...And then I met you, so I knew at least one brain, and then the roof fell in...
...Wow...
Vol. 25 • September 1992 • No. 9
