Ben Stein's Diary/ Dreamball
Stein, Benjamin J.
Dreamball by Benjamin J. Stein Monday A listless, quiet day. No calls to do commercials, no calls to be in movies, just lying on my couch and reading about two intensely active, bad-acting...
...We've taken her to the vet many times...
...The networks won't like that...
...The movie makes mowing the lawn seem exciting, and Daniel Day-Lewis must be the worst actor in Hollywood, but the set-up at L.'s projection room was beyond belief...
...Then, redemption...
...With a look of intense concentration, he rotated his arm around like an old-time pitcher, squinted in mydirection, and then took a step forward and hurled—not threw—the ball at me like Walter Johnson in old newsreels...
...Then he threw one past me, and scampered off after it...
...The plot is about three elderly women who show up at the club when everyone is expecting a major rock act called REM...
...Vot accent...
...It was imitation or a pact or something deeper, but when I caught what he was throwing, showed the example of straight, decent play, he did the same...
...At first he'd drop it most of the time, but then, little by little, he started to catch it...
...Then, for about five minutes, he threw ball after ball at me, always zingers, always right in the strike zone or just above...
...To see that proud, perfect German short-haired face in her own dirt is enough to make anyone cry...
...Then I talked to the teenage daughter of another Hollywood mogul about Georgetown, and then we had a screening of The Age of Innocence...
...She collapses on her hind legs and cannot get up...
...Why can't I take him to a park and throw the ball with him on grass, under trees...
...Accent...
...Both groups have codes to protect themselves, and who are we to scoff at what they thought was protecting them...
...To `Full House,' I said...
...Why can't we live in a neighborhood where the houses have backyards big enough for tossing a ball around...
...Times and I had quite a cordial talk about Nixon, whom he swears he secretly admires...
...You were great," I said...
...In the screening room, reality of rich, inside people one hundred and twenty years later...
...I keep thinking of how, two years ago, when we had terrible floods in Malibu, I was at my house, without a phone, without electricity, With water coming down the street in torrents, and I was in my bed with my Trixie in my arms, and I felt as safe as I have ever felt...
...Do you want to hear something amazing...
...When I was finished, I sent it over to A. so that he could tell me what was right and wrong with it...
...Monday A furtive call from my pal Staci...
...As I passed the guard gate, a guard asked me where I was going...
...Why do they have to get me to join a Bolshevik experiment where my doctor—if I can still see him—is going to be watched and harassed by a "gatekeeper...
...On screen, they have their rituals of eating oysters and roast beef and turkey and many different kinds of wine...
...she demanded...
...Now, Daddy—that's me—is not much of an athlete...
...Forget the smog and the traffic and the collapse of the public schools...
...I think you have a fairly distinct accent...
...Except for the rock star across the way, hardly anyone comes down this road...
...I was there because I have written a spec script for a sitcom...
...Trixie, who had more dignity than I will ever have, more loyalty, and more sensitivity, who used to be able to leap off the ground to seven feet in the air, is now in a heap in the kitchen, and I have to wash her twice a day...
...The ball literally zinged through the smog right at my face...
...At least a year ago, she had some damage, and some inability to move...
...I'm interviewing for a job at"—here she named a major talent agency—"and when the agent saw that I had worked for you, he got excited and said he loved your articles in The American Spectator, and he read the Spectator cover to cover...
...Is it Polish...
...If people here knew I was a closet conservative, I'd be in hot water...
...He produced from his toy box—a chest the size of a Lincoln Continental—a battered yellow tennis ball...
...I don't like it...
...I did it just to try to sell it, and particularly to try to sell it because it stars little me...
...Tuesday T rixie is dying...
...I'm telling you, if Americans generally knew what a great life even a verysmall player has, L.A...
...That lowlife tried to sell me books about how to get rich by thinking about it and kept me waiting for an hour...
...One day she fell between two stones in my garden and couldn't get up...
...Can we keep doing this...
...They were nice, and I had a truly fine lunch, but how I wish the phone would ring with an acting gig...
...Still, I'll try again...
...On another morning, she saw a rabbit and started after it...
...A UCLA co-ed asked me if I could help her get into graduate school at Yale...
...We can keep doing this until it gets dark," and we did...
...Sunday inner and a screening at the simD ply incredible home of L., a major TV producer, one of the most successful TV producers in history...
...Great," I said...
...It doesn't matter what you think of the little boy, the audience won't like him if he's that much of a pest...
...Big thick accents...
...I'mplaying a snobby, horrible food critic who torments the regulars about their new nightclub...
...The host is a genial, genuinely wonderful man with twinkling blue eyes...
...Where is it ?" "Somewhere in South America...
...Possibly," I agreed...
...Because the recession notwithstanding, houses like that are still a million five in halfway-safe neighborhoods...
...Indiana," she said, "but I've always wanted to go to India...
...On my look, she said, "Well, where then...
...Daddy," he said, "will you throw this ball to me...
...I'll send you one of my books in a plain brown wrapper," I said...
...No calls to do commercials, no calls to be in movies, just lying on my couch and reading about two intensely active, bad-acting miscreants of the world of financial fraud...
...I don't get it...
...Also, you have a white character who makes racist jokes about a black character...
...Mommy's house doesn't have a backyard except for a swimming pool, so we went out into the street, which is little Benjamin J. Stein is a writer, lawyer, economist, and actor living in Malibu, California...
...I'll think about that tomorrow...
...This is really interesting, but somewhat out of my league...
...In Bel-Air, we have our rituals of not eating red meat, not drinking alcohol...
...The audience has to like him, has to have a rooting interest in him...
...Trixie, who put my wife in the hospital because she once arrived home from a trip without me...
...We both stood outside in the soup and tossed the ball back and forth...
...But they claim to be Mexicans...
...I think it makes him sweet," I said...
...That makes him obnoxious...
...Really, really great...
...Monday A h, but then there is Hollywood...
...I tossed it back to him, and from then on, every time I caught it, he threw it back high and hard and true...
...He said he was thirsty, so we went inside so he could have a ginger ale...
...One leg was stuck between two cruel rocks...
...Did you say India or Indiana...
...A well-known left-wing columnist from the LA...
...He threw the first few past me, more or less on purpose, but then I did something very out of character...
...Possibly is Southern accent," she said, "because vee from Vashinkton...
...Then A. gave a little talk about how the plot has to begin by page six, how the meter of a joke must be two short lines and then one long line, and how the subplot must be clearly resolved when the A plot is resolved...
...And a perfectly comfortable seat surrounded by happy people...
...Trixie, who used to lie in the back seat of the car for years waiting for me to come out of auditions...
...Now, I would swear that the Del Rios have Yiddish accents...
...But I still managed—at 48—to throw him the ball, and he made as if to catch it...
...Zing, zing, zing, one after another, the ball came racing toward me at frightening speed, and the thought came through my mind, "This kid is a star...
...I continued to stare, so she said, "Don't tell me it's in Indiana...
...Tuesday A meeting with my pal A., at an extremely successful TV production company in Beverly Hills...
...I'm on the set of "Full House," over on the Warner lot...
...Have it your way...
...For the first ten minutes, Tommy made a big effort to throw the ball over my head, past me, along the pavement, anything to keep me from catching it...
...I called the young man and told him who I was...
...She cannot stand up for more than a few seconds any longer...
...And then another thought: Why let anything cast a pale pall over a moment that's still perfect...
...Great catch...
...Tuesday A visit with poor Miss Trixie on the way to Stage 24, and then the long walk to the stage from parking...
...It was a fascinating experience...
...Plus, the little boy has to be more sweet...
...She lies there, helpless, sometimes trying to pull herself with her front legs, more often than not just lying in a sad heap...
...She's still staggering around, mostly in a state of collapse, voiding in cascades without any warning...
...We had a buffet light dinner while we watched the sun set over the bay...
...Dave Colieu, an astonishing voice talent, did his Vietnamese voice for me...
...A spec script means no one has paid me for it...
...My dressing room is next to the room of the elderly women guitarists and singers, who are called The Del Rios...
...But I remember when she was a young dog, and would put out her paw every time I came in the room...
...Then I showed him the Spanish-style main administration building, and some sets of a city street, and then we left...
...Delicious Perfect, who had just gotten home from school...
...John Stamos, an adult heartthrob, played drums...
...No, Benjy," A. said...
...Sometimes when she falls, she fouls herself and cannot move out of her mess...
...I guess I'm a journalist more than a sitcom writer...
...I wrote it down...
...CI...
...It was a hot and smoggy day...
...People with arthritis have terrible pain, and why should Trixie be any different...
...Then he recommended that I take her to a "holistic" healer...
...he asked...
...If not Yiddish, then Polish...
...And meanwhile, I. pray for Trixie, who will soon be immortal...
...I only have a few lines, but you may be sure I live them and love them...
...Am I doing great, Daddy...
...Just two days ago, I took her to a vet in West L.A...
...This little angel, I thought, is a sixyear-old Nolan Ryan, the next Whitey Ford...
...But vee half no accent," she said...
...All right," I said...
...Perfect projection...
...Why aren't I host of a talk show...
...Of course," I said...
...It's hard for me to concentrate on my role...
...Thursday T his is the day we shoot "Full House" before a live studio audience...
...I remember when she was newly adopted and shook from head to paw at nervousness on meeting her new family...
...If my insurer and I can pay for it, why torture us by making us peons of a bureaucrat in a gray building...
...That helped, but it also broke down her resistance to the disease, so that the help was temporary at best...
...She didn't even whimper...
...I caught it, said, "Great, fantastic throw," and tossed it back...
...I had a stack of SEC filings, clippings, and trial pleadings next to me...
...Over on stage 20, or nearby, there was a party for the launch of a new Steven Spielberg cartoon called "Animaniacs," on which I once played a small part...
...This one is always pestering his father for a twenty-speed bike and trying to catch him in a trap and that doesn't make him sweet...
...He drank it in loud, incessant gulps, and then said, "More ball throwing, Daddy...
...On screen, they have their codes of no divorce and not indulging their emotions...
...His wife is a younger, kind, lovely woman who lights up the room when she comes in...
...It has not helped...
...I leapt up in the air and by a miracle of luck, caught one...
...A teenage extra asked if I would say "Bueller, Bueller...
...Open my heart and there you will see, engraved upon it, My Little Trixie...
...As I was seated in the hair room getting my huge wig attached to my head, one of the Del Rio sisters sat next to me...
...He sat at his desk while I sat on a tiny couch and took notes...
...she asked...
...This has been coming on for some time...
...In the screening room, we have our rituals of animal rights and protecting the environment...
...My friend Barron, who had come from Phoenix to watch, wandered around the lot with me...
...All right," I said...
...Why can't he be in a public school with a playground and playing field instead of a private school that barely has a jungle gym in the parking lot...
...I've always been interested in maps and geography...
...You can try it," A. answered with a shrug, "but I'm telling you, the network won't like it, and my company won't like it...
...It's great for throwing a ball...
...I asked...
...I'm a lowly actor...
...You've given yours a blond girlfriend with a mink coat...
...Lori Loughlin told me about her investment banker hubby...
...would collapse under the weight of the accountants, lawyers, foundation directors, and economists who would come here...
...That means she has money, and that makes her unlikeable...
...She has terrible arthritis, fusing of joints, destruction of cartilage, myelopathy along crucial nerve routes to her lower body...
...He threw it at me again, a high, hard one that would have hurt like hell if I hadn't caught it inches in front of my nose...
...Your main character has to be likeable...
...A lot of Americans have forgotten that...
...I wandered about the party with Barron, eating strawberries...
...It only took me three days to write it...
...Wasn't her father in the health field...
...Why aren't I president...
...The vet says she's not uncomfortable, but I don't believe him...
...I grew up in Indiana, where it's really flat, and then moved here where it's really hilly, and so I'm interested in maps...
...After a few chases by him, he pulled himself together...
...Why do they have to screw around with health care for middle-class people...
...In it, I play a middle-aged detective who is a single father to a rambunctious, extremely clever little six-year-old angel boy...
...But the black character is always making racist jokes about white people," I protested...
...I drove over to see my son, little Mr...
...I have to artfully put my nose into a cappucino cup and get whipped cream on it...
...Was I great...
...Why not just assure health coverage for the poor or those unable to get health coverage at their jobs, and then leave everyone else alone...
...she said with a smile on her face...
...I'm in my dressing room doing a slow boil though as I read in the Wall Street Journal about the Clinton health plan, or as I like to call it, The Clinton Bolshevization Plan...
...K., a young woman who wants to be a star, came over to help me unpack a huge stack of boxes of books, and then we went to lunch at Hugo's...
...I spent most of the day rehearsing, with occasional long stretches of sleeping in my dressing room...
...used...
...Czech...
...There are rules," A. said...
...Do you know where India is ?" "Ben," she said with a scowl, "I'm a senior at UCLA...
...All sorts of other thoughts came through my head as well...
...I want this to get on the air...
...I can't do that when I'm thinking about how Hillary is trying to control me and hurt me to work out some crazed agenda of her own...
...What did you want to study...
...For now, I'm with young Ryne Duren, and it's a great day for being a father...
...Both groups are doing what they think is morally and ethically right...
...There're a lot of people lower than you," the guard said...
...Their house is on a hilltop on the Westside, overlooking the Westside and the Santa Monica Bay...
...He recommended something called Adequin, which is supposed to be what race horses use when they have arthritis...
...On the screen, simulacra of rich, inside people from Edith Wharton's New York...
...Listen," he said, "I love the Spectator, but I only get it at home...
...At first, he gave her hydrocortisone...
...I hope I know where India is...
...Finally, I said, "Any time you purposely throw it past me, I'm going to make you go chase it...
...Little by little, I plowed through them, feeling lonely and sorry for myself...
...After lunch, I took a short nap, lying on my hard working couch, listening to Mozart's Waisenhausemesse, bathing in the greatness of the sound like a courtesan bathing in champagne, or maybe just like bathing in something better than water, something that bathes the soul...
...I left...
...The audience cheered wildly for Bob Saget and John Stamos, shouted "Bueller, Bueller" when I appeared, and in no time at all, the show was over...
...Pardon me," I said, "but where is your accent from...
...Damn the disintegration of public schools, I thought...
...Bob Saget, the star of this and of "America's Funniest Home Videos," is particularly kind, but everyone is nice to me, the wayfaring day player...
...Scott Weinger, a teenage heartthrob, showed me his Apple PowerBook...
...Maybe you could call him and give him a pep talk for me...
...Trixie, who bit the plumber because that man came too close to me while fixing a drain...
...Because the closest park is about a half hour from here, through traffic that would frighten Rommel...
...The Latin word for law is "lex," which also means "protection...
...Because at the public schools in Mommy's neighborhood, first graders get shaken down for lunch money by other kids...
...I also don't like hucksters in white smocks...
...She stopped walking up and down the steps at my house in Malibu...
...Well," she said, "maybe map making...
...Why aren't I making an offer to buy Paramount...
...She fell down a steep hill and I had to clamber down and pull her up through the brush and the rattlesnake lairs...
...I didn't want anyone insensitive enough to keep a dog waiting for an hour to work on my dog...
...Perfect sound out of his Frazier and JEIL speakers and Dolby amplifying system...
...You're doing great," I said...
...K. is a model, and there were photos of her up on the wall...
...Keep you out of trouble...
...We're on stage 24, right next to a lot of other shows, and Warner is really the cutest of lots, and everybody is being very nice to me...
...Let's face it: this is raw dictatorship, slipping under the tent by controlling us through the most vulnerable, scary part of our lives: our health and that of our families...
...Then I had a long talk with a legendary movie star about which airlines have the best service...
Vol. 26 • December 1993 • No. 12
