Ben Stein's Diary / Studious City
Stein, Benjamin J.
Sunday in Braino-Land 1 t's Brunch Time at the Cosmos Club at the Corner of Florida Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C. This club is in a huge, ancient mansion that once belonged to...
...Tuesday B ack to glorious Los Angeles, a.k.a...
...On second thought, I think this used to be called David Selznick Studios...
...Dozens...
...In front of the Tower Records across from the Marvin Center, there are two people begging: In the walkway to the Marvin Center itself, on university property, there are two more men begging...
...I guess you wonder what's happened to me since we used to work together," he said...
...After dinner, we drove out to Silver Spring and inspected all our old haunts...
...Speaking of which, how come David Koresh Yes, I thought...
...Then he applauded...
...Friday A pother audition, this one at Sony/Columbia, which definitely used to be MGM...
...How much difference does it make if the deficit is fifty or sixty billion more or less...
...The reading club...
...Step, step, step...
...That bad, huh...
...Also Dr...
...To my air conditioner...
...Yo, Hillary, upscale Wellesley yuppie dame, What makes you think you know the game Of fixing up our medical costs, and telling sawbones what work to do, And how much to charge to me and you, When even doctors and professors and such, 'Bout that there subject don't know too much...
...In the men's room of the fifth floor, two black kids are very impressively working out their rap routine, which they're about to do on stage at the student tavern...
...I didn't say a word...
...It had a certain refined gentility, and I really liked it...
...Everything...
...The members here are rarely rich, as far as I can tell, but they are accomplished...
...He said he had always wondered why that wasn't automatically a case of inside trading...
...Make fun of L.A...
...Now, I'm hungry...
...FLASH CASH AND TRASH" is the invisible neon sign hanging over all too much of my life...
...Perfect...
...Poor tired me...
...I don't want to frighten you," he said, "but one of the observations is that there's probably a black hole not too far from the edge of our galaxy...
...An actual glowing ball of glory up in the sky even when he's kicking me...
...I can feel the whites of my eyes flipping around when she asks me to move her couch when she knows I have a hernia...
...But surprise, surprise, it's fun here at the battle for the hearts and minds of America...
...Climate change at the touch of a button...
...If it ain't welfare money that' payin' the bills, What right you got to even talk about my doctor and my ills...
...There were a few people there...
...That's why I started to think a lot about moving to another city...
...SURPRISE...
...A little village high in the sky...
...Small wonder we Americans are so unhappy...
...Sometimes, when you are in danger of saying gender-specific derogatory things about your fellow humans, it's best to keep quiet...
...God there are a lot of cobwebs in my brain...
...He's playing a cameo...
...That is, he would play himself, and I would play a fictional character...
...I don't like this...
...Today it's sunny with a slight haze...
...More than Napoleon or Stalin could have imagined...
...It was great advice, and I did a great reading...
...It gives me an idea for a Medical Care Rap:can have twenty wives and innumerable women who are insanely in love with him and every woman I know only wants to tell me her problems and then usually borrow money...
...Wednesday M orning at my little condo...
...The vibes otherwise were perfect . . . Where was the pilot ordering us all to return to our seats...
...I wonder if we're really any happier now than we were in 1961 when per capita GNP was half of what it is now...
...Whoosh...
...Maybe we're not the right people to even talk about that, though," my father said...
...The Marvin Center has changed...
...For a few dollars, in half an hour, I've talked to family and friends all over the country...
...Usually they walk away from the set whining, saying they didn't do it right...
...Come on out, people...
...After all, we're fairly comfortable, and maybe having a new CD would make a huge difference to a poor person...
...I know them all, and we bantered happily for a long time beforehand...
...I asked gingerly...
...And then, the best exhibit, would be these simulated, life-sized woman robots who look just like real women, and you can cut them up and stab them and shoot them and they don't die, because they're not real...
...Mom and Pop...
...They live for it...
...I walked down Katharine Hepburn Avenue, past the Spencer Tracy Building, along the side of the Bacall Building, past the James Cagney Building, and into a gorgeous late 1930s building...
...I got up to walk around the plane...
...Of that compound in Waco...
...What a wretched day...
...But, it's a little hot...
...He told me all about black holes...
...Press, press, press...
...An ally...
...Oh, my God," I said...
...Sure," said a young man...
...I'm here to read for a part in a movie about a boy who leaves his parents and becomes a free agent...
...Where was severe turbulence...
...all you want...
...he repeated...
...They don't look infirm at all...
...E., who looked slightly disheveled, definitely bald, and a little bit dangerous, sat down across the aisle from me...
...Maybe the women in Los Angeles are nicer...
...Sort of, like a family on the plane...
...Well," I answered...
...The casting director is an old pal named Alan, whose nickname is "The King" (no one knows why...
...Yeah," I said again...
...Well, even so," I said...
...My jokes...
...Very homey...
...Plus," he asked, "do you have any small children who might enjoy a hands-on exhibit about space flight...
...The stewardesses went fo serve their grub, and I started to go back to my seat when I saw, to my shock, an old friend from the east, from long ago when I practiced law in Washington...
...Cheap and classy...
...Dozens, hundreds of images...
...economists...
...That bad, huh...
...Well, that's right," he said...
...Several of her cohorts joined in...
...Maybe that's the one that used to be named after Robert Taylor...
...I like it...
...I need some Brain Drano to clear out the clogged veins and arteries in my head...
...Not me...
...I'm here with the winner of the Wells Prize at Williams College, 1935, and the valedictorian of her class at Monticello High School just before the New Deal...
...I have a small child who is an actual galaxy unto himself," I said...
...If the earth ever came near a black hole," he said, "it would be crushed down to something like the size of an egg, but still weighing as much asthe earth...
...On stage in an instant, sounding just like me imitating him in Hollywood...
...I'm still lonely...
...The joke of the scene is that in it is also Alan Dershowitz, the lawyer and publicist for a certain junk-bond figure who shall be nameless...
...I'll happily let the folks I went to Yale with run the country...
...The man also told me about Voyager and Pioneer, still sending back data from far out past our solar system...
...Lots of Nobel Prize-winners...
...The boy is named North...
...You're a real actor now," he said...
...Blah, blah, blah...
...Out comes a fluffy English muffin...
...It's populated mainly by mature, let's say, brainos and their spouses and children...
...Come on down...
...Maybe they're more old-fashioned...
...We need people who have some spiritual values at the helm, not politicians pretending to be...
...I would play as an actor...
...Of an old movie about the Suez Canal, starring Loretta Young...
...Push, push, push...
...Oh, happy day...
...But also the end of the lease payments on my BMW that I don't even drive any longer because the back seat is too uncomfortable for Trixie...
...Why is it so damned important to lower the deficit...
...Press press, and on comes a spectacular Mozart Mass, surrounding me with sound that an emperor could not have gotten when the composer was still alive...
...There are some economists who say so," he said...
...It's my pal John Coyne in Chicago...
...The Marvin Center...
...This one really hit the jackpot...
...This club is in a huge, ancient mansion that once belonged to someone rich and public-spirited named Sumner Welles, as I recall...
...P., but still very nice...
...I strolled over after the reading to visit the room where I was cast for Honeymoon in Vegas...
...They inhale it...
...More buttons...
...Certainly out on Washington Boulevard there's a big replica of Tara, in the midst of a lot of car dealerships and banks...
...Democrats...
...Wacko City...
...Back to my room...
...He was ready...
...I used to see Judge Bazelon here...
...Pick up the phone...
...He actually gave me advice on how to read the part of a nebbishy wedding photographer...
...Yo, Hillary, Illinois woman of pride, Don't practice on my doctor's hide...
...I thought I did pretty well...
...As I walked away, The King came after me down the hall...
...Push more buttons...
...I need something to wake me up...
...They look like they just decided to beg instead of work...
...He'll love it at JPL," the man said...
...Gradually, the photos got passed up and down the whole section, and then other people started to bring me pictures of their kids...
...I like my medical care and I pay it myself, Keep your paws off my life-and-death shelf...
...Won't the people who get paid the money by the government just save it anyway...
...Poor me...
...Orange juice in winter by a flick of the wrist...
...All right," E. hissed grimly...
...My mother, the ace of making faceson this earth, made a series of mock quizzical expressions, twisting her brow and looking thoughtful...
...There's something about that old MGM spirit that lingers in the air and smells as sweet as the jasmine that's in glorious bloom all over town...
...Yeah," I said...
...I can feel my fingers on her neck...
...Out comes a blast of cold, negatively ionized air...
...I reached over to the side of the bed and found the remote control for the Yamaha tuner...
...I sat and talked to them for a long time and showed them photos of Mr...
...Pictures through the air...
...They love the Cosmos Club...
...But I'm different from most actors...
...On the corner, there is a man begging...
...God, I feel sleepy...
...I'm actually tired...
...Are people better off if they have one more CD player...
...I'm not feeling well...
...It has only one young member, Bob Tyrrell, and he's not here this morning...
...Let's see now...
...Press more buttons.Images on a screen of a tour of New Guinea...
...Materialists...
...Well, it would be wrong of me to apply subjective standards to an entire group of fellow humans who should not be stereotyped by gender or by city of origin, inasmuch as they all have their own precious individuality...
...Years ago, my wife and I used to have wine coolers there with our best friend, Arthur Best...
...Anyway," my father said, "are these little differences in economic well-being that important...
...I always think I did it great...
...The farthest thing from it...
...Mozart at the touch of a button...
...At the very back of coach, I met a lovely stewardess who whispered "Bueller, Bueller" to me...
...Wahh...
...That's the power of a black hole...
...Thursday A n audition at what used to be MGM in Culver City and now is something called Culver Studios...
...Now they're both in eternity...
...Yeah...
...A lot of people in the business don't see that, and he did...
...That's the rational-expectations school...
...I keep trying to remember what time it is Washington time...
...I told Rob I was working on a book about going private, and why it's so unethical...
...For no money to speak of...
...Big deal...
...None as nice as Mr...
...I read for the director, Rob Reiner, the writers, Andy Scheinman and Alan Zweibel, and the casting woman, Jane Jenkins...
...Not economics...
...I was damned impressed...
...Of people dancing...
...I can't get you work, but you can get it yourself if you try...
...All he needed was an albatross around his neck...
...My old Mom and Dad...
...Lots of Pulitzer Prize-winners...
...It's smoggy and I feel exhausted...
...Usually I have expensive and trashy...
...I walked up the stairs to the casting room...
...It's really not great, and I have to go back to my seat now...
...Why not...
...In fact, it's a plan for a man's amusement park, where you could shoot simulated ducks, race simulated race cars, bet on a simulated stock market...
...May I ask a question...
...Before you start trashin' doctors and nurses, Think about socialized medicine's curses, And take your big brain—you cagey fox, And work on something closer to Chelsea and Socks...
...I'll tell you why I'm moving to L.A.," he said...
...There's a mild onshore breeze...
...For no money to speak of...
...Monday stroll from my wonderful A hotel, The River Inn, a few blocks over to the student center at George Washington University...
...But I'm lonely...
...Preferably Sony/Columbia...
...Isn't that great ?" "No," I said...
...Talking to loved ones any time I want for almost nothing...
...Not at all," E. scoffed...
...Perfect...
...It's because I'm so angry at my girlfriend that I can feel the Jeffrey Dahmer in me starting to come to life...
...Exactly right...
...They're totally crazy about it...
...It's pretty clear that Americans just aren't that prudent...
...On the plane, I sat next to an interesting, intense man from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena...
...Into the kitchen to pour a glass of delicious fresh orange juice, even though it's March...
...That means GNP will double in twenty-four years instead of twenty-five years if you're moving from 2.9 percent to three percent...
...Ed Dennison [a braino of legendary proportions, who recently went to Economists' Valhalla] said that if we reduce the deficit by one percent of GNP, that will increase growth by one-tenth of one percent...
...I asked if I could be in the next Lobell/Bergman movie, about a policeman who gives a waitress a winning lottery ticket as a tip...
...Yes, but have you ever seen how much my MasterCard bill weighs...
...My father looked as if the key light at The Tropicana Main Room had hit him...
...Tell me another city that actually smells like sweet flower blossoms for weeks at a time...
...Back at home base, my neighbor was preparing to send me a packet about outer-space exploration...
...If Ican't meet a nice girl, maybe I can start `Man's World.' " "Is that a gay bar idea...
...I just want to be free to roam the studios night and day...
...If we get sucked into it, that's the end...
...As I walked back to the River Inn, past Munson Hall, where I used to live so many years and tears ago, across from George Washington University Hospital, I wondered how long it would be until I was unable to walk anywhere in Foggy Bottom because of the panhandlers...
...Wouldn't they be better off if they spent more time with their families, or more time praying, as you would say...
...That's the enemy...
...My father nodded excitedly...
...Are you in for a surprise...
...When I die, I want to come back as a ghost on a studio lot...
...Sabin...
...How much can it really mean spread over a country this size...
...How long before cities are simply abandoned by middle-class people...
...I asked my father as he ate with startling restraint...
...Yet, it's as thin as a sheet of paper...
...I often think about how all the generals are back in Washington fighting the "culture wars," and I'm the only foot soldier who's actually made it to the front lines...
...That's the ticket...
...The computer club...
...That as the deficit grows, Americans will save more because they know they'll have to pay it off...
...His jokes...
...After I read my lines, I was told there were a few new lines, and I read them...
Vol. 26 • June 1993 • No. 6
