Ben Stein's Diary / Unmaskings
Stein, Benjamin J.
imoo. g ,‘V '*4‘r 0 0 Unmasking s by Benjamin J. Stein Wednesday A bout ten days ago, I went in for an audition to play a lawyer in an upcoming movie. In fact, the part was to be Robert De...
...Yes, it's cute...
...I took Tommy home and drove to get some sushi...
...Fantastically so...
...The first was Robert Shapiro...
...You can see Gone With the Wind or On the Waterfront in a bungalow on the shores of Lake Arrowhead...
...In fact, most of what is great about the world's culture is in books, available at any library...
...I said that lawyers who testify before commissions always have old, battered briefcases to make it appear they do this kind of thing all day long...
...An interest, but not a hero...
...In every preview, someone is shooting an outsize gun or rocket launcher at someone else...
...What I love in particular is that the U.S...
...No fuss, no muss, and it was done...
...Or, to put it another way: Who needs ya, New York...
...I dutifully got dressed, though, and headed over to Cedars-Sinai...
...When they talk about how terrible Reagan was, I just keep quiet...
...Most of what's off Broadway is just back-scratching among friends in the lower part of Manhattan...
...I'm trying to get more sun...
...Home Alone I and II...
...had "invaded" Cambodia long before 1971 because"Cambodian weed" had been showing up on the street in the U.S...
...Or rather, he's fishing...
...Then she melted away into the shadows of the garage...
...After dinner, I walked with John along Michigan Avenue, perhaps the last great urban street in America...
...Well, it's a small thing," I told her...
...Close to Perfect...
...Today was the premiere of The Mask...
...She works as a nanny...
...I also read the Spectator...
...I even talk to right-to-life groups and I don't make any bones about that...
...He's got his rented pole, his Powerbait, his hook, and he's happy...
...It's very much like the city is playing some kind of vast joke on the rest of the world by pretending it's a great, magical place...
...My pal John Coyne came over to watch...
...Then Tommy fell asleep watching cartoons, poor sick thing...
...It was an uncommonly warm night in L.A...
...I'm a Republican and I earn a living in this business as a writer, and that's pretty rare...
...There's lots of great food on the set, and people treat us like kings, and the director, Dan Petrie, Jr., really knows the scene...
...What is the best-paying job you can have and still spend all day with dogs...
...In a way that's too Byzantine to explain readily, she stands to inherit about $200 million through the fine work of Mr...
...Here's another town I don't really get...
...Then I came to the room and greeted Ellen Lewis, the genius woman who is casting the movie, Robert De Niro, and Martin Scorsese, as well as a nice man who is reading another part...
...Anyway, I put that into my reading, and the director liked it, and then we were done...
...I'm teaching a lesson to Mack Culkin, who plays Richie...
...I told him one about Ren and Stimpy discovering a new world that actually turns out to The American Spectator October 1994 53 be an exhibit on the Universal Tour...
...But it's lovely, dotted with huge houses, docks, and boats...
...Elena let him sleep in her bed and then came out to tell me in halting English (it's odd that she's the world's smartest person, yet in eighteen years of working for me she hasn't learned to speak English) that he needed to be moved to his bed...
...Aren't they afraid they'll fall and hit the ground...
...I just want to be a really good fiddler," she said...
...One was a stewardess, a great job, and the other was a jewelry designer, which is one step from being a derelict...
...This man's anyway...
...I'm here to do a commercial...
...They also are very friendly to the peoplethey testify before since they will, after all, have to deal with those people again and again in the course of their work...
...Blank Check...
...I guess I shouldn't really say McCarthy was a hero...
...I spent the rest of the day wandering around New York's midtown, but since I have never really gotten New York, so to speak, I didn't really enjoy it...
...Miracle of miracles, a few days ago they called me back...
...The only emperor is the Emperor of Ice Cream...
...De Niro and the other actor read along and we improvised several additional minutes of the scene as if I were arguing with the commissioners...
...Then she sat up, horrified...
...D-Day...
...Yeah...
...That's stealing by using pieces of paper and lawyers...
...The baby cried...
...Now this is the kind of day we like...
...Friday T ommy has a bad, bad cold again...
...Well, I want to act with dogs," he says...
...Hilda, my single mother-to-be friend, was about to have her baby...
...I've been preparing and preparing, and today is Der Tag...
...Buffett bought a while ago...
...She told me I was the second celebrity she had met on her trip...
...she said...
...In fact, she was ecstatic...
...John and I talked about pals from the Nixon days and about how much we missed RN, and about the faith of spiders...
...It's based on a comic strip about the richest little boy in the whole world...
...Gimme Shelter...
...She identified herself as a publicist...
...I do, at least a little," I said...
...Symington was saying, "Well, am I a Communist, Senator...
...It has to do with a family-owned candy business her great-grandmother started that Mr...
...It really stuck in my mind, and I will have to ponder it for a long time...
...She said she'd like to do some publicity on me...
...Scorsese seemed to like that as well, and then they thanked me, and I was done...
...The desk clerks want me to say, "Bueller, Bueller...
...They both appeared with terrible colds, the way they always do when they've been traveling...
...Hmmm...
...Hilda was sobbing with joy under her anesthesia mask...
...I wonder if that tells us anything about what the people who make movies think is important...
...I went in and saw Elena kneeling next to his bed...
...I rested and then went to take Tommy to see The Mask at Universal...
...I told them that I had actually grown up next to Senator Alan Bible of Nevada, a fine man, whose son Paul—the owner of the world's cherriest 1958 Impala, the best-looking car I've ever seen—later became head of the Nevada gaming commission...
...Sure enough, she was putting a tomato under each foot as he slept...
...I don't care...
...The popcorn was the size of a five-pound sack of potatoes...
...When I got him home, he demanded a Ren and Stimpy story...
...Then there's the overpowering sound...
...She was still adorable...
...H-Hour...
...Is everyone here a Communist except you...
...In the dining room high above the lake, college kids walked past me whispering, "Bueller, Bueller...
...Are you praying for him to get well...
...Really, the difference in life between those who have human capital—education and connections—and those who don't is like the difference between being buried alive and being alive above ground...
...He looked so cute with his glazed eyes—from cold and travel—his tanned skin, and his bleached-out hair, that I just wanted to eat him up...
...Anyway, I am playing a teacher in a fabulous movie called Richie Rich...
...I'm proud of it...
...Scorsese made me at home by telling me how much he loved my part in Honeymoon in Las Vegas, and then reciting it, virtually word for word, to De Niro...
...By a still more remarkable coincidence, the room for the audition is exactly across the hall from where I stayed that first time...
...Daddy," Tommy wants to know as he's sitting with his pole, "what's the best-paying job you can have...
...It came in 1954, when McCarthy was being baited by "Sanctimonious Stu" Symington...
...We're sitting on the dock fishing...
...Then some folks with videocams from "Entertainment Tonight" talked to me...
...Then there's a grown woman who is smoking while lying on the pier in her bathing suit...
...This leads me to the natural conclusion that he should only hang around with me...
...I was asked to come in to read again...
...The lawyer would be testifying before a government commission, a perfect part for yours truly...
...I stopped out of the Fairmont for a walk around Union Square...
...First, I met a young woman from Buin, Alabama...
...Soon, I heard some rustling coming from his room...
...It makes me feel small and weak...
...The folks here are unbelievably kind and nice...
...Sunday H ere I am in Chicago, Illinois, on a set near the Loop...
...Read Samuel Johnson and get high on red meat...
...By a lucky stroke (but then my life is all lucky strokes), the dog was sitting right in front of me and I got to pet it while it did heroics on screen...
...Drink brandy...
...he wants to know...
...And you work in Hollywood...
...In honor of John, who's a great mimic of my hero, Joe McCarthy, I inserted a famous McCarthy line into my reading...
...Truth to tell, they still scare me...
...I had a drink with them and talked about life in L.A...
...Homeless in legions...
...Don't lead me down that funky ole road to serfdom...
...I tucked him in and then watched TV with Alex...
...It's my life...
...Oh, wow...
...I give them credit...
...You may remember that I told you about The Mask several months ago...
...I played with him for hours, brought him his favorite food, Thai noodles, and then told him many Ren and Stimpy stories...
...That's what I want to do...
...I used to be a lawyer practicing before a government commission, the mighty Federal Trade Commission, to be specific...
...You can read Hamlet and be awed while lying by a beautiful lake in North Idaho...
...and the soldiers were bringing it back...
...She is a fiddler and a full-on flower child...
...Sure," I said...
...I waited in the hallway for a Benjamin J. Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Malibu, California...
...He's like a saint...
...Probably financial fraud," I tell him...
...Yes, it has a few good restaurants...
...I strolled through it last night...
...As I was walking to my car, a burly bearded man with two young boys by his side approached me...
...Afterwards, there was a big party at a defunct bank down Wilshire Boulevard from the theater...
...He lives in Chicago...
...They were both young and full of hope, though...
...cameras while hugging me...
...Can I start right now...
...Like you, daddy...
...I have testified before many commissions and committees...
...In today's world, kids have power not because they're nimble or clever, but because of the brute force of money...
...But it was a happy day...
...Warren Buffett...
...Well, no, that's not right, since I really am a teacher...
...She claimed she doesn't really care about her good fortune...
...But no banks set up shop in defunct studios...
...Great...
...I was accompanied by my wonderful agent from heaven, Marcia Hurwitz...
...I don't want to cover them up," I said...
...I don't like for people to hear that, but it's true...
...When I appeared in front of the theater, five kids asked for autographs and wanted their pictures taken with me...
...Wednesday yeah...
...I didn't know what to say so I said, "Thank you, Elena...
...We talked for a while...
...It's from hanging around with other children...
...I asked...
...You do...
...Scorsese and De Niro looked like the most confident people God ever made...
...Anyway, I went in and read...
...I showed them my ancient Mark Cross briefcase...
...There's something grotesquely overdone, outlandishly large about all of this movie stuff...
...Dog trainer or else actor with dogs...
...I've never acted with dogs," I tell him...
...Maybe we clandestine Republicans could form Republican hippie communes in the woods above Boulder Creek to start hippie Republican bands that could fan out across the nation...
...And then we saw the movie...
...I'm staying at a weird little hotel right above a nightclub called Tatou...
...They want to do something with their lives—namely be stars of something, they don't know what...
...It doesn't make me feel good...
...We're like early Christians in the catacombs, I thought...
...What I don't get is why...
...I play his shrink...
...A dry wind off the desert...
...A streetwalker on the phone asking a man if she could come over...
...They seemed to like it (although one never knows at an audition...
...I came last night to be the voice and face of a new ad campaign for an exciting board game called "Sorry...
...Then people I didn't know told me they liked my "work" (as if someone who had spent a lot of his life in depositions could ever call it that...
...I think maybe it's better to see movies at home...
...She then put her butt into a neat little plastic bag...
...No, you can start when you're 41, just like me...
...It's like sound torture while they call it pleasure...
...I'm a Republican," he said...
...I got into ill-fitting scrubs and shoe-guards and walked into the O.R...
...Smoke tobacco...
...As far as I was concerned, it was great...
...There's always a beautiful (or almost beautiful no contemporary movie star is really beautiful) woman holding a sweaty man in her arms...
...She looks great...
...This time it would be with De Niro, and in front of Martin Scorsese, world's finest director...
...Two girls at the bar looked at me and said, "Bueller, Bueller...
...Still, I was practically delirious to see my boy...
...Wouldn't I come over and help ? Yuck...
...And also putting tomato next to his feet to lower his temperature...
...Tommy has decided that it's his destiny to be a fisherman...
...He loved it and wanted another one, but then he fell asleep before I could finish it...
...We cruised along the fabulous Universal City Walk, a Caligari-esque confection of shops and amusements, far better than any amusement park, and then went into the theater...
...It was a lovely night...
...As we were shooting, so to speak, in that dismal neighborhood, there was a real shooting on the sidewalk outside...
...There are great art galleries, but there is great art available in books and on CD-ROM anywhere in America right now...
...54 The American Spectator October 1994 I did my commercial this morning for a very professional group of folks...
...Then, in the garage, a young woman came over to me...
...She was sobbing into the phone...
...The fishermen want to help Tommy...
...Yikes...
...She said, "Go, go, Hilda needs you...
...she said, incredulous...
...And wow, there was an adorable little blue-eyed baby on a little table...
...I asked John (as if he knew...
...But I want to keep working, so I don't usually tell people...
...Fine," I said...
...In fact, it's unimaginably dirty, hot in the summer, cold in the winter, hard to get around, noisy, smelly, Dangerous with a capital D, expensive on a scale that boggles the mind, crowded with unsavory characters reeking of urine and asking for your money, and loaded with people who would just as soon harm you and/or cheat you as look at you...
...It's a small, crowded lake, but it still looks like it would be fun to have a house here...
...Alas, they have no education, no connections, no money...
...I little dreamed that this movie would be such a huge success...
...Have you noticed how many movies are about rich little kids...
...By coincidence, this hotel, the Beverly Wilshire, was the very first hotel I stayed in when I came to Los Angeles to write about Hollywood for the Wall Street Journal many years ago...
...Streetwalkers in tank tops...
...in a tone so rich with contempt and menace that even senators were stunned...
...Monday 1 'm in New York...
...Getting Even With Dad...
...No, actor with dogs...
...taxpayer is paying for this kind of radio...
...I'm sure it will help...
...My favorite caller was the crank from Colorado who said he knew for sure that the U.S...
...John and I had dinner in a very tall building where spiders were building webs at least a hundred floors above the ground...
...Amazing...
...I hate blood...
...The movie stars first Jim Carrey, and then a dog named Milo...
...Most of what's playing on Broadway is revivals that were campy trash in the first place...
...No, it's a big thing...
...Then Shirley Fonda came over acrd told me that she loved my acting and had been following my career for years...
...De Niro laughed appreciatively...
...Hmmm...
...What's the best-paying job you can have with dogs where you don't have to cut them open...
...McCarthy looked at the famous solon and said, "That's terribly funny, isn't it...
...This is a tiny lake compared with Lake Pend'Oreille in North Idaho...
...Russian Jewish immigrants with hairy arms...
...Saturday T ommy and I are at Lake Arrowhead...
...Before that, you have to go to law school, and then to economics graduate school and then an internship at The American Spectator and then we'll talk about it...
...I took pictures...
...The problem is how do we cover up the years you worked for Nixon...
...Scorsese was dressed similarly, both looking healthy and fit...
...There's a constant parade of motorboats zooming by with water skiers...
...The Nestle Crunch bar was like a cinderblock...
...Then we all ate hors d'oeuvres and sweated and then I left...
...Probably a veterinarian," I answer...
...The Englishman was fine, but the moderator of the show was wildly anti-Nixon, and the callers were from outer space...
...Maybe it's better to just read...
...Sunday 0 kay...
...Immediately, she dove perfectly into the water, swam out with classic form, retrieved her butt, and then I pulled her up onto the pier...
...In August...
...few minutes...
...Next to us, there's a beautiful teenage girl giving Tommy advice on fishing...
...Later, Elena made him and me delicious Shake 'n' Bake chicken, man's favorite food...
...CI The American Spectator October 1994 57...
...A few days ago I was invited to the premiere...
...Well, I'm a Republican, too," she said...
...He really cheered me up years ago when I was despondent because RN had resigned...
...But in a way, it all fits...
...There was a big band at the party, the Royal Crown Revue, and some dancers who call themselves Exstasy (sic), and there was Jim Carrey, and he gave me a huge hug and pointed me at the "E.T...
...Then we talked about the part...
...Then there are the power boats racing with each other...
...De Niro was in Topsiders with no socks, baggy pants, and a shirt over his trousers, and wore glasses...
...A new high in environmental consciousness...
...In every preview, there is a huge explosion hurling people into the air...
...The audience tittered and then laughed when I came on...
...It's also above a bar with a Spanish name I can't recall...
...Not only that, but it's a total myth that it's superior in any big way culturally or intellectually to any other town or city in America...
...At about eleven at night, after I was in my red checked pajamas with my stuffed dog and my photos of Nixon, I got a call...
...Wow, it was bright...
...They've been away for several days at Disney World and the Universal Tour in Orlando...
...A muscular man slicing sushi...
...But she didn't complain when I got her upgraded to first class on U.S...
...The woman smoking next to us absent-mindedly flicked her cigarette butt into the lake...
...As I got Tommy his snacks, something dawned on me...
...There were people in the streets in large numbers...
...I dragged myself out of bed (naturally, I've caught Tommy's cold) and went off to the local studio for National Psycho Radio, the network run by and for cranks, to debate some Englishman about Watergate...
...56 The American Spectator October 1994 Hey, maybe that's it...
...Hmmm...
...Then there's her father, a retired hockey star who now owns a big dairy...
...By the time I got back to the lobby, I was freezing...
...And you can do all of that—ingest the essence of culture—without being panhandled, threatened, overcharged, and stuck in traffic...
...She had huge clumps of hair under her arms...
...There were guards everywhere because Michelle Pfeiffer, formerparty animal, now big movie star, was having a baby...
...Or, to put it even more starkly: you can put on headphones and listen to Mozart's Requiem anywhere in the world...
...Wow, there was a lot of blood everywhere...
...There's always mention of a vast amount of money and there's always some evil person threatening someone else with death and dismemberment...
...Maybe in their religion there is no ground," he said...
...Yes, it has cool old houses...
...The lemonade was as big as a car's gasoline tank...
...If I go in to get it, will you pull me up onto the dock...
...In fact, the part was to be Robert De Niro's lawyer in an upcoming movie...
...That is, I understand perfectly well that New York is a large city, home to many corporate headquarters, the stock exchange, many publishers and sweater manufacturers...
...This might be a good place to hang out...
...Tuesday M onstrous anniversary of the monstrous hounding of Richard Nixon from office twenty years ago by a group of vengeful, lawless thugs in editorial offices...
...Luckily no one was injured...
...Later that night, I went to the airport to pick up Little Perfect and his Mom, Mrs...
...Then we watched the previews...
...Then I read it again without script, as if I were actually appearing before the FTC or the House Energy and Oversight Committee or the Senate Banking Committee or some other committee I have been before...
...Probably dog trainer, or maybe actor working with dogs...
...Si," she said...
...Or, to put it another way, a halfway decently run studio is a damned good business...
...or on compact discs, likewise available anywhere...
...Everyone's calling it the picture of the summer—and I have the funniest scene in it, with Jim...
...When the show ended and I delivered my summing up in defense of Nixon, the host, a man named Suarez, actually laughed loudly...
...That's the movie I shot with Jim Carrey in an old office buildingin downtown Los Angeles...
...What's that...
...College students holding hands...
...I squeezed Hilda's hand and she squeezed back...
...San Francisco...
...Hilda's mother, with her Auschwitz tattoo on her arm, was waiting for me in Hilda's room...
...The audition was in a hotel in Beverly Hills...
...I shouldn't have done that," she said...
...I'm pretending to be a teacher...
...They knew me...
...Good luck," I said...
...Then I met an absolutely adorable hippie chick, as we used to call them, from Sebastopol, California...
...But it's so damn cold here I could scream...
...It's in the San Bernardino Mountains, about two hours east and then north from glorious L.A...
...In fact, I'd arrived at this hotel in tears, literally crying, because I had gotten lost coming from the airport, but more than that, I had been so spooked by the sight of so many scary, tough women in Mercedes...
...Lots of movies are shot in defunct banks, I thought to myself...
...I don't want to wait that long," he says...
...We've been best buds ever since...
...They knew that I was funny...
...It all made me miss my happy days long ago as a hippie Republican (a phrase I should trademark) in the woods and forests of Santa Cruz...
...on videos of classic movies, available anywhere...
...Scary punks with dogs...
...Well, what would anyone expect from NPR...
...I had a really great trip up...
...Then I read my part...
Vol. 27 • October 1994 • No. 10
