Ben Stein's Diary/Howe Rules!
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN'S DIARY Howe Rules! by Benjamin J. Stein Tuesday D inner with my pal Al "The Duke" Duesenberg. Al is a major casting guy, working out of both New York and Los Angeles. He's a lean,...
...This is to teach you how to hit targets that are really hard to hit," he said...
...Look," he said, "the rules are really simple...
...If they're in the business at all, they're not tough...
...For- example, after a few minutes, he lay down on the bed on his stomach with only his back showing...
...It didn't fool Adam Smith, who said that law was always and everywhere intended to protect those who have property against those who didn't...
...It's afternoon...
...I'm here to give a speech to some very smart people called the AIMR, investment experts in a big way...
...But you have to know who you are...
...In fact, she had her thyroid out about a month ago...
...This is very much what I feel like when I'm on the set...
...Plus, that someone may well be a young, gorgeous starlet if you're working on "Howe High...
...If they were English, someone would long since have made a show about them...
...As wacky as it sounded, Duke's advice also made a lot of sense...
...His skis fell off...
...You belong to eternity—like what Edwin Stanton said about Abraham Lincoln when he died: 'Now he belongs to the ages.'" Dotty looked at me intently...
...This is not a good sign...
...I heard it from a friend right in the scheduling office...
...That's why they made it...
...It's a numbers game, pure and simple...
...She was crying on the telephone...
...Still, as I drove away from the show, I made a mental outline of what the Clintons have accomplished so far: (1) Demolished U.S...
...I sat with my fellow actors...
...That's what I'll do...
...The set is swarming with actors and extras...
...Of course, when I did that, he made a rule that I couldn't get any points if I hit him below the knees...
...I don't know, Duke...
...He loves that hound a real lot...
...Why shouldn't they have agents...
...I raced it around the lake, narrowly missing a floating log—thanks to John's eagle eyes—and passed by a house I had bid on recently...
...Ant told some of his jokes, none of which I remembered, and then I went back to my little dressing room...
...No, it isn't," she said...
...If she starts ordering you around, then it's no fun, and it's over...
...Now, here's what I do...
...d) aging tyrants in Peking...
...You know that while you're sleeping, you can wake up at any time...
...I just read a story about skinheads in the Northwest (I think it was Portland) shooting at a synagogue with high-powered Chinese rifles...
...I don't like this, Duke," I said...
...On a day like this, how could "Howe High" not get on...
...He's worried...
...The fact is that ideology is a constant and truth is a variable...
...He belongs to his agents?'" she asked...
...I feel as if someone could kill me and just laugh about it...
...e) rampant sexual harassment...
...If that happened, I would be a regular player, the highest summit of man's aspirations...
...The Duke has made the seduction and control of women his life's occupation...
...Naturally, the first thing I'm thinking about is this guy Keith I've been having such a hard time with...
...Another is from a friend in Northern California...
...Sunday Anew talk show on Channel 13...
...I think I'll just invite him over and then he won't have to worry about his name in lights...
...There is nothing quite like sleeping on the set...
...When I got home I played with Little Perfect for a long time...
...When Tommy is getting into and out of school there are Israeli guards all around the pickup and dropoff areas...
...That's a joke...
...It's all right," I said...
...No, they're not," he said...
...I'm on with Ann Lewis, former political director at the Democratic National Committee, and a writer at Newsweek named Jonathan Alter—a major pal of Bill and Hillary...
...and to make poor people as angry and frustrated as possible without encouraging any constructive activity by them...
...That's going to be hard," I said, "because I cancel so many dates myself...
...The usual gameis that I throw pillows at him...
...She's lively and fun, but she likes the Clintons too much for us to have a real long conversation...
...I have to wonder sometimes at his amazing stories of conquest and charm...
...Tommy was lowered into the water and shivered...
...The buzz around this show is fantastic: it's got hit written all over it...
...When he left the Navy, he moved to Sandpoint more or less by chance...
...He couldn't tell me how fast his sub went...
...And remember, be who you are...
...While we wait for the director and the producers and the camera people to figure out their scenes, we laugh and joke with each other...
...You're paying...
...by ruthlessly cutting defense...
...foreign policy credibility by allowing us to be bullied and shamed by (a) petty Haitian gangsters...
...Now, apparently, it's routine...
...The terrifying part is that I am certain that Alter believes what he says...
...There are about a hundred lesser players, including two shrewd actors named Jeremy Lawrence and Darrell Kunitomi and a spectacular beauty named Jessica Hahn—who flashes her legs and complains about sexism...
...I like them as weak as I am...
...I love these guys...
...They're all gone, but when you're on the set, they're back...
...I'm scared all the time when I'm in a car in The American Spectator August 1994 59 Hollywood...
...But the idea that she can cancel on you, that's crazy...
...Yesterday, I had my first radiation treatment for this thing," she said...
...All in all, reasons for a sound nap...
...I can't say any more than that...
...The sky was perfect azure...
...He once spent sixty days under the polar ice cap...
...The life of Jews in America is changing...
...You decide...
...I won't believe what I heard...
...It'll make you much better at the game...
...This day's episode is about Bill and Hillary...
...Friday T aping day for "Howe High...
...So for twenty-four hours, no kissing and no sleeping around...
...I let her know I don't have any money...
...In fact, it makes me really sad...
...Since I had paid for the boat, I asked if I might drive it...
...Another call from a woman who is having a baby as asingle mother because she wants to carry on the family of her mother, who was a prisoner in Auschwitz for five years...
...Then you get yourselves "blocked" by the director, who thinks up all kinds of camera angles that you or I would never concoct in a million years...
...It's your typical high school in America, circa 1994...
...It's okay for you to cancel...
...I, your humble servant, play a teacher of history...
...We're stars...
...Then they rationalize these rules as being good for everyone...
...Law is a set of rules made by a group of people who have the power to make laws...
...He insisted—in various insulting phrases—that I was an idiot and that Newsweek and the other mags were probably overcovering the 58 The American Spectator August 1994 story...
...If they were tough, they'd be loading a barge in New Orleans...
...On one waterfront lawn, a family played croquet...
...Margaret Smith (but not Margaret Chase Smith) plays David Lascher's mother, and she too is a scream...
...In fact, you should cancel...
...I was filing as she walked around hounding me for the bottle of wine...
...I asked out a woman to go to dinner, and I told her we'd go to a perfectly good place, a Chinese place called Joss, and she said she would only go to Morton's or the Ivy...
...It's called "Premier Story...
...Just what it counts toward is unclear...
...You can decide whether you want to win or lose...
...You spend all too much of your life working by yourself...
...Tuesday Another fabulous day on the set...
...It's war, Ben," the Duke said...
...They put your head in this thing like an incubator, and then you suck this atomic cocktail out of a straw except it's a tube...
...Staci has recently been under surgery for thyroid cancer...
...I'll hope...
...d) abusing the income tax laws...
...I spoke to her with even more than my usual empathy...
...It's funny...
...We're just so happy to be in good company, so happy to be plying our self-obsessed craft, so happy to be in the limelight...
...Today, it's beautiful...
...We've been rehearsing like mad, being ordered around like the dancers in A Chorus Line, getting yelled at, getting praised, getting high on the acting drug, feeling immortal...
...When I was a child, Jews were not allowed in the eating clubs at Princeton or in the white-shoe law firms in Manhattan, but at least we felt no one would shoot at us...
...It was classified...
...I would guess he's about 45...
...This is exactly what law is all about...
...Because," I answered as I was brushing my teeth, "you're so 56 The American Spectator August 1994 beautiful that you're not for any one man...
...It's a round table, and the cooks and waiters call the men who eat here the Wild Bunch...
...Today, I'm having lunch with my father and his pals at the American Enterprise Institute, in their fabulous dining room...
...However, that's Thursday...
...What is clear is that he loves to make up rules that have the specific point of protecting him—and then calling them rules of general application...
...A call from a fellow who worked with me on "Howe High...
...That is, the central problem of middle age is loneliness, as far as I can tell...
...Lewis, who these days shills for the White House, naturally agreed...
...But I guess they changed their minds...
...I'm here on the set of a new sitcom, a pilot, called "Howe High...
...That's not too early...
...Years ago, I was given intravenous Demerol for the extraction of a tooth...
...She's getting married this summer...
...Finally, you're getting paid, albeit modestly, even while you sleep...
...We all talked about our agents and our managers (I don't happen to have a manager) and how many commercials we have done and how many were nationals...
...Yesterday Alex and I left Tommy with his pals and drove to Kootenay Bay, Canada...
...She's worried about money...
...He's also one of the producers, along with Ron Leavitt and Arthur Silver, who wrote the script...
...Just tell her, 'It's not fun if you order me around,' and that's that...
...That's too early to start drinking...
...My parents, in their seventies, were among the youngest people in the room...
...Later, he made a rule that if I hit him on the hands while he was trying to kick The American Spectator August 1994 57 the pillow away, that counted as points for him...
...I want to learn to water ski," says his majesty...
...It's all over," he said...
...Yes, you might have your Little Perfect to keep you company, but where are the pals you could just hang out with as soon as you walked out the door...
...5) Showed contempt for law and for the office of President by attempts to cover up for (a) looting a federally insured S&L (and maybe more than one...
...Wednesday N ow is the spring of our discon- tent...
...If you start putting out a false act, they'll smell it a mile away, and they'll act on it, and then you're weak, and she's in charge, which is never what you want...
...They thought it was too politically incorrect...
...He wanted out...
...America is becoming frightening...
...You're asking her out...
...If she likes you for where you take her or who she's going to see when she's with you, she's not for you...
...Tommy was nestled in my arms and Mommy's...
...2) Destroyed the incredibly costly arms superiority of the U.S...
...I ate dinner with me ol' Maw and Paw at the Cosmos Club...
...It would have changed my life...
...Since they have the power, they make rules that protect their interests...
...The teacher and driver, a man named John, told us he had been a navigator on a nuclear sub...
...Above all, money, the big boodle that comes from being pals with the president and the First Diva and de facto secretary of commerce is a constant, and truth is a variable...
...There's also a hilarious fellow named "Ant"—his real name (he had it legally changed)—who plays a gay high school student...
...He has long hair, drives a powerful Yamaha motorcycle, and proudly calls himself an animal...
...Another call from a friend in the phone sales business, Lev Davidovich Bronstein, who's also worried about money and thinks that his dog, an Afghan, may have run away...
...I know...
...I'm in his debt because he cast me in a movie where I had a lot of fun...
...What do you think...
...That makes me sad...
...The sun is reflecting off Lake Pend'Oreille...
...I know I should be happy just to be in America, to have little Mr...
...You talk to enough each day, there's one every day...
...Those are the two most expensive restaurants in town...
...They're acting all the time...
...You don't have to go in if you're scared...
...After a while, he notices a powerboat dragging a water-skier through the lake...
...c) certified butchers and lunatics in North Korea...
...I'll have to remember her when I'm thinking that they're all like Hillary...
...I'll just keep hoping that somehow it gets on...
...The mountains make their own weather...
...More than a lot, an obsessive, sick amount...
...Friends and political connections are a constant, and truth is a variable...
...She has a chance to change her mind, but if she's really canceling, no more Duke for her...
...Monday M emorial Day here in Sandpoint, Idaho...
...Friday B eautiful Dotty, my neighbor from Dixie, appeared at my door this afternoon to "borrow" a bottle of wine...
...It was cold and he was scared...
...We took him in and he clung to the pylon for the ski rod like it was life or death...
...To live in this town, you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough...
...Bob Tyrrell and a world champion swimmer—in the butterfly, no less—came over and sat with us...
...If you try to be who you're not, you'll never win...
...No, ages, Dotty, not agents," I said...
...You tell her you want to get turkey sandwiches and eat on a bench, that's what she's got to do if she really likes you...
...I don't like it...
...Do presidents have agents...
...Here's how the first day of rehearsals works: You read the script...
...c) consorting with drug dealers and fraudulent bond traders...
...We don't mind being ordered around and we don't mind being yelled at...
...He explained that it was to teach me how to throw at a low angle, below his hands, which would prove really useful to me later...
...He's at Morton's, but just to show what a rebel he is, he's wearing torn denim and a T-shirt...
...That's it...
...But how can I possibly do that" I asked, "when I can't even see your stomach because you're lying on it...
...Tuesday 1 'm in Washington, D.C...
...Moreover, once I question the rules and point out the somewhat one-sided nature of their use, he always has an answer to make it seem as if the rule is good for me, too...
...I'm in three scenes, in which we lampoon the total laziness and self-justification of the modern student, and I love it all a lot...
...Wlady and Joanna were with us...
...The rules are such things as that it never counts if I hit him with a tossed pillow, but it always counts if he hits me with one...
...It's like being in college, only better...
...The network didn't pick up our show...
...A few minutes later, after an exchange of money and putting Tommy in a wetsuit, we were on the water...
...I ask a girl out...
...I know what I'll do...
...We're being directed by the unbelievably hard-working Gerry Cohen...
...The trio is famous and rich from a little item called "Married With Children"—consistently the funniest show on TV...
...I let her know right away I only want one thing...
...If she's interested, great...
...Friday Little Mr...
...There are about half a dozen kids playing on the beach...
...It's just that the women in show business are so tough...
...What a girl...
...I've just been reading that this is a Palestinian custom as well...
...He's heard rumors we're not going to get on the air...
...In keeping with religious custom, at tonight's Sabbath services, Marci and her fiancé will be mentioned and then will have little kids throw candy at them...
...He got upset...
...f) obstructing justice in connection with the investigation of Vincent Foster's death...
...We stand on the set and do the scenes over and over...
...I remember that I had no idea that anyone could ever feel so good, and hoped it would never end...
...He makes up rules as we go along...
...Maybe set life isn't the only possible life after all...
...Now I have to go back to waiting tables and hoping for comedy gigs," my friend continued...
...Wednesday D inner with an authentic Clintonite...
...Perfect, to have Alex, to have Ginger the new dog, to have my parents and my sister...
...And it tastes just like water, but for about two hours later, you have this weird dragon breath so that you go around feeling like you're Superman...
...So saith the producers, the writers, the director—everyone...
...Sound advice, Duke," I said...
...Food for thought," I said...
...Also, it seems to me that this show has a good chance of getting picked up and aired on a weekly basis...
...Monday T his is more like it...
...The dog is young and frisky, though, and that's what you get for having such a young dog...
...She's a woman who is a Clinton White House appointee...
...One was from a guy in "Howe High...
...If a girl calls and tries to say she wants tochange a date, you tell her, 'Hey, I'm not a weatherman and I don't do rain checks.' If she even cancels once, I tell her that's it...
...The stars are two young actors named David Lascher and Kevin Connally and two beautiful young actresses named Wendy Benson and Denise Richards...
...After a few hours, we went to lunch at the Disney commissary...
...If someone had shot at a synagogue it would have been a big story...
...CI 60 The American Spectator August 1994...
...We're eating at "The Economists' Table" in the middle of the room...
...But,wow, I wanted that gig...
...b) war criminals in the former Yugoslavia...
...There are elaborate gates and bars on the windows...
...A lot of men want my body, but no one wants to marry me...
...The weather was fierce: hailstorms, freezing rain, sleet, and lightning and thunder...
...He's a lean, muscular fellow from Flushing, Queens...
...She's sad because she's remembering her brother, who died not long after a mental hospital threw him out for not being quick enough about paying his bills...
...I like this," I said...
...There's Murray Foss, Marvin Kosters, Alan Wallis, Ben Wattenberg, and my father...
...Not complicated...
...She does agree with me about certain personality traits about the First Lady, but overall, she's a loyal Clinton hand...
...3) Intentionally and eagerly sold and dispersed weapons technology to enemies and potential enemies...
...Yeah...
...I liked the Clintonista, but she was a little tough for me...
...There's a gentle breeze coming from the Cabinet Mountains...
...But it's only five o'clock," I said...
...You'll have someone to play with...
...Law is made to protect the lawmakers and their pals, and the reasons to fool the voters are made up later...
...Her moods and interests change on a whim, and suddenly she looked at herself in the mirror and said, "How come no man wants to marry me...
...I'm impressed...
...You talk to enough of them, one of them goes for it...
...Man is saved by faith and not by works...
...b) accepting bribes in the forms of gifts of ownership in a real estate company and guaranteed no-lose fake commodities trades...
...We're like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland times fifty, just all kicking, alldancing, all singing, all very happy to be here instead of in our homes waiting for the phone to ring or waiting tables or writing about leveraged buyouts or whatever people do when they're not acting...
...It was a fun time...
...It actually makes sense," she said...
...I thought I was a star of commercials but Kevin Connally told me he had done more than seventy before he was 18, all nationals...
...My friend Staci visited during lunch...
...Then by another, or rather by their docks...
...4) Attempted at every possible turn to stir up class warfare in the U.S...
...When I got back to my hotel room, after a glorious walk past Dupont Circle and the eastern fringes of Georgetown, I found a number of messages...
...And they tell you you're so highly radioactive that you might hurt someone if you get too close to him...
...Perfect has a very sweet and capable teacher named Marci...
...As much as possible...
...But that was its whole point," I said...
...He then said, "It only counts if you can hit me in the stomach with the pillow, Daddy...
...When I was a child, no onewould have even imagined a need for guards at our little synagogue in Chevy Chase, Maryland...
...But in fact, the people at the table are very witty...
...If she's not, I go to the next one...
...Benjamin J. Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Malibu, California...
...There's no place else we'd rather be...
...Dummy," the Duke said...
...Tommy has made friends with some lovely people from Seattle and he's playing with their children along the shore...
...When I said that the mainstream media had largely dropped the ball on the Clintons' misdeeds and were now mostly covering up, Alter went berserk...
...It's all right," Mommy said...
...Anyway, as I walked into the synagogue, I noticed that there is aguard at the parking lot and another at the front door...
...You won't be lonely...
...He could tell me he was married, had a home, and was happy to live here...
...Some can see a little patch of blue truth out there...
Vol. 27 • August 1994 • No. 8
