Ben Stein's Diary /Poetry in Motion
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN'S DIARY Poetry in Motion by Benjamin J. Stein Saturday It's bitterly cold here in Washington. But I have convinced old Maw and Paw to go for a walk with me down to the Sequoia...
...As if the Hollywood that makes movies is somehow better, more moral, able to point the finger at the Hollywood that makes game shows...
...It comes from a combination of too much food and too little exercise...
...Box 657, Mt...
...My life Wednesday 1 'm shopping for clothes at the local Polo shop on Rodeo Drive...
...1. Please write your new address in the space provided...
...IMPORTANT Allow six weeks for address change...
...Then the wind blew again, ruffling her hair...
...Denman, has bad pneumonia in Arkansas...
...I will if you buy me a snowboard...
...Yes, I did...
...Dave first came to see me when I became a White House speechwriter...
...I'm not falling down just because I'm clumsy, although I am...
...I was crying so I had to leave the room for a moment...
...Simpson trial on the radio, I thought of something very basic: this is not a happy city any longer...
...I also remember some very funny jokes he made that can't be repeated here...
...I asked...
...Now I like them again...
...The doctors let her out, and we took her home in a very, very carefully driven taxi...
...How can time have gone by so fast...
...Then the managers want to be insulated from any legal recourse by the investors...
...After our walk, I drove us towards St...
...In Hollywood...
...Yoo-hoo," she said...
...Now we're in this big morass—ahh, the hell with it...
...It's a funny thing, but you can almost calibrate the exact day that the music died...
...But everyone also knows he is going to get away with it...
...The wind hit us again and my mother said, "Winken and Blinken and Nod, we three, sailed off in a wooden shoe...
...Hundreds of thousands of engineers losing their jobs...
...Yoga teaches us that it's only fear that keeps us from going forward...
...Two months ago the cell phone company promised to take these charges off...
...I recall that there used to be signs for hotels that said, "For Refined Colored Adults...
...Today, as I walked to class, I stopped to make a call to my pal 0., who lives in a faraway city...
...The average house losing a fourth of its value—that wipes out many families...
...He was a Democrat, but he tried to do a good job anyway...
...Big as life...
...I wonder why...
...Only winning the big dollar will count...
...We talked for a while and then a group of teenage girls came after us for autographs...
...Today, we're doing a cartoon called "The Mask...
...I guess it always comes from that...
...He asked me if I wanted a couch in my office...
...Souther asked me...
...He's at the Safeway buying groceries," I said...
...On the road to Easton, there are lots of auto dealers and fastfood places...
...Now, people are not smiling...
...In diners, there would be signs saying "White Trade Only...
...Can't ever relax...
...He wasn't perfect, God knows, but he made us feel that it was morning in America...
...The day Reagan left...
...John and I had shrimp bisque, then walked around Easton...
...Then they become depressed and sullen...
...Still, when Tommy and I walked back four blocks and then across a bridge to our hotel, we were in paradise...
...It's in the San Fernando Valley...
...1 In His Own Words...
...I remember I was eating lunch at a diner in Easton in 1962 on the day I heard that Marilyn Monroe had died...
...So I flounder on the MOVING...
...After a nap, I took Tommy and his friend to a movie, and then Peter Feierabend and I went to see Quiz Show at the local art film house—which only shows movies once a week...
...Monday W e are at the Spokane airport...
...When I first moved here in 1976, people of every age were laughing and scratching and having a blast...
...when I'm in Los Angeles...
...3) The real estate crash and endless, nonstop, grinding recession that has just walloped the tar out of this city...
...I first learned it many years ago, and it still brings tears to my eyes...
...I have taken John Meroney, a fine young writer, for a ride to Easton, Maryland...
...And great actors...
...Do you mean Barbra Streisand...
...Saturday I'm back in D.C., visiting Maw and Paw...
...Enough," I told him, although frankly, it's never enough...
...3. Return this form to us at the address listed below...
...We had a nice talk about his kids, my son, my acting, his teaching at Duke...
...They wanted his about a million times more than they wanted mine, but they were polite enough to mention me in their requests...
...Sail on, sail on, 0 ship of state," my mother said...
...This is the fundamental problem with investing...
...Good question," I said...
...The real question is about the moral upbringing of people who can do that," 0. said...
...0. had said a mouthful...
...When I came back to take away her glass, she said, with an intent smile, "One if by land and two if by sea, and I on the opposite shore shall be, ready to ride and spread the alarm to every Middlesex hamlet and farm...
...Then he called to tell me I had to pay right away...
...My instructress today is Denise...
...We talked about commercials in relation to how much college cost...
...I agree...
...I have loved the eastern shore for about as long as I've been alive...
...You can't ever rest...
...But I think that story is supposed to have been made up," I said...
...She's still Mom to me, and seeing her this weak is making me crazy...
...Give us back hope...
...There it was in front of me...
...What I basically teach the kids is that promoters and managers try to raise money from investors and then not have any responsibility towards them...
...Now, there's a sport I like...
...Thursday C lass at glorious Pepperdine...
...Not long...
...Souther, a great songwriter and singer who had a role in My Girl 2, just as I did...
...she asked...
...I am taking yet another lesson in cross-country...
...As a bird flew by in the cold, she said, "North wind doth blow, and we shall have snow, and what will poor Robin do then, Poor thing...
...54 The American Spectator May 1995 r Item: My cellular phone bill has charges for someone who cloned my number and went off to Las Vegas and made over a thousand dollars worth of calls to Somalia...
...Unloading groceries...
...It's sort of an in-joke movie for liberals that on closer inspection falls to pieces...
...When we walked across a little bridge and into view of the river, we saw a small boat heading against the wind down the river...
...He came up from the basement in an L.L...
...Wednesday M y mother looks so frail and little in her bed at George Washington University Hospital...
...4) The earthquake, which scared people to death, as blasé as we may act about it...
...But I have convinced old Maw and Paw to go for a walk with me down to the Sequoia Restaurant on the Potomac near Georgetown...
...I drove a 1962 red Chevrolet Impala I had convinced my parents to buy...
...With the big nose...
...It's not pretty...
...The body is ready...
...With stockholder money, the managers pay savvy, cagey lawyers to build a wallbetween management and investors...
...They've made up for their misconduct of last September by giving Tommy and me this trip for free...
...Did I tell you what I gave Henley for Christmas...
...I can still skate," she said...
...There's a roaring, crackling fire in the fireplace...
...Tommy, my boy," I said as I paid my bills and glanced at the ocean (he was off from school doing his video game duties), "in this world, you have to fight against the thieves and the crooks every day...
...No, because I feel as if I am about to be snowed under a vast wave of fraud and incompetence that's going to deprive me of oxygen...
...Denise is a great teacher, but she's not really strong enough to lift me up...
...person...
...Heh-heh, just us actors, signing autographs, heh-heh...
...She has coronary ischemia...
...I wish I could get out my skates and go skating," she said...
...His blood was at the crime scene, for Pete's sake...
...That's all there is to it...
...The other girls say you're a TV star in Hollywood...
...A lowly character actor...
...Then he made fun of me for wanting those things and said I was much too junior to have them...
...Is that true...
...The water was glass...
...Now, here is a truth...
...I especially hate Johnnie Cochran," 0. said...
...In summer, it's still jammed...
...How can you stand to watch the trial any longer...
...A victim...
...is arid, crazed, a marketplace of bargainers and shriekers in the wilderness...
...After that, he was quite nice to me, though...
...As we sat down at a lovely table at the Sequoia, my mother studied the menu and said, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive...
...The party was given by my erstwhile boss, David Gergen...
...They read their books, listen to music, watch "Murder, She Wrote" and "Jeopardy," and attend lectures...
...Well, that's who she is to the hospital...
...You can't imagine how miserable my life would be without Mom," he said...
...But they were really funny...
...That's also one of her favorite poems...
...He'll hide in a barn, To keep himself warm, And hide his head under his wing, Poor thing...
...It is a nation of laws through men...
...Bean outfit...
...Not a star," I said...
...Item: On my MasterCard there are charges for some defective camera equipment I returned to The Good Guys before Christmas...
...In L.A., you walk in dazzling, smoggy sunlight by rockers in skintight black denim who smell of sweat and old cigarettes...
...That's where we are now in L.A.—and everywhere else in America, as far I can tell...
...Fear has its uses...
...When people are confronted with a painful, unpleasant, hypocritical life situation, at first they become angry...
...Tommy and his friend finished their movie before ours...
...The American Spectator Subscriber Service P.O...
...He takes such good care of me...
...There are big whitecaps on the bay far below us...
...I know too many desperate people in L.A...
...Sunday N ow it's even colder...
...Then she smiled a girlish, alert grin, and picked up the Wall Street Journal...
...Can: 1-704-849-5669 for credit card orders or send your order and check to: BOOK, Box 247, Wingate, NC 28174 The American Spectator May 1995 55 trail like an overturned beetle, and eventually have to take off my skis to stand up...
...You're doing great," Denise keeps saying...
...A psycho...
...The people I know there—Wlady, Aram Bakshian, Ron Burr, Chris Caldwell, Estelle, my parents—they're the kind of people I want my son to pattern his life after...
...Then she got into bed and slept...
...I called out to her and walked over...
...2) Crime, although that's a national phenomenon...
...The city has been flattened by a variety of plagues: (1) The homeless, who are everywhere and make us all feel terrible and guilty and frightened at the same time...
...We are never sure why a major character, Herb Stempel, acts like he does...
...Daddy," he says, "stand still so I can bean you with my snow ball...
...Not just because I can barely afford to pay them...
...Get it...
...Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman were all still alive...
...And why we even permit it...
...Blizzard conditions...
...This area is very familiar...
...To get there, you drive over the Bay Bridge...
...I miss Washington, D.C...
...Cool," he said...
...Big nose, big nose, so does Mommy...
...As I waited for my receipt, I talked to him, and then nodded at Jon Lovitz, with whom I played in a small scene in North...
...It's snowing...
...I still don't have the credits...
...What a bad joke of a movie...
...Anyway, I staggered around for two hours, got very tired, then put away my skis and went into the lodge for a cheeseburger...
...They're scary...
...It's the place where people come when they're crazed and think that becoming a star will make them well...
...Benjamin J. Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Malibu and Hollywood...
...TAS Address Changes Made Easy...
...But we are supposed to believe his father is a good guy because he makes fun of Ike and laughs at the idea that Ike might be dead...
...And people say that this is a God-fearing country...
...she asked...
...Maybe someone could make a movie about all of the progress in America in the postwar period...
...I thought that life would be eternally perfect if I ever just had one beautiful girl who would love me.shopping cart into Emilio Estevez...
...A story of a people who made the most amazing strides towards full equality at the starting gate ever made, while guarding the world against totalitarianism—and also inventing rock 'n' roll and the Corvette...
...Flocks of mallards and geese (at least I think that's what they were) flew across that same silver bright moon...
...Stop it," I said...
...I have had to make a command decision to cut my trip short...
...Did I want to be able to go to the White House Mess...
...This is not a nation of laws," the great jurisprudential scholar, Karl Llewellyn, wrote in a 1931 article in the Harvard Law Review...
...And there in front of it was Ann, Dave's lovely wife...
...I want Tommy to be able to do the same...
...The criminals are attackingand the cops are getting humiliated by politicians, and no one's really supporting them as they fight for us, but we know we're defenseless against the criminals, and it makes us feel terrible...
...They're holding on to each other for dear life...
...At the counter where I'm paying for my trousers, I'm standing next to J.D...
...6) And now, the Simpson case...
...Is he a fool...
...Then they become desperate...
...I sat with my father and made nervous chatter...
...It's starting to get me down...
...So, in a fit of craziness, I am looking over the rainbow at houses in McLean, Virginia, a leafy suburb of Washington...
...At nine at night, they strolled over to our theater, the Panida, and came in and found us and sat down with us...
...Get out," I told him...
...They still haven't done it...
...A T-shirt for PETA: People for Eating Tasty Animals...
...Is this the woman who used to frighten me to death...
...To me, Washington is solid...
...That's all...
...We used to have such fun skating in Monticello...
...I was seventeen...
...I wouldn't really have a life without her...
...So I am on my way back to deposit Tommy with Alex and then turn right around to see Mom in the hospital...
...I'm getting so fat that I can hardly wear anything...
...This studio is famous for its work on cartoons...
...He looked just the same...
...That night, as I shopped for groceries at the Trancas Market, I bumped my The American Spectator May 1995 53 there has nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with Bill Clinton...
...New and Revised And full of commentaries that will delight friends —and surprise his foes...
...Now I'm out on a trail, and I am falling down constantly...
...Yeah, but that fear is what's kept me alive all these years," I answered...
...It's a small town and kids can walk around safely...
...Walking in a winter wonderland...
...Twenty-one years ago, I went to a party here with my old girlfriend Pat...
...Get out or I'm calling the police...
...At that, Tommy got up from his chair, grabbed my nose, and began to sing with glee, "Big nose, big nose, Daddy's got a great big nose...
...He swaggers around the courtroom like a prancing ballerina, and you can just tell he's a bully and a thug when he's not on camera...
...He left my immaculate garage a stone mess, overcharged me fifty bucks, and forgot to install the light for my garage...
...I don't know what I would do without him...
...Oh, the story of Barbara Fritchie is very touching," she answered...
...It's really adorable: federal style restaurants, antique shops, a majestic brick county seat, large frame homes with porches, and old oaks...
...The biggest cracks come when one considers the condescending attitude the movie takes towards prime-time TV...
...They live like people in a shoe...
...But she has a great voice...
...Plus there's a hilarious basic premise: that Richard Goodwin, the lifelong tool of the Kennedys, the most corrupt political family of the century, is a credible hero, a man of innately high moral principles...
...I brought her a glass...
...As I ordered lunch at the Spokane Airport Cafe, a middle-aged woman in a waitress's uniform came up to me...
...The only way I can figure out to stop is to fall down...
...I love him so much," she said...
...Just thesnow, the streetlights, the white haze, a few cars and their lights, and Tommy and his Dad...
...He did not like it when the oil companies made big profits...
...It's a lot like securities regulation...
...She's in good spirits, says my father, but still it's scary...
...But as I drove home and listened to the 0.3...
...We talked about how much college cost...
...Item: A man came to fix my garage door and make it child-proof...
...Time to go back home and watch Tommy go from level to level on his horrible video games, whispering "Cool" every few seconds...
...I get to scream and yell and be a crazy L.A...
...He might have to go into the hospital soon, too...
...I can vividly remember when there was no bridge and we took the ferry...
...There was a big frozen puddle nearby...
...The beautiful Jackie, the solid Extreme Craig, kindly Josh and Tim, have all bid me good luck in the ski shop...
...A big difference...
...5) The riots, in which thousands went crazy and looted and burned and killed—and got away with it, which makes the rest of us feel like very vulnerable chumps...
...Barbara something...
...When I got home, I called my father...
...WHEN FREE MEN SHALL STAND By U.S...
...By a wild coincidence, Alex's father, the war hero Col...
...How long...
...I love him...
...Where's Pop...
...This semester I'm teaching Corporate Finance law...
...The Sheen brothers, Emilio and Charlie, are about the nicest guys in Hollywood...
...My mother is in the hospital in Washington, D.C...
...Renew my subscription for one year (twelve issues—$35) CI Payment enclosed CI Bill me later Name (Please him): Address: City: State: Zip: Date of change...
...No need for armed guards, no scary street people...
...What a laugh—Hollywood pretending to be better than Hollywood...
...Very...
...I remember that...
...Be quiet, you maniac...
...There were plenty of problems, but we would get to them...
...The only God that Johnnie Cochran knows is the buck...
...Today, the dead of winter, it's deserted...
...Yes, I said, I did...
...I see O.J.'s lawyers and I think 'satanic dissemblers.' How can they get up in the morning knowing that they are defending the man who killed his children's mother and a totally innocent stranger...
...Except for my mother occasionally yelling at me over trifles when I was a child—and what parent doesn't do that, as I have learned—they never did anyone any harm...
...The arc of life is long, but it gets traveled very, very fast...
...Hmmm...
...This is a quest for Newtie...
...My plans for buying a farm in Virginia have come to naught for a variety of reasons, but I might still be able to get a house in a leafy suburb...
...It's not what Adam Smith envisioned...
...The armchairs and couches look like they have looked forever—classy, with little flowers 52 The American Spectator May 1995 and doilies...
...He came over and told me, in his best Syrian-accented English, that I needed a new furnace and would surely die from carbon-monoxide poisoning if I didn't get one...
...To be specific, we're out on Schweitzer Mountain ski resort...
...I looked at her and my father as they studied their menus...
...2. Attach the mailing label from your most recent issue...
...Wednesday T oday I'm paying bills...
...In the lobby of one of my favorite spots, the Tidewater Inn, it's quiet and peaceful...
...In the land where only money counts, all other values will be trivial...
...On the way back to Washington on westbound Route 50, that daytime moon was exactly in front of me...
...Everyone knows he did it...
...When I was a child, I could just roll out of my back door and into a huge park to play...
...The Alaska Air flight back was fine...
...There are trees in Washington...
...No, what...
...Tuesday I 'm back in L.A., at a studio called Screen Music...
...I drove around the split levels and the colonials and the ranchers, and then I thought—hmmm...
...You have to be eternally vigilant...
...How long can this go on...
...Morris, Illinois 61054 (Please attach address label here...
...She wanted some cranberry juice...
...Yes, in Hollywood...
...Dave was very interested in how many commercials I did per year...
...Money," I said...
...If I could be a regular on a cartoon, I would be a happy guy...
...That one," the woman said...
...Michaels and down a long country road to the landing for the Bellevue-Oxford ferry...
...I'm falling down because I am going down a trail and I am gliding along...
...Tommy has gone off with a friend to ski Musical Chairs and the Quad, beginning and intermediate runs...
...Item: I hired a man to come to oil my furnace and replace the filters...
...By late in the evening, she called out to us...
...This is very fun work...
...As each gust of wind strikes my mother, she recites a new poem from her youth...
...You never know if the guys you place the money with are going to use it for you or for them: or whether they'll use it wisely...
...This towering figure is now just another patient in a vast hospital filled with older patients...
...There were a few sailboats tied up, with some pieces of rope with metal attached (halyards, I think, not lanyards) clinking against their masts...
...Then Tommy and I went to dinner at Connie's, a local spot...
...I just can't even think about it...
...The wind is sweeping along Virginia Avenue...
...I just have no discipline when it comes to food...
...Saturday T ommy and I are up in Idaho...
...Just be sure to allow six weeks for your change to take effect...
...Every single time I have ever had furnace work done, I have been warned that I would surely be asphyxiated if I didn't cough up a few thousand for a new furnace...
...I played a psychiatrist in the movie, and now I'm playing the selfsame character in the cartoon...
...Even so," she said...
...Surely not...
...As the snowboarders say, "It's puking...
...John F. Kennedy was president then...
...she asked cheerily...
...1 56 The American Spectator May 1995...
...I'm sure of it...
...She declaimed, "Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare my country's flag, she said . . ." "That's your favorite poem, Mom," I said...
...My mother and father are holding each other's hands and peering forward as if they were looking at Mount Everest instead of Rock Creek Parkway...
...Nahh, let's do one about what racist pigs we all are instead...
...Well," she said, "in that case, do you know that woman with the big nose who has such a great voice...
...There were terrible lines at the bridge for many years so they built a second span...
...I think it's from Shakespeare, but it could be Maya Angelou...
...Snow was falling in a mad rush outside...
...That's beautiful...
...Senator Jesse Helms $5.95 plus $1.50 post./hand...
...What a country this would be if everyone harmed his neighbor as little as my parents do...
...I wondered where his house was . . . and then, wham...
...He had been threatening to kill her and beating her up for years...
...This is a sweet, little woman with a smile that aims to please...
...She was effusively friendly and invited me in to see Dave...
...The moon was out in the afternoon sky...
...We never learn why the bad guy, Charles Van Doren, was bad, or whether we're supposed to hate him or love him...
...I was grateful...
...You can walk down a street and find shade under a tree...
Vol. 28 • May 1995 • No. 5
