Ben Stein's Diary: Standing Up and Letting Go
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN'S DIARY by Benjamin J. Stein Standing Up and Letting Go Saturday Yeah. An Italian wedding. Theme from The Godfather. The tarantella. All that stuff. But wait. This isn't in...
...asked my little angel...
...You write and sell books," she said...
...And so Vibiana wanted to divorce him, but now she doesn't want to get divorced...
...Monday Here I am in New York...
...Two, forget the good lawyer because you can't afford him...
...What else...
...I can't get arrested...
...I need to hire an ex-D.I...
...I shall always keep it...
...How come you look so much younger than he does...
...What ever happened to beautiful images of brides in white...
...You know that guy who was arrested a couple of months ago because he had pretended he was a doctor and had been the examining staff doctor for the FBI and the CIA and the California Highway patrol and the LAPD, and he had mistreated some poor man with a four-yearold daughter, and the guy died from his malpractice...
...Now Staci is married and a producer in Hollywood...
...I am here to attend the 75th Anniversary Gala for Barron's, a magazine of finance that I often write for...
...On my way out, I thought about why Tommy grabbed onto me so hard...
...Beautiful creatures...
...everyone else is a psycho maniac...
...If I didn't lift weights, I would not be able to do it at all...
...Plus, I feel sad about the passage of time...
...1. Please write your new address in the space provided...
...TAS Address Changes Made Easy...
...But I know you're acting...
...Money may answer all needs, but when you lose it, it makes you crazy...
...I want to change the demographics of the magazine," he told me...
...So, off I go on my lonely way...
...Renew my subscription for one year (twelve issues-$35) • Payment enclosed • Bill me later • At various times TAS rents its subscriber list to other organizations...
...The club has long trails and pathways...
...A very expensive bottle of champagne...
...It should not surprise me...
...From now on, I just go where you go...
...Because I said so...
...I dropped her off and strolled back along Central Park South to my dingy hotel...
...It means, among other things, paying attention to what I've told you about how the world works...
...Bob is the editor of the Wall Street Journal, and I am happy to see him again...
...AmeaicaoSpe6tor Subscriber Service P.O...
...That's IC, By a Herculean exertion, I got him off my leg and put him back on his bed...
...You have to...
...They whinny at me in their stalls as I pass by...
...He did buy a red Range Rover three weeks ago...
...I want to get an apartment in mid Malibu," he said...
...She has led a full life, and has known some of the major players in Hollywood...
...This is my first trip here in more than a year...
...To "make it up to me," the general partner sent me a bottle of champagne...
...What shall I do...
...I'll see them every day...
...In case you're wondering, we didn't buy that house we were all going to live in together...
...Back from her honeymoon in Greece...
...Still, this is a fairly conservative wedding...
...Forty-eight," said my wife...
...I want it to be people under thirty-four...
...A Saturn System to play video games," he said with a big smile...
...At staggering expense, she arranged to have at least fifty white doves released into the air just as she was saying her vows...
...How horrible," I said...
...Why...
...Box 655, Mt...
...Only a few, like you, are at all interesting...
...He's a young, hip guy from New York...
...Daddy," he said, "what did you bring me...
...I'm attaching myself to you and that's that...
...After lunch I rushed off to my meeting with the editor...
...The amount I am not getting is enough to buy a nice house in Sandpoint...
...What am I doing here...
...Also on the way out were two other folks from our table, a large, tall woman named Vibiana and her husband, a German fellow with a monocle...
...The "offer" is for no money down and a pittance if the movie is made...
...He denies everything...
...They go to school...
...I think it was invented by the Department of Defense a long time ago...
...Nothing really bad except the rock band playing while we were eating...
...You can't...
...School...
...Then she hit another speed-dial, and another woman's voice came on the answering machine...
...Not surprisingly, he fell right asleep, under the covers, curled up like Garfield the Cat...
...We walked for a while and then I thought, "Physician, heal thyself...
...Torture...
...And last week he was gone, and she went out and got drunk and then came home and was looking for a CD behind the stereo and she saw a cell phone getting charged up...
...You can't make a living in Brazil," the driver was saying...
...How can you be so spoiled as to just destroy property that doesn't belong to you...
...It is unbearably hot...
...She talked to me about how hard it was to sell books nowadays and how difficult the publishers are...
...I think I have a book," she said...
...What a hilarious sight...
...Why have loud music while eating...
...We had some questions about whether the house was waterproof, and a few questions as well about whether my wife wanted to stay at work, and if not, why we would want a house near her work but otherwise not very convenient...
...She told me that an editor wanted to talk to me about a book about Tommy and me...
...For Stalin...
...What on earth was I doing here...
...The main thing I have learned is that I should never have come here...
...One afternoon she did her various shopping and banking and copying chores for me and then came back, sat in a chair in my office, and watched me type...
...They're nothing compared with the women in Rio...
...They'll stay with their mother...
...On the warm green canvas, I think I am falling asleep...
...It was hard work...
...Daniella is a big cheese in the record business...
...You know that guy...
...For years afterward, when my wife would go away for Christmas and I would stay at home taking care of the four dogs, Staci and her sister Daniella would come over to make sure I was not totally alone on Christmas...
...Staci kept looking at me without saying a word...
...No," he said, "in L.A...
...Her rap is always that her hubby gives the most thorough physical in L.A...
...We barely speak," he said...
...They think they're so great...
...But I don't want to...
...That's a con job...
...Monday A rrrghh...
...On a night like tonight, I believe it...
...Then, off to a meeting with my agent, L., in her Dickensian office...
...Either that, or he really just does not want to go to school...
...Just be sure to allow six weeks for your change to take effect...
...I don't want it to be people your age...
...I might let you take acting lessons, but you still have to go to school...
...In the land of completely self-obsessed men and women who do not recognize any law except their own wishes, love is experienced as pain...
...It all reminded me of a wedding about nine years ago where one of the major party girls of all time, the essence of the Valley Girl/party girl mentality, got married to a man much older than she was...
...New York without the people would be great...
...Makes me happy to live most of the year in the west...
...And then older people like you can pattern yourselves after that age group...
...I was glad to get back out onto the blistering sidewalk, go back to my hotel, and get ready to leave...
...But what will you do...
...I don't have anything else for you to do today...
...As I sat there on the grass, I saw the swankeeper of the Bel-Air Hotel feeding the swans...
...In Malibu, of all places in the world...
...Wahhhh...
...But people my age have no respect at all for today's 34-year-olds...
...Men I know with modest talents make millions at TV and screenwriting...
...I was early so I went into a bookshop/cafe for some tea...
...And Rule Number Three is, if you see a car with a big bash in it, probably the people driving it aren't very good drivers or they wouldn't have that dent in the first place, so stay away...
...What about your wife...
...I'll sit with you until you fall asleep," I said, "but you cannot leave and you have to go to school...
...I think he really can't stand not being with me every second-unless he has one of his pals to play with...
...And Rule Number Two is that grown men with baseball hats and earrings and goatees are really, really stupid...
...No people, trees, tall buildings...
...Now, she is a changed, cynical woman...
...Hey," she said to my wife...
...I think it's because basically I can't imagine that anyone would want to talk to me...
...I introduced her...
...Sleek, athletic, graceful...
...What do they have that's better than watching your daughter jump her horse...
...It is a rare owner who looks anywhere near as good as his dogand this is definitely true of yours truly...
...He shrugged and smiled at me...
...The women in Rio don't wear tops...
...That's like trying to get rich buying lottery tickets," I have often told him...
...You think you're going to find love in L.A...
...I have obviously missed out on this Hollywood bigmoney-making gig...
...Now she is getting married to a nice man who owns a chain of bicycle shops...
...They were gliding, asleep, in the pond...
...I can make him sit in his room, but then I miss him too much...
...In the midst of the city, at ground zero of the world epicenter of greed and aggression, there is a tiny little pond with swans...
...As he shook his head pityingly at me, I saw Staci coming up towards me...
...You see these women here in New York...
...That was after he showed us his bed and breakfast, Ashby, a manor built in 1663, restored and furnished to make it the most beautiful house I have ever seen...
...I am still gasping at the vistas, perfect lighting, green lawn, blue pool, quiet hospitality of the place...
...Naturally, I didn't remember him, even though he remembered me...
...He went broke in the crash in Arizona a number of years ago...
...Three, have your investments widely diversified...
...We ate yucky pasta, then danced, and then went back to Wendy's apartment...
...She had never even known it existed, so she took it and hit the first speed-dial, and a woman's voice came on an answering machine...
...Daddy," he said, "I don't want to go to school tomorrow...
...Everything...
...The very first week I was here, twenty years ago, I went to see the taping of a show I was asked to consult about...
...I can't sleep until he has really aggravated me by leaving his clothes where he was standing when he took them off, spilling his soda on my legal papers, opening food and leaving it all over the house, and generally torturing me with his incredible laziness...
...My friend Jane once said to me, "This, right now, is heaven...
...That will be our age...
...When I got home, Tommy was rarin' to go...
...He gave a long speech that was supposed to be funny and wasn't...
...You have to go to school...
...They were let out to cruise a tiny pond just as the bride and groom exchanged rings...
...54 August r996 • The American Spectator Saturday 0 ff to the Malibu Riding and Ten nis Club for a walk...
...44 'You see these women here in New York?' he asked...
...The younger one of the two looked at my wife and asked her how old she was...
...I thought it was a woman tapping along to her Walkman, but it was rain and thunder, so I forgave her...
...I've noticed this is also true about dogs...
...She wants me to know that one of the millions of companies I pitched a story line to (an updated, woman's version of The Count o f Monte Cristo) is about to make me an offer for the "property...
...Monday Here Tommy and I are at Snug Harbor Farm, a beautiful house in Talbot County...
...He's married?' the woman on the other end of the phone screams...
...I often have to remind myself of a key Malibu Serenity Saying, in fact, two of them: 1. God did not go away on vacation and leave me in charge...
...The government changes its attitude about everything every few years and takes away whatever we've managed to save...
...But I get to hear a funny speech by my hero, Joe Queenan, and another funny one by a superhero, Alan Abelson, and I also get to sit with my pal Jim Meagher, and his wife, and my mentor and pal Bob Bartley and his wife...
...I think I am falling behind the curve here, control-wise...
...I think by now, after a year of this, they recognize me...
...I know I am in a dream...
...Right," I agreed...
...Morris, IL 61054-8084 1-800-524-3469 ATTACH ADDRESS LABEL HERE IMPORTANT: Allow six weeks for address change...
...In 198o Staci did something that endeared her to me forever...
...I am napping on a chaise out by the dock, trying to figure out how much I would have to pay to have this home...
...My wife was out of town and I had been looking forward with dread to a lonely night...
...They began it...
...I am not kidding...
...I'll be all right," I said...
...This isn't in Little Italy or on the shores of Lake Tahoe...
...I usually pat them and talk to them...
...You have to save yourself by driving defensively...
...In front of me Dean Kane, who plays Superman, greeted me cheerfully...
...I can hear Tommy playing by the basketball hoop...
...If you prefer that your name not be rented please check here...
...Right?' 1 often urges me to have her husband be my doctor and give me a physical...
...My cab driver was from Brazil...
...But he does, and he's leaving her because she got on his case...
...I want to fall in love and have a woman fall in love with me...
...B E N S T E I N'S D I A R Y by Benjamin J. Stein Standing Up and Letting Go Saturday Yeah...
...I hate to hit him, and in fact, I am not 44 I told him, 'We all want to be young when young was what it was when we were young.' He shook his head pityingly at me...
...Won't work...
...I asked...
...It means: because you have to go to school, and that's all you need to know...
...He is thin and fit looking, and has not aged a bit...
...Maybe you and your wife can make it work...
...Good place to be asleep...
...And it's true...
...Tommy has gone off to play basketball with the son of the caretaker, a friendly boy named Dustin...
...I am being mistreated here in a big, big way...
...1 thought, facts, and social skills...
...As if a few swans could make up for the slaughterhouse quality of life in L.A...
...Poor me, poor me, pour me a drink...
...We had a great talk and then laughed a lot and then felt sad about a few things...
...Like the dirtbag of the world...
...I flew up from Washington, D.C...
...It's almost dusk, and there is a warm breeze coming off Trappe Creek...
...You thought this whole club belonged to me, including the tennis balls...
...In my lavish suite (that's right, it's a lavish suite in a dingy hotel) I tossed and turned without being able to sleep...
...They run back and forth, snorting and stamping their hooves...
...This was in the days before Tommy...
...My wife had already gone to sleep...
...Quick as a cat, he leaped out of bed and grabbed my right ankle and wrapped himself around it...
...Then Ted Harbert, head of ABC, also greeted me...
...One of the cashiers asked me if she could talk to me...
...The whole plane shook...
...Right...
...Why do I have to go to school...
...I'm worried about you being alone," she said sweetly...
...Instead of us getting the stone fortune (well, by my standards ) that I expected, I am getting about half to a third of that...
...But today he has a new set of problems...
...3. Return this form to us at the address listed below - That's all there is to it...
...I made the thing complete...
...Slam down those vodka and cranberry juices...
...Several women turned their heads away when I smiled at them...
...She is a pleasant, intelligent woman who 44 'Rule Number Two is that grown men with baseball hats and earrings and goatees are really, really stupid...
...Life can be frantic or it can be quiet...
...What about staying with you because I love being with you...
...What about the kids...
...Why...
...In thick German, he told me he had invented the Internet...
...The rest has been headed off at the pass by the general partner of the deal...
...This is a club whose members tend to own elegant horses...
...He ran from the TV to his bed, jumped onto it, and then grabbed my arm...
...Try a new life in a new place where people are better to each other, where life is not so intense...
...It wasn't funny at all...
...What does that mean...
...And, wow, do young Californians drink at weddings...
...Plus, a woman at the wedding just asked me why I look so much older than my wife...
...But this is also true when I compare dogs with their owners, by and large...
...I had to use all my strength to separate him from my ankle, then lift him back onto the bed...
...I missed my boy...
...Who wants that...
...Remember that German guy my friend was married to...
...BENJAMIN J. STEIN is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Hollywood and Malibu...
...The marriage lasted about six months...
...Now ceremonies are about bad breath and b.o...
...Well," I said, "my parents gave me twenty-five dollars for you to buy Garfield books...
...So she calls back the woman and asks her if there's any specific thing the woman can tell to show it's all true...
...It's been twenty years, and I still ask myself the same question...
...It had absolutely nothing to do with my sensibility...
...To my left were two women holding hands, under the table but visible to me...
...My old tuxedo that I bought for my initiation into the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at Columbia in 1963 is now way too old and small...
...That's it...
...Put not your trust in princes, especially princes of industry...
...At night, on a deserted stretch of Central Park South, New York looks pretty damned good...
...And how old are you...
...It wasn't clever at all...
...She is maniacal about not letting me eat what I want to eat...
...But I don't want to...
...2. Attach the mailing label from your most recent issue...
...No," she said, "I'm going to stay here until you make some kind of plans so you won't be all alone...
...He is used to me and feels safe with me...
...With his nuclear powered, aluminum/titanium racket, he was hitting them off the green tennis court, over the green eucalyptus trees, bouncing them on the black Pacific Coast Highway, and then onto the tan beach where they rolled to the lip of the blue-gray sea...
...Sometimes I bring them carrots...
...You gotta know happy and you gotta know glad, 'cause you're gonna know lonely and you're gonna know sad...
...You have to anyway...
...He was down at Rockefeller Center in an office filled with books...
...It had nothing to do with funny...
...You're right," I said...
...That's my husband," she said tonelessly...
...Great guy...
...He said he was interested in my book, and I sure hope so...
...I can take away his toys, but then my wife will give them back...
...As I drove us home, a car with three men wearing little goatees, earrings, and baseball caps, with its left side bashed in, cut us off on the right...
...I thought it belonged to you," he said...
...They were like puppies, and now they're grown up...
...She told me her husband was fishing in Colorado and then sat with us for a time...
...Not unless you are really good for a long time...
...My wifey and my Little Perfect were waiting for me...
...I am always in a sad mood when I leave the Bel-Air, and I was tonight, too...
...Slam down those Absolut martinis...
...It's black tie, and I had to buy a new tuxedo for it...
...Too bad...
...Guarded...
...I had to break off my walk because of some cries of distress from the teaching tennis court...
...What did you have in mind...
...We all want to be young when young was what it was when we were young," I said...
...This is how "love" is here in L.A...
...Then on the third number, she reached some woman, and she asked why the woman's number was on her husband's speed-dial and told her husband's name...
...Fathers and sons is a big topic...
...They are magnificent when they are being turned out in the ring...
...He looked crestfallen...
...Heat with high humidity is cruel and not at all unusual in the east...
...Thursday Dinner at Morton's with the editor of a local magazine...
...Woman book editors can be pretty tough and she was...
...It will not work," I said...
...she asked me...
...What else have I learned...
...I asked...
...I want to be back in Idaho, where people smile at you and say howdy when you walk by...
...I can never forget that...
...Nice try," I said...
...To learn valuable skills, habits of 55 The American Spectator • August r996 MOVING...
...An editor asked me to think about writing a book about what I have learned here in my twenty years - after I suggested it to him, of course...
...With that, I leaned back to turn off the lamp on his dresser...
...I always knew it would happen, and now it has happened...
...I think it's not only that he wants to be out of school...
...she asked...
...I watched it in a horrified trance...
...Of course, I didn't remember his name either...
...Heavy duty fisherman...
...My guest for the party is the beautiful and charming Wendy, an exercise fanatic and dietary maniac who is as lean and thin as a whippet made of steel...
...Well, her husband kept disappearing for days on end...
...This is at the Bel-Air Hotel in BelAir, not far from where Don Simpson recently ended his days filled with fifty different kinds of drugs, sitting on the toilet, reading a book that talked about him as the worst kind of pervert...
...Gosh...
...yesterday in terrible heat...
...No sooner had I put him in the bed than he jumped off and attached himself again...
...Wednesday 0 ff to the bank to make a little deposit...
...Dread washed over me...
...Tommy," I said, "Rule Number One about driving in L.A...
...What is the solution to all of this...
...No, never mind, I should be here, but only part-time, between the Eastern Shore and Idaho...
...everyone wants to be young...
...I left with both Ginger and Susie and headed out to Malibu...
...Tour pal Vibiana...
...It cost me enough to live for a year in comfort...
...he asked...
...I think I've read about him...
...Take your wife and the kids and move away to somewhere that's not so cruel...
...Now he mainly tries to be a successful producer and writer in Hollywood...
...He started to laugh, then launched into his patented crazy laugh that all little boys know...
...He told me he was going to take care of me and my son forever...
...She was so eager, so enthusiastic, so trusting...
...I really felt for him...
...I think you do have a book there...
...I want meat but she will throw a fit if I eat it...
...They're nothing compared to the women in Rio.' / / Tuesday 0 ff to an audition here in New York for a commercial...
...Anyway, what does it say about how to deal with a boy who hits someone else's tennis balls onto the Pacific Coast Highway...
...My plane was delayed for a long time on the runway by a thunderstorm...
...One, have a good lawyer...
...I can recall quite a lot, but I cannot put names to faces...
...2. If I am to make any difference in this world, it will have to start with my actions, not my intentions...
...Plus, when I tell him about the Phoenix missile, that can track and shoot down eight enemy planes at once, I am also putting myself to sleep...
...They think they're so great...
...Tommy," I said, "you are now the proud possessor of a new Saturn System...
...Maybe you could give me some advice about getting it sold...
...going to hit him except for an occasional lackluster spanking...
...Then off to a nearby French restaurant for lunch...
...How can I fall asleep when I haven't held his hand once the whole day...
...He's been practically living with me.' So Vibiana gets really upset, as you might expect, and she steams until her husband gets home from wherever he was, and then when he gets home, she asks him about it...
...Still lovely, but guarded, as all women are today except for my wife...
...You are kidding," I said...
...I want to go out to Malibu with you and stay with you...
...In this country, the government takes a lot, but it also lets you keep a lot and when the government changes, they don't just take away what you worked for...
...For the wedding they hired a stand-up comic/minister...
...my...
...This is glamorous Bel-Air, where rich people live in a kind of splendor that a humble scribe like me cannot imagine...
...from Parris Island to train my son...
...You can go home now...
...I have no idea what kind of horses they are, but they are stunningly beautiful...
...Yuck...
...Then off to see another editor nearby about a how-to book...
...I want to be a success in Hollywood," he said with not much enthusiasm...
...I started to fall asleep and awakened when we got to the airport...
...It's interesting to contrast the people who ride the horses with the horses themselves...
...The bride, Staci, was just a teenager when she first came to work for my wife and me...
...I City: State: Zip: Date of change: 56 August r996 - The American Spectator...
...There is something dark about being in all of that luxury and all of that fraud...
...Name: (Please Print) Address: 1 I I I I I VCAFRM L J 44 Let's just say that horses are far better looking and have a certain natural grace that humans lack...
...It's all right, Staci," I said...
...Tommy had seized a cart filled with bright yellow tennis balls...
...Makes a difference...
...No...
...My wonderful investment in a certain restaurant chain that had done so very well is being sold to a much bigger company...
...I already do that, Daddy," he said...
...and would save my life...
...Right," I said...
...What does that mean...
...When I got off from my very long flight, paradise...
...No further discussion...
...If there are any reading this, please write to me and we'll see what we can work out...
...I want to start my life again...
...Let's just say that the horses are far better looking and have a certain natural grace the humans lack...
...A good editor will do that for you-be one with you in your thoughts about books...
...Because that's what little boys do...
...I can hear a duck calling out...
...It's a glittering party on the rioth floor of the World Trade Center, just reopened after the bombing a few years back...
...Then they look at me, snort more, and paw the ground more...
...Three weeks ago I went with him and he bought a red Range Rover,' the woman said...
...She was a little scary...
...I can feel the sunburn on my face from a boat ride that our realtor, Cliff Meredith, surely the most successful realtor in America this year, took us on down the Miles River...
...Hmmm...
...Expect the other guy to 53 The American Spectator . August 1996 try to kill you and stay out of his way...
...On the way out, I passed the swans...
...In fact, as I 52 August r996 • The American Spectator recall, the heat outside National Airport yesterday was the most searingly painful climatic condition I have ever experienced...
...I swerved just in time to avoid a collision...
...Hmmm...
...Then he started to cry...
...So I'm eating pasta...
...Why...
...swimming, paddling along peacefully...
...I walk along them and pass by the stables...
...On the second round of my walk, I was joined by my young friend, S. He is an athlete and organizer who was a real estate developer...
...I mainly noticed how disappointing the food was...
...Fifty-one," I said...
...What do they have that you really want...
...Right...
...Wednesday A call from my agent...
...I'm not going to school and that's that," he said...
...No," I said...
...I have been through the exact same travail...
...The bride is my old pal and former helpmate, Staci...
...She's a tall, slender, extremely beautiful Italianate woman in her early thirties...
...The only part I recall is that he told the bride and groom that they would "come to know how each other smell at every time of the day...
Vol. 29 • August 1996 • No. 8
