Ben Stein's Diary: it's Only my Money
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN'S DIARY by Benjamin J. Stein It's Only My Money Sunday T o begin late at night, it's been an incredible struggle making our 9year-old son and his visiting iz-yearold best pal from...
...Usually, I bow to them, ask them where they are from—Germany, Sweden, Monrovia, Anaheim, New Jersey—and then I walk onto the set and look at the contestants...
...Then I talk with them about rock music, and then I get myself next door...
...Then I brush my teeth a few times and then I pray a lot, and head down the hall with Yaniv and Susie and Jody and Bones, the stage manager, and Jackie, the sound woman...
...I wonder where she is...
...They were the same as every other young striver's car at the Palm or Morton's...
...How can it be that Tommy is already at sleepaway camp, and I can recall carrying him home from Kansas City in a blanket as if it were yesterday...
...There is an ad for a disc by Timi Yuro— "What's The Matter, Baby, Is It Hurting You...
...Then after about two days I got over it and truly loved camp...
...BEN STEIN'S DIARY by Benjamin J. Stein It's Only My Money Sunday T o begin late at night, it's been an incredible struggle making our 9year-old son and his visiting iz-yearold best pal from Idaho go to sleep...
...He brings in Terry, a quiz show veteran who helps make up the questions, and Alex (not my wife) who isfrom Standards & Practices, and they go over the questions that I will ask the three contestants in round one...
...I have 300 horses in the same kind of car that Elvis had, and yes, I do own the whole damned road...
...He was even a bit glum...
...Or close to that...
...Alex, my wife, and I stared at them for a long time and then we headed back in our mighty cars, without our boy...
...Who would I call every day, twenty times a day, and tell about acting parts not gotten, shows of "Win Ben Stein's Money" lost, stinging comments from agents, unexpected gifts from the residuals department of SAG, incredibly funny comments our son makes about sugary cereals...
...We used to listen especially to "Life in The Fast Lane," the life we thought was ours, the life of living fast, dying young, and leaving a good looking corpse, all foreclosed options for me at this point...
...It's like opening a sheaf of the cerebrum that contains hidden memories...
...1 etly...
...They mostly look middle aged, cagey, experienced, and waiting to take my money...
...Uncle Dave's Fleetwood glided along the highways and along Central Parkway silently, powerfully, gleaming black with its 50 September 1997 The American Spectator power windows and its "search" feature on the radio...
...Plus, in their penny-pinching wisdom, the powers that be at44 Susie makes me up extremely thoroughly so that I will not look as old and beaten down as I am...
...One hot dog stand for about two miles of terminal...
...Too much time passing...
...One day, the folks at the Avis rental counter at the nearest airport, Spokane International, told me that they had a great Cadillac I should try...
...It's in 52 September r997 • The American Spectator the same league with Continental, the previous all-time low, and much below Alaska, which has great attendants and clerks in Spokane but bad everything else...
...Speaking in deep Elvis-like tones about a life where magic happened...
...And Mommy, too...
...I want to go to camp...
...It is an astounding thing...
...Then the show is over...
...Plus, there was hardly any provision for food...
...Potential IRS agents...
...Every trip out of the driveway is a new adventure, not a boring chore...
...Probably Gay still would not go out with me, but I have a show...
...If I have lost, I am hysterical, angry, moody, and my entourage of Susie, Jody, Yaniv, and Al run and hide...
...But it's all right because it has a super comfy, very firm bed...
...In fact, I own all of Hollywood...
...We did the commercial in no time at all...
...After all, it's my show...
...Suddenly I was back in my Aunt Pearl's Caddy convertible in 1955...
...What if some other man stole my wife away and there were no one to help me manage Tommy and love him and no one to plan to grow old with...
...So, chalk one up for welfare reform...
...The perfect mid-twentieth century measure of success...
...77 cars...
...The American Spectator • September 1997 55...
...Luckily, the other guy or gal also often gets flustered...
...But I had not grown up fantasizing about owning a BMW...
...How will I ever live without my family on the set...
...Saturday F or the past four weeks, I have been living the life of a TV star...
...by the time I put away all of their toys and wash their dishes, and my wife, who has dragged them shopping earlier in the day, is lying in bed reading a mystery...
...I have my Cadillac and I love it...
...Anyway, today I am up against my usual run of contestants: beefy men who have been on "Jeopardy," loners usually, people who keep an almanac next to the toilet, people who play tournament chess, people whose lives are knowing facts and hitting the buzzer fast...
...I plan to send replies to every single one, although it will take a while...
...I arrived yesterday via North-worst Airlines, a new low in travel...
...We circled the songs we wanted to order and then my wife fell asleep while I listened to the Who, as in "Who's Next...
...To have a car like that with its rolled and pleated leather seats would surely be about as close as we on earth came to satori, perfect serenity...
...I learned this because I had to," she said...
...I tell you, I am addicted to that boy...
...I only regret that I waited so long...
...After I have passed a few feet from my door, I feel as if I am in a fog bank that leads into a dream world...
...I also thought, as I rocketed along in my Caddy, of my parents leaving me off at Camp Log'n'Twig "in the heart of the Poconos," lo these forty-one years ago...
...There are pitches for the greatest hits by Ian and Sylvia, who were sort of popular when we were in high school...
...In fact, as of today, we have done sixty-one of our shows, usually at the rate of four per day, and today is our last day...
...One of the thoughts racing through my head today is how kind people on shows are...
...Spectacular lightning and thunderstorms...
...Alex sat silently in the back seat...
...There is a disc of Ral Donner, who in the 1950's sounded just like Elvis...
...Really scary stuff...
...Because here I am in Detroit, Michigan, my father's childhood home...
...But there in the dark, with the dogs breathing sonorously, I kept thinking that the songs we are going to order are not really the music...
...11 Northworst had failed to provide more than a few chairs in the terminal...
...This is going to be hard...
...Blacks and whites, Hispanics, Asians, we all work together seamlessly...
...7 hide...
...He's been assigned to make sure that no one comes near me to give me the answers or the questions on the show, "Win Ben Stein's Money...
...I am not nervous," he shouted at me...
...Many days I have wanted to run and44 Jimmy Kimmel, my cohost, has a career in front of him that will make Jay Leno scared when he finds out...
...There is a disc of great Joan Baez songs from Broadway composers, including the one Alex used to listen to and think of me, far away in California, "Diamonds and Rust...
...In my Cadillac...
...In about thirty seconds I was both sobbing and having a wildly upset stomach, with powerful gusts of nausea...
...Losing is a lot worse than winning...
...Sunday T oday is Mr...
...We think we have a hit...
...There's too much saying goodbye, too many people going away," my mother used to say...
...Who would I tell about the nuts who infest my life...
...What if my wife were not there...
...No, you pulled up in a car that said the possibilities of life were endless—the Cadillac, oozing power, money, and joy...
...I can still recall the lichen-covered rocks dividing up ancient claims to property...
...I rented a Seville STS and off I went...
...I would love to see a psychometric workup on the people who work at the IRS...
...I got a Mercedes, and then another, and two Porsches, and a BMW, and they were all fine There's an ad for 'What's the Matter Baby, Is It Hurting You?' Most Americans wouldn't remember it, but we do...
...I usually whisper to my co-host, the funniest man on earth, Jimmy Kimmel, who at 29 has a career ahead that will make Jay Leno scared when he finds out about it...
...I defy you to find a photo of Elvis Presley in a pink Rambler or even a pink Lincoln...
...What if I awakened and my wife were not there...
...As we were doing our spots, there were huge booms and groans outside the sound stage...
...one of them wants to be a singer, another wants to be a dancer, several want to be actors, and one even wants to be a lawyer, poor thing...
...I like it when they look really young, stupid, and disoriented...
...But when I got to the place in my life where I could afford almost any kind of car, it turned out I'd been brainwashed by idle talk of foreign makes...
...I am here to do a commercial for OfficeMax...
...The counselors all recognized me and pleaded with me to say things from Ferris Bueller...
...When they broke, it took all of the heart out of me to plead with the mechanic to condescend to fix them, but they were fine cars...
...On the ride down Pacific Coast Highway, Tommy looked straight ahead...
...It's a rich Pearlescent white and its grille work looks as if it's glowing...
...That'll be his camp name...
...It was at Log'n'Twig that the very first girl who ever liked me kissed me...
...It's always freezing cold in there, and the audience is restless...
...It was a hot, sticky, smelly mess...
...They had a solid, sturdy machine-tool quality about them, as if I were driving a well-sculpted drill press...
...It's got my name in it...
...Perfect's first day at camp...
...I will not get homesick," he said, but he said it in a low, mumbly voice indeed...
...What if my wife were taken away by aliens and there were no one to call each afternoon to tell her I was about to take a nap...
...You might have noticed that Bruce Springsteen did not write any songs about "Pink Saabs...
...I told them that I would read them the whole speech if they took care of my boy, and they promised they would...
...Tommy looked almost pleased...
...That's how it seemed then and, frankly, I am not sure I was mistaken...
...This morning, as I tried to squeeze in a bit of rest before my commercial, I observed how tiny my room was...
...This is the big one, sleep-away camp...
...Who would know me and know the music in me...
...It took me far too long to make good on my wish to have a Cadillac...
...No fuss, no muss, and off I went in my Caddy...
...If you're nervous, you can always change your mind," I said...
...Imagine that I was in that isolation booth sixty-five times in only about sixteen days...
...Of course, the windows did not open...
...Last summer my son and I spent most of July and August in North Idaho...
...When we rode our bikes on the path in Santa Monica though, I noticed that he was distinctly less perky than usual...
...The Hollywood that actually works in shirtsleeves is as kind and nice as any people on earth...
...It's not down the hall...
...Jimmy introduces me...
...I didn't want to starve if I lost my welfare...
...I soon became distracted, though, and only resumed my urgent task after reading that Cadillac had something called an OnStar system that would call for help if I broke down anywhere in North America and would tell me the weather forecast and order flowers for my wife...
...The woman had only recently become a driver, but she did a good job...
...Then there's "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor, a good song for BENJAMIN J. STEIN is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Hollywood and Malibu...
...Monday I am hurtling along the Kanan-Dume detour high in the mountains above Zuma Beach, heading vaguely towards the studio where we're making my show...
...It might be the smallest hotel room I have had in ten years...
...But finally, after a dozen cookies, a horror film about a wicked leprechaun, and threats to lock them in a cell, they have fallen asleep or else they're whispering so quietly I can't hear them...
...Yeah," Alex said...
...Susie, the beautiful make-up woman with the light blue eyes, makes me up extremely thoroughly so I will not look as old and beaten down as I am...
...I could get OnStar free if I bought by June 1. So Tommy and I went to a Cadillac dealer...
...Then I learn if I have won or tied or lost, come out of my booth, congratulate my opponent, hand him play money, and say some witty thing...
...In the car, I pleaded with Tommy not to go to camp...
...How will I live without Yaniv and Susie and Jody and Bones and Andrew and Ann and Jackie...
...This show has been the most intense work experience of my life by far...
...But the best thing is that it's the car that my American Dreams are made of...
...I see how many of ten questions he's gotten right in sixty seconds and I have to tie or beat it...
...The sky is blue, the ocean is making huge white surf on the sand far below, and I am thinking about my car: In particular, I am considering the truth that Cadillacs are the stuff dreams are made of...
...Her mother used to say it to her...
...Because of summer travel and the backups, the terminal was mobbed, jammed beyond imagining...
...Plus, it's totally quiet, and I like that...
...When I had to sell it because I was moving across the country, my girlfriend—voted the most beautiful girl at American University — actually cried...
...The car had power, amazing handling, and comfort...
...After the show we had a small wrap party at a small restaurant...
...The next one is going to come a lot faster...
...The dream of the hillbilly cat was to have Colonel Tom Parker come along with his cee-gar and offer the singer a Cadillac, not a Lexus...
...They didn't say a word...
...It would be good if time went not only straight ahead but also back and forth...
...I did have one other dream GM car, a 1962 Corvette (and I certainly love Oldsmobiles), and it far surpassed all of my fantasy expectations for the main reason any man has a car—its effect on women...
...I will be at home with Ginger, Susie-Moo, and Peabo...
...Even if they win, it's still my show...
...Then there was Elvis with his collection...
...I have not seen her for at least forty years...
...They bring me tea, laugh at my jokes, cheer me up when I am low...
...My rich relatives in Schenectady had them when I was a boy and they seemed like the heaven-sent certification of happiness and security and success...
...There are about 15o people, many of them regulars now, and they cheer as if I were someone really important when I appear on the set...
...What if there were no one else to laugh with about food faddists and fans of Deepak Chopra...
...There are discs of "Rock Relix" from when my wife and I were student radicals at Yale —"Lay Down Your Candles in the Rain" by Melanie, one of my all-time faves, although I can listen to any one of about 200 songs 200 times in a row...
...I recall I made constant trips to the infirmary just to have some woman take care of me...
...Most Americans wouldn't remember it, but we do...
...But I kept on, largely because Andrew and Al cheered me up...
...My wife and I talk about the cute things Tommy and his pal did during the day...
...The CD player is better than any stereo I have at home...
...Oooh, scary...
...It was like being a wild, loose guy for two rounds, and then being squashed up to maximum competitiveness and then stretched out, then squished again, over and over again...
...I'll make sure you go to Magic Mountain every day," I said...
...Can you believe that LP came out in 1971...
...Maybe he still does...
...It has a voice activated phone...
...There we were, tired, hot, impatient, and they took evident pride in gossiping between themselves and taking as long as possible to get us situated...
...When I am on the road, I feel about the car as I feel when I am with my son around other boys: no one else has anything better...
...The scheme of the show is that if any contestant besides me wins, he or she gets $5,000 that would otherwise go to me from Disney...
...Very poor food, but happy people...
...We're all motivated by the best of motivations—money and steady work and helping out our buddies...
...I can barely remember when I did not want a Cadillac...
...The camp is in Malibu Canyon, only about a half hour from our Malibu pad, and it's run by Pepperdine, but still...
...Alex Feierabend rode even more qui44 was so homesick at camp, I made constant trips to the infirmary just to have some woman take care of me...
...I do not want this to be over...
...That night I determined to get me one...
...I was so homesick I could barely stand it...
...And I am going to miss that air-conditioned freezing stage one, that home which became for me the warm center of the universe for four amazing weeks when I was a star among stars...
...But in the morning my wife was there, snoring away with two big dogs, also snoring, draped over her, and there's the music of another day starting all over again...
...A few days later I came back and signed the lease...
...How can it be that my Mommy, who sent me letters every day at Log'n'Twig, is no more...
...Monday Well, not quite totally alone...
...Usually the outsider goes first...
...I left in a tiny car for the airport well after the storms had passed...
...Well, I'll be damned, here comes your ghost again...
...I am praying that Mary Muff does not appear on her broom...
...I get off the elevator, and a phalanx of guards sticks out their hands to greet me and wish me luck...
...I tried to talk to them about how they could stay at camp a week or two weeks or three weeks or if they were unhappy they could come home at any time...
...Then we turned into the camp driveway off Malibu Canyon Road and they could see a swarm of young people, counselors, a swimming pool, and a sort of tan young nimbus rising from the parking lot...
...He's not only going to sleepaway camp, but it's fifteen hundred miles from his home...
...I still find it amazing that this is happening...
...On the set people are hustling and bustling...
...We learned to swim and to boat and had great hikes through the magnificent mountains...
...Then we read a mail order music catalog, one of the dozen we get every week...
...Guess what...
...I just want you to know that...
...When I arrived at Detroit airport yesterday, I was met by an immense woman in a huge Cadillac...
...That part was not at all surprising and even reasonable...
...All right, but if you go to camp, I'm going to come there tonight and carry you away...
...We were shown the car by a big man who was Jackie Robinson's nephew...
...No...
...An American dream...
...How many of you remember "Four Strong Winds...
...Tommy still looked apprehensive...
...It's called the Bette Davis Suite, even though it's only one small, very dark room without windows...
...The Mercedes is a fine machine, but it is not about the imaginings of the endless American landscape of possibility the way a native-born N Caddy is...
...If you get homesick at camp, I'll send Susie and Peabo to keep you company...
...No," he said...
...on my Discman...
...Tommy," I said to him as he awakened this morning, "how about not going to camp and staying with Daddy instead...
...The questions in round one are usually not that hard...
...The director was hilarious and extremely efficient...
...Who would always tell me it was all right even in the bad days when we lost stunning sums day by day in the market, and who would bother to applaud like she applauded when it was going up...
...Ha-ha...
...Then, as if in a rush, I am in the isolation booth for round four, and I know the name of Alexander the Great's horse (Bucephalus) and I win...
...Not theirs...
...They all have amazingly sweet looks on their faces...
...It's about one a.m...
...Maybe we do and maybe we don't...
...So today I mostly feel sad...
...We called all the counselors "Uncle" this or that...
...Alex and I had a lavish dinner it the dining room of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and then we went to bed early...
...There's no people like show people...
...Alex's sister has come to town and the two of them are off to Hawaii tomorrow for ten days...
...But, surprise, surprise, because of the storms, traffic at the Detroit airport was backed up...
...I am going to be all alone for ten days...
...We are each in tiny little isolation booths and it's really claustrophobic and scary...
...We handicap who the likely winner will be—the one who gets to play against me in the final round—and then I pray some more, eat some potato chips, drink some soda, take more paregoric, pray more, and begin the show...
...His pal Alex from Idaho, son of the late Peter Feierabend, is here, and through the Ben and Alex Stein Foundation, is going to camp with Tommy...
...But today I did not feel as scared as usual of them...
...I can rock out at sixty and feel as though I'm flying on a cloud of music and power...
...My wife, and our shared life together—the way we know all of our experiences, all of our defeats, all of our little triumphs, the struggles to get our son, the fact that are soul mates in an often soulless world — that's the music that makes sleep possible...
...I get into my bed, put on my headphones— Denon 950's, which I really like a lot—listen to Beethoven or Mozart or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young or "Hair," and fall asleep...
...Then I walk onto the stage...
...But I have only lost about a quarter of the time, and I know I am way ahead...
...There are rarely any questions about the questions except matters of pronunciation...
...I get dressed, feeling my stomach chum, and take some paregoric...
...How without Michael Davies cheering me up...
...When we got to our rented house on Lake Pend'Oreille, I had thoughts of sleeping in the garage in my car...
...Her name was Sue Ellen and she was adorable...
...But the best part was the totally negative attitude of the people checking us in...
...I am met at the gate by my Israeli bodyguard, Yaniv...
...What was not at all reasonable was that the air conditioning was not working at the airport...
...Begun with the most casual of conversations with the show's inventor, my pal Al Burton, who thought it up, stirred in the laboratory by Michael Davies, high honcho of Disney, and Andrew Golder, high prince of daytime creativity, worked on for a year now, almost dead many times from contractual struggles, my own TV show is alive and kicking...
...I keep thinking that I, little me, whom Gay Patlen would not love in high school, would not even go out with, has this show...
...In due course Yaniv wakes me up by turning on the lights...
...Sometimes Ann Miller, the producer, also cheered me on...
...I was driving a machine that did own the whole damned road, thank you...
...Absolutely not...
...I have been dreading this for months now...
...At every break he told me horror stories about his parents' estate...
...After a long wait, we registered him with the counselors, whose names were something like "Tick" and "Lurch" and "Swamp Guinea...
...He helps take my huge bag of books out of the car, and then we go up one flight of steps to my dressing room...
...There is basically no friction at all on the set...
...Then I play in round three against the winner of round two...
...I love it when he says that, that "absolutely not" because that's one of my favorite phrases, too...
...Alas, they almost never do...
...He was audited by the IRS over truly tiny details and they made his life hell for years after his mother died, and then they did it after his father died...
...The dogs jump up on the bed, pant for a while, and then fall asleep...
...I come out, bow to my competitors, bow to Jimmy, and the crowd goes wild...
...If I have won, I feel great...
...As for me, it's been beyond what I could ever have hoped for...
...I maneuver my confident way into the studio lot where we're making my show, and I own the stuThe American Spectator September 1997 5 I dio...
...It was about picking up beautiful women and carrying them off to Graceland to have them marvel at the chance to be near The King...
...Every morning, I getup, get dressed, eat my usual breakfast of Thomas's English Muffins and orange juice, and then head out to the lot at KTLA, Sunset and Bronson, where they filmed The Jazz Singer...
...I motor along the canyon roads overlooking the ocean near my house in Malibu and I own the ocean...
...She worked like a madman to keep costs down, and if she hadn't I guess we could not have done the show...
...I get very nervous and sometimes get so tired and flustered that I miss very obvious ones like who was the narrator of The Great Gatsby, one of my favorite books...
...At every show the staff winks at me, the staff smiles at me, they tell me I can beat the contestant, wish me luck, say prayers forme...
...We're going to call Tommy Bueller,"' Tick said...
...I hate it when I lose, partly because of the 54 September 1997 • The American Spectator money, partly because I just plain hate to lose...
...is how it starts...
...Then Jody, the costumer, lays out some outfit that almost always is a gray suit and a blue or yellow shirt and tie...
...The real America, without any government compulsion, really working...
...Perfect away from Daddy...
...Aunt Pearl's white Caddy convertible (I think it was '55, the choicest of years for GM cars), reeked of luxury, self- confidence, speed, and assurance...
...I go into ecstasy when he uses phrases he obviously learned from moi...
...Then there are Eagles songs from when we got together in Los Angeles to live our lives as a husband and wife again, after a five-year separation...
...No," said Tommy, his face in a little scowl...
...A good bed makes all of the difference...
...when you think you might be committed to a mental hospital...
...The OnStar can keep me company anywhere I am...
...We talk about whether our son will ever get into junior high school...
...For those of us in the know in the days of "Blue Suede Shoes," it was clear that a Caddy was a coolness machine...
...My driver rushed me like a banshee, and I got there in plenty of time for my return flight...
...Hmmm...
...When you wanted to impress a beautiful all-American girl, you didn't pull up next to her house in a sensible car such as a Chevy Bel-Air or a Mercury Montclair...
...I feel it tonight...
...The premium is on ringing the buzzer first...
...When we finished a quiet, glum bike ride, Tommy and Alex and I had McDonald's food, and then went to my house to get my mail, a veritable mountain of condolences...
...There are student extras...
...I must have been crazy...
...It has a bed that I insisted upon, a couch, and a large bathroom...
...Then Tommy and his counselor and Alex and his counselor hefted their packs and went up a hill to the bunk, and Tommy did not even look back...
...Those questions can be really hard, like names of obscure authors...
...Once you get down in the production arena, working day by day with guards, cameramen, gaffers, sound people, editors, lighting people, electricians—they are really, really friendly, kind and supportive...
...Alex and I packed his and his pal's gear into the trunks of our super mupster cars, the mighty Beemer and the Caddy dream car, and off we went, first for bike riding in Santa Monica, then to my house in Malibu, and then to camp...
...Then I bid adieu to the low scorer, and in round two (after more potato chip eating, praying, and drinking water) I play against the two survivors...
...Then I say a few trivialities, Jimmy introduces the contestants, and the show begins...
...She was from Allentown, as I recall, and her Dad owned a big swimwear company, Sea Nymph...
...The model I have is the best you can have —son or car...
Vol. 30 • September 1997 • No. 9
