Ben Stein's Diary: Rock 'n' Bowl
Stein, Benjamin J.
STEIN'S DIARY by Benjamin J. Stein Rock 'n' Bowl Wednesday ow, this is bliss. I am down at N the Los Angeles Athletic Club. It's about nine at night, and there is no one else but Tommy and me...
...11 political of jobs...
...FA STEM SEAT 8ELTS This comes at a bad time indeed, when high level corruption hardly seems to be falling...
...But I see it a little differently...
...The court here is shiny and old and perfectly clean...
...Such a move would inevitably lead to the creation of a Palestinian State—perhaps even with Jerusalem as its capital...
...He stands at half court and hurls the basketball toward the basket barely looking in the right direction...
...Well, no problem...
...I bet it...
...It's warm...
...There are over fifteen Palestinian terror organizations that neither Yassir Arafat nor any other Palestinian authority can control...
...therefore, neither the purposes of Israel nor those of the United States are served by Israel's relinquishing control of the 'West Bank...
...In all likelihood, I will never live to spend it...
...It was on a tiny phonograph at the Normandy Drive, Silver Spring home of the twins, Norma and Norman Understein, who were having a twins' birthday party...
...come from those hops...
...generals and admirals...
...The PLO still adheres to its infamous "phased plan...
...And I am certain he didn't remember me...
...To let us voters know that our chief executive is a criminal is worth a ton of time and money...
...Why, as it happened, yes, indeed, and the magical Oz of the airwaves and its wizard were just down Georgia Avenue at a place called WDON...
...I guess I am doing something wrong because I find the ball extremely heavy and uncomfortable and it sort of slips off my fingers as I am delivering it...
...I added it up on my marvelous H-P 12C, one of the great machines of the world, and I felt smug, and turned off the lights...
...He sounded just the way he did in 1_957 when he used to play "Rave On" and "Peggy Sue...
...Friday am having dinner in I D.C...
...Just the sound of his amazingly rich, deep, smooth voice was intoxicating...
...Nothing except to tell him that to a certain generation in Silver Spring about the time that rock music exploded onto the scene he was the fountainhead—and he always will be...
...There are no words to say how rich I felt...
...But that would be useless...
...He had largely turned it over to his baseball-playing, music-loving son, Don, a mere eight years older than I was...
...The Root of the conflict...
...I learned long ago that you do well enough just making the lay-ups fairly consistently and the open shots half the time...
...Tommy will have enough for school, and that's enough...
...Many believe that in this age of missiles, territory is of little importance...
...I suspect we will soon have another GOP president...
...There were many radio stations in D.C...
...Don Dillard was spinning the greatest songs of the era nonstop–allowing for the fact that WDON was a Day Timer, allowed only to broadcast from dawn to dusk...
...Can Israel survive this dismemberment...
...Israel needs this high ground for defense and to be able to peer deeply into enemy territory...
...Maybe he was right...
...But Tommy has a clever little demonic way of bowling...
...After all, geometry is just pencil marks on paper...
...Ken Starr was the best one we ever had, and maybe he shows what's right with the law, not what's wrong...
...Then they apologized again, explained why they were late, and plunged into conversation...
...I sat down in the glorious basement of our house with its yellow tile floor and listened to my few rock music discs over and over again...
...He knows his music and makes a living at it...
...But compared with what I had ten years ago, what I have now certainly seems like a lot...
...That is the professional opinion of over 100 U.S...
...How many people today have even the rudiments of good behavior...
...And finally, there is the matter of terrorism...
...Would the "West Bank" be demilitarized...
...law—the idea that the prosecution of Clinton was a total bust—is completely misunderstood...
...If listeners called in to complain about Don Dillard playing rock music in the morning, Don had a few words for them...
...The money I have is largely meaningless...
...Plus, what a gentleman Drew Carey is...
...This is the most important civilization in the history of the world...
...Like every other investor in the stock market in recent years, I found that I had been getting steadily more affluent, at least in terms of the nominal amounts in my accounts...
...Then, we'll see a great groundswell for a new independent counsel law...
...Turn him off if you like —he'll still be there for the people he cares about and who care about him and his music...
...There is incessant agitation for Israel to turn over most or perhaps even all of Judea/Samaria (the "West Bank") to the PLO...
...Is it in the best interests of the United States...
...Without the "West Bank" Israel would be totally indefensible...
...I think there was also a band called the Crossfires...
...Let me begin at the beginning...
...So were musical movies like The Girl Can't Help It (with poor Jayne Mansfield) and Love Me Tender...
...But when I was alone after a day at school, wondering if I had any future because Jerry Akman got better grades than I did and Bunny Serbin liked Carl Bernstein more than she liked me, it was Don Dillard on the radio who played "Rip It Up...
...That child goes to a pre-school where they have "kindness days" on which they teach kids to be kind to one another and to their teachers and families...
...Alas, I am nowhere near affluent enough to stop working or walk away from [he hard work that is 'Win Ben 50 May 1999 The American Spectator You deserve a factual look at...
...Not many...
...And then, he or she will have some questions asked about helping people fighting Communism...
...Before every shot, I say, "Tommy, just try the easy ones...
...The Longs are running late...
...Israel's strong defensive posture makes it most inadvisable for Israel's enemies to attack her...
...Far from it...
...Through Ken Starr's and his staff's amazingly hard work and 46 May 1999 The American Spectator courage under fire, through the patriotism of Linda Tripp, the nation learned that our president is not trustworthy and will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid responsibility for his actions...
...Not a day passed when I listened to music but that I thought of him and WDON.44 WDON was a tiny station, a booming 250 watts, as compared with a large station's 50,000...
...This is not at all their fault, because I called them at the last minute and they had to rearrange everything to join us...
...Maybe my father was concerned with the full employment budget...
...I thought about this and felt astonishingly flush...
...By this measurement, I am far richer than I ever dreamed I would be...
...Plus, they're driving in from faraway suburban Virginia...
...A neighbor said that rock was Negro music sent into white America by Communists to dull our thinking and drug us into not studying so the Russians could overtake us...
...The plan now apparently is that the attorney general will be called upon to appoint special prosecutors if there is a problem of executive malfeasance...
...One percent of that would be about $8o billion...
...I can still recall going down there in Barry's Pontiac and watching Little Richard and Ike and Tina Turner and Frankie Lymon singing in a crude venue with no fancy stereo, no fancy seats, just a lot of people, black and white, who loved the music...
...In fact, the end of the I.C...
...Sometimes Tommy's ball travels so slowly that it failsto activate the mechanism and then we have a lot of confusion...
...But oh how it would come back to undermine Stalinism...
...The I.C.'s work was so powerful, so well taken, that despite a media monolith against Starr, despite solid racial blocs lining up behind Clinton no matter what the truth was, despite his left-wing Praetorian Guard, for the first time in 130 years, the House of Representatives voted to impeach a sitting president, and fifty senators, half of the Senate, voted to convict on one count...
...The Arab states have acquired over $50 billion of the most advanced armaments since the end of the Gulf War...
...Much have I traveled in realms of gold...
...The only one I recall is a play on "Ready, Teddy," which was turned into a song about a junior high shop teacher named Russell Troxel...
...And if you don't like what I like, just turn the dial a little bit in either direction—and we're gone...
...The place is packed, and The American Spectator May 1999 47 young men and women are having a great time...
...Why don't I have a TV show that teaches kids how to behave, albeit in a light-44 Was it worth two minutes of one hour of one day's national wage to find out the truth about Clinton...
...As I did, I had a sudden epiphany...
...This is the way civilized people are supposed to behave...
...and Don spun the platters...
...The Longs have inspired me...
...But Drew Carey politely showed us how to fix it...
...He was friendly, knew my game show, and we agreed to meet in Washington, or near his home in Annapolis next time I was in D.C...
...But thanks to Don, thanks to his pal Barry, I could dream of a world where I did not have to compete with the likes of Jeffrey Burt to see who got the best grades...
...This ad has been published and paid for by FLAmE Facts and Logic about the Middle East PO...
...It's on 19th Street, right across from the Palm, but unlike the Palm absolutely lacking in any kind of pretension...
...This matter needs urgent address, and I think I am the guy...
...So, now, here my father and I are zooming toward Laurel Race Track, where Don hangs out, watching the horses run—he raises race horses himself...
...He looked well, although like all of us, older...
...He put me in touch with Don Dillard and I called him up...
...It's that for me, the point of the exercise is partly his company and partly teachBENJAMIN J. STEIN is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Hollywood and Malibu...
...Palms are not at all pretentious, by the way...
...We talked about Silver Spring and music and politics —he's a big conservative—and then Don gave me a tip on a horse...
...I have seen from the inside that the attorney general can't always do the job...
...The example and fate of Czechoslovakia, which preparatory to the Second World War was dismantled and shorn of its defensive capacity, insistently come to mind...
...I still don't quite get it...
...Together we listened endlessly to rock songs: Little Richard, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins, Shirley and Lee, the Bobettes (of "Mr...
...Never before or since have I heard such perfect insouciant self-confidence about a man's choices or how well he knew he fit into his world...
...It was like a lit-up shrine to a god...
...Most of the time, the ball sails harmlessly through the air and lands against the rear wall or barely hits the backboard...
...And what had I ever done for him...
...In that imagining, I could see a world I wanted to live in, and that gave me reason to live when I often could find little reason around me...
...I think my cohost Jimmy Kimmel's voice has a similar quality...
...It's amazing how well he bowls...
...Even those who want Israel to retreat to her pre-1967 borders are agreed that the evacuated areas must be demilitarized...
...Maybe it's more like early morning...
...Not only did Don Dillard play the songs that fit my mood perfectly, but he and his pal Barry Richards put on sock hops at the Silver Spring Armory, the Glen Echo Amusement Park, and at a hall in a place called Forest Glen near Montgomery Hills...
...Something in the music and the lyrics did suspend self-analysis and fear and replace it with calm and hope, and even that rarest of commodities, excitement...
...I would say the fan has about as much chance as a snowball in hell...
...He talked to me as if we were long lost brothers, even though I had only met him once before when he was having a record giveaway at his studio...
...That would not do...
...By chance, we are in the lane next to Drew Carey, who is bowling like a thorough pro...
...is typically among the most44 We are in the lane next to Drew Carey, who is bowling like a thorough pro...
...I have been adding up the totally wrong commodity...
...Janet Reno, possibly the worst attorney general in history, and a former terrifyingly incompetent county attorney in Florida, has repeatedly refused to appoint I.C.'s for clear misconduct in political fundraising and in sales of technology to China...
...Anyway, his room was the only bright spot in the house, but it sang of colors and possibilities...
...Frankly, I call that worth whatever it costs...
...Ben Gurion airport, every incoming and outgoing flight, would be subject to mortar fire or shoulder-held Stinger attack...
...The Longs are well informed, self-effacing, and Julia in particular is always ready with a quip...
...In a part of the world in which our country has the most far-reaching geopolitical stakes, Israel is the guarantor of American interests in the area...
...In any case, it is highly doubtful that the surrounding hostile Arab nations would allow such a military vacuum to exist...
...Don Dillard was my Homer...
...Your tax-deductible 47B contribution allows us to publish these important messages...
...One-fourth of one percent would be $20 billion...
...But this is not the case...
...LOOK AT ME...
...These were the primordial record hops where cute girls with long tight skirts and tight angora sweaters and little chains of fake pearls and little crosses came from the Academy of the Holy Name or some similar spot and danced to songs from the record player or to a band named—if I am correct in my memories—Barry Darvell and the Blazers...
...The Vegas and L.A...
...My pal Victoria Sackett has a staggeringly beautiful daughter...
...It's about nine at night, and there is no one else but Tommy and me and one barefooted Asian man shooting baskets...
...Perfect and I are at the Studio City Bowling Lanes, right next to Jerry's Deli...
...In a general way, America pumps out about billion an hour, or about $i6 million per minute in income—just very roughly...
...Box 590359 ^ San Frandsco,CA 94159 FLAME is a 501(c)(3) educational institution...
...It totally controls access to Israel's heartland from the east...
...Once I realized this key part of the dynamic, I felt euphoric, because lately Tommy has been asking me to come to the gym with him a lot...
...WDON was a tiny station, a booming 250 wails, as compared with a large station's 50,00o...
...And those are not just "conventional" weapons—enormous quantities of tanks, aircraft and much more...
...We're at a supergood seafood place called the Georgetown Seafood Grill...
...I'm going to play what I like...
...And, that's not a bad thing for an n-year-old...
...Maybe no girls at school liked me...
...What does all this mean to the United States...
...I can still remember the day in 1956 when I heard my first rock 'n' roll record, Elvis Presley singing "Blue Suede Shoes...
...So, let's keep that I.C...
...When she and Mike appeared, the very first thing Julia did was apologize heartily for being late and Mike joined her...
...The concerts were great...
...When I came back, Don was on the radio for a year or two, but then he was gone...
...Maybe it's bad manners to say so...
...I would have been about 14 or 15 at the time, among the most miserable periods of my life...
...The usual high impact of the ball against the back of the alley triggers the scoring mechanism...
...The liberals say the law's dead and won't be renewed when it expires this summer...
...will mean is the further erosion of any responsibility for unethical behavior in the executive branch...
...He looked perfectly at peace, serene, every feature perfect...
...Plus, his show is fabulously funny and inventive...
...goes a famous poem about Homer, by Keats, sensing a larger world...
...He obstructed justice...
...But how many people are as polite as the Longs...
...and "Raunchy" and "Annie Had a Baby" and let me know there was another world out there for me...
...But where to get my fix when I was on a strict allowance and could not buy more than a platter a week or so...
...It would include tips on how to make conversation, why it's vital to be punctual, why it's vital to apologize if you screw up, why you should not be extravagant with other people's money, why you should and must always put yourself in the other guy's place and try to feel what he's feeling and not do anything that hurts him (or her...
...Moreover, the context for ending the I.C...
...The conflict between Israel and the Arabs is not about borders and not about the Palestinians...
...By the time I was 16, rock was everywhere, of course...
...and suburban Maryland...
...In fact, it was drizzling as we drove through empty downtown Los Angeles, and I could not help myself from crooning out loud, "I'm singin' in the rain, just singin' in the rain, what a glorious feeling, I'm happy again...
...But his voice was just the same as always — confident, smooth, as if he knew, and he knew that we, his listeners, knew, what was cool...
...Of course, we said no...
...That's one four-hundredth of the GDP, so it's less than one day's national income...
...In case of war against Israel, these troops could be helicoptered in minutes to their positions, with armored forces reaching them within the same night...
...But the A.G...
...It was run out of a tiny storefront in a tiny shopping center in Wheaton, a neighbor of Silver Spring...
...The Arab state possess large arsenals of chemical and biological weapons, and all of them work feverishly on the development of their nuclear potential...
...The Importance of territory...
...And that goal is not being cancelled for any agreements between Israel and the Palestinians...
...When I got home from school, Don was playing "Too Much" or "Mister Blue...
...I went on to love Bob Dylan and then went to college...
...What's it worth to know that the man we elected to lead the government (certainly not to lead the nation, which is done out here in Hollywood) is a criminal...
...I tucked him in tightly and stared at him for a while and then went back to my room to sleep...
...They made me feel better in a way I can now associate with tranquilizers or a drink in the days when I drank...
...Did anyone play rock in the morning when I was shivering as I got dressed in the chilly Maryland winter...
...But for him, the main point is to be watched by Daddy...
...To be wanted by one's son at age II is a heady thought...
...Unlike me, he could play the guitar, and he played blues and rock 'n' roll and even made up some lyrics...
...Four months ago, our wonderful assistant, Blythie, put up strings of Christmas lights inside Tommy's room...
...May I help you with this, please...
...I was a good dancer (and still am) and the girls danced with me but then did not talk to me...
...But Be-Bop-ALula is the queen of all the teens, and the gal in the red blue jeans, and what she could do meant a lot more than the difference between a sine and a cosine...
...I am a fairly good player for a sedentary 54-yearold guy, at least as far as making easy shots and free throws...
...The day was otherwise not memorable, but Elvis over the loudspeaker was electrifying and I became an instant fan of the man and the genre...
...Now that a Democrat has been caught and tormented by an Independent Counsel, suddenly we all realize that the independent counsel law is intrusive, a waste of money, and unneeded...
...Judea/Samaria (the "West Bank") Can Israel survive without it...
...Tommy Stein, however, is doing his usual showboat thing...
...He put me in touch with Barry Richards, who is also out here in L.A...
...Maybe my mother was (rightly) concerned with how my grades compared with Jerry Akman's and Stanley Sitnick's...
...I went to the hops with my adventurous friend, Barry Walker, and summoned up every bit of courage I had to ask girls to dance...
...But why isn't every day kindness-and-civility day in the schools...
...he said, like an old-fashioned gentleman...
...Thursday A bout once every three months, as suggested by my father and my accountant, I go through my accounts from my brokers and the bank and calculate how much money I have to provide for my retirement and my family's well-being when I shuffle off this mortal coil...
...They are thin and run every which way like lights at a country fair long ago...
...It is about Israel's very existence...
...Monday T his I really love...
...ing him a little bit about basketball...
...law—that is, without any incentive at all to be honest—is to expect behavior far outside historic norms...
...17 hearted but instructive way...
...He should be watched by Daddy as much as he wants at this stage and at any stage...
...The music did act as a drug on my scared, terrified, haunted little brain...
...The world of not studying, not being a good boy, not doing what the other nice Jewish boys did—that world was available, too, and Don was my tour guide...
...They don't dominate the conversation, but they also make conversation very light work indeed...
...Instead, I could imagine having a lowered, souped-up '49 Mercury and having a handsome, hard guy face instead of my pitiful, frightened face, and having girls flocking around me...
...Does anybody doubt that the Arabs would not exploit that irresistible opportunity...
...He ignores my advice and shouts, "Look at me, Daddy...
...Still, as I have said many a time, my most churning memories of the beauty of women and their availability if, if, if (if maybe I became a TV star...
...I was too much of a nerd to talk to...
...He's amazing...
...If so, I apologize...
...This is what all of the meaningful wealth I have consists of...
...We chatted happily about politics—my father is far, far more open-minded on most issues than I am, and he's probably right—and then we ate and went our separate ways...
...I? I have a pal here from Silver Spring named Ronnie Oberman...
...But on a few choice occasions, the ball sails through the basket from half court and he dances a jig...
...Kenneth Starr found out that the president is a stone-solid liar and a con man and a cheat, even of his closest friends...
...Just tonight, something big dawned on me...
...They give his room a kind of twilight character, but twilight maybe is wrong...
...Who was it who said, "Mammon oft succeeds where seraphs fail...
...And Tommy beat me handily in two games out of three...
...Starr found out the president perjured himself repeatedly...
...With Israel in a position of weakness, the role of the United States in the area would collapse and radical states such as Syria, Iraq and Iran would dominate...
...But I knew nothing of that then...
...There, in that shrine, Tommy Stein lay with his arms above his head in his sleep...
...With a lighter ball I do better...
...Then we left...
...Maybe I was getting B's in 8th grade math...
...But I rarely find a lighter ball...
...It won and paid ten to one...
...The only really valuable quantity I have is the amount of time I have with my family, with my wifie, my son, my father, my sister, my pals Al and Phil and Sid and Gartho, and of course, my PuppyWuppy...
...Stein's Money...
...He ignores me again and demands that I look at him or, as he sometimes says, "Watch me, Daddy...
...I look and he usually misses and I shake my head and give him my advice again...
...I could imagine, one might say, that I was Don Dillard instead of me...
...Yes, even when I awakened in the morning, Don was playing "Get a Job" or "House of Blue Lights...
...The mountainous territory of Judea/Samaria (the "West Bank") is an indispensable line of defense...
...Still, he was always on my mind...
...Because the Palestinians will have thousands of trained soldiers, camouflaged as their police force...
...What are the facts...
...I left the bowling lanes in a trance of joy, as I always do when I'm anywhere with my son...
...Then it wanders off to the right in the lane and I get a low score...
...P. gets a big thrill out of beating, me so it's all worthwhile...
...The Longs also offered to pay for dinner to atone for being late...
...What the end of the I.C...
...But once this defensive strength is removed, a coordinated war against Israel can only be a matter of time...
...Just take it very slow and easy, master the lay-ups and the short jump shots, and everything else is gravy...
...Sunday s peaking of happy, tonight Mr...
...Was it worth two minutes of one hour of one day's national wage to find out the truth about our president...
...For both "conventional" war and for war of mass destruction, territory and topography are critical for self-defense and deterrence...
...I mean, thoroughly professional...
...The idea that suddenly the attorney general will turn honest and nonpartisan without the I.C...
...Frankly, it was under Richard Nixon, and it is under Clinton...
...Let's see, America's national income is about (very roughly) $8 trillion...
...I don't pretend that all Republican presidents are saints...
...comes at a time when the "respectable" media, as Mark Steyn laughingly calls it—and he's right to laugh—mostly toes the party line of not finding fault with liberals under any circumstances...
...WATCH ME...
...Not many even give much of a damn if they keep you waiting, if they spend your money, if they waste your good time...
...Time has passed...
...This was hardly a frivolous or trivial result...
...Russell Troxel, go man go, I've got a witch that I love so...
...If they are late, they let you know and they apologize...
...Barry Gene Vincent told me should be thinking about Be-Bop-A-Lula instead, and he was right...
...Without Judea/Samaria (the 'West Bank') Israel would be totally indefensible...
...Saturday I 'm hurtling with my father along the Beltway toward the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and thence to Laurel Race Track, and therein lies a tale of how rock 'n' roll saved my life...
...It was a short ride, and soon we were ushered into the Jockey Club (or maybe it was the Turf Club) and next thing I knew, there was Don Dillard getting up from a table to greet me...
...The high ground allows Israel to detect missiles while they are still in the launch stage and to destroy them...
...It was owned by a radio engineer and entrepreneur named Dillard...
...I lay in bed until two in the morning and could not sleep at all for the excitement...
...Finally, I got up and walked down the tiny hall to Tommy's room...
...The music, the simple four-four beat with the even simpler drum music underneath, the love thrust, the sex hints, all of these grabbed my imagination in a major way...
...Now here's why I mention this: Julia called from her car and said she was going to be late...
...There were rock 'n' roll revues down at Uline Arena...
...After all, she's the one woman that I know, and she's the woman that loves me so...
...That is why, despite the heady prospect of "peace in our time," neither the purposes of Israel nor those of the United States would be served by Israel's relinquishing control over the "West Bank...
...But all the way back I thought that Don had been giving me tips about just how much bigger life was than I had any idea and they had paid off far more, far better, than I had any right to have them pay off...
...All of those weapons have only one single target and one single purpose: the destruction of the state of Israel...
...Alas, while this knocks down a lot of pins by some physical principle where slow-falling pins hit more of their neighbors than fast-falling pins do, the lane is electronically scored...
...Apparently, he has some publicity stunt lined up where he bowls against a fan for money...
...But what I should be calculating is how many great moments with those I love I have stored up in my mind...
...with my old Dad and with our friends, Mike and Julia Long...
...There would be a constant rain of Katyusha rockets launched into the Tel Aviv area and into the entire coastal plain, which contains 80% of Israel's population and of its industrial and military potential...
...It calls for first creating a Palestinian state on any territory vacated by Israel and then using that state to foment a final allied Arab assault against the truncated Jewish state...
...How could I have possibly gotten so lucky as to have this boy, the avatar of everything I have ever wanted or admired in life, as my very own...
...But why not just keep the one we have...
...Lee" fame), Chuckin' Chuck Berry, Frankie Lymon, Bill Haley and his Comets...
...My next-door neighbor, Carl Bernstein, likewise became a huge fan of rock, and also of Rhythm and Blues...
...He just drops the ball onto the lane and lets the ancient grooves in the lane carry the ball to the desired spot against the pins...
...Yes, the money in my Merrill Lynch accounts has compounded—but nowhere near as much as the moments with Tommy attacking me as he pretends to be an amoeba and tries to eat my arm...
...Is it worth an infinitesimal fraction of one day's national income...
...After I left my father and went back to the River Inn, I thought as I have many times about how I should write a book called "How to Behave...
...Some of them played an occasional Elvis song along with Perry Como or Pat Boone or Dinah Washington or Kate Smith or the Maguire Sisters...
...Where to get just the right sound to break up the worry waves in my brain and replace them with cool waves...
...Did any radio station play only the coolest, 48 May 1999 • The American Spectator sexually suggestive lyrics...
...But Gene Vincent told me that I should be thinking about Be-Bop-A-Lula instead, and he was right...
Vol. 32 • May 1999 • No. 5
