Ben Stein's Diary: Funky Fools
Stein, Benjamin J.
by Benjamin J. Stein Funky Fools Sunday H ere I am, once again, en route to New York on American Airlines. This is an unusually good flight. Quiet, pleasant. The only probIem is a beautiful...
...Towards the end of his life, my father would sometimes point out how much I earned compared with him...
...p. 19 pp...
...Yo, Al Gore, funky ass liberal fool, Tobacco company man, Red China's tool...
...Now, he's gone and I feel as if I am exposed to every wind and breeze and hurricane...
...Were they all murdered...
...Personal checks please allow 3 weeks for delivery...
...It was actually a little bit longer, but what the heck...
...Iron Law of Travel: In first class, the most disruption is caused by the employees of the airline, never by the passengers...
...I did a rap about what a great ad buy CC is...
...Evil in Austin Powers, my favorite movie...
...Most of the good stuff I know about raising kids I learned in OA (Overeaters Anonymous) and from Dr...
...FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!l l! WOW...
...I remember every shirt and every dress and every hat--yes, my mother's generation sometimes wore hats...
...Surely they should not be taxed at all...
...Should they be taxed...
...Working and saving and advancing themselves one day at a time...
...Maybe someone could explain it to me...
...I feel as if someone's doing soft but relentless construction in my head...
...Yo, At Gore, prepare to meet the ebb of your tide, Cu~ when you talk about inventing the Internet, you know you lied...
...I read in the Economist that as many blacks were stolen away and sent as slaves to the Arabian peninsula as to the Western hemisphere...
...You look wiped out...
...Disgusting, in fact...
...If I have a personal relationship with a star (which I rarely do), I am forbidden to call or the publicists will get angry at me for going behind their backs...
...My father read it the moment it arrived and when I called him, my mother said, "He's been crying for a 4 hours because your book is so powerful...
...There was a whole different mood in this country then...
...In fact, ['in at KTLA meeting with the writers and the producers ofrny talk show, "Turn Ben Stein On...
...Address: The American Spectator, P.O...
...Now, may I say that this is a sign of serious mental confusion...
...And how aboutAmericans whose ancestors were opposed to slaveu...
...I guess rap is my natural form...
...Dotty," I said, "you need a rest...
...Then there's the problem that an awful lot of Americans are not descendants of people who were here when slavery was in effect...
...She put her hand through my arm and walked next to me...
...She left and I had to wonder what on earth the world is coming to...
...I am not joking...
...They are exactly the same in their work habits as whites or Asians or anyone else...
...Box 549, Arlington, 'vA zza16...
...Never...
...The American Spectator _9 J~ e 2 o o o 53 After the session I posed for hundreds of photos and signed autographs...
...My mother, barely conscious frorn congesrive heart failure, asked him, "Are you going on a cruise without me...
...Then, Arab slavers rounded up BENIAMIN J. STEIN is d writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Hollywood and Malibu...
...Saw you in a church the other day, Preachin', sayin' you fooling the Lord's way...
...Anyway, I am sitting here reading about a group of black Americans asking for "reparations" for slaveq ~. It's an interesting question...
...Five years after that, I wrote a book about Quaalude addicts...
...Advertiser Page # American Spectator Online ~. 55 Blackstone Audio Books ~. 5 9 Bose Corporation ~. 2 Classifieds ~. 79 Encounter Books ~. 39 E L.A.M.E...
...And A1 Gore is worse...
...And then there's a "law and economics" problem of calculating the amount of payments...
...Everyone agrees slavery was a terrible, horrible thing...
...When I finished the typescript, my editor at Simon & Schuster looked at it and had a long list of complaints (all of which were surely justified...
...I'm lying on their tiny little bed that the...
...About (very roughly) halfa million Union soldiers gave their lives to save the Union and free the slaves...
...But I feel weak and scared without my Dad and Morn...
...Little do they know that my heart belongs to Brigitte Bar-Dog, my dream doggy...
...Benjy has convinced me that there's no point in listening to him...
...It can be used when there are cataracts, glaucoma, pterygium or irritations...
...The amazing Santa Lucia Eye preparation is made of two types of plants...
...On my way back to my apartment/office, I ran into the wacky but beautiful Dotty...
...Plus she had arranged for my oven to be fixed...
...His rows of tapes of himself on TV shows...
...Thompson Cigar Valentine Research, lnc...
...To fight against your own instincts of fatigue-not to fight against onrushing Koreans or to earn your living, but to work out at a gym--is a sure way to trick your body into getting seriously ill...
...This article was hotly controversial in his world...
...Mostly for cute young girls who buy air time for sponsors...
...On the way in, I called A1 Burton, the producer of my talk show...
...Their publicists tell them they are fools to do anything smaller...
...So, maybe the first reparations should come from their ancient chiefs' families...
...The total of all of the furniture, appliances, and clothing in the place: Forty-four hundred dollars...
...asked a colleague...
...We went into Brooks Brothers and bought knickknacks...
...I have been so upset about my Pop and Puppy Wuppy that I got a prescription for an anti-depressant called Celexa...
...A father's words can reassure when the rest of the world doubts...
...How did gardeners live before Round Up...
...It's completely persuasive," he said simply, and I knew I had been right...
...But looked at sub sDecie aetemitatis, under the aspect of eternity, as my mother used to say, it will be fine...
...Then below that there will be an inscription that reads simply "You are forever in our hearts...
...So I just lay in bed thinking about how much I hate being awake, and how much I miss my father and mother...
...The only surviving member of my immediate birth family besides me...
...I also see that on the same day, Clinton says send him right back to his father...
...I'll let Tommy deal with it...
...I mean, I really cannot sleep at all...
...R.G., Florida YES...
...Pay, to order of PNI~ Send to Address listed above...
...I see that the eleventh circuit court of appeals has said Elian Gonzalez has been mistreated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, that the Justice Department is acting illegally about him, and that he deserves a lengthy period of appeal before being sent back to Castro's Cuba...
...He is the best actor in the world...
...But how do we prove that7 Alas, there are still more problems with this reparations thing...
...One drop inside each eye at bedtime will draw toxic accumulations outside of the eyes...
...A special tax on blacks...
...And by the way...this working day by day, struggling for decency, is exactly what most blacks are doing as far as I can tell...
...I wouldn't care except the kid is talking nonstop and making a major pest of herself turning on and offthe lights and jumping up and down...
...This is not good...
...I know that's supposed to happen occasionally, but it concerns me...
...I went to my hotel, the glorious Essex House, and checked in...
...After lunch, she and I walked down to the fabulous new Brooks Brothers at 54th and Fifth--much smaller than the flagship store at 346 Madison Avenue, but ex~emely light and cheery...
...Yuck...
...If I have a few more days like this, it'll be serious...
...If worst comes to worst, you and Alex and Tommy can come here and I'll take care of you...
...He is a great, super guy...
...I lay thinking about how I hate being awake, and how much I miss my father and mother...
...But taking care has little to do with money, as he well knew...
...I read in his bio that he attempted suicide twice before joining the Marines...
...Isn't this a giant historical crime that needs investigation...
...Then suddenly something clicks and I do care...
...56 J~ e ~ o o o _9 The American Spectator "I am wiped out," she said grumpily as she led out her tiny dog on her leash...
...Often not good but sometimes great...
...Maybe that's why I'm so extravagant...
...My thoughts, as I glided through the air, maybe were crazy...
...Credit Card No...
...That outfit apparently saved his life as it has saved many another life (and of course some have lost their lives as well...
...How come Mike Meyers did not get that Oscar for best actor...
...Therefore, it is considered a purifier...
...Plus I need my father's advice about the stock market...
...I guess we shouldn't make them pay the tax, so we'll just have a tax on whites...
...The biggest stars only want to do Leno or Letterman...
...The stock market had a giant downward "correction" again today and I feel in jeopardy...
...A father's promise to care means far more than statements from Merrill Lynch...
...I can see why New Yorkers are so proud of their erudition and kultumy ways...
...How about, 'No, Scott,'" I said, paraphrasing Dr...
...Please Brooks Brothers, don't ever go out of business...
...I feel as if aliens are loose in my brain...
...I guess leave them there...
...I appeared with ]on Stewart and read a rap song I had written about A1 Gore...
...She looked totally exhausted...
...My sister took a cab and zoomed off down Fifth Avenue...
...That was an act of supreme unselfishness and heroism, unprecedented in hmnan history--for one race, without any legal compulsion for most of them, to lay down its lives for another race's freedom...
...No, I'm going to go to the gym and exercise until I feel totally exhausted...
...Ben's psych lesson of the day: Listen to your body...
...Sorry...
...Many the time, when I asked him if he had time to help me with this or that, he would ask, "What better use do you think I have for my time than to help my son...
...He had not told Morn about his dream...
...I have had large paper losses...
...It'll be fine," he said...
...I started to feel woozy at dinner...
...Such people usually are unemployed but in a booming economy like ours they get employed and create negative utility for their employers...
...My ancestors, except on my father's mother's side, did not come to the U.S...
...Now you know...
...Years later, when I wrote a lengthy piece deeonstructing the world of Michael Milken for Barron's, my father called me the first thing on the morning it appeared...
...That's why it's called risk...
...It got a big applause and I was happy...
...What to do...
...To which I add, "What you mean 'we,' kemo sabe...
...Why does that work so well to get rid of smells...
...Friday am down in Washington, D.C...
...But isn't this reparations thing supposed to aid the fight against racism...
...slept in together for sixty years and I aln now thinking of how they could read each other's minds...
...Later I went to "The Daily Show...
...My father would have said a bit about diversification and You can make a difference for The American Spectator by patronizing its advertisers...
...She's got a great body...
...This product can be used safely in anyone including infants and people with illnesses and it has no contraindications to its use...
...dissertation about the messages mass culture teaches us about relationships...
...The more I think about it, the more confused it becomes...
...I don't really know much about Carmen Electra," I said...
...My Dad had given me permission to use his name and had consulted with me on it but I wrote it all...
...I took half of the prescribed dose while I was coming in from the airport...
...Your stocks will recover before ) ou need the money...
...My father and mother lived with the sternest austerity and they never had a sleepless night about money...
...That does not help either...
...Carmen Electra...
...One more term with him and there would be no Constitution...
...My father used to say, when things looked bleak for me, "You have a lot of ways to make a living, and you have assets, and you're well diversified...
...So why should we be taxed to pay for something that was horrible but legal when it was in effect...
...The only probIem is a beautiful but noisy little girl sitting in front of me...
...What happened to them all...
...So she's traveling for ahnost free...
...One is the great Susan S., a close pal I from college days who introduced me to Mary Just, the former love of my life, the world-transforming great girlfriend of all time until I met Alex...
...His bathroom still smells of his shaving cream...
...I love rap music...
...I am not sure who she is, but she's famous...
...I often think of when I wrote my first novel, On the Brink, in 1976...
...His shoes, still piled up beneath his bedroom TV...
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...I'll bet at this moment she's fast asleep next to my wifie...
...I lay on my parents' tiny bed and put on Pop's stereo headphones and listened to Mozart, of course, although he liked Schubert...
...I started telling about how much I miss Morn and Pop and then just could not finish because I was sobbing so much...
...Rachel was sympathetic but I am really despondent about missing them...
...I was supposed to meet a woman whom I have known for many years who lives near the Essex House...
...She, my supposed interlocutor, bragged for a long time and then asked me--and I am not kidding h e r e - i f I would consider leaving my wife and marrying her...
...On the other hand, I don't feel depressed at all...
...I met Kirsten Dunst...
...Most of that was a computer and stereo stuff I gave him...
...Where are their descendants...
...E.V., Nebraska "Cataracts gone after 3 months...
...the slaves and sold them to the European slavers...
...About 15 percent of Americans are black...
...I told her that almost everything good I learned about marriages came from Ozzie and Harriet...
...A special racebased tax...
...But it was remedied in the blood of the whole nation, North and South...
...Cherish your parents while you have them...
...I guess nothing...
...prudence, but my father spoke through Mel and I felt deeply reassured...
...Who is to pay them...
...It's true that by most measures, I'm a bit well off...
...Still, I get a lot of comfort from being there in his apartment where he loved so much and thought so clearly, and where he ahvavs said I could come and hide...
...The stock market had another turbulent day...
...Mercififlly, they have gone back to Kuwait or Columbus or Beverly Hills or wherever they came from...
...Then there's my mother's closet with its immense rows of her clothes...
...Risk is scary...
...Shipping $5 95 %r 1-6 bottles and $9.95 ~br 7-10 bottles...
...I told him how concerned I was about the stock market...
...My father and mother's grave site is in distressing condition...
...Sensible advice sincerely given...
...The driver of my car chimed in...
...But the Celexa is making me feel as ifI don't care anyway...
...But this reparations thing is just wacky...
...I can recall the moods she was in when she wore each one...
...That's hard...
...Luckily, I do not care very much about what publicists think...
...In his whole life--as I have said--my father never did an extravagant thing...
...And she's not supposed to be in first class because small children of employees are not supposed to be in first class at the bargain rate...
...What a great product...
...And recall the strength of your father when you feel weak...
...There are some fabulous folks around, and Lucy and Susan are up there...
...Almost everything good I learned about marriages came from Ozzie and Harriet...
...Just some of them include Henry Rollins, the very muscular and strongly musical rebel whose father-like minewas an economist, and Drew Carey, whom I met while bowling with Tommy about a year ago...
...Instead of rooting around in the ground to dig up hardy weeds, you just spray them and they wither away and die...
...The American Spectator _9 June 2ooo 57...
...We do the best we can buying stocks," my mother said...
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...His closet with his few suits and shirts...
...It can be used as part of the nutritional management of all types of eye conditions...
...Again, sounds racist to me...
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...She is a simply beautiful woman who works with abused women in Stamford and Bridgeport...
...Naturally, she's with her Morn, who works for American...
...Right after that, Milken and his publicists came to Washington to line up academics to support his defense...
...I was truly touched...
...Monday L unch with my sister Rachel at Cafe Botanica at The Essex House...
...Lucy was left with their two lovely daughters...
...You won't even listen...
...My sister came back from dinner and just at that moment, Melvin, her husband, called...
...Even her hair looked tired...
...Then I got home and had a call from a woman who sometimes works for me in Malibu...
...Now, it's four a.m...
...Complaining, which I have been doing forever, seems to do no good...
...His endless stacks of Callas tapes...
...until about 189o...
...The IRS only took about 43 percent of what he earned each year and that wasn't enough, you see...
...We're all anti-slavery as can be...
...Still, to look over at that swivel leather chair where Pop watched basketball, to look at the ancient couch where Morn sat and read the newspapers and ate grapes and to know they are gone on their cruise...
...The other is the lovely and talented Lucy, and she is the widow of one of my closest friends from college, Grant R. He died at age 48 of an aggressive form of pancreatic cancer...
...Maybe nappy time...
...So [ have called a number of stars and finally, just this week, the dam has broken and we have great guests...
...The problem is that I can feel that Celexa doing a fox trot in my head, and I cannot sleep...
...I saw weeds and dandelions everywhere...
...Tuesday L uncheon with two old pals...
...That night I had dinner with my sister, my niece and her husband, and then sat in my father's apartment and looked at his things...
...I see it in the blacks I work with on my shows...
...Why is that a plus, I have to ask...
...The room reeked of carpet cleaner...
...Oooh, I forgot something...
...She was obviously devastated by Grant's death, but she is brave...
...She likes guys like Rodman, and she's a piece of ass," he said...
...Like Katharine Hepburn or Grace Kelly with Car 5 , Grant or Spencer Tracy...
...Thafs serious...
...First, the problem of slavery started with African chiefs selling offtheir own sons and daughters in their tribes...
...I think we are also going to get a rap star named Coolio and another called Chuck D. I just wonder if they know what a rap-star fan I am...
...We're at King David Memorial Park near Annandale, where Wlady lives...
...Tell, tell," I said...
...My father read it and simply said, "It's a triumph," and from then on I assumed I was a book writer...
...As we all sit around the table, I realize that many of the stars claim as credits how angry and bitter they are...
...Don't the descendants of the slaves owe a debt to them and their offspring...
...For Morn, "Beloved wife, mother, grandmother and inspiration...
...with my sister, picking out a gravestone, actually the gravestone's words, for my father's stone...
...My father was invited to sit at a table with him...
...So I guess there has to be a claim against the Arabs, too...
...Well, that's pretty funny, my man, When I see you with your hand, Out to the lobbyists' band...
...It's starting to worry me quite a bit...
...She was very sorry but she had made a mistake about getting my books from Pop's office stacked and so I could not get my car into the garage...
...I felt as ifI were being taiked to by my father through Mel's voice...
...12-13 p. 83 ~. 35 ~.17 ~. 5 7 ~. 76 ) . 6 ) . 9 ~. 23 wsj.com p. 14a-b To learn more about the benefits of advertising in The American Spectator, contact: John Funk, Associate Publisher--Advertising...
...Then offto a late supper with a young woman from Columbia who is writing her Ph.D...
...My father's suits and shirts still smell of his after-shave...
...So I just went over to a drugstore and bought some Round Up to spray on the weeds...
...And we don't brag if they go up and we don't cry if they go down...
...As it turned out, she went on a cruise without him for a couple of ?,ears but now they're together, and I feel as if the shore is a lonely place...
...My mother's last morning, in April of 1997, my father awakened and had been dreaming he was on a cruise...
...My sister and I spent a long time with the planners trying to figure out how to succinctly describe our father and then our morn...
...Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc...
...But I think that calculus might not lead to any payments at all...
...Again, however, I could not sleep...
...PNP (Physicians Natural Products) P.O...
...Pop would not go...
...It's in severe turbulence mode...
...And then there's the problem of who would pay the reparations here in the United States...
...She did something so civilized l almost cried...
...How about Asians who just got here...
...I turned on the TV and watched the Bloomberg summary of the market...
...Now, she's all alone because they're out of the house...
...You see why I said "Inspiration" about my mother...
...What will I ever do with them...
...Is that the idea...
...Almost no one in America now is in favor of slavery...
...For blacks today to look for salvation anywhere but in their own efforts-just like the rest of the nation does- is unfortunate...
...Well, maybe not that hard-earned...
...Let's just get on with the business of living and stop the business of racism, black or white...
...43 Fannie Mae ~. 5 Forbes Back Cover Grundi 9 Direct Haverhills Hoover Institution Judicial Watch National Rifle Association The Restoration Weekend Santa Lucia Eye Drops Sarkes Tarzian Inc...
...It's a sort of miracle...
...Now, I'm in his apartment...
...I know everything there is to know about her...
...Yo, A1 Gore, swimmin' in your custom made shirts, Well, my man, hypocrisy hurts, When you drink yo' gin and tonic, And even share your chronic...
...It is processed with distilled water and no preservatives for the specific use of eye washing...
...One more thing...
...The appraiser has just been there to appraise all of my father's assets for estate-death tax purposes...
...Isn't it better if men and women are cahn and peaceful...
...It was called 'Ludes and it was strong stuff about human degradation and loss...
...There are boxes after boxes of her clothes we have never opened...
...Then there is another issue...
...And here is the real killer, so to speak: If we decide to pay reparations to blacks because of the moral horror of slavery, shouldn't we give some consideration to the descendants of the brave men who fought to end slavery...
...I learned that we had booked Carmen Electra as a guest...
...We have been having the devil's own time getting guests for a simple set of reasons...
...54 J~e 2 0 0 0 " The American Spectator "No," said my father...
...I think of all of these times Pop stood up for Ine, reassured me, told me he was on my side...
...I wonder if this country has ever had a president with more contempt for the Constitution or the rule of law than Bill Clinton...
...and I cannot sleep at all...
...This is your econ lesson for the day: There are some people who create negative utility...
...I try to imagine what my father would say...
...So how will we tax me for the reparations...
...My sister kindly changed her plans in order to keep me company on a walk down Fifth Avenue...
...wonder how they would feel about such a claim...
...One possible way of looking at it is to try' to figure out the present-day standard of living of Africans in the parts of West Africa where slaves came from and then compare that with the standard of living of African Americans...
...I lit some candles...
...Finally, we went with this: For Pop, "Beloved husband, father, grandfather and teacher...
...But she was ill...
...Their idea seems to me to be that because their ancestors were enslaved and treated horribly--which they undoubtedly were- they, today's African Americans, should get paid something by the society...
...Phone: 7o3-243-3733, ext...
...Not only do they accomplish little, but they make their employer's life more difficult and more expensive, so that the employer would be better off if he paid the worker to stay away...
...James Dobson...
...52 June 2o o o _9 The American Spectator 1 arrived in New York and went to my hotel...
...Just desperate...
...Long ago, there were loud, drunk people smoking and shouting in first class...
...Maybe the descendants of the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic might well deserve reparations or payments of some kind...
...Then a rest and then off with the young charmer Debbie Drimmer of Comedy Central to a gathering of hundreds of advertising buyers to tell them about how buffComedy Central is...
...Tuesday l ain back in Los Angeles...
...Whether it's purchasing their products or simply extending your good will, your positive response rex~ ards these orgmlizations for adverrising in one of America's finest magazines, The American Spectator...
...I guess it's my fate now to give up all of my hard-earned gains...
...generally...
...Very large...
Vol. 33 • June 2000 • No. 5
