Ben Stein's Diary
BEN STEIN'S DIARY TUESDAY Beverly Hills Here I am sitting at my kitchen table eating a delicious Texas pink grapefruit, yum, and what do I read in the newspaper spread out before me% Another...
...I love Ireland and cannot wait to go back...
...By its very nature, Madison Avenue sells by appealing to mainstream values and associating then with its product...
...That is an immense stain on the nation...
...Fabulous photos, hilarious histories of the Irish nobility...
...Advertisers conjure up ten-second evocations of what is most touching and sweet about Americanational parks, Grandma's cooking, a mother's love, a first love, the coming together of races and peoples to have a good time on the basketball court-then express a connection with their product, and then send the product and the American values off into the future together.The first date.The McDonald's hamburger...
...MONDAY Hollywood Jam back from Vegas...
...I offer for your delectation a thoughtful if overdrawn movie of a few years back called State of Siege or maybe Under Siege-something where a poor black man (played, I think, by Denzel Washington) is hunted by a vengeful CIA that seems to have spy cameras on literally every corner of every town and can simply erase an innocent citizen's whole life on a whim...
...Sal and I are happy...
...It reminds me a lot of the house I lived in for twenty-some years, on Pacific View only about ten minutes from Jimmy's house...
...A very self-aware blond woman sort of looked down her nose at me, and I was furious...
...They were two of nine children...
...Gina Kimmel told a funny story about how the police never came when she needed help with a bomb threat in Tampa years ago...
...In commercials, there is never a discouraging word about American values, only ever more lushly filmed evocations ofAmerica and an endless well of Norman Rockwellian images of a perfect America topped off by a product or a service...
...Charlie," said the first man...
...But I personally think happier screen writers will make better movies, more true to the glory of America...
...If you look intently and if the day is right, the sun and the water around it turn green for just a moment...
...An unsung hero of the Cold War...
...I know I should be harder on him, but it's also encouraging to me that he stands up to me so often, and when he argues with me, his logic is often impeccable...
...They'll see when I'm dead of one of these diseases that's always eating at me and making me gain weight...
...Just kidding...
...This is pathetic and a bad sign for Beverly Hills...
...Even Al Gore is glad Bush is President...
...But I will not be able to change that tonight...
...That neighborhood is Madison Avenue...
...A decent living...
...And I, your humble servant, played with the kids or at least talked to them...
...We also have an immense tree with many little lights...
...Especially as we leave Marxism farther and farther in the rubbish heap of history, alert Hollywood people are opening their eyes and seeing how great life is in America and in Hollvwood.The blinders of ideology are either falling off or were never there among many of today's young...
...They are already at work, day by day, selling patriotism along with their product...
...JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2002 • THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 87...
...But to try to compete with a celebrity is really, painfully difficult...
...Lately, in a giant way, the psychic power of "keeping America rolling," which is mobility, prosperity, adventure, lack of fear and auto sales...
...Still, from the vantage point of twenty-six hard fought years in Hollywood, I have been watching with some interest the sallies of the Bush administration to our beloved village...
...I am positive they are still with me, but they are not where I can call them by Sprint...
...He told an amazing story of how he had been a construction worker and his boss had told him to "run, don't walk" to a truck to get something...
...They lived in a nice part of the Bronx...
...When I was a child, I always wanted lights at Christmas time...
...It's peaceful here without Tommy...
...Anyway, I went back to my hotel, took a nap, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2002 • THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 85 was harassed by the desk people who insisted I check out at a certain time, and not fifteen minutes later...
...Comedy Central keeps moving us around on the schedule, which is not a great sign...
...The older one is a law student at NYU...
...In the meantime, my lights, my glorious lights...
...I offer American Beauty as one of a jillion examples of the genre...
...A few days ago a caravan of Chasidim came over to light Chanukah candles with us.They also ooh-ed and ahh-ed over our lights...
...I love him to pieces anyway...
...But when I got to the front desk, they did not have the right room, and they generally treated me like dirt...
...With tri-cyclics and SSRI's to improve the Hollywood writers' moods, their rage and feelings of oppression leave them little by little...
...How long to be able to have an air-conditioned room in the desert...
...But that's yesterday and partly today...
...It takes place just as the sun is setting into the ocean...
...And soon we will have a GOP governor of this great state of California and it will go for Bush in 2004...
...As in, "Why can't I just stay awake later and sleep later...
...The audience laughs at Sal's jokes and so do I. I have no idea of how much longer we will be on...
...Then some other people, in-laws ofTony, I think, and then everyone was laughing and scratching...
...Rove wants the beautiful people here to entertain the troops and do what they can to show that Hollywood, as a representative ofAmerica, is behind them...
...Miracle age of all humanity.The only blot on it is abortion on demand...
...When I first moved to LA in 1976, there were three fabulous bookstores in Beverly Hills.A stupendously great Brentano's in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel...
...AA is really about anger management as much as about anything else, and calmer people will be more pro-social people, and better writers.A calmer writer sees what's going on better than one who is jonesed out from missing his drink or his cocaine...
...How happy I am to speak to ordinary people and not the beautiful people of the press in the nation's capital...
...Bliss...
...It's a great idea, and certainly Hollywood, which lives in stupendous luxury guarded by the sacrifice of America's fighting men and women, owes the men in mud and dust and blood a visit by Julia Roberts and George Clooney and other stars...
...Anti-Americanism is, I think, an artifact of general depression and severe anxiety states...
...I have come to love our cats immensely...
...In any event, I have up little strands of lights in my house in Malibu, in my office, in my dressing room, in my bedroom all year long...
...I had a lengthy wait at the airport, which I put to good use studying the fine architecture of the terminal...
...My wife actually put it into practice by ordering them, but how I love them...
...By the way, the GOP official magazine is called, appropriately, Main Street, not Sunset Boulevard, which in a way expresses the basic lack of fit between the GOP and the Hollywood crowd...
...Inspiring...
...I can well feel his feelings of glee...
...Well, if my father gets home from work and he's really tired and my mother is tired, too, I just make dinner for my father without being asked," she said cheerily...
...Years ago, I had a researcher of simply phenomenal ability...
...We just need more viewers, so anyone who has a chance, please watch...
...I guess they think it's hypochondria...
...By the way, I have been impressed over recent years with how the image of government in Hollywood movies has been chang ing...
...No longer-not by a long way-is government the home of virtues that might provide electricity to a poor valley or solve crimes...
...The younger goes to a Jewish high school in Fun City called Ramaz.They were as pretty and delightful as could be...
...We love you...
...But wow, do we have fun as we do the show...
...I just love lights, especially twinkling little ones of many colors...
...I wish I could discuss this with my father and mother, but they are beyond The Green Flash at this point...
...They were the malcontents and complainers, Communists and their pals, who were secure enough to hate America (just like some modern academics or those self-hating spoiled kids I mentioned).They created the anti-American ethos of contempt for the military, for small towns, for the family, that stays with us to this day...
...Thank you, socialist electricity commissar Gray Davis...
...I am winning a lot of games, which makes me feel good, of course, and if the show does end soon, I will be heart-broken, not to mention broke, period...
...Not enough business...
...TUESDAY Malibu The Green Flash...
...I asked what that meant...
...As I said, I am back, and I am at my post here at "Win Ben Stein's Money...
...MONDAY Beverly Hills 0 h, what a lucky boy am L It's Christmas Eve and I am all by my little self...
...By the way, it's no crime to be depressed and it's no crime to feel anger about social conditions...
...I have never known a really anti-American person who did not suffer from super-serious anxious depression...
...It turned out that they are from NewYork...
...What must it be like to have a child who practices respect as a sacrament, so to speak...
...It turns out the store is closing on December 31...
...She was breaking my heart: she wanted to get back in but Brigid would chase her if she got near the door.We put Brigid in the car and then Bug-ette happily came into the house, went under the Christmas tree, and fell asleep...
...But when you put away childish things, it's time to cleave to the people who really want to take care of you...
...Then he laughed and patted the boy on the head...
...I gave the girls copies of my books...
...She and I did spectacular work in busting financial fraud...
...I usually say, "Because I say so and I pay the bills and I am the Dad," but in my heart, I think he has a point...
...My lights were twinkling and I felt great...
...She seemed crushed...
...Again, how to alienate a really good customer...
...I notice that Jews appreciate these lights much more than Gentiles...
...What a great guy We talked for a long time and the friend, who is a stunt double for Charlie, told me he was a Republican and had his hat off to me for being a Republican in Hollywood...
...He does call me "Sir" now, for which I am grateful...
...They can get into a mood and run from everyone and everything...
...Susie was making cookies or something else sweet, and a funny fellow named Tony from "That Eighties Show" was on hand...
...Hollywood is America's spoiled, pampered but sullen and fault-finding teenage child (and boy do I know that tune...
...But I shall always treasure these months...
...And Beverly Hills, with dozens of clothing stores, a jillion jewelry shops and fifty restaurants has not one book shop...
...I think I am in the right job for me down to aT for the first time in my life...
...I told her I was already married to a living, breathing saint...
...I turned on the twinkling Christmas lights that my wife had ordered for the front lawn and which our helper,Tina, put in so beautifullyThe girls ooh-ed and ahh-ed...
...Then we got super-patriotic movies like Over There and Dings and, of course, the racist but still sort of patriotic, 84 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2002 Birth of a Nation...
...I get to enjoy them all by myself, because wifie and Tommy are in Hawaii...
...I have a theory that when Hollywood started out, it was run by Jewish immigrants who were on their hands and knees to be grateful to be in America rather than in the horrible, pogrom-ridden villages of Russia...
...Frankly I thought she might have been teasing me...
...Abortion on demand does not force anyone to have an abortion...
...Talking to me is preaching to the choir...
...The same eighty or a hundred years...
...It is a match made in heaven...
...I told him it was easier these days than it ever had been before...
...You're the coolest ever," said the older of the two girls...
...not the Polo Lounge.The product is American values and the images are America at its best...
...I miss Nancy's wit and beauty, but Sal was made for this job...
...What else Hollywood can do for the war on terror is hard for me to see...
...He was filled with funny stories about life in the Valley when he was growing up.Years ago,Adam appeared on Letterman...
...The girls left and I got ready to read my 86 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR , JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2002 book about great houses of Ireland...
...But I also know it's not easy to be a child, especially the child of a celebrity...
...No, this is Charlie Sheen," I said...
...And then they can be in a different mood and pounce on everything they see.The new one is not yet strong enough to leap up everywhere like the other cats, so she bravely claws her way up the furniture and then sits on my head while I write or read...
...She is a tiny little Calico and wow, do I love her little face and her little paws as they attack me...
...How long since women have had completely equal rights...
...And as happy as I am with my Brigid and nay Green Flash, how I do miss my mom and pop...
...When the little boy spilled water, Don said, "Now, you've ruined Christmas...
...What giant mistakes we made with our son...
...Eighty years out of tens of thousands of man's existence...
...The speech went well...
...So did the water around it...
...I took room service (which was superb), then got into the enormous bathtub with its whirlpools and luxuriated in the heat and swirling water...
...Hollywood all in all is still a little hotbed of discontent amidst staggering plenty and prosperity...
...I was grateful and when Charlie and I said good-bye, the girls walked with me down to Rizzoli and met Al Burton, the genius inventor of "Win Ben Stein's Money...
...BEN STEIN'S DIARY TUESDAY Beverly Hills Here I am sitting at my kitchen table eating a delicious Texas pink grapefruit, yum, and what do I read in the newspaper spread out before me% Another story about the BushWhite House trying to make some connection with Hollywood...
...On the way back, I talked at length to the two girls who had come from New York...
...And by the way, who even remembers Pat McCarran any more...
...They were observant Jews, they said...
...I wended my way up into the Hollywood Hills to Jimmy and Gina Kimmel's house, bearing gifts for the Kimmel kids, and after a few false starts, I found my way...
...They don't mean I have converted...
...The problem is really not abortion on demand, so much as a culture that encour ages women to have abortions...
...How well I recall slights and hurts at work over the years, especially when I was at the Federal Trade Commission...
...These are the people who have been understanding the tsunami of patriotism with their commercials, and who have been riding it like the best surfers The Pipeline ever saw...
...It's impressive...
...Too much rent...
...How much we all need someone to take care of us, at every age...
...Take these things for granted and you are a fool...
...That may change, too...
...Life is grand...
...Cousin Sal, Jimmy's cousin, continues to do fabulously well as co-host...
...They have a spectacular combination of fear, terror, and daring...
...Well, I could go on forever about this, but I won't...
...Right off hand, I cannot think of a more beautiful modern glass wall, and no one pays any attention to it at all...
...The newest one, Kitty Bug-ette, climbs on me, attacks my toes under the covers, throws a ball into the air and then attacks it...
...And now the Hollywood crowd has its own scions in the business.Why not...
...Freedom...
...It was to a group of very nice men and women who make precursors to vitamins and minerals, for humans and animals.They laughed at all of my jokes, smiled and were cheerful, asked good questions and could not have been more attentive...
...Oh, well...
...Anyway, as I talked with Charlie Sheen, mostly about women, two attractive girls came by and asked for my autograph...
...But soon a kindly Hispanic woman came and sorted it all out, and I was in my lovely room overlooking the fake volcano...
...And how many times I was cheated here in Hollywood...
...No more little socialist solidarity buttons like I used to see even in the 70s...
...Those children and grandchildren know nothing about hatred ofAmerica or the Popular Front.They know only that life is great here, and they like it a lot...
...He even clears his place at the table...
...They mean we are cheerful, or so I think...
...Family...
...Not as much as I love my Brigid, but a lot...
...It's the best business on earth...
...Then the cranks and crackpots came out to be writers...
...The need to stay in touch with your family and the telephone company.The urgency of protecting and renewing love and the diamond...
...But '1 bravely carry on with my tasks...
...Her name was Susan Reifer...
...And soon, we will have people who can understand Hollywood and America better for their calmness of mood...
...Charlie Sheen...
...How long since black men have been in high political office in large numbers...
...I went to a lot of trouble to stay here, including paying for my room myself when the convention I am speaking to wanted me to stay at the Venetian...
...And then as the sun was about ninety per cent in the water, it turned a distinct green, like the green of a lima bean...
...Today, as Brigid and I were marking Christmas by thanking God for the good people in our lives, the day was perfect.As the afternoon wore on, the sky was a spectacular pink and gray and blue...
...My head was spinning...
...But little by little, they are getting replaced by actual Americans from Texas or Oklahoma, or at least leavened with such people...
...And made to feel small, especially by people who are now in eclipse...
...The glorious precious beauty of the everyday...
...Like humans...
...She was a Williams grad like my father...
...It was a pleasant day, although a bit damp...
...I have looked a million times and never seen it...
...What, thirty-five years at most, out of 5800 years of Jewish life...
...I felt right at home the minute I walked in the door, although I think I inadvertently showed up a bit early...
...The house is lovely...
...Hollywood's views have changed a lot: the power players are still Democrats at best, but the younger guys and gals I see around me believe in individual action as the key to almost every domestic problem...
...The invite came by way of my lovely make-up and hair girl, the thin and talented Susie, who is helping Jinimy to cook...
...They said they were Orthodox Jews...
...They are not the stars with empty brains of yesteryear, who thought they would seem smart if they were commies...
...But no one is compelled to have an abortion.The same glorious culture that celebrates the individ ual achievement so mag nificently in science, sports, even culture (although modern music and art are garbage) also celebrates selfishness on a scale that encourages abortion and the taking of innocent life, to make life easier for us guilty ones...
...I gave it to them...
...Anyway, as I waltzed down Rodeo, a handsome man and his handsome friend stopped me...
...The older one asked me if I could marry her...
...The writers, photographers, designers and directors who make these productions have it in their power to evoke more emotion in a few seconds than all but the best Hollywood movies can do in a few hours...
...Naturally, they were from small towns in the Midwest, for the most part.Very few were from Washington, D.C...
...Then Don Barris, our very funny warm-up man and a hilarious comedian, really a truly great guy, showed up...
...Not at all," she said...
...There are many more and I think it's a trend.You see the comic part of it on "The Simpsons" and on "South Park," where government at every level is totally feckless and incompetent where it isn't evil.Young Hollywood is not in the groove of the past where government was the solution to every problem...
...I do warn everyone and no one takes me seriously...
...How long that Jews have had completely equal rights with Christians in America...
...At the American Airlines portion, there is a little cafe with a wall about a hundred feet high of glass in little lovely casemented rectangles...
...Not a good night to remember hurt feelings.We had our delicious meal of fish and steak...
...How long to have safe, delicious meat at any time...
...THURSDAY Las Vegas Jam in a suite at The Mirage...
...It got dark and I invited the girls in...
...Then when Tommy is around and chasing her, she runs like mad.The other day she got outside and ran away from Phil DeMuth and me for an eternity, until we got her back inside...
...Instead, I can enjoy what I have and that is a hell of a lot...
...What can this mean...
...Thus, to expect Hollywood to gin up patriotic stories on any consistent basis is to expect a lot, unless the war on terror takes on a sinister new dimension of further bombings and mass killings closer to Hollywood and Vine, or Rodeo Drive...
...I'm a bit old for you anyway, aren't I?" I asked her...
...By its very nature, Hollywood is, or at least sees itself as, a very well paid artists' community...
...You're three times as old as I am.That's perfect...
...Check it out next time you are at McCarran Airport...
...Well, enough of that...
...They are visiting and seeing the sights, and they love me...
...Friends...
...A warm bath...
...And of course his or her brain works a lot better...
...No, today, they know they seem smart if they like Reagan...
...A magnificent, paneled, elegant Hunter's at Santa Monica and Rodeo...
...Magnificent...
...It likes to complain about things and to take stances which it sees as contrary to Main Street.The standard Hollywood writer and producer lives and breathes to show that America's Main Street is hypocritical and inherently immoral...
...And maybe we'll see better pictures...
...They mean I am showing that this is a happy house that joins in solidarity with the nation and all Believers at this time...
...He's the coolest ever...
...I'll just say, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all, wherever you are...
...I didn't recognize them...
...Pure bliss...
...It's far too easy, for sure...
...They are sellers and doers, not complainers, and they know the mood of the nation in a way Hollywood can only dream of...
...Or maybe it's genetic...
...Two dogs, three kitties and me in bed...
...If I could live my life over, I would have started getting closer to them, really working at it, a lot earlier.When you are a child, you fight against them and their control over you...
...I am suffering from the flu or a chest cold or pneumonia or something awful...
...The producers are happy...
...Little by little, he may be learning...
...Cats are amazingly amusing creatures, especially when they are kittens...
...And I hope you some day see The Green Flash...
...Everyone on the set feels extremely relaxed and happyThe shows just seem to fly by...
...But I will not be lonely tonight (as Elvis might have said) because I am invited to Jimmy Kirmnel's house for Christmas Eve Dinner...
...Al and I shopped morosely at Rizzoli...
...And Jimmy's house is really great because Jimmy is here in an apron, hard at work making seven kinds of fish to mark the sacraments for Christmas.This is an Italian custom and it's lovely Jimmy is right by the grill, cooking away, and making very finny conversation about his house and his show and his wife...
...Well, close to two times, I said, but who's counting...
...Or The Matrix, in which humans are kept utterly subjugated, just living in dreams while their bodies are plundered for wattage, and government "agents" are the embodiment of all evil...
...One of my closest and dearest relatives is upset about the lights...
...By someone named MontgomeryMassingberd...
...Then one day while we were working in Malibu, she told me about The Green Flash...
...Let's hope that's it, so I am not to blame...
...I get to stay with the dogs and cats...
...MONDAY Beverly Hills A stroll into town to meet my pal Al Burton to buy books at the Rizzoli bookstore on Wilshire...
...The crew is happy...
...Then it was gone...
...This job was made for me, and I will be so sad to leave it...
...It is FABULOUS...
...Don made a hilarious joke at Jimmy's son...
...But to me they are a way of expressing the beauty and happiness of life in these great United States...
...Now it's going too, probably killed by Amazon (which I love a lot, too...
...Good fellows and gals to work with, a hearty team feeling, excellent pay, a chance to show off, stretching my mind every day...
...It is hard right offhand to think of something in middle-class life more infuriating than a surly and unhelpful hotel reception clerk...
...And a large but not elegant Doubleday on Santa Monica Boulevard...
...The older girl-who did all of the talking anyway-said they lit Sabbath candles and respected their parents...
...Now, Adam is a big star...
...All gone now, these fifteen years at least...
...I suppose I am hopeless...
...Balmy As the sun fell, the sky turned more pink and even red...
...I asked them what that meant...
...Until today...
...No, it's capitalism in a thorough way now among the young, although there is still silly fingerpointing at families and small towns...
...Here you are tired and irritable, and the hotel cops a big huge attitude...
...No, you're the coolest ever," the girls said...
...Or maybe I should put it differently...
...Yes, Tommy went more or less straight from boarding school in New Hampshire to Hawaii...
...Oh, and one more thing, Rarely have I met a truly angry man or woman here without a drug or alcohol problem, or both.With the mass acceptance of Alcoholics Anonymous as the religion of Hollywood, there is far less drunkenness and alcoholism than there was, and thus far less anger...
...We live in a golden age...
...She bites me and then rubs against me...
...The normal competi tiveness of boys with their Dads is hard enough...
...Hollywood is the dopey college student who thinks he knows a lot about misery because he read the Cliff Notes of The Communist Manifesto...
...Replaced with high-end clothing stores that no one but visiting Japanese somehow still rich after fifteen years of recession-can afford.Then a few years ago we got Rizzoli and it's lovely although small...
...I was told long ago by my religious teacher friend Jane that cheerful lights are a holy thing and a rrutzvah...
...I called Susan to ask her but she's in Canada skiing...
...But there is a neighborhood where appeals to show a patriotic spirit of support for America and its Main Street values would play far better than on any studio lot...
...I personally have not been contacted for this effort, possibly because they know I am already signed up...
...Maybe there's a certain rebelliousness against the older Marxist generation going on here, too, like that character Michael J. Fox used to play, the conservative child of hippie parents on a great sitcom whose name evades me now The hippies today, the rebels like Matt and Trey of South Park fame, like to say they are Republicans pour epater la bourgeoisie.This is expressed on the screen in the South Park mockery of liberals, and more is on the way from my pals Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla...
...I drove home in a fabulous mood, with my Brigid in my car...
...Adam Carolla, Jimmy's best friend and co-star of his "Man Show," appeared...
...Actually two and a half times...
...If the White House thinks it needs help sustaining the national morale (and I am not at all sure it does), the place to look is Madison Avenue...
...Then, of course, there is also the phenomenon of the psycho-active medication...
...Really he's as ignorant as a post, but he thinks he knows a lot, plus he has moral pretentiousness exploding out of him like manure out of a sick cow...
...He actually was in a good mood when he got back, but very eager to play his computer games...
...How long has it been that man has been able to have hot baths on demand...
...No, government now is very often an evil place that spies on us, keeps us under its thumb and potentially or actually terrorizes us...
...My pal, Karl Rove, a brilliant political strategist, has come out here, broken bread with powerful studio moguls and major stars and agent, and then brought them back to the White Idouse.The purpose, presumably, is to enlist their aid in keeping up national morale in the utterly meritorious struggle against terrorists and terrorism...
...Really, it is a major showplace that gets very little attention...
Vol. 35 • January 2002 • No. 1
