BEN STEIN'S DIARY: Hallucinations
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN DIARY Hallucinations by Benjamin J. Stein SATURDAY I ERE I AM IN NAPLES, FLORIDA. I am here to give people. I am at the Ritz Carlton in Naples. I really is not that fabulous a place,...
...He has indeed turned his life over to God, and it shows...
...Yes, it was pneumonia again...
...The car pleased me lot, though, because I just did a commercial for themand they were a joy to work with...
...I think there is a song that goes like that...
...There were dozens of pretty young blond( women all staggering drunk...
...It was here we took Tommy when he pretended to have taken an overdose of Tylenol to keep from having to go back to Cardigan and here I went to find out why I could not breathe about three years ago and found I had pneumonia...
...For some reason, they were all about Clinton...
...I always thought I would marry someone from Mississippi, and in a way, I did...
...Hov can it be that she is so healthy and well in her '80s am smokes...
...56 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 2004 BEN STEIN DIARY show long ago...
...I had to get back to the reinsuranc( people, so my visit was very short (alas, it was two am a half hours each way to get there...
...But I had family business to attend to...
...I think in a previous life I lived in Mississippi...
...I want Tommy to go here if he does not go to Williams...
...And I had a few insights...
...This morning, I strolled around the hotel am looked at the pretty girls in their bathing suits...
...First, I thought, I am no better than Bill Clinton...
...At the reinsuranc( event, I visited with a number of people in the busi ness...
...She had a beautiful home is Schenectady and always a great car...
...I had some eggs am toast and then on to the hotel...
...Is it possible tha blondes carry a gene that makes them get drunk faste than brunettes...
...ina state of extreme exhaustion...
...Instead, I get to lie in bed feeling bad, slurping down medicine, but having the extreme pleasure of having my dog, Brigid, and my wife's dog, Susie, right next to me...
...Well, that is not what I am talking about when I say "Something is up...
...On the other hand, he wants to go to school in California...
...I am just floating this as a possibility Bear in mind, most of the blondes were probabl: bleached, so maybe my theory is a bit strained...
...This whole business with psychoactive drugs is very scary...
...I have to say this is only about one percent more likely than that he was killed but at least it is a possibility...
...I got is late last night after a weird trip...
...But if you are out and among `em, you get a very different idea: that this country i; JUNE 2004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 5 BENJAMIN STEIN peopled by hard-working, decent folks who are trying to do their best for their families and their neighbors and their customers and stockholders...
...I really love the South a lot...
...The McDonald's hi took me to was filled with African-Americas teenagers who started screaming, "Clear Eyes, Clea Eyes," and waved at me...
...I had happy dreams that I was visiting Tommy at Rhodes...
...I feel excruciatingly tired...
...I want to be more like him...
...This is one of the great gems of American education...
...The buildings are stunningly well designed...
...I can still recal her Buick Skylark from about 1954 with its power windows...
...But I was happy tc see her so well...
...I liked it...
...Each one is small am personal and has fabulous food...
...This, by the way, is why I don't just like but LOVE George W. Bush...
...Young am Rubicam was the ad agency and my Pop had been pal...
...That means something bad is happening and I don't like it at all...
...How vividly I recall her as a glamorous figure when I was a child...
...We visited for about an hour and ; half...
...At the hotel, there was a fund-raiser for a loca school...
...He told me had met me on "the field of honor...
...I can well recall when a doctor gave me one and about four weeks into it, I was at a hotel in Baltimore, and I was wondering if I could throw a chair through the window and jump out to my death...
...Maybe we had it all wrong about tobac co....On the other hand, I think it played a big part is killing my father...
...with Ray Rubicam long ago...
...He also wanted me to know I had a nice big block of fog on my left lung...
...This is the fourth or fifth time...
...Ben Stein is a writer, actor, lawyer and economist in Beverly Hills and Malibu...
...Maybe it is because about 15 years ago, my Pop got the Seidman prize in economics from a committee at Rhodes...
...Then we plunged into a long highway that cross es the Everglades...
...By which he meant he had been a contestant on my quiz I went to the lovely Memphis airport, where the baggage screeners called me "dear" and "honey...
...This is a chaii that is all through the South...
...Aunt Pearl, my father's sister, was in an ebullien mood...
...Wow, do I love my XM...
...FRIDAY 1 XCEPT...MY MAGNUM OPUS, p Can America Survive?, writ..1 ten mostly by my pal Phil DeMuth, is in need of editing...
...Second, I had a thought about Vince Foster, who is always on my mind...
...Wifey's family are from Mississippi...
...At Miami I was picket up by a driver who was a Cuban emigre who wanted t( be an actor (God help him...
...I am in Memphis, Tennessee, speaking at Rhodes College...
...I just feel as if I have a major connection with Rhodes...
...How can she be so neat when I an such a slob...
...She wanted to sit on her balcony and smoke...
...I really love the South a lot...
...This is just how men are, I am afraid, or at least how some men are...
...They moved to Arkansas to escape the brutal whips of the reconstruction carpetbaggers...
...On the other hand, both my wife and sis ter are very neat...
...I stopped taking the anti-depressant and in a day, I felt fine...
...I think in a previous life I lived in Mississippi...
...It was freaking long trip in a Mercury...
...In the midst of the main course, I felt so exhausted I could not keep my head up...
...When you are in a little nest of anger, you get a very different view...
...I envy the men am women who can make it work...
...The kids are stunningly smart and well spoken...
...I think it's called the Gato Highway or something like that...
...This place has a lot of memories...
...And then I collapse in my bed in a state of extreme exhaustion...
...If I were governor of a state like Arkansas that has legions of gorgeous girls, I would probably try to seduce as many of them as I could...
...But it is still darned nice...
...He took me to ; McDonald's to get a cheeseburger...
...So I have to spend a few hours a day at thekeyboard fixing things...
...So, my big trip east is canceled...
...I slept most of the way back in the Mercury, bu then spotted another Waffle House and had som( waffles and then back to sleep...
...I suspect that Vince Foster had not been warned about suicidal ideation on anti-depressants and thought he was terminally depressed and killed himself...
...We are all sinners, The only difference is if we admit it and ask God to take over our lives because as sinners, we can only survive as children of God to whom we take all of our problems and failings...
...Well, let me summarize here...
...Well, sure enough, the doctor came over to see me...
...He was a cheery fellow...
...Hey...
...Bush has indeed turned his life to God, and it shows...
...I think he did in fact commit suicide, but I think he did it because he had just been put on an anti-depressant...
...She and her fam ily inspired me...
...rented a car and driver and headed off to visit myAun Pearl in a lovely neighborhood near Sarasota...
...The: looked great...
...What a great car that was...
...By a glorious fate, we have a big room over the garage and I have a huge bed in it and can sleep in it as long as I need to...
...Sweet, sweet, the memories you gave to me...
...I got back to L.A...
...Anyway, I think I had better get to sleep, I am hallucinating...
...The doctor gave me powerful antibiotics, but as the song in Guys and Dolls says, "The medicine never gets anywhere near where the source of the trouble is...
...I went to the emergency room of Century City Hospital...
...Anyway, I got into my room, looked out at the ocean and then went into dream land...
...In any event, I would certainly flirt with them...
...I went to dinner with some people at a charity we support...
...It seems to me to be a very dicey business indeed...
...TUESDAY ELL, SOMETHING IS UP...
...I want to be more like him...
...You get a very positive view of America when you are actually in America...
...Then I rest for a while and then I edit again...
...However, I went out to get barbecue and felt a lot better...
...I am more and more convinced as I look at him that he is man, fallen man, post-lapsarian man, as my pal Phil would say...
...Now my XM is playing "Ling-Ting-Tong," another favorite...
...Really, really difficult on the risk side and oi the asset management side...
...This group, like all the groups I meet, inspire m( to a simple thought: if you watch the nightly news oi any of the networks, you get the impression that this country is falling apart and that everyone in it is either a victim or a conspirator...
...I have used a lot of them and their effects can be brutal...
...They often snap back on the user and make him feel acutely suicidal...
...I went to the lovely Memphis airport, where the baggage screeners called me "dear" and "honey...
...Well, so I am lying here with all kinds of things hooked up to me...
...My aunt lives in a fantastically clean, neat, amaz ingly well-organized condo in a building on the bead' near Sarasota...
...I spoke to a very good crowd, and then went back to my room and crashed into a deep sleep...
...Anyway, back to Bill Clinton...
...I really is not that fabulous a place, especial': compared with the ultimate hotel, Thi a speech to a lovely group of reinsuranc( Breakers...
...It was very dark Then we came to a small town, where we espied one o my favorite places, "The Waffle House...
...Hey, at this moment I am listening to my fabulous XM radio and hearing it play one of my favorite songs, "Rip Van Winkle...
...Memories, memories, memories...
...It is a small (roughly 1,600 students ) liberal arts college on 100 perfectly manicured acres close to downtown Memphis...
...And who are we to say we are any better...
...Plus, for a little while, I get to have my wife lie in bed next to me reading her mysteries...
...I just know this book is going to kill me...
...Now I am listening to XM play "Japanese Sandman," another of my faves...
Vol. 37 • June 2004 • No. 5
