BEN STEIN'S DIARY: Staying Alive
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN'S DIARY Staying Alive by Benjamin J, Stein WEDNESDAY ~'AM IN NEWYORK CITY. IT IS FREEZING. I had dinner with my friend Wendy at the Caf~ Botanica here at the Essex House. It was a...
...And no one is trying to kill us or work us to death...
...I wonder how many of us Jews take time each day to thank God for our daily lives in America (and England...
...But I am swimming in my great pool...
...Because I believe that fish will keep me from dying any time soon...
...I lie on my back and watch the continued on page 66 64 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 2006 BEN STEIN'S D ARY planes fly into PSP (Palm Springs...
...My sister is a diet fanatic and she has made me conscious about eating more sanely...
...Then, I look beside me, and there is the face of my dreams, beautiful, spectacularly kind, laughing, perfect wifey...
...Hmmm...
...John...
...Scary...
...What on earth is happening in this country...
...They gave me chills...
...It is about how horrible parental notification is...
...Money does not keep people from suffering from clinical depression...
...The author of the article saw fit to mention--with a specific percentage--how well the decedent's investments had done...
...I don't think he knows much about the human condition...
...I read about people getting blown up in tlamadi by terrorists...
...What are any of us learning...
...I hope we appreciate it...
...I often wonder how I will die...
...But I guess not to her...
...She thought for a moment (at least I assume she was thinking) and then she said, "John Adams...
...Plus, now that I am 61, I feel the chill breath ofmortalityupon myneck...
...Every day and night, I read the New York Times...
...It really made me want to cry...
...I was impressed...
...I am very big on self-pity...
...Or maybe it didn't...
...A few days ago, wifey and I walked a few blocks in Beverly Hills...
...The man is as brave as they make them, and a genuine genius comedian...
...It really made me want to cry...
...I often think that all of America is just too good to be true, and some day it will just collapse under the pressure of human wickedness...
...As usual, it made me very happy to be in America...
...I t is about howhorrible a doctor is who tried to get a young pregnant woman to not have an abortion...
...I am morally certain that NABAL helped write that script...
...On the flight, I sat next to a man named Richard Cohen...
...It was as if to say, "How can anyone who beats the Dow by so much have been so depressed...
...And the Americans freezing at Bastogne as they held off the Nazis on Christmas Day and seeing the same stars...
...And here am I swimming in a heated pool watching the stars...
...Fish oils...
...By the way...
...How young can that author be...
...The odd thing is that her mother tells me she's always doing homework...
...It is about one in the orning...
...That sort of thing...
...With strangers all around me and no one who knows me there to say good-bye...
...I am very sure that my smart nephew and niece knew it when theywere six...
...Is it really possible that anyone so rich can be unhappy...
...When we had lunch after the event, he insisted on blessing the meal...
...I putted for a while, pretended to be a confident golfer, then took my father's sister, my only surviving aunt, to dinner at the wonderful restaurant here at the Longboat Key Club...
...I asked her what she was doing in school, and somehow the conversation got around to the year 1953...
...As she went on about how much she loves her new boss, I had a flash of an article I read in today's Wall Street Journal about a fabulously wealthy investment guru named Zankel who committed suicide in his 70s because of severe depression...
...My father was sure he would die of a heart attackwhile rushing through an airport to catch a plane...
...It came to me powerfully today because a man near me at airport check-in at LAX suddenly collapsed and threw up and we all thought he was having a heart attack but he wasn't...
...Who on earth deserves to live like this...
...Incredible mistreatment of man by his fellow man...
...What a mystery of human life...
...I spoke this morning at a _~L '~ seminar given by my pal, the brilliant Ray Lucia...
...I picture the Union soldiers lying wounded before Marye's Heights in Fredericksburg and dying of loss of blood and exposure and seeing the same stars (although maybe it was raining that night...
...Paradise is wifey, and wifey and dogs together are perfect...
...I asked her if she knew who was president in late 1953...
...I followed him around the way a puppy follows his master...
...And here in America, we worry because there is too much food too much consuming of luxury goods too much building of mansions...
...What is that about...
...Please, Mr...
...Instead of trying to change the world, I'll try to improve my game...
...As much as you loved him, that's how much I loved him...
...Maybe I really am dying...
...As for me, I am going to practice putting tomorrow...
...I swear I am not kidding...
...Cohen had grown up in England, clearly in privilege, so I guess he was happy, too...
...It is incredible...
...The culture of death is very much alive in Hollywood...
...Ben Stein i s a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu...
...I can imagine the prisoners at Auschwitz watching the same stars as they were worked to death and froze to death...
...I watch the moon rise over the hedges...
...Anyway, that's why I had fish for dinner, and it was great...
...This is modern-day television...
...I kept thinking, "Wow, here are us two Jewish guys sitting on the airplane laughing and scratching and listening to music...
...I read about riots in the Ivory Coast and people getting their limbs hacked offby soldiers and butchers...
...Maybe it's because they are immortal and I am associating myself with them...
...I liked him a lot...
...WEDNESDAY ERE I AM BACK IN NEW YORK CITY fighting with a mosquito that has somehow--in Januaryotten into room 2715 of the Essex House (yes, on the 27th floor) and sucked so much blood from me that it has left a gory stain on my pillow as I gave it its death blow...
...More self-pity...
...It's almost unbelievable, but there it is...
...What was my father like as a child...
...Before this he had been head of Burberry and of Zegna, also high-end clothing stores...
...Maybe in Atlanta...
...Will I die rushing through an airport to catch a connecting flight...
...Can I reallybe seeing and hearing Ted Kennedy question Judge Alito's ethics and morals...
...Then another channel...
...What is she learning...
...Maybe my memory is falling, but I recall learning at least a bit of history by the time I was 12...
...By the way, I marvel at the news out of the Alito hearings...
...There are stories about Chinese protesters getting killed by the Chinese police...
...Murdoch, give him his own talk show...
...I guess so...
...I rested for a very long time in my room overlooking the Gulf of Mexico...
...In any event, it is super pleasant and what did I ever do to deserve it...
...It is the Right to Life movement that are devils...
...Wendy, my dinner companion, explained to me at great length the various complications of her job...
...Beating the bogey does not do it...
...If I am dying, I would very much like for heaven to be just the way my life is now, with special emphasis on lots of time with wifey and with dogs...
...Cohen is the owner of a chain of very highend women's clothing stores called St...
...I hugged her...
...I am not sure what does do it, but ha~ng a successflfl REIT does not do it...
...I know she's only 12, but don't young people today learn who the Founding Fathers were and when they did their founding...
...It's art...
...I like it a lot...
...SUNDAY WI AM AT OUR HOME in Morningside Country lub in Rancho Mirage...
...Apparently they are for wealthy women only...
...I felt super-dizzy...
...I came on the stage right after an incredibly smart guy named Leo Wells, who runs an immense real estate investment trust...
...A rerun of Sex and the City in which women talk a lot about their bodies, let's say, and giggle and flirt...
...It is an amazing truth, but while I have had a huge number of women friends--I think I beat Ted Kennedy in that regard hands down--wifey is by far the only woman I would ever want to be with in eternity...
...Paradise is dogs...
...She really is wonderful...
...Maybe it's because they are beautiful...
...An insane dictator in Venezuela atop a vast reservoir of oil...
...It's a revolting parody of an iPod ad in which woman stick iPods in their vaginas and then dance around with them...
...It is freezing here, too, almost as cold as New York...
...Anti-LDL...
...His father had been a major power in English clothing retailing and he, my neighbor, was apparently both very successful and very smart (and also very thin...
...This is the textbook definition of chutzpah: Ted Kennedy questioning anyone else's morals...
...Is that really happening...
...She's about 85, and smokes heavily...
...I try to eat fish a few times each week even though I greatly prefer chicken and roast beef...
...Maybe 42 degrees by my thermometer...
...I keep it heated to an insanely high temperature...
...I flipped the channel to Fox...
...It scares me...
...Should I write that letter of recommendation...
...Maybe in Dallas...
...Probably I'll die of stroke when I see the gas bill...
...I keep thinking about an incident I had with a lovely young woman who wants a recommendation for a fine private day school in Philadelphia and asked me for it...
...It's beyond chutzpah...
...I adored him," she said...
...After that harrowing battle, I could not sleep...
...She's as sweet as Tupelo Honey, she's an angel of the first degree, she's as sweet as Tupelo Honey, just like honey, baby, from the bee...
...I said I had to tall~ to her to learn about her life...
...MARCH 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 67...
...I saw Dennis Miller on Leno last night...
...SATURDAY ~T-ow I AM IN SABASOTA, FLORIDA, at the lovely i ~ l Longboat Key Club...
...Note the self-pity...
...The steam rises from the pool and I am a happy guy...
...It is so unbelievably fabulous to be here, and we owe so much to the men who died to keep us free...
...I don't knowwhy I have become so obsessed lately with the stars at night...
...I asked her...
...Maybe I'll get to live another day...
...Except for Dennis Miller, the most talented man in Hollywood, and Patricia Heaton, that's pretty much all the culture there is...
...But I love swimming in it at night...
...Brutal repression and brutal insurgency in Nepal...
...As Americans, in 2006, we are all in that blissful heated pool outside the mainstream of the horrible currents of history, As Americans, in 2006, we are all in that blissful heated pool outside the mainstream of the horrible currents of history...
...He is a Georgia country boy, and wow, is he a capable fellow or what...
...Boring...
...It is about how the young girl and her boyfriend--who battered their baby to death rather than allow him to be adopted and loved and to live --are really angels...
...It was a great meal: Dover Sole with butter sauce...
...She's 12 years old...
...I look at the stars...
...Maybe the whole country really is dying...
...Back to my room and a rare glance at TV...
...Brilliant investor, great comedian, astoundingly good salesman, and a man of faith...
...I wonder about the mindset of the writer who thought that number worth mentioning...
...It is insane how blessed we are...
...Here's Law and Order...
...As usual, the people there looked terrify66 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 2006 BENJAMmN J . STEIN ingly tough and angry...
Vol. 39 • March 2006 • No. 2
