BEN STEIN'S DIARY: On the Road Again
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN'S DIARY On the Road Again by Benjamin J. Stein FRIDAY H ERE I AM IN BOCA RATON, FLORIDA. Wifey and I flew in to Miami last night. It was hot. It was very hot. Humid, too. Too many...
...Naturally, she mainly wanted to talk about food...
...Then I went to see Rich Rescigno, a high pooh bah at Barron's, and we had a nice natter...
...We talked about how much we hate the obscene executive compensation that's going on and how my hero, Bush, has turned a blind eye to it...
...Like all of us, she is lucky to be in America...
...We both looked at the shoes of the kids graduating...
...Anyway, it's water...
...I have no memory of it at all except my mother complaining about how greasy the food was...
...Jean Dorsett fell in love with me, but I didn't know it...
...Can she act, or whfit...
...and Mrs...
...An immense mosquito bit me and made me crazy with itching but luckily I had some anti-itch cream so I survived...
...And I love meeting new people...
...In Dallas, I had dinner with a woman whose exboyfriend had just given away his German shorthaired pointer...
...Why...
...I am really impressed...
...After a modest lunch, I went back to the hotel and slept for about four hours...
...It was surprising how many of them I knew...
...Plus, I felt very nutty, almost panicky, when I landed and they would not let us off for 15 minutes...
...I sat next to her after my speech and we hit it off famously...
...Wifey and I went for a long walk along the Intracoastal, had a modest dinner, and went to bed early...
...She didn't look happy...
...Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu...
...Spectacular...
...Really scary...
...Management signed offon those deals that are now killing the industry...
...It all worked out, but it made me glad that I don't work in live TV everyday...
...Bathrooms way too small...
...Plus, it cost $30...
...One of my favorite places, the Amway Grand Hotel...
...Lynn, whose late husband was a principal donor to the school...
...They were AMAZING...
...What is it about music...
...Why doesn't anyone blame management...
...That's a Shakespeare quote...
...Then she met and married the fabulously successful Mr...
...JULY/AUGUST 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 65...
...She should give lessons...
...They were a great audience...
...She is still lovely and could not be more charming...
...We had a modest dinner...
...He was now driving a sedan while awaiting a job in the government...
...In the booth ten feet from us two good old boys were smoking, and saying "Bueller, Bueller...
...Wonderful stuff overlooking the ocean...
...I stayed up and watched a documentary about the Xingu Indians of the Amazon...
...What happens to me is not terribly important...
...It's my obsession...
...One of the best ever...
...He was super friendly and told me how much he liked me in Ferris Bueller...
...No, I think I'll have Wlady do it...
...Lynn of Boca, an insurance magnate, and next thing she knew, she was in Florida...
...And I just adore Reese Witherspoon, who steals every scene she's in as June Carter Cash...
...Maybe just eggs, and then we watched Walk the Line together...
...We talked a lot about how much we love our troops and our police and firemen and even our teachers...
...FRIDAY G UESS WHERE I AM NOW...
...It made me crazy...
...I told her I was happily married plus I was not rich...
...Well, probably not that much actually compared with the other costs our host had to bear...
...He told me what his division did, and it was interesting indeed...
...The driver took us up to Boca, as we call it, on that maddeningly busy freeway...
...Too claustrophobic...
...That's its own kind of pleasure...
...I'm running for president...
...I went out on the deck and watched the moon over the waves...
...Plus, I don't think my sister ever got into country music or rock and roll...
...At the ceremony was Irving R. Levine, former economics correspondent for NBC and an old pal of my Pop's...
...I left my wife with the Feldman-Fairsteins and went off to the Essex House to my usual room...
...Then a super blowup at a TV network over scheduling a segment for little me...
...Joaquin Phoenix is great, too, especially the great look of concentration on his face when he's singing "Folsom Prison Blues" for Sam Phillips at Sun Records...
...Wait...
...That's it...
...Well, actually I guess a lot of people do...
...They made a damned good point: everyone talks about how badly the unions have gouged the automakers...
...And there are boats and that's nice...
...It's only money...
...Plus I also loved one scene at a motel where the swimming pool is just a perfect light blue...
...Still, the Charleston airport was charming, with many beautiful girls...
...Wait, no, it's not the ocean...
...Aren't pigs great...
...Well, more popcorn, huge doses of Fibercon, continued on page 64 62 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY/AUGUST 2006 BEN STEIN'S DIARY then off to sleep...
...I spent the night before talking about the auto industry with people from the labor unions...
...Then we had to have a bus take us to the terminal...
...Watch for that scene at a little Southern motel with the night-lit swimming pool...
...Then dinner with my food faddist friend Wendy...
...Too creepy and way, way, way too pretentious...
...I haven't been there since 1950 when mylittle family stopped there in our two-tone green Chevrolet sedan to sleep on our way to Miami Beach...
...There are a great number of very kind people in this nation, and that's the truth...
...My hosts from the Royal Bank of Canada took wifey and me to our rooms...
...Work...
...Grand Rapids, Michigan...
...Too cramped...
...Probably worrying about our son...
...He needs shooting...
...Ross, who run Lynn, were so amazingly hospitable I could hardly believe it...
...I sometimes wish I had gone to work on Wall Street but I am nowhere near tough enough, plus I hate getting up early...
...That's me bragging...
...Then we had trouble at the front desk of the Boca Raton Resort and Racquet Club, but it was quickly straightened out and we went to our room...
...It's the Intracoastal Waterway...
...A middle-aged woman at the Detroit airport asked me if I would marry her...
...I wound up loving that movie a lot even though it was slow...
...We had to shut it off after a few minutes...
...What a disaster...
...Again, everyone was super pleasant...
...I think he wants to be a spook...
...I hear tell she sang those songs her own self and that's no small thing...
...They were cute...
...Well, who cares...
...I think I'll look up her name right now as I'm writing this...
...SUNDAY U ' P AGAIN TO FLY to Charleston, South Carolina...
...They don't spend alot of time studying or working, but then they seem fairly happy...
...Our driver was a graduate of the Citadel and t o l d , us hair-raising stories of hazing...
...Then, a long, long drive to Detroit and a flight to Dallas...
...We had waffles (or I had a waffle) served by a stunningly beautiful young woman named Nicole...
...Waaay too much stress...
...Naturally, my wife was totally calm...
...No, I think the Almighty got me to where I am supposed to be...
...He seemed like a nice fellow...
...Hmmm...
...Then lots of cookies and tea, and then offto speak to the traders 64 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY/AUGUST 2006 BENJAMIN J . STEIN of the Royal Bank of Canada and some of their clients...
...What's that all about...
...What a story she had: famous Norwegian swimmer mother...
...On our way to our destination, Kiawah Island, we stopped at a Waffle House, my favorite restaurant...
...Maybe the most elegant rooms I have ever been in...
...Then a ride in a town car to the apartment of our dear friends, the married couple Justin Feldman and Linda Alice Fairstein...
...I like what I'm doing where everyone is nice to me all the time even though I have to travel all of the time...
...There is so much of life I don't understand and so little I do understand...
...It is not easy to travel coast to coast and then get up earlyto work...
...Work, work, work...
...The trip up was easy, although I am getting to really dislike small commuter planes...
...I wonder if Karl Rove knows what a thing he could have here...
...She told me she wanted to be a pediatrician but had no plans to go to college...
...Too many Democrats talking...
...Anyway, up very early this morning for another speech, this time to a large assembly of credit union officials...
...He was a great guy and major force for human dignity...
...I forgot...
...TUESDAY A GHASTLY TRIP ON A SMALL commuter plane from Charleston to LGA...
...But the whole movie is totally stolen, hook, line, and sinker, by the woman who plays Johnny Cash's bitch first wife...
...She is not just good, but great...
...An interesting mixture, from high heels to thongs...
...He drove us assiduously to our destination...
...But the Sanctuary is Really Deluxe...
...Justin is 86 years old and has behaved with ultra super courage in the face of this illness...
...I have one in Beverly Hills and one in Rancho Mirage, and I look at them a lot when they're lit up at night...
...But who am I, a tennis shoe playing fool, to complain...
...It's complicated, but it was an ugly situation and then I just got over it and did my thing even though I was being mistreated...
...It reminds me of when my high school senior trip took a bus ride to New Orleans and stayed at little motels with little blue-lit swimming pools, and Ms...
...Justin just had a porcine aortic valve implant that has saved his life...
...Fame is everywhere...
...I told him I worshipped him...
...He's a retired lawyer and she's a former DA and now a successful writer...
...We had ro6m service, which was also good (I had salmon) and then we watched the first few minutes of a movie called The New Land by Terrence Malick...
...I think it must be a typo in the Talmud that tells us Jews to stay away from them...
...He was as friendly as could be and it was a pleasure to see him...
...I had to get to bed early because tomorrow, Lords, is a busy day...
...I can't remember what it was so it must have been very modest...
...MONDAY A QUIET DAY WRITING MY COLUMN for the New York Times, and then swimming in the Sanctuary's Infinity Pool overlooking the ocean...
...Wifey was up all night being sick to her stomach...
...It is an evocative scene...
...She's one of the stars of Big Love on HBO, which I have not seen, but I'll bet she's good...
...The speaker for the next day is Tom Ridge and he came and sat with us...
...What happened to him after Badlands...
...But be warned, do not watch when Johnny's brother is near the saw...
...I am here speaking at the graduation of a fine little school called Lynn University...
...That's all I ever do...
...Her name is Ginnifer Goodwin-ed.] Anyway, we ordered popcorn from room service, and it was brought to us by an amazingly hirsute Haitian woman...
...He was taken from us far, far, far too young...
...Truly great, really super...
...Again, yuck...
...Everyone is extremely pleasant, especially the beautiful Ms...
...Two standing ovations...
...The plane had the tiniest lavatory I have ever seen or tried to use...
...There was a lot of nudity in that show, but it was sort of unpleasant...
...Kiawah is a barrier island about ten miles long, carefully cultivated, loaded with golf courses and the homes of the exploiting class, dense jungle, and then a spectacular hotel called the Sanctuary...
...By the way, I once sat across the aisle from Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash on a flight from LAX to New York City...
...Interestingly enough, I spend most of my day listening to music, but my sister and my mother spend or spent much less time if any...
...Plus, my wife's family is from Arkansas, so I feel as i f I have a bond with the Man in Black, since he was also from Arkansas...
...Huge, well furnished, overlooking the ocean with surf rolling in endlessly...
...That's what grownups do...
...But I happily do it to feed my family...
...I went down to the Wall Street Journal and met my pal, Dan Henninger, who writes a masterful column for the Friday edition...
...Czech diplomat father...
...Most of the movie is about as slow as watching paint dry, but I love the songs...
...The closest competitor would be the Breakers in Palm Beach...
...I liked him a lot...
...But the automakers agreed to all of the contracts...
...I shudder to think what our rooms cost...
...I have always been a huge fan of Johnny Cash, so I liked it...
...I wish he'd run for president...
...Something tells me, "Come in,' she said, 'I'll give you shelter from the storm,'" as my hero, Bob Dylan, has sung into my ears so many thousands of times...
...Really, what is it about music that gets to us so powerfully...
...I'll have to think about why...
...WEDNESDAY W HAT A DAY...
...SATURDAY U P IN THE MORNING AND OFF TO SCHOOL...
...She said she wanted a rich husband so she would not have to work...
...Sounds a lot like a certain tow-headed son of mine...
...I miss Bob Bartley a lot, though...
...Nerve wracking though...
...Yep, I am here working...
...Right here in Boca...
...That plane is way too small for a twoand-a-half hour flight, as it turned out to be...
...She was amazingly mean and cruel...
...I sat next to the head of the company's trading division, a handsome man named Mark...
...Afterwards, manywomen came up to me and told me they would want me to be president even though they were Democrats...
...No more commuter planes...
...Travels and travails around Europe and Canada...
...What a gracious, intelligent, decent man...
...Swimming pools are one of my favorite sights...
...Many, many TV shows and radio interviews, starting early in the morning on Fox and Friends...
Vol. 39 • July 2006 • No. 6
