WEDNESDAY
Now, this is what i call
work. I am in Las Vegas. I am not feeling at all well. Food
poisoning, I think. My suitcase handle is broken. My hotel room is
about five miles from the check-in counter at the Venetian. It is
the middle of the night and I am sick, sick, sick. I called the
room service folks to get some tea. They said it would be roughly
two hours — yes! Two hours for tea!!!!
So, I am lying in my bed in a room with a wall at an angle to
the rest of the room, making me feel crazy. I decided I would take
a hot, steamy shower to feel better.
No hot water. That’s right. No hot water.
Well, it is my own fault. If I lived more modestly, I could
retire. But I live like a maharajah, so I have to work.
Anyway, dawn finally came, rosy fingered, and I had to go about
another five miles, all within the hotel, to get to where I was
doing my appearance and guess what? The old ham bone blood in me
got pumping and I woke up, felt great, and did my thing and was
happy, happy, happy.
I rushed like a madman to McCarran Airport, named for an old
Commie-hunting senator from Nevada, Pat McCarran, boarded my plane,
and was asleep in seconds. Ooops. Not so fast, the insane couple
across the aisle from me were playing gin and shuffling the cards
as loudly as they could. That should be totally illegal but it’s
not. Anyway, my super Bose QC-15 noise-canceling headphones and my
Bob Dylan disc saved me and I did not have to throw a fit. God
bless Bob and God bless Mr. Bose.
I awakened in Dallas. A kindly man from American Airlines,
world’s greatest, most caring personal service organization, picked
my poor, beleaguered self up at the gate in a little cart, took me
to my next gate for my flight to Baltimore, and once again, off I
went to sleep, in a wonderful sound sleep.
THURSDAY
It was one a.m. when i
landed at Baltimore-Washington Airport and a heavy snow was
falling. I felt so tired I could hardly drag myself to the luggage
area, but I did, and there was my loyal driver, Bob Noah, with a
front-wheel-drive Cadillac.
It was a winter wonderland. Just beautiful along the
Baltimore-Washington Parkway with heavy snow everywhere, then on
the George Washington Parkway with snow and immense trees and no
sound at all except our Cadillac tires on the virgin snow. Just a
paradisal scene.
How well I know this GW Parkway. Forty-four years ago, I used to
take my girlfriend, little Alex, to park on a driveway near the CIA
building, and we would hug and kiss and listen to “The Glory of
Love.” Neither of us could possibly have known we would still be
together by 2010.
Then somewhere near here Vince Foster was either murdered or
committed suicide.
Frankly, I don’t believe the stories about how he just happened
to do it by chance. He had just started on anti-depressants and
these are known to cause suicidal ideation. So, my theory is that
the drugs did it to him. But it is a bit of a coincidence that it
was so near the CIA….
Usually I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t believe in the
Bilderbergers as a conspiracy or the Trilateralists. But I am
certain that the Communists killed JFK. There is a super great book
called Legend by Edward Jay Epstein that makes it all perfectly
clear. Oswald was a nut job, but he was used by the KGB and Castro
to kill Kennedy. They were furious at him because he had humiliated
the Soviets about the Cuban Missile Crisis and also because he had
tried repeatedly to topple Castro and also to kill Castro.
Assassination was the KGB’s main tool. It would have been quite
in their line of work to kill even the head of state of the United
States to achieve their means. And the Warren Commission? A titanic
cover-up of Soviet murder. Not surprising. Just another of Earl
Warren’s major league screw-ups, which are still haunting us many
years later. The top dogs in Russia were not so coy. Once they
learned the risks that Khrushchev had taken in Cuba and by killing
JFK, they kicked his sorry ass out of the Kremlin.
Well, anyway, all water over the dam. Here we are in the winter
wonderland that is Washington, D.C., tonight. We slipped and slid
to the front of the Watergate. Bob Noah, my Sherpa guide, got me
and my stuff into my glorious, unbelievably wonderful apartment at
Watergate east, north building, where, by the way, someone has
carved a swastika and a peace sign and an anarchy sign into my
door. I had some toast, drank my huge ration of fiber, and then,
off to dreamland.
I LOVE MY APARTMENT AT THE WATERGATE!!! I actually have two of
them and love them both. Spacious, great views, my own bed, my own
fiber — I am happy. No hotel room, however pleasant, can compare
with sleeping in my own bed reading my own book about Gone with
the Wind next to the bed. The snow is falling and I am warm
and toasty, not in a trench or doing forced labor at Auschwitz. I
AM HAPPY!
FRIDAY
Welly, welly, well, as the droogies would say in A
Clockwork Orange. I got up this morning and the snow had
stopped. I went down to the Watergate laundry and got my shirts
from the last visit, got the newspapers at the CVS, got a haircut,
and then my Bob Noah showed up and off we drove to Penn State in
State College, Pennsylvania.
Now, on the map this looks like not a bad drive. But Bob had
trustingly leaned on his GPS to get us to the destination. Instead
of taking us over normal freeways and interstates, his GPS’s route
took us over terrifying mountain passes and totally abandoned,
fallow fields and forests. I do not like winding roads and threw a
fit.
Finally, we found a small town whose name I don’t remember, and
by a miracle, found a decent road into State College.
I love Penn State and the kids were as pleasant as could be. The
question period was fine except for a query by a “truther” who is
convinced that the CIA and the Israelis knocked down the World
Trade Center. Wow, there are a lot of wacky people out there.
It is scary how many people have just lost their minds and have
conspiracy theories about the Federal Reserve (which is not a
conspiracy entity, just a normally incompetent bunch of human
beings with good educations and human limitations), the U.S.
invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (again, no conspiracies that I
see, just human errors ), and space travel.
I shouldn’t really be hard on them, though, since I
unequivocally see a conspiracy in the amazing power Goldman Sachs
has over the U.S. government.
Well, no point dwelling on that. The speech and reception were
fine. I really enjoy these events, and Bob drove us home on big
immense freeways and then I could get back in my bed.
I am so in love with just lying in bed listening to Mozart.
Napoleon could not have gotten more pleasure out of Austerlitz than
I do out of listening to Mozart’s Laudate Dominum.
I flipped on the TV before I passed into slumber, and what
should I see but that another snowstorm is approaching D.C. Yippee.
I can watch the snow from my apartment. I love it.
FRIDAY
Off to Fox and CNN to do
some TV shows. The snow is falling. The trees are a magical white.
The streets are covered with snow. But the studios are warm and
toasty and cheerful.
I did my shows and said my two cents’ worth, and then I got back
to my apartment. I hired a driver with a four-wheel-drive vehicle
and my pal Russ Ferguson and I went out to a fabulous Italian
restaurant in Georgetown by the name of Café Milano. We first had a
seat under some loudspeakers. It was unbearable. Loud thumping
awful bass. I complained. Then we had a good table in a room with a
view of the snow and the revelers in the snow. I had chicken
Milanese and Russ had some kind of pasta. The service was
perfection. It was all heavenly and I just felt really wonderful.
Out in the snow, young people greeted me as the kindly old fool I
now am.
Back to my apartment, and Russ went home. I lay for a long time
watching the snow. It was paradise. The silence was total and I
thought, “Benjy, enjoy this. Hardly anyone else on this planet gets
to feel as good as you feel right now. Enjoy the silence and the
beauty.”
I did and I went into dream land.
SATURDAY
When i awakened, there was
more than a foot of snow on my balcony railing. Even birds could
not land there.
I was well and truly snowed in. Even Russ could not come over. I
just lolled about in my pajamas, slept, watched an amazingly
interesting C-Span show about “stealth reconstruction” in the South
in the '60s and '70s, and slept and read my book about Gone with
the Wind, and slept more.
This is the life. I did not see one car on the Rock Creek Parkway
all day, a first. (I just realized how many roads in the D.C. area
are called “Parkway”…hmmm. I wonder why.)
I don’t think I will criticize anyone ever again. I will just be
calm and happy and grateful and wish everyone well.
I am sure there will be bad things ahead. In fact, it’s
guaranteed. But I am going to try to pray even for those who harm
me. I will try. I may not succeed, but I will try. I am even going
to pray for Mr. Obama, for God to give him wisdom and peace of
mind. And I mean it.
TUESDAY
It is a couple of weeks
later now. I am in Washington, D.C. It has been an exhausting day
of travel. Yesterday I flew to Orlando, went to bed very late, and
got up very early to give a speech. Then I went immediately to the
airport and waited around a long time for a flight to D.C. I slept
the whole way.
When I got off the plane, my trusty driver, Bob Noah, was
waiting for me. As always, he had a bag of freshly popped microwave
popcorn for me. We went by the glorious gray Potomac to the
Memorial Bridge, then over it to the Watergate. Magnificent. The
view over the river is magnificent. I am so tired, though. But what
must it be like for men in combat, women in combat, exhausted,
dirty, hungry, hurting — and they do it for us. They do it for our
sorry civilian butts. They go through more in an hour than I do in
my whole life. God bless them a million times over. God bless them
for all eternity. We owe them EVERYTHING.
I can see the resting place for some of them, Arlington National
Cemetery, from near my apartment. They died so I can sleep in
peace. Thank you, God, for such heroes and for their families.
Thank you.
