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Ben Stein's Diary

Down in the Desert

By from the February 2012 issue

So much for 45 years of psychotherapy.

Friday
We are still down in the desert. It’s still raining and cold, but we love it anyway. We (wifey and I) got up, had breakfast, I swam, then we rushed over to our 12-step meeting. As we did, I got a call from a woman who works for me confirming my worst fears about how incompetently I have handled my spending urges. I am just an insanely wild over-spender. I always have been. All of my life. It makes me crazy, but I cannot stop it. It scares me to death.

Our 12-step meeting was fairly sparsely attended. As I sat there, I made a mental list of my faults:

  • Truly delusional overspending (how I have been able to do it for so long I am not sure).
  • A shockingly poor ability to detect the danger in crazy persons around me. I am the most naive, trusting man in the world. I can spot corporate frauds at a great distance and have a recognized knack for it. But for individual human beings—I am about the worst in the world at detecting people around me who will hurt me. (Luckily, I have the best wife in the world, but she is way too kind to judge others around me and never tells me what to do. My son is a superb judge of character and is not at all reluctant to speak out about the people around me.)
  • I eat way, way too much and much of it is too salty and fatty.
  • I work insanely too much.
  • I stay up too late.
  • I dare to question conventional wisdom, such as Darwinism, and this gets me into trouble with the powers that be.

I thought about this all day as Alex and I did the trivial errands we do down here—grocery, laundry, pharmacy, bookstore. It got me down. I feel as if I am dragging around all of this insanity and it weighs me down. I am like a centipede who has gotten dust balls on his many legs and can barely move.

On the other hand, I also realize these traits are exactly what my mother used to criticize me for all of my life. Maybe that’s why they weigh me down still. So much for 45 years of psychotherapy.

On the other hand, I thought, as I nursed a ginger ale at the River Shopping Center tonight, I have some good qualities, too.

  • Fanatical loyalty to those who are good to me and in whom I believe, no matter the consequences—i.e., my devotion to Nixon out in Hollywood.
  • Generosity to friends in need.
  • Generosity to charities.
  • Appreciation of the military, the police, fire fighters, teachers, mothers (I think there should be a statue to mothers on the Mall).
  • Deep love of animals—though not to the extent of not eating them, of which I am rightly ashamed.
  • So far, good provider for my wife.
  • Very, very easy to work with.
  • Know a lot for my age (tee-hee).
  • Make people laugh while informing them.

I wrote the list on a napkin and then went for a walk through the shopping center. It was oddly deserted. The weather down here has been dismal so maybe that has something to do with it.

Anyway, I think way too much about myself. In my 12-step meeting there is a man born in 1929, which makes him about 82, and he says the secret of his success in the program is to not think so damn much about himself. I am probably the worst offender on earth about this.

So, as I walked through the River and ran into Marines from 29 Palms, I made a point of talking to them for a long, long time. I LOVE THESE GUYS. I mean, I really love them.

They are so brave, so enthusiastic, so strong, that it’s almost beyond my calculations. I just love them. They are also extremely modest and never brag. They’re just the greatest.

The two bravest men I know, John W. Keker and Lawrence Hyde Lissitzyn, are both Marines who saw horrible combat in Vietnam. The smartest man I know (except for Aram and Wlady and Bob) is John R. Coyne, Jr., also a Marine. These are amazing human beings.

Many years ago, David Eisenhower, one of the smartest guys on the planet, told me that he thought that part of Ike’s success was that he was never afraid to fight with his hands. This tells us a lot about the Marines, who actually like to fight. They would rather fight than not fight. Again, they are amazing. Thank God, they are on our side.

Monday
We got back last night about midnight. To my disgust, someone had been in my office and left the lights on. These lights are a bear to replace—they are at the apex of a vaulted ceiling—so I was furious. Plus, the people who were supposed to care for our EIGHT cats had failed to show up or let the cats into the rooms where their litter boxes are for two days, so the house smelled unbelievably horrible. I was hysterical. Plus, my wife needed cat litter. So I, exhausted as I was, went out and bought the stuff and came home with it. Yuck.

As I started to prepare for my nocturnal swim, I put my toe in the water. ICE COLD. The heater had not been working. This is just too much. Plus, on TCM was an incredibly sad movie called Fanny and Alexander. Bergman was a depressed guy.

Page: 1 2  

About the Author

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (51) |

Mike Walsh| 2.22.12 @ 6:33AM

I don't actually recall the details of President Nixon's health care plan. But somehow I suspect it did not require the suspension of the First Amendment.

George Appley| 2.23.12 @ 2:47AM

You're a good guy, Ben. Don't let the bastards get you down.

L. Ross| 2.22.12 @ 7:06AM

Ben, I enjoy your writing, and obviously you are a bit old to have a radical life shift, but jeeze. Man up dude. Everything you write is always so mushy/touchy/feely. I feel like I'm reading a trascript from Oprah or something.

Occam's Tool| 2.22.12 @ 2:18PM

"Rightly ashamed of eating animals." Why? I love a great steak.

The Bruce| 2.22.12 @ 11:06PM

Meat is murder... tasty... delicious... murder.

Pass the Worcestershire.

Jack in Wi.| 2.22.12 @ 5:03PM

Ben: I am headed out to California for a 10 day road trip. I will cheer you up and work as your trainer for room and board. Just send me a road map to your many homes and I will move around them like you do and keep you company. You need cheerful and lovable persons around like me and the missus, to get you out of the dumps. I am also a vegetarian, so the animals will be safe as well.

Cato the Younger| 2.22.12 @ 7:42AM

Ben, I have read everything you've written for TAS since the late 1970s and go all the way back to "The View From Sunset Boulevard". Frankly I am a bit tired of your endless descriptions of 'delusional overspending' and living large. Let's see, you have habitations in Malibu, Sandpoint, Washington and now one in the desert? You jet-set from one five-star hotel to another where everyone fawns on you? Give us working stiffs a break, will you? How about ending this self-indulget slice-of-life stuff and doing some actual journalism as you did, oh, about 30 years ago? Loved that column you did many years ago on Hollywood execs and their 16-year-old girlfriends.

Herb| 2.22.12 @ 7:57AM

Wow, talk about giving selfabsorbedness a bad name!

I remember when Ben wrote about his Hollywood exec friend who got serviced several times a day by impecunious actresses in return for a small retainer.

Now he oozes virtue and contrition. Uplift & boredom in one huge sanctimonious package. Ugh.

The Bruce| 2.22.12 @ 11:08PM

I sense much class-envy in you.

Mick Lee| 2.22.12 @ 8:50AM

Dear Ben: May I tell you something from my own experience?

In January, I had a heart attack--my third in 20 months. This time, it required an open heart surgery. A triple bypass. Since then, I haven't been able to work because I needed some serious recovery time. Stuck at home, no income, I have had to focus on what was really important to me and what wasn't. I was surprised at how much time, effort, and anxiety I wasted on stuff that didn't really matter.

Now that I am nearly back to normal and will soon return to my job, may God's grace bring me to live out my new found "wisdom". I am sure the old temptations will rear their ugly heads once again. But I almost died last January. It can't go on as it had before--my doctors told me they may not be able to save me the next time.

Ben. Do not let it take something like what happened to me to bring you to decide what it is you need to do to save your life and embrace more joy. It was quite painful. Sorting out what is important is also painful; but it is worth it.

Stormzeye| 2.22.12 @ 8:51AM

Ben, Are you the only child of an over- indulgent Jewish mother? If not, you're certainly doing a good imitation of one.

beebop2| 2.22.12 @ 6:40PM

First it was the lawsuit for Kyocera and then the whining about not being in the Super Bowl ad. The man is so full of himself that he cannot see beyond the tip of his nose.

The man who said that Joan River's husband's suicide was understandable is now looking for some sympathy? Karma, baby .... KARMA.

Old Soldier| 2.22.12 @ 9:07AM

Thanks for the kind words about those Marines. I was once a young Marine at Twentynine Palms. I thought I was going to hate the desert - ended up loving it. I peaked at that place - If I die and go to Heaven, they will give me back my 23-year-old body I had there.

Bill| 2.22.12 @ 1:45PM

Did you get to spend any time in Joshua Tree NM?

Stefan Stackhouse| 2.22.12 @ 9:08AM

Mr. Stein:

To put your extremely troubled mind to rest regarding one thing:

All the meat on your plate (with the possible exception of some fish, if you count that as "meat") comes from herbivores. The hard truth is that herbivores in the wild tend not to live out a full lifespan and die peacefully of old age. Most of them are eventually killed and eaten by carnivores, and in a way that is not nearly as humane as we try to be.

So they are going to end up in somebody's belly, one way or another.

Consider, also, that it is actually fortunate for them that we domesticated them. Were it not for that, they may very well have gone the way of the Mastodon and been killed off during the late Paleolithic. It is only by virtue of our finding their flesh to be delicious that we have bothered to keep them alive at all. The reality is that there are far more of them, all living far longer lives, than would ever be the case if they were left in their wild state. You are actually doing them a favor by eating them, even if it might be hard for them to see it that way.

Best regards,

Stefan Stackhouse
Black Mountain, NC

Your Inner Voice| 2.22.12 @ 10:30AM

Rush used to love to comment that the best way to bring ANY species back from the brink is for someone to find a way to make some kind of edible delicacy from that species. I don't doubt it a bit. Hunters are the funding and enthusiasm behind bringing several African species back from the brink in Texas, from which populations they are being replanted back into Africa, from which they have disappeared.
It is hunters, by far and away, in some states exclusively, that pay for conservation. The dope smokin' hippy commie libs talk a lot about loving animals but raise a MINISCULE amount compared to hunters in conserving the integrity of the animal populations in all states. It only takes a cursory glance at the conservation funding programs in any state to see who REALLY loves animals, whether they are game species or protected.

bsg| 2.23.12 @ 5:59PM

Amen to the above sentiments. The animals that are in danger are those that exist in "the common" where there is no need to care for or preserve because while you are preserving someone else is getting their fill. Look at the fish in the oceans and the animals with expensive horns on public lands in Africa.
I enjoy Ben's life snap shots and feel bad about the pending lawsuit as the justice system is anything but just. It would be nice to able to complain about your pool's heater not being turned on.

Jeff R| 2.22.12 @ 9:09AM

Hey, Ben's our Woody Allen. Give him a break!

Peppermint Tea| 2.22.12 @ 10:07AM

Re: your pending lawsuit.
Read Kafka's THE TRIAL about a fantasy arrest and the defense, similar to what you are going through. Franz made it a downer with the last chapter where K is punished, but I think you and Woody Allen should team up to turn it into comedy.

Nevadan | 2.22.12 @ 10:33AM

Ben, I was hit by a car while riding my bicycle this summer. Smashed my leg, broke my hip and several ribs. Concussion nearly killed me.

Still I don't whine as much as you do!

JMM| 2.22.12 @ 10:38AM

Anyone who has eight cats needs more than 45 years with a shrink.

Ben is a jerk of the first water.

beebop2| 2.22.12 @ 6:41PM

He should be suing the shrink for malpractice.

George| 2.22.12 @ 11:07AM

The African American Community languishes in poverty because seven out of ten black children are now born to single mothers. The Democratic party's welfare programs have managed to accomplish something that even slavery failed to do -- and that's destroy the African American family.

Seek| 2.22.12 @ 2:26PM

Sigh. Another Charles Murray geek. Actually, anthropologists long have found that blacks throughout the world engage in extramarital childbearing far more often than other races. The welfare state's expansion certainly has played an enabling role, but if that were the main story, whites would have single-mother childbearing to the same extent.

Paul Milenkovic| 2.22.12 @ 11:09AM

Mr. Stein:

I started reading your column in TAS around the time of that shameful episode in American history known as the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings. I guess I needed something or someone to cheer me up.

Having lived and worked for 30 years in a Midwestern university town known for unanimity of the liberal point of view, and having conducted myself for these many years as a kind of deep-cover mole or perhaps a sleeper agent for the Conservative cause, I could relate to your columns of being a Conservative as an actor, attorney, and teacher living and working in the heart of Hollywood and greater Western Los Angeles.

The strength of your column and the strength of your ministry as it were was in being Dr. Phil long before Phil McGraw became a public presence. You were a kind of father confessor to the near-famous in Hollywood who sought you out for your wisdom, and you wrote of telling many such people obvious things such as, "Were you to not spend so much of your money on drugs and other forms of vice and save some it, you would get yourself out of legal trouble, clear your mind, and make yourself successful and prosperous."

One of the troubles of being such a deep-cover sleeper-agent is that of going native. In my case, I am having trouble sharing the enthusiasm of fellow Conservatives for some of the reforms of Governor Scott Walker, having produced my passport and having had to sign my name to cast a ballot for one of three equally liberal equally anti-Walker (yeah, yeah, supposed to be non-partisan) candidates for Circuit Court judge. The People's Republic of Madison, Wisconsin is taking on more properties of a People's Republic, no thanks to both the intended as well as unintended consquences of the policies of a putatively Conservative Governor.

Don't Conservatives read Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind, Regnery Publishing, about the value of Tradition and Institutions? The procedure I went through was nothing like the experience I have had at the polling place in 36 years. Isn't Tradition and Liberty more important than preventing a few drunks being dragged to the polls by Democrats, or have we become as the Liberals and Outcomes are more important than Traditions?

As I now say in church, "Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grevious fault." Those words, like the new voting procedure, are also change since November, 2011.

Having brushed against the beam in my own eye, I will gaze upon my perception of the mote in the eye of my sleeper-agent neighbor. The most serious criticism I will level is for the fault of what a friend of mine calls "Over Sharing", particularly with regard to your family life and particularly with respect to your son, who was a mere child when I started reading your columns and who must be grown by now and in David Friedman-to-Milton Friedman fashion must be head of his own Conservative think tank promulgating somewhat heretical views in the eyes of his Poppa.

Other than that, you have worked hard for the money you spend, and please stop feeling guilty.

MyGirlFriday| 2.22.12 @ 5:09PM

Dear Mr. Milenkovic,

I wish it were but a few drunks being led to the polls by Democrats. But there are hundreds upon thousands of voters being disenfranchised by voter fraud. I am sorry you feel uncomfortable about showing your I.D. in order to vote, and we very much appreciate that you did vote regardless of the imposition. But, while it may not bother you that your vote may have been stolen in the past, it does in fact bother a great many more Americans. I support your Gov. Scott Walker, he is a brave man to have taken the stand he did on voter I.D. Here in California, families are finding that their dead parents (life long Republicans) who have been dead for over five years and more are now registered (past 90 days) as Democrats. Voter fraud is so high that entire districts are being cheated of there voice.

loulou| 2.22.12 @ 11:16AM

Ben has always been an entertaining, self absorbed depressive personality. Nothing new here.

What I can't get past is the 8 cats! Why would anyone want 8 cats? Sounds like Ben is a hoarder as well.

Dave| 2.22.12 @ 12:27PM

This threatened lawsuit should be interesting.

Is someone alleging Ben put his hand in the wrong cookie jar?

Chuck| 2.22.12 @ 12:45PM

This threatened lawsuit concerns an encounter with a woman and her irate husband in Alabama.

Seems that Ben's sexy Alabama amoreena has gotten him in to deep doodoo.

I feel sorry for the man--Ben Stein, not the amoreena's jealous husband, whose name, by the way, is Hank.

It's all so sad, so sad. And Ben keeps mentioning his dear "wifey." Awful of Ben, just awful.

Indeed, a scandal is brewing.

Betty Jean Humphreys| 2.22.12 @ 2:47PM

A jealous husband from Alabama!

God help poor Ben. Those Alabama men can be violent! I've been married to three Alabamians, and let me tell you this--they're mean as hell, especially the Baptist men. You get them fired up, and you'd better call 911 and run for your life.

Take it from me, Ben. Leave those Alabama women alone, especially the married ones.

You will be in my prayers, dear heart.

Occam's Tool| 2.22.12 @ 12:53PM

My wife was an accountant once, in rural Alabama. And, one time her boss made her the official whatever for the Miss (Blank) County contest---the winner ended up becoming the Miss America--the very famous deaf one.

Lots O' pretty women in 'Bama. I pity Benster, if I wasn't laughing my ass off about a guy who has encouraged people to sue MDs (9 in 10 of those lawsuits are bogus) getting hoisted by his own petard.

I hope it lasts a long time, costs you lots of money, and you win, Ben. The you will know what MDs go through, you bag O' scuzz.

Occam's Tool| 2.22.12 @ 2:20PM

Sorry. "Then you will know what MDs go through.."

beebop2| 2.22.12 @ 6:45PM

I can only imagine how distressed he is. Imagine all of those who will come out of the wood work if this one hits pay day . Not to mention "big wifey" taking 50% .... Ben is a serial cheater and favors red heads. Look back at some of those episodes of Win Ben Stein's money .....

dbw| 2.22.12 @ 1:41PM

Mr. Stein, I greatly appreciate your column. What others call whining, I think of as just being honest. Most of us have such thoughts, but rarely disclose them. I believe that it takes a certain amount of courage and humility to bare so much of your soul in a public forum.

Bill| 2.22.12 @ 1:43PM

I HATE it when the swimming pool heater doesn't work; it's so yucky cold and all.

Kingofthenet| 2.22.12 @ 2:25PM

Wow at the 1 percenter 'problems', meanwhile in Syria people are getting shot by snipers for crossing the street.

albert constantine jr.| 2.22.12 @ 8:56PM

Perhaps if they were shot for crossing Wall Street, the Occupy Movement would endorse it.

Big Leo| 2.22.12 @ 2:56PM

Ben, Ben, Ben . . . we've had this discussion before. All you need to do is remember the wisdom of my uncle Jacob. "Two rules. One. Don't sweat the small stuff. Two. It's all small stuff."

GF Founder| 2.22.12 @ 2:57PM

I am inspired by your degree of humility that you would spill your guts about your faults. More brilliantly, that you would then wrap all of them into an analogy of the sadness of the state of our country in that single question, "Will it ever be Morning in America again?"

Big Leo| 2.22.12 @ 2:57PM

More wisdom from your uncle Big Leo -- If I wake up in the morning and I'm not on fire and it's not raining and nobody's shooting at me, it's a fine day.

Charles Curran| 2.22.12 @ 3:08PM

Speaking of lawsuits, how about the one that 'Lord Conrad Black' has endured?

aware| 2.22.12 @ 3:53PM

"Will it ever be Morning in America again?"

Not while we got so many "Bens" around.

Anthony| 2.22.12 @ 3:58PM

Yes Ben it's true, You are a self absorbed nebbish, and I agree with many here at TAS that you really, really, need to get a life.
So the harpie lawyer from L.A., Gloria Allred, is giving you nightmares, eh Ben? Well, just roll over and dream about your man-crush, DSK.
Oh, you haven't heard, your hero, Slick Willie Kahn has got himself involved in a French prostitution scandal!!
This poor misunderstood guy just can't catch a break, kinda like you, eh Ben?

Kingofthenet| 2.22.12 @ 6:24PM

Ben must have run out of Clear Eyes.

beebop2| 2.22.12 @ 6:36PM

Ben neglects to mention that he is a delusional premature ejaculator .... imagine not "manning up" on that.

Alvin H. Belt| 2.22.12 @ 7:11PM

Anyway, he says he worked for Nixon, and that can't be true because Bob Woodward said Nixon was so anti-Semitic he wouldn't hire Jews.

kissufim| 2.22.12 @ 9:46PM

After reading every comment, I can safely say that I am sane. I love you Ben Stein,because you are so painfully, pathetically, and annoyingly honest about yourself; this IS manning up. I too, suffer from all of those damnable character defects, (stupid sins) except the overspending. But for some reason, I wake up every day, grateful to be alive to serve my Creator.
Thank you, Ben.

Alvin H. Belt| 2.22.12 @ 10:35PM

Yes, thank you and love you. My earlier post was intended to be a joke.

Wendy| 2.23.12 @ 7:53PM

Dear dear Ben,
We love you out here in sunny flyover country. I'm so very sorry about the cats. Poor babies! Keep the present you bought for your cat sitter. Leave them a nasty note. Poor cats! Poor homeowners! Does it smell right yet?
The problem we have out here in regular folkland is that the current regulatory arrangement, expensive energy, rising food and gas prices, and dropping wages and salaries makes our bootstaps slippery. I'm pretty sure we need a new President and Cabinet to adjust national policies and practices for the better. What do YOU think?

Andrew MacMannis| 2.26.12 @ 3:45PM

Has Ben read the book "Heroic Leadership" by Chris Lowney. I think he would agree with and enjoy reading this book.

S A Fletcher| 3.1.12 @ 6:16PM

Ben, You are the best. I wanted to relieve some of your stress. Call Aladdin Light Lift Inc. They can solve your problem of replacing the light bulbs in vaulted ceilings. Keep doing what you do! God Bless!

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