America, You Sexy Bitch Read online

  While we’re cleaning up after lunch, the conversation turns to health care, or specifically “Obamacare,” which Jackie hates. Jackie hates Obama generally and his new health care law specifically.

  Even Jackie, hard ass Jackie, is willing to concede that there are parts of the Obama health care plan she likes. The preexisting condition stuff, for example. But she worries that our health care system, “the finest in the world,” will become like Mexico’s. Or Canada’s. Jackie doesn’t seem to think the people she sees in her ER night after night—the illegals, the meth heads, the wife beaters—are going to purchase health insurance just because the government says they have to. If they don’t have insurance, well that’s just too damned bad. She doesn’t want our entire system brought down by those people.

  “But what about the coal miners in West Virginia who lost their jobs?” I ask. “What about Detroit autoworkers? What about students? What about people in the creative community? Should they be lumped in with the meth heads?”

  “No,” she tells me. “Everybody should be given a helping hand until they get back on their feet.”

  Except that these days a lot of people will never get back on their feet, I want to say. These days a lot of people are just good and forever fucked.

  But I don’t say it.

  One of the things I’ve noticed among the Republicans with whom I’ve been hanging out is that there seems to be an underlying resentment towards some amorphous group of their fellow Americans who, they believe, are gaming the system. Jackie calls them the “pimps and gangsters in New York City.” Having lived in New York City for ten years, I cannot recall too many run-ins with either pimps or gangsters committing Medicare fraud. I can, however, recall some Wall Street types raping the entire American treasury.

  It’s hard to argue with somebody against protecting what’s theirs. The question is, are there really hordes of gangsters, pimps, meth heads, and welfare queens lying in wait to steal our stuff and shoot us dead? I didn’t think so.

  That said, I’m not willfully naive either. Jackie told us a story about a rancher to the south of her place who was shot to death near the border while riding his ATV.

  “When they found him he was dead, the dog was dead. The ATV was still there, so they must’ve shot him from a good distance away. Fifteen hundred people came to that funeral.”

  How do you discount that experience? How do you persuade somebody that tragic things happen to everybody across all fifty states but that events like those, while horrible, are extremely rare? Or maybe they’re not. Maybe I’m the naive one. But then how have I gotten through my first forty years without needing to fire a gun?

  A little while later, some bad news. There is no rodeo tonight. It ended the night before, on the third. Everybody apologizes to us profusely, and I’m disappointed because I wanted to see some guys get thrown off some bulls.

  Meghan: There is no apologizing for America. We’re the greatest country in the world and, although we have our issues, overall it is not a country that needs a huge amount of changing. That’s how I feel; that is what I believe. Michael and I apparently have different takes on this.

  First rule of attempting to make any kind of logical argument politically with someone, especially when it’s concerning your thoughts on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is don’t do it when either of you is drinking on the Fourth of July.

  Since the rodeo is cancelled, we decide to take Michael to Whisky Row, a quaint, all-American strip of bars surrounded by small restaurants, ice cream shops, a classic bandstand (with the bunting and everything), and a giant courthouse, complete with clock tower.

  We walk into the first cowboy bar, which is blasting Kid Rock’s “Born Free,” one of my favorite songs. Holly and I go to the bar and order a round of Jack and Cokes, plus shots of tequila for the whole motley crew—Jimmy, Mom, Michael, Kyle, and Mike. Everyone is wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots except for Michael and me. We start drinking, shooting the shit, and having the kind of good time you would imagine having in northern Arizona at an old school town with a row of bars.

  I’m dancing, playing pool, gossiping with Holly about my dating life and how things are going with Jimmy since they moved to Texas, ordering more shots, laughing, dancing, repeat. We all sort of mingle in and out of various bars, and somewhere towards the end of the night everyone reassembles at one of the last bars on the strip. Michael and I start talking about the military and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something tells me that drinking and talking politics do not mix, but people in America do have these discussions while not sober.

  I don’t know exactly how the conversation starts, but pretty quickly I am furious at Michael. He doesn’t agree with either of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, even though pretty much his only exposure to anything military was when he dressed up as a Ninja Turtle and toured the country as a teenager. I, on the other hand, well, if you paid any attention to my father’s career at all you would know the whole bit: my great-grandfather and grandfather were both admirals in the navy; my great-grandfather played a major role in the ending of World War II, and subsequently died of a heart attack a week after the war ended while standing drinking a glass of whiskey. My father was tortured for five and a half years in a filthy Vietnam prison. Both my brothers joined the military as teenagers. I love the military and support the men and women who fight so courageously for our country so I can be here at home and write a book with an alternative comedian who is making my blood boil with his “give peace a chance” hippie attitude.

  Obviously, everyone knows that there was false information given to the American public to sell us on the war in Iraq. I’m sorry; it makes no difference at this point. We were there and we needed to fight the good fight. I am not going to go into the extremely specific and intense details of the wars or war strategy or why I think General Petraeus is a genius. I generally react badly to anyone criticizing the military or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when they have absolutely no exposure to any men and women who have served, and when most likely the only exposure they have had to any of this is listening to people like Keith Olbermann.

  As I try to listen to Michael’s argument, I feel like he really doesn’t get it, like maybe he’s just another delusional, elitist, liberal—and possibly a jerk. At some point I stop his stream of pacifist rhetoric and say, “Listen Michael, freedom doesn’t come free.”

  He laughs.

  Now, if you have known me for fifteen minutes, you would know these words are dear to me, as they are to most people who have a deep love for the military. I know this is a slogan, much like “These colors don’t run” and “Live free or die,” but I never say it lightly, and never to evoke laughter. Those mantras really do mean something to me.

  When Jimmy was deployed the first time, I stood with tears streaming down my face thinking that he was fighting for my freedom and this was a sacrifice: freedom doesn’t come free. I understand that it is a simplistic way to describe something that is much larger and deeply rooted in extreme patriotism, but I don’t see how anyone could be blind to the truth behind the sentiment. I’m shocked by Michael’s disdain for the blood that has been spilt for this country, regardless of the shoddy intelligence that got us over there. At the time that the intelligence was put forward, it wasn’t a matter of questioning it and risking it being right. God forbid someone like Michael take a moment to contemplate the outcome of that path. It’s far easier to point a finger and say, “You were wrong to do that,” than to say, “What if we hadn’t done it, and we were wrong?”

  I look at Michael’s smirking face and cross my arms. “Why did I agree to do this?” I sort of half yell in his face, because I feel like not only is he not understanding what I am saying, but because I feel he is possibly judging me. I sit forward and realize that maybe this conversation would be better continued without the whiskey, so I say, “A good general rule about me is never laugh when I say the word freedom.” Because like it or not, Michael’s freedom
as an American, to have this conversation in this bar, with these war heroes around us, has not come free.

  Michael: Meghan and I get into our first fight. It’s about Iraq and at one point she yells at me, “Freedom doesn’t come free,” which is so trite that I have to laugh, which only pisses her off more. Cindy gently interjects on behalf of her daughter who storms away, and it’s then that I realize maybe Meghan and I should get to know each other better before we really get into this debate.

  But seriously: freedom doesn’t come free? What does that mean? It sounds good, but to me it’s the exact definition of the kind of bumper-sticker politics this book is meant to dissuade. Who’s out there proclaiming that freedom is free? If there is somebody out there making a good case for American anarchy, I haven’t heard it.

  Everybody recognizes that nations pay a price for their own existence, be it in blood or treasure or both. Everybody in America understands that our military men and women sometimes pay that price with their lives. To defend the Iraq War with that statement just seems to be designed to cut off debate. It’s the equivalent of saying if you are against that war, or any war, then you are against America, an argument that is, to put it as mildly as I can, fucking stupid.

  After a while we head back to the ranch. Everybody peels off to sleep one by one. Jimmy, Holly, and I are the last to go to bed. Holly is a couple of years older than Jimmy. They met at a bar the night before he deployed to Iraq. Didn’t see each other again until he got back. There is something about Jimmy that is different than other guys his age I’ve known. It’s easy to say that being to war changes a man, but I don’t know because I never knew him before. Meghan says he changed. She says the old Jimmy is only reappearing after a long absence. I don’t know. He laughs a lot and seems fired up about everything: movies, music, comic books. But there’s something behind his eyes that I can’t quite explain. Something hooded. Holly keeps her hand on his arm for much of the night, and when it’s time to say good night, I hug them both.

  “Good night, sir,” Jimmy says.

  I go to bed hearing patriotic music in my head. I have trouble sleeping. Late in the night, a big storm blows over the desert, pinging the metal roof with raindrops. I wake up around dawn, the first one up. I slip outside and take a long walk by myself. As I pick my way over the rutted road and through the brush, I notice the ground has taken all the water from last night’s storm for itself. On my way back, one of Jackie’s horses looks up at me and then goes back to his hay. All around me people are sleeping, and it is dry and already hot.

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Viva, etc.

  Michael: We arrive in Las Vegas hot off the dusty Arizona trail, my testosterone still a little jacked up after squeezing off all those semi-assault rifle rounds into the desert floor. I’ve got a little more strut to my step, a touch more dust on my linen pants, a teeny bit more scruff on my Crocs.

  Now that we’re finally away from both of our mothers, I’m starting to feel like this trip is getting serious. It’s hard to be “Road Mike” when my mom is around. But now she’s in the rearview mirror, Meghan’s mom is back in Arizona, and I am ready to let this monster out to roar. But first, a nap.

  Meghan’s got a hook-up at the Palms named Larry, one of those casino hosts whose job it is to keep high rollers and high-profile clients happy. Meghan apparently qualifies as “high-profile,” because he sets us up in a couple of enormous, over-the-top suites. Each is easily as big as the first house Martha and I bought. There are multiple flatscreens, a big living room with a purple sectional on which to lounge, a vast dining table, small kitchen, plus a huge bedroom overlooking the Strip. My favorite feature is what Meghan dubs “the sex shower”: a large tiled room just off the bathroom sprouting about ten individual showerheads, which can be angled to hit whatever body part feels dirtiest. There’s also a dial that controls an intricate lighting system: you can choose between red, blue, or yellow lights, or any combination, either flashing or not. It’s like a Christmas display gone porno. Over the next three days, I spend a fair amount of time in the sex shower, although always by myself, and there is never any sexual contact between anybody, including between me and me; I just like the shower.

  I always feel a little bad when people give me nice things, if only because I don’t believe that anything comes without a price tag. People don’t just give you shit; they always want something in return. This, of course, includes the government. The current Republican Party seems to worry about this problem a lot. That’s why they’re always bitching about “entitlement programs.” They fear that the people receiving benefits from these programs don’t realize that they have actual costs that other people—themselves—have to pay. In effect, they argue, the rich are subsidizing the poor. That’s what they’re talking about when they spout the phrase “redistribution of wealth.” The problem is that the wealth has already been redistributed—to the rich. The poor are actually subsidizing the rich, through globalization, lower wages, less benefits, and weaker unions. Both sides in the debate feel taken advantage of, which creates a lot of tension. Over the course of our stay in Vegas, I begin to believe that a lot of the unhappiness in this country could be solved if the government just started handing out sex showers.

  Meghan: I love Las Vegas. I love, love, love Las Vegas. Whenever anything is spiraling out of control in my life, whenever I need a break, whenever I want to be someone else for an evening (or a weekend, or a week, or whatever), as clichéd as this may seem, Las Vegas has always provided an answer for me. It’s pretty much the only place I frequent as a vacation destination, and I have been serendipitously intertwined in news cycles with the city throughout my adult life.

  In 2010, I fled to Las Vegas in the middle of my book tour for my campaign memoir Dirty, Sexy Politics, after cancelling a speech at Juniata College at the last minute. I had been on the road for weeks, and my boyfriend at the time broke up with me over email the day after my book release party, citing no other reason than “I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t. I’m truly sorry from the bottom of my heart.” I was distraught, but instead of going into an emotional tailspin over it, because sitting around crying and watching Nora Ephron movies simply isn’t my style, I went to Vegas on an emergency trip with a few of my close friends. It did not occur to me how harshly the student body would take my cancellation, nor how the media would crucify me for it. Listen, was this my finest moment or the smartest move I have ever made? No, of course not, but I was broken-hearted and exhausted from my media tour and not acting from an entirely rational place. I made a mistake, and when I make a mistake everyone in the world gets to judge it and leave a comment on the Internet about it.

  To put it lightly, the student body was not pleased about my tweets from Vegas, and did as much as they possibly could to notify the media about what a bad person I was for canceling on them and spending the time in Las Vegas instead. The incident created a small media firestorm and the next thing I knew, I was on the home pages of CNN and Perez Hilton on one hand, while having bottles of champagne sent to my room from George Maloof (the owner of the Palms) thanking me for the publicity on the other. I was slammed for being reckless with my career and speaking tour. You would have thought I was running for president and had called in sick to Iowa. A few days later, after the furor died down, I sent a tweet that said, “Mi Vida Loca. Vegas is a religion. Casino is my church.” It’s not something I would do again, and in hindsight was irresponsible and stupid, but any person who has ever been dumped on their ass probably knows how hard that is, and you just want to make the pain go away as soon as possible. Vegas has always been a place where I have found solace.

  When I’m down, when I’m up, when I’m feeling lucky, or out of luck, you will most likely be able to find me in the city of sin. One blogger wrote about me: “Live by the tweet, die by the tweet.” Well, if that’s another way of saying that I was out there with the unapologetic truth, well then, I guess I wear my tweets on my sleeve.


  My suite looks like a pimped-out boudoir. I throw my two suitcases, purse, and shoulder bag on the sofa and immediately recognize the fact that it seems a terrible shame to be alone in a suite of this size and caliber.

  After I get in and settle down, I log on to Twitter and see that Michael has already posted a video to his “Sad, sad conversation” YouTube account. He and some of his friends who are also actors and comedians have an ongoing video diary where they vlog about what is going on in their lives. For the most part, they talk about their not-Oscar-and-Emmy-winning careers in the entertainment industry. Some of the videos they make are sweet and endearing, others are depressing and cynical. Michael’s video is from his suite, and he’s saying that he has been upgraded because of my connections with the Palms. This is true, but it seems as if he is apologizing to his viewers and sounds somewhat guilty and embarrassed, as if staying at a gorgeous suite might somehow hurt his credibility with the sad people of the world.

  I’m annoyed for being outed for helping him get upgraded to a nicer room, but more so because after years and years growing up in and fighting my way out of a conservative environment, not to mention years of Catholic school, I am not a fan of unnecessary guilt. Yes, guilt is an important emotion if it is warranted, but feeling guilty in Las Vegas, after simply checking into your hotel room, seemed excessive. Michael feels guilty about a lot of things, especially if it’s something that has to do with having a good time. It’s weird; of the two of us you would think I would have the guilt issues, but I only feel guilty when it’s morally warranted. Life is way too short to feel guilty about necessary evils. When in Vegas, I always stay at the Palms and they are always incredibly accommodating. Seriously, if it’s your first trip to Vegas—and I am not just saying this—it is the most fabulous casino to stay in. From time to time they upgrade me because of my loyalty to the casino, but Michael was acting like we had done something wrong that he should be publicly apologizing for over the Internet. I know a lot of people may think I constantly get upgrades at hotels, but I assure you it is very rare. In Las Vegas, however, it sometimes happens, but like I said, I frequent the city more often than most people do. I really just wanted to get Michael to relax and have a good time, and I was not sure what type of mood was being set after watching Michael’s sad video. I mean, isn’t the whole point of coming to Vegas on this trip to have a good time and explore what the city of sin means in relation to the rest of America?