America, You Sexy Bitch (29 page)

What really upset her was that she worried that she was looking at her own future when she saw Yakov. I laugh when she says this. How can she possibly compare herself to him? But she’s serious.

“You don’t understand,” she says. “Women in my profession have a very small window to make an impact. I’ve got to do something
now
if I want to survive.”

The Yakov show has unwittingly created an existential crisis for her. Say what you want, but that is some
powerful
theater.

I tell her she’s crazy: she’s only twenty-seven. Plus she’s already done so much. But she doesn’t want to hear it. Seeing Yakov Smirnoff, a wildly successful comedian twenty-something years ago, reduced to these pandering and groveling circumstances is too much for her. She worries she will end up exactly like him, middle-aged and irrelevant. I tell her I’m middle-aged and irrelevant and it’s not so bad.

She finally laughs. “It’s different for men,” she says. And she’s right.

 

Meghan:
Things are not equal for women in America, not even a little bit, and not at all for women in politics. It is why women are so turned off from the process. On my birthday this year, I tweeted that I was enjoying turning twenty-seven, and I was surprised by how many people remarked on how I was in my late twenties and I had better start doing what I needed to do because my biological clock was ticking and wrinkles were coming soon. I got one tweet that said, “Wow, you’re in your late twenties, that sucks!” As if entering my late twenties and beyond is a death sentence. We live in a youth-obsessed culture and it permeates every single industry, and politics is no different. In fact, politics may be a little worse than most.

People have written things about me that range from questioning why I am not married and have not started having babies—because if I don’t I am going to end up barren and alone—to an unbelievable grotesque obsession with my weight fluctuations that have been a source of much talk in the media for years. I’m looking at your less-than-Atkins ass, Glenn Beck. I have already had people make comments about the time coming soon for Botox and plastic surgery.

If the world of politics is crazy, then the world of media and politics is crazier. I am not an actress or a model. Yet the same beauty standards are applied to women in politics, and the sterotypes are more extreme. One gets to be Sarah Palin, the gorgeous, stupid airhead. Or Hillary Clinton, the aging, mercenary bitch. I do not think nor believe those should be the only options for women in politics. I want to do everything; I want to help break glass ceilings that have already started cracking before me. I want to fight for what I believe in, use my voice, speak out, help make change, and be allowed to wear clothes that make me feel like a sexy woman.

Over our first drink of the day, I spill to Michael and Stephie. I spill all of the failures, the paranoias and fears I think most people have on some level or another. That I’m not going to make an impact. That, after Los Angeles, I’m going to freeze up from fear of failure. Michael and Stephie sit across from me wide-eyed and listen to my melodrama. They both share different fears they have about the future, which makes me feel better. We keep drinking and talking and slowly we all get tired. I hug both of them before we head off to bed. As I get undressed and get into bed, my mind is a bit more at ease, and I think about how amazing it is just to be doing this sort of project with both of them and being in Branson on such a beautiful summer night—and that from here on out the end goal in my life is to not end up like Yakov Smirnoff.

 

Michael:
When we go to bed, I think Meghan’s feeling a little better for having unburdened herself. Tomorrow’s going to be a fun day, I remind her. An amusement park in the morning, and then
Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede at night. Dolly Parton is older than Yakov and still relevant, I remind her. If I was a betting man, and I am, I would say Meghan McCain is probably more likely to end up like her. We bid our good nights and head off to our rooms. I go to bed and try to sleep, but the same thought keeps occurring to me:
Jesus, what if
I
end up like Yakov Smirnoff?

My hopes for Silver Dollar City are pretty slight. Even the name itself sounds so 1950s gee-willikers corny that I can’t muster much enthusiasm for the morning’s activity. Plus, I have now reached an age where I no longer enjoy rides. If I turn my body more than forty-five degrees too quickly, I throw up. I went on the Tilt-A-Whirl with my son the summer before and had to lay down on the asphalt afterwards for twenty minutes to recover.

The website certainly doesn’t get me any more excited. It invites visitors to “Step back in time to an 1880s craft village.” I can’t imagine a place I would like to step back into time less; maybe a medieval village ravaged by plague. A “crafts village”? Holy shit, that sounds boring. What sorts of rides would an 1880s craft village even have? “Come ride The Loom!” “Prepare yourself . . . for the Butter Churner!!!” It sounds awful.

Listen to me and listen good: Silver Dollar City is great. I’m not being sarcastic. SDC is a ripping good time. The place is clean, well maintained, the roller coaster I rode was speedy and didn’t make me vomit or pass out, there were no scary tattooed, shirtless teenage boys making out with their slutty, tattooed teenage girlfriends, the food was reasonably priced, and—get this—the crafts portion of it was
awesome!

We spend a good half an hour hanging out with a retired couple, Jim and Pat Summers, watching them whittle wood into sculptures. We talk a bit about New York. Pat wants to go but Jim refuses: “I’m a hillbilly boy. That’s too many people for me.”

I mention that we saw Yakov the previous night.

“He’s a good man,” says Jim. “Not only is it a good show, he’s a good man. He treats his people so well that they just don’t leave. The only way they leave is through retirement.”

Great: now I feel bad about bashing the guy.

He recommends we save our appetite for the Dixie Stampede later that night, going through the entire menu with me: “You get a full Cornish hen.”

“Uh-huh,” I say.

“And they give you a slab of tenderloin that’s half or three-quarter-inch thick.”

“Wow.”

“They give you wedge potatoes, corn on the cob, biscuit. They’ll start you out with a bowl of soup.”

“Mm-hm.”

“The creamy soup is really wonderful.”

“Huh.” He really seems determined to tell me every single item of food they serve at the Dixie Stampede.

“They have apple fritters for dessert . . . let’s see if I can think what else.”

“That’s a lot already.”

“But they don’t give you any silverware.”

I start laughing.

“No that’s true. It’s all finger food.”

Next to me, I overhear Pat telling Stephie, “The food’s excellent.”

Jim moves off the topic of food and onto the topic of Silver Dollar City. He tells me they work really hard on keeping “this a good, Christian park. It’s the only park I know of where I could bring my grandkids and tell them ‘Okay kids, meet me for lunch at one o’clock,’ let ’em go, and I wouldn’t worry about them for a second. For a second.”

“We need places like that,” I say. “We were in Vegas last week and it wasn’t like that.”

I mean it when I tell Jim we need places like Silver Dollar City. As much as the word “Christian” makes me instinctively recoil because of its occasional sanctimoniousness, I do think there’s something valuable about places like Silver Dollar City where families can come and not hear bad language or see fights or drunkenness, where there are no jangly slot machines or wet T-shirt contests. This
place is squeaky clean, and I can feel my cynicism sloughing off like dead skin.

Of course, it’s also a totally artificial environment. As much as I enjoy being here, there’s no denying that it’s nothing more than a utopian mirage. As much as the Republicans try to paint Democrats as desiring some Marxist utopia, this place is basically that. Just replace the word “comrade” with “Christian.” There’s nothing wrong with either dream, I suppose, but that’s all they are. Utopias don’t exist in real life, regardless of their political or religious leanings, no matter how many roller coasters.

Why an 1880s craft village? Because it’s far enough back in time that we can romanticize it and make ourselves believe that America was something other than it was. We can pretend it was a simpler (i.e., better) time. I’m happy to indulge in the fantasy, but I suspect the 1880s had fewer strolling banjo players and more babies contracting scarlet fever. Fewer hand-blown glassmakers and more sharecroppers.

My problem is that fantasies like this sometimes become the basis for manipulative, oversimplified political platforms. When I hear conservatives talking about “real America,” I imagine they’re talking about Silver Dollar City, a made-up American fantasyland. Or maybe they’re talking about Branson as a whole, a city whose entire image is built on good old-fashioned, family-oriented American fun. But Branson is no different than anyplace else. There’s crime here. And drugs. And poverty. Also, Branson is almost 95 percent white, which doesn’t reflect “real America.” I never know what they mean when they say real America, but I always feel like, wherever it is, I would not be welcome.

 

Meghan:
After a good night’s sleep, and a good day’s recreation spent at the charming Silver Dollar City, I feel the need to write Yakov Smirnoff an open letter of apology. I have nothing against Yakov Smirnoff. After seeing his show and his blow-off email, I still have nothing against this man. People have to do what they have to do to make a living and make themselves happy, and I genuinely
do not want Yakov Smirnoff ’s feelings to be hurt due to my self-admittedly strange and unusual reaction to his show and watching him perform. So here goes:

Michael:
Having had the entire Dixie Stampede dinner menu enumerated to me by Jim, I am more than open to Meghan’s suggestion that we eat dinner before the show. I mean, as tempting as eating Cornish game hen and tenderloin with my hands is, I also would be okay with something a little less disgusting sounding.

We find the only Thai place in Branson because we’re in the mood for some of that famous Missouri Thai food. It’s nice to throw some vegetables down my gullet after a steady diet of gas station goodies and road crap.

Then it’s off to the Stampede, housed in an enormous theater on Branson’s main drag, a riot of theaters, restaurants, souvenir shops, and, of course, goofy golf. Unlike at Yakov’s theater, this place is hoppin’. The theater is bigger than Yakov’s, and in the round, so it surrounds the “stage,” which is a large oval earthen floor piled with dirt. This is for all the horses that will soon be galloping around doing their horsy tricks. I can’t say I am necessarily looking forward to the combination of dirt, livestock, and finger foods, but here we go.

The show’s premise is slightly weird: a friendly re-creation of the Civil War. In the words of the emcee: “Tonight we’re going to take you on a journey back to a rivalry that forever changed our great United States.”

I’m squirming a little bit when he says that just because I feel like our nation’s deadliest war was slightly worse than a “rivalry.”

He continues: “Now, it all began on April 12, 1861, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, bringing us a great civil war that taught us to become a stronger nation.”

That’s the end of the history lesson. The date that he’s referring to is the Battle of Fort Sumter, when Confederate forces opened fire on the fort, barraging it with gunfire and artillery for thirty-four straight hours, until the fort finally surrendered, miraculously only suffering one fatality. Four years of bloody war followed, claiming over six hundred thousand lives. This fact is understandably glossed over as we are assigned our “teams.” One half of the theater is “the North,” and one half “the South.” I am relieved to find us on the North, as I do not think I could fully commit to clapping and cheering for the side of slavery, although I do notice at least one African American family on the Southern side during the show, and they seem to have no problem waving the flag of Dixie.

The show itself is a series of songs, comedy, acrobatics, and horse-related challenges. There is also a herd of buffalo, which don’t
have much of a reason to be there but which look extremely cool nonetheless.

For all of its hokum and twisted historical contrivances, I have to say, I
love
the Dixie Stampede. It is just an unapologetic, foot-stomping, old-fashioned good time. Honestly, it’s just hard to argue with the entertainment value of attractive young people singing patriotic songs on horseback. By the end of the evening, I am thrilled when the North defeats the South, just like in real life. Do I whoop? I do. Do I holler? I do. Do I eat every single one of my delicious apple fritters with my fingers? Yes. I. Do.