America, You Sexy Bitch (7 page)

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.

 

 

 

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?

 

Michael:
After I get a couple of hours’ sleep and have a quickie shower, we reassemble in the lobby. Tonight we are heading downtown, to old Vegas, the original Strip, where cowboys and Mafiosi first crossed six-shooters to build a desert oasis.

The old Strip has really gone to pot. All the classic casinos are still there: the Four Queens, the Golden Nugget, Binion’s, and Fitzgerald’s. But whatever magic and glamour may have been there in 1963 is long gone. The only connection to those days are the cocktail waitresses; most of whom look as if they never left. This is the home of the three-dollar blackjack table and the ninety-nine-cent shrimp cocktail. This is where Lady Luck went to kill herself.

Old Vegas is so much more exciting to me than new Vegas because it is the truer face of the city. It’s scrappier and hungrier. Old Vegas is the gambler who lost everything but just knows he’ll make it back if he can just catch a couple lucky breaks. Who knows, maybe old Vegas can get lucky again; just across the street from the seedy casinos, there is a new downtown revitalization movement happening, an entrepreneurial revival unnoticed by the tourists sucking down giant frozen drinks out of enormous plastic hookahs.

Stop number one on our tour is the Downtown Cocktail Room, or “DCR,” as it’s known to its hipster clientele. Yes, even Vegas has hipsters. Whether or not there are enough of them to turn around this grungy neighborhood I do not know, but they are definitely giving it a try. The bar was opened by Michael and Jennifer, who agree to have fancy drinks with us. The cocktail room is dark and luxe, radically different from the garishness just outside their door.
This is a place for serious libation. There are, for example, eight different varieties of absinthe on the offering, and concoctions with names like “Persephone’s Pomme” and “Satan’s Whiskers.” Our waitress is dressed, inexplicably, like Malcolm McDowell in
A Clockwork Orange,
complete with bowler hat and fake eyelash
.
I order something fruity, as is my nature, and we get to chatting with Michael and Jennifer.

They’re a great couple, the kind of young, practical, industrious people that America is rumored to be filled with. For whatever reason, they’ve decided to make downtown Las Vegas their mission. They’re making Brooklyn in the desert here. Not only do they run the DCR, they’ve also got Emergency Arts, a coffee shop/art collective housed in an old medical center. Friends of theirs own a bar-arcade called Insert Coin, where we play video games and drink bubblegum-flavored vodka.

There’s a lot going on here, but the entire downtown restoration only extends a couple of blocks. For every new bar or art gallery, there are ten vacant buildings. When the economy fried, Vegas was the first place to get zapped. The whole town has a kind of jittery vibe to it, the way people get when they’ve been up too late partying. Las Vegas looks like a girl who stayed out all night and now her dress is crumpled, she’s lost a heel, and her mascara is all over her face. Las Vegas is a hot mess. No wonder Meghan loves it so.

We spend the rest of the night walking around Freemont Street, a long outdoor plaza covered by an enormous electronic canopy. The canopy stretches for about three city blocks and is illuminated with millions of LED lights flashing messages, advertisements, and the occasional patriotic light show. The effect is to make it feel as though you are living underneath a football stadium scoreboard.

The street is mobbed with badly dressed, lumpy, drunken tourists, sipping from novelty plastic grenades and beer bongs. Attractions abound. A zip line system runs just above our heads. There are multiple Elvis impersonators and people dressed as SpongeBob SquarePants. A local ’80s cover band is set up at the end of the street. They all have identical black plastic hair wigs and
skinny jeans, skinny ties. They look miserable bopping around up there, exhorting the audience to “Wang Chung tonight.” The crowd looks equally miserable half-heartedly stumbling along in something that looks like, but definitely is not, dancing. We stand on the edge of the crowd feeling a little miserable ourselves, but we don’t want to leave because we don’t want to miss anything; there’s too much white trash shit show to take it all in. Sometimes hedonism can feel like a lot of work. When we finally tear ourselves away, I leave feeling dirty and depressed. Thank God I have a happy-ending shower waiting for me back at the Palms.