America, You Sexy Bitch (28 page)

 

With Glen. If we all look a little f-ed up, we are.

 

Posing with giant floral butterfly because why is there a giant floral butterfly at the Dixie Stampede in Branson, Missouri?

 

Just chillin’ on the steps of Graceland.

 

Ordering Jell-Oshots like a champ.

 

With President Clinton’s limo in Little Rock, Arkansas.

 

What a country!” With Yakov’s head.

 

Drunken, awful singing in Branson, Missouri.

Not pictured:
the huge gash Michael just opened on his leg after falling into the drum kit.

 

Inside the simulator at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.

 

We stopped at a Pirates game. Five innings later, Stephie was furious with us for refusing to leave.

 

Inside Senator McCain’s office. Door to the private senatorial bathroom ajar to the right.

 

With Stephie, Senator McCain, and Senator Graham out on the town.

Also, I hated living in Los Angeles. I never quite clicked with the people I met there. I am a terrible driver and I hated driving. I had a hard time meeting people that I felt were actually interested in having an honest conversation or maintaining any type of real relationship. Pretty much all of the stereotypes about Los Angeles I found to be true. Maybe it was just my experience at that particular time with that particular group of people, but I was unhappy there. There is a quote, by Jack Kerouac from his book
The Road
, about Los Angeles that pretty much sums up how I felt about living there: “LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; New York gets god-awful cold in the winter but there’s a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in the streets. LA is a jungle.”

The truth is that, as hard as I work and as much determination as I have, which is fed from a very real and raw place, I could become irrelevant. I could fail in the world of politics and not ever evolve or experience anything new. I could end up in Branson.

 

Michael:
When we get back to the hotel, the adorable check-in girl is gone and Meghan remains in a shitty mood. Branson is about wholesome family celebration, and neither of these occurrences are anything to celebrate. As Meghan’s mood goes, so goes the trip. I ask her again what is wrong and finally, over drinks at the hotel bar, she opens up.

The Yakov show
really
upset her. For one thing, she was angry at the exploitation of patriotism that ran rampant through the show’s nine-hour running length. (Actually, I think the show was closer to two hours, but it felt like nine.) She and I have had several
conversations about the way patriotism is used as a weapon in politics, the way public officials (Republicans) wield the flag like a sword. As a result, the word has taken on an ideological bent that it never had before. She hates when love of country is used like this or, as in Yakov’s case, when it is exploited as cheap sentimentalism. But that’s not what
really
upset her about the show.