America, You Sexy Bitch

by Meghan McCain, Michael Black

  Washington, DC, is a city of ultimate power, and as Henry Kissinger infamously said, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” Kissinger was right; most people, once they come into positions of absolute power, will go to absolutely any lengths to keep it. Not exactly the same, but how do you explain a person like John Edwards and his behavior? That’s the thing about politics; it truly exaggerates the very best and the very worst in people. I wish there were more of a happy medium.

  The other obvious points of going to Washington, DC, are to introduce Michael to my father and to tour Capitol Hill. We also planned to interview a few politicians while we were in town. Unfortunately for us, Congress is now smack-dab in the midst of budget ceiling negotiations, and many of the people we were supposed to interview have cancelled at the last minute. Nevertheless, I am confident Washington, DC, will not disappoint us.

  Michael: Stephie’s dad, Charlie, flew in from California to hang out with us and his boyhood best friend, Larry, with whom we’re staying. Larry and his wife, Ellie, live just outside the city, and are members of the reviled Washington bureaucracy. Despite the stereotype of the lazy career civil servant, they both seem engaged, motivated, and passionate about their work. They also seem like old hippies, which they are.

  Larry wears his long hair tied back into a bushy ponytail. He’s got a salt-and-pepper droopy mustache and a soft, Long Island accent. Ellie wears a sleeveless tank top and a long skirt. Their home is decorated with folk art and photos from their frequent travels to Peru. Larry is also a musician. He shows us his basement music studio and his extensive music collection, which is, of course, heavy on the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan side of things.

  We arrive at their home in the early evening, and are greeted with glasses of homemade Lemon Slushy Booze Yum-Yums, a name I just made up to describe the frozen deliciousness Ellie has concocted in her blender. I think her idea is to dispel whatever awkwardness we all might have from meeting each other for the first time by getting us hammered. It works. Within half an hour we are all jabbering away like old, drunk friends. And though this is not a cookbook, I feel the urge to share this recipe right here, right now.

  Once the slushy is frozen, you scrape layers off, like you would an Italian ice, mound into a glass, then drizzle with enough bourbon to get the overall consistency of a Slurpee, or to taste, depending on how much you like your bourbon. It will cleanse the RV blues right out of your soul.

  Meghan: It is so wonderful that Stephie has reached out to her father’s best friend for a place for us to stay while we’re in DC, and even more wonderful that this group of perfect strangers were willing to host us. We could really use a little home-style TLC after the days of the RV and motels. When we pull up to a pretty house surrounded by trees with an outdoor deck and a pool, I am suddenly a little embarrassed at the state of all of us: we are absolutely filthy. We walk into the house and introduce ourselves to everyone. Stephie’s father is adorable; he’s an older man with gray hair, a beard, a small build, glasses, a warm smile, and a genuine laugh. I like him pretty much from the second I meet him. We walk into a kitchen where our new hosts, Larry and Ellie, greet us in their open kitchen with glass doors facing out to the deck and pool.

  Their house is really cute, decorated with lots of art from their trips to Peru, various guitars, sitars, and mandolins. The house feels very comfortable and lived in. Almost as soon as we walk in, Ellie hands me a glass filled with a slushy drink of some kind.

  “What’s in it?” I ask.

  “Bourbon, you’ll love it,” she answers, and love it I do. From now on if anyone ever comes to visit me, I am going to hand them this slushy drink as soon as they walk in the door. It tastes like fruit punch and goes down easy.

  Ellie and Larry both work for the United States government but seem more like artists than Washington bureaucrats. Larry has a long gray pony tail that he has cut off only once when he was younger, and hated his short hair so much that he grew the pony tail right back. Ellie has long, braided dirty-blond hair, and wears a flowing skirt over sandals. They are both relaxed, friendly, and curious about our adventure. Stephie, Michael, Larry, Ellie, Cousin John, Larry and Ellie’s son Ian, Charlie, and I sit around their kitchen talking about everything from God and atheism to President Obama, our preferred choices in exercise classes, and love and relationships. I feel almost instantly comfortable around them and am relieved the evening feels relaxed and easy. That’s not always the case, as we have learned, when I first meet new people.

  Michael: The conversation centers on American drug policy, a subject upon which Charlie Grob is highly conversant. He’s the chief child psychologist at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. More interestingly, he’s also a renowned research scientist in the field of hallucinogens and MDMA (Ecstasy). He studies the use of hallucinogenic drugs and MDMA as therapeutic treatments for, among other things, PTSD. We had lunch once before in California, in which we discussed my own experiences with hallucinogenic drugs (which were few and far between, but fantastic). To my disappointment, he did not slip me any drugs after our meal.

  I am going to paraphrase Dr. Grob’s considered opinion of American drug policy: he thinks it’s fucked. Incidentally, so do I. So does everybody in the room and, I suspect, everybody in the country. Yet we persist in our absurd “war on drugs” as if it’s doing anything productive other than making a bunch of Mexican drug lords obscenely wealthy and a lot of other people dead.

  The fact is this: people want to get high. They have always gotten high and will continue to get high. They do it with legal means and they do it with illegal means and it’s very hard to reconcile where the line is drawn. Why is pot more dangerous than booze? Why is heroin worse than oxycodone? Why is the government in the business of telling people what they can and cannot voluntarily put into their bodies? It’s a game they cannot win. Telling people not to get high doesn’t work. Imprisoning them for getting high doesn’t work. Nothing works. Because people want to get high.

  The war on drugs as we know it commenced in 1973, under the direction of President Nixon. Since then, according to Time magazine, the United States has spent 2.5 trillion dollars fighting this “war.” What gains have we made? Literally every adult I know has tried marijuana. Many, if not most, of them have tried other illegal drugs. Some have gotten addicted. But then again, many more are addicted to alcohol, to gambling, to shopping. Maybe we should declare a war on shopping.

  “The issue with the drug war you have to ask is, is it effective?” Dr. Grob says. “And it seems to me that it’s just not doing what it’s supposed to be doing, which is containing the use of dangerous drugs. They call these drugs ‘controlled drugs,’ and yet they’re the most out of control drugs there are.”

  He points out that the most common drug people are arrested for is marijuana, a drug that “is incredibly benign on its effects on people.” He says the entire scientific literature on marijuana corroborates that it’s safe, doesn’t make people mentally ill or turn them into “bad people.” Nor, he says, is it “necessarily an enabling drug.” In other words, the idea that pot is a “gateway drug” is a complete myth. Probably started by tripped-out stoners.

  We talk about the Mexican cartels and the Afghani poppy growers. Larry has some experience in dealing with programs designed to encourage “alternative development” in Afghanistan, whereby the US government tries to get poppy farmers to grow other crops. The programs have largely failed. Exactly what crop could replace the amount of cash a poppy field generates? Maybe rhubarb?

  Both Charlie and Larry talk about the need for a “Nixon goes to China moment,” a strong politician to stand up and say what everybody knows, that the drug war is a miserable and pointless failure, and that we should legalize and regulate, at the very least, marijuana. But what politician is willing to stick their neck out for drugs? None. Except maybe Ron Paul.

  Dr. Grob talks about the Mexican cartels and how “with the stroke of a pen” we could eliminate their power.
Also, the government could generate billions of tax dollars through legalization. I’ve heard that marijuana is the largest cash crop in the country, a crop that is going totally untaxed. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but the fact that it’s believable is enough.

  I don’t even know what the counterarguments to this are. That if we legalize marijuana people are going to go crazy? That people are going to go around stabbing each other for weed? Was society made safer under Prohibition?

  Personally, I don’t smoke pot. I’ve tried it and it doesn’t do much for me. As for harder drugs, I don’t know how I feel about legalizing heroin, or meth, or whatever. My instinct tells me we should because fighting certain selected drugs is a study in futility. Let’s take some of the money we would generate by regulating and taxing drugs and pour it into treatment centers. Surely that’s a better alternative than prisons.

  We sit around their kitchen for an hour talking about this stuff, buzzing off our totally legal alcoholic beverages. What’s the difference between our legal drug and the illegal stuff? Crushed ice and lemonade.

  Meghan: As we get further into the night and start eating dinner, we talk about drugs and the war on drugs in America. I am fascinated by Charlie’s take on X, because for all of my adult life all I have ever heard about MDMA is that it is an extremely dangerous drug that will rot your brain matter and dry out your spinal fluid.

  When I was in middle school, we were shown a video of a young woman who had done Ecstasy. In it a doctor shows her an X-ray of her brain, and a portion of it looks like it had disintegrated. The video also showed the woman playing Scrabble for “brain food”; she needed to do those exercises for her brain because of all the damage she had done by taking Ecstasy. Congratulations to whoever put that video together—it scared the crap out of me, and I have never done a drug in my life (except marijuana), let alone Ecstasy.

  I have always pretty much held the conviction that all drugs are bad, and yet I have a different feeling about marijuana. I think it’s because marijuana is a plant, and the times I have smoked it (a number I can count on one hand) I have felt very mellow and calm. Also, I’m sorry everyone, but marijuana is absolutely everywhere. I have been to numerous parties in my life where it was available— and by parties I don’t mean raves in the middle of the desert; I mean dinner parties where people pass around a joint like they’re pouring wine.

  That’s the weirdest thing to me about marijuana legalization in this country; I have friends who have medical prescriptions for marijuana for “anxiety” and “insomnia” and it is easily obtained. Why is marijuana legal for doctors to write prescriptions for, if it is so dangerous?

  Pretty much any other drug except marijuana, I still have a very strict opinion about. I have always been too scared to indulge in anything stronger than whiskey or marijuana, and the idea of taking Ecstasy still evokes images of people ruining their lives and melting their brains. I didn’t even know that Ecstasy research was being done in the United States, so I am interested to hear Charlie’s take on it. We get on the topic initially by talking about religion and God, and he says his belief in a higher power or “a feeling of connectedness with the universe” came after an experience he had on a hallucinogen in the woods when he was in his twenties.

  Charlie continues to talk about his experiences with testing hallucinogens, but the first time my ears really perk up is when he says, “We actually have had really positive results using it to help soldiers combat posttraumatic stress syndrome.”

  “What?” I say, jerking my head in his direction. “Why is this not being talked about more?!” I had no idea that Ecstasy was being used to help soldiers combat PTSD, and I am a little annoyed that it has been effective but there hasn’t been more written about it publicly.

  My conversation with Stephie’s dad only adds to the questions I have regarding our country’s attitude towards the war on drugs in America. I mean, just the fact that there is a legal profession where someone tests hallucinogens for their effect on treating posttraumatic stress disorder is fascinating to me. Also, when it comes to marijuana, why are we ignoring the fact that many people smoke weed recreationally for different reasons and are not doing anything else illegal? Should we really consider a person caught with marijuana to be on the same level as someone who robs a bank?

  I think my biggest problem is the moral ambiguity of it all. I think all of us can agree that there needs to be a change in attitude towards the legalizing and regulation of marijuana in this country, or at least the attitude we have towards “criminals” caught with small amounts of weed on them. I also believe we are painfully ignoring the prescription-drug problem that is also facing many people in this country: the overprescribing to patients and the repercussions it is having on our culture. There are many layers to the drug problem in America, and I don’t pretend to have all of the answers. I know, however, that the war on drugs is one we continue to lose, and a change in perspective about the realities of the situation would be beneficial. My conversation with Stephie’s father only increases my confusion about America’s current approach to the war on drugs.

  After dinner we all go to Larry’s recording studio, where we sit on giant plush couches and cushions while he plays us some of his folky rock music. It’s pretty much a perfect night. My eyes start fading; all the bourbon and steak from the evening are making me feel hazy. I hug everyone good night and whisper to Michael right before I leave to go to bed, “Let’s visit Ellie and Larry again at this exact same time next summer.” These people and this house feel weirdly familiar, and I feel like I am around old friends. I notice a homemade Obama poster in Ellie and Larry’s son’s room that someone obviously made in the last election; it kind of makes me chuckle before I drift off to sleep. I bet when they made that I was the last person they imagined would be sleeping down the hall.

  Michael: In the morning, we rise late and lounge around the house before our planned afternoon at the Capitol Building. Stephie’s been trying to wrangle interviews with congressmen and senators since we started our road trip, and has met with mixed success. Most disappointing to me was Senator Al Franken’s response, which was a flat no. No explanation given. I am particularly galled because he is the only senatorial candidate to whom I have ever given money. Plus my wife is from Minnesota, the state he represents. Plus Al and I are both comedians. And I am the only person in the world who regularly listened to his Air America radio show, which, I can now say without the slightest remorse, sucked. The least he could do is say hello. No dice. It makes Yakov’s blow-off look effusive by comparison.

  A few people have agreed to meet with us, most notably Representative Dennis Kucinich, the perpetual Democratic presidential candidate. He runs every four years on his quirky platform, and every four years his candidacy is greeted with mild amusement and slight derision. He’s an issues guy who knows he has no chance of actually winning the nomination; he’s kind of like the Democratic version of Ron Paul.

  Meghan: This might be the only day on the entire trip that all three of us are showered, clean, and dressed up nice. I didn’t even know Michael had brought a suit on the trip, but he is wearing one as we head towards the Capitol, and I have on the one nice black dress that I brought with me. We pose for pictures in the living room before we leave with Ellie, Larry, and Charlie. It feels weirdly like we are heading off to the prom or something.

  The entrance to the US Senate Building is one I have made hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. The outside steps felt so much bigger to me as a child, almost like they were the steps to heaven. I don’t know if I will get to heaven, but if I do, I hope the steps are exactly like the white marble ones leading into Congress.

  My father’s press secretary meets us by the entrance, and guides us down the long corridors. The hallways that lead to his office are marble, on which high heels make distinct clicking sounds as you walk. The various wooden doors are enormous and looming. Down the long corridors, senators have offices across fro
m each other. In case you miss which one is my father’s office, there is a giant Arizona state flag standing aggressively outside it, next to two really large wooden doors. There are a few side offices connected by a hallway that leads to my father’s giant room, which is filled with an enormous wooden desk, a red leather couch, chairs, and a fireplace. Staffers have to walk through my father’s office, which sits in the middle of all of them, in order to make it from one side of the office area to the other. There are embarrassing pictures of my family and me everywhere.

  That’s the thing about coming from a political family; every awkward or ugly stage of your life is extremely well documented. There are more pictures of me than I would like hanging around my father’s office, in which I am the victim of being dressed entirely in American flag clothing, have a very short 1970s gymnast haircut, or just simply am an awkward teen who hasn’t yet figured out how to pose at a flattering angle for a Christmas card picture.

  One of my favorite things about my father’s staff is that many of them have been working for him their whole careers. His assistant, Ellen, has been with him thirty years. Joe Donoghue, my father’s chief of staff, has been working for him since he was eighteen. Mark Busey, my father’s communications director, has been around since what seems like the Triassic period. I think that’s why Capitol Hill feels so familiar; many of the people who work for my father are like extended family.

  I am relieved that Joe Donoghue is going to be around to talk to Michael and me. I don’t know what to say about Joe other than he is, in every conceivable way, salt of the earth. He is truly like a big brother to me. There is something about him being in the office with my father that has always given me peace of mind. I know he has a genuine love and respect for my dad, which my father has for him in return. Joe also has a fantastic sense of humor, and miraculously, even though he has been working on Capitol Hill since he was a teenager, seems to have maintained a passion for politics.