She is a single, twentysomething, gun-loving, Christian, Republican writer and blogger, the daughter of a Senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee. He is a married, forty-year-old, gun-fearing, atheist, Democrat comedian, the son of a lesbian former Social Security employee. Meghan McCain and Michael Ian Black barely know each other. But they are about to change the way politics is discussed in America.
Or at least the way politics are discussed in their crappy RV.
In America, You Sexy Bitch, Meghan and Michael embark on a balls-out, cross-country tour starting in California, the heart of liberal America, and ending in the state of Connecticut, the home of blue-blood Wall Street billionaires. Along the way, they visit such cultural touchstones as Graceland and Branson, party in Las Vegas and New Orleans, pretend to be Mormon in Salt Lake City (only for a second), and go to a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan. They tour the nation’s capital; they fire semiautomatic weapons. But mostly Meghan McCain and Michael Ian Black talk to each other: about their differences, their similarities, and how American politics has gotten so divided.
About Meghan McCain and Michael Ian Black
MICHAEL IAN BLACK is a popular stand-up comedian who has starred in many television series and films, including Michael and Michael Have Issues, Stella, The State, Wet Hot American Summer, Viva Variety, VH1’s I Love the… series, and NBC’s Ed. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and two kids.
MEGHAN McCAIN is a columnist for the Daily Beast and a contributor at MSNBC. Originally from Phoenix, she graduated from Columbia University in 2007. She is a New York Times bestselling author, has written for Newsweek, and created the website mccainblogette.com. Her most recent book is Dirty Sexy Politics, and she lives in New York City.
Editorial Review
“My own view heading into this trip is that America is at a particularly crappy time in its history,” writes Black (You’re Not Doing It Right: Tales of Marriage, Sex, Death, and Other Humiliations, 2012, etc.). His counterpart is McCain (Dirty Sexy Politics, 2010), flamboyant daughter of the Republican presidential candidate, who has occasionally aroused the suspicion of her party but who loves the same things as all good Republicans (guns, whiskey, red meat, country music, God, etc.). “I really love America,” she writes. “I don’t mean this to come off like a cliché; you know, American girl loves America, but it’s true.” Though family, friends and others had trouble understanding why two people who knew each other only through Twitter committed themselves to this project, something similar has been done often and better—from the “Point/Counterpoint” segment that long ran on 60 Minutes to the ultimate in strange political bedfellows, James Carville and Mary Matalin. Here, “the entire project, from idea to execution, happened in a little more than a month,” writes McCain. “Michael and I sold the book before we actually met in person.” The result is often tedious and shallow, as their travels reveal little beyond the obvious about New Orleans, Austin, Memphis, Salt Lake City and other cities. – Kirkus Reviews
Review: ‘America, You Sexy Bitch’ by Meghan McCain and Michael Ian Black
The Chicago Tribune Book Review – July 22, 2012 (Excerpt)
The 2008 presidential campaign had many unexpected consequences: It spawned the tea party movement, the Palin family TV reality show dynasty and the pundit career of Meghan McCain, daughter of the Republican nominee.
During Arizona Sen. John McCain’s ill-fated White House run, Meghan spent a lot of time on the road on his famous “Straight Talk Express.” A newly minted Columbia University graduate, she was among the first political offspring to exploit the possibilities of a campaign blog. Pictures of her jumping on hotel beds and her habit of choosing a hip song of the day breathed a sense of youthful vitality into the creaky McCain operation, until then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin vaulted out of the tundra and made diversions like “McCain Blogette” irrelevant.
Afterward, having seen a presidential campaign from the inside, McCain thought she had something to say about politics. And for the last four years, she has been saying it — in a memoir, in a regular column in the Daily Beast and now on MSNBC, where she is a regular contributor. Reflexively conservative on most issues — almost to the point of parody — she departs from Republican orthodoxy in one major way: She is an outspoken supporter of gay marriage. (“My God is not Rick Santorum’s God,” she writes.)
Her latest book is a strangely conceived project that finds her, once again, traveling the country in an oversize vehicle with an older man. This time, however, the man is not her father and not nearly as old. He is snarky liberal comedian and actor Michael Ian Black, a married father of two who got stoned on Ambien one night and tweeted a message to McCain: “We should write a book together!” [Read the full article...]
The Indigo Bird
An Erotic Novel by Max Markham
James Graveney, a young Major in a respectable regiment, is outwardly conventional. In private James is bisexual, with a strong urge for his own sex. Gay sex, however, is illegal in the Army, so he is discreet about this.
James’ world is turned upside-down when he meets Lieutenant Richard Finch. Richard is intelligent, charismatic and exceptionally handsome. He doesn’t mess around. He gets what he wants, and is completely unscrupulous about how he gets it. Richard will stop at nothing to achieve this, including Machiavellian deception and a cunning and brutal murder. James starts responding to Richard, cautiously at first, then gets swept along on the great love affair of his life.
The Indigo Bird is a rollercoaster of surprises set against backdrops varying from the jungles of Belize to London, the English countryside, and Ireland, and the scene is set for more shocks and adventures. [Read more...]
We are the only country that makes guns, including military-style assault weapons, available to anyone who wants to buy them. This is not freedom. It is a tyranny of death and destruction — a tyranny of which the National Rifle Association is proud. The Washington Post
