Joan Rivers released a comedy album in 1983 called What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most? I literally have no idea how an 8-track of it found its way into my first car a few years later, but I listened to it constantly for a month or so, until I stopped laughing at the jokes out of familiarity. Today, I remember little about her routine, except one short bit that still resonates with me:
“Drugs,” Joan says. “I don’t do drugs. But every once in a while I sprinkle a little Fresca on a panty shield. Perks me right up.”
For thirty years I used a variation of that line at countless parties when offered a toke of this or a snort of that. “Nah, I don’t feel like doing a bong hit right now, I just reapplied Fresca to my panty shield and, dude, I am trippin’ balls.” I don’t think anyone ever laughed, just gave me that aloof, slightly confused look I usually reserve for people with really short bangs or novelty hosiery.
I’m just not that into drugs, despite the fact that I’ve done my fair share of them. It’s a control thing, really. I know exactly what I’m going to feel like after two margaritas (horny and bitchy) or three gin and tonics (horny and exhibitionistic), but with drugs you never know what kind of high—or low—you’re going to have. The last time I chased half a joint with a Vicodin I ended up screaming obscenities at a leprechaun because he was shitting pennies all over my living room. The next day the woman who lived across the hall told me she thought I had been babysitting until she heard me yell, “If I see one more coin come out of your ass, so help me God!” at which point she assumed I had a “special friend” over.
That was 2004 and I haven’t done recreational drugs since, yet I’m kind of intrigued by people who do. Do they use because they want to get out of their own heads, or do they need to? And where are these people going that’s so great, because I never got there. I did have a fantasy for a while about composing a series of mystical essays after ingesting different substances. You know, one Saturday chew a few ’shrooms and write about the meaning of life; the next, take some LSD and see if I can channel Buddha. And so on and so on, until the only drugs I haven’t done are crank and bath salts. I chickened out, mostly because I don’t want to die, but on some level I think it would be fun.
So, recently I tried a much safer, somewhat legal version.
I was in San Francisco after a trip to Los Angeles for work and I asked a friend of mine—Renée—with a medicinal marijuana prescription for her “anxiety” to buy me one dose of an edible, because I was conducting an experiment. She asked what the experiment entailed and I told her: “I just want to try writing while high to see if it’s any better or worse than what I come up with when I’m sober.” Renée, who was also writing a book at the time, said she had attempted the same thing to no avail. Every time she tried to write while high, she got a case of the fuck-its, closed her computer, and watched TV or ate cookie dough. She suggested that I take a marijuana gummy, and she would stay with me, sober, and interview me, while recording the whole thing on her phone. I said it sounded like a plan.
On a Sunday night in mid-May, Renée came to my hotel room. I chewed and swallowed one THC-infused gummy bear and this is what transpired:
RENÉE: So, what do you want to talk about?
ME: I’m not sure this thing is working. Are you sure you didn’t give me a regular gummy bear?
RENÉE: I’m sure.
ME: In Germany they call them GOO-me bears.
RENÉE: Ya.
ME: Shit. I forgot to tell Damon we were doing this.
RENÉE: Do you want to call him now?
ME: No. What if he gets mad at me?
RENÉE: Do you think he would?
ME: He doesn’t like los drugas.
RENÉE: Las drogas.
ME: I took French. Is my forehead shining? I feel like my forehead is shining.
RENÉE: A little.
ME: [Looking in mirror] I look like shit. You know, once you start wearing makeup, it’s hard to get used to seeing your own face without it. Don’t tell anybody, but sometimes—well, always, actually—I fill in my eyebrows just a bit, with a MAC pencil. They’ve gotten sparse with age. You know Tony Goldwyn?
RENÉE: The actor?
ME: Yeah, he looks good without eyebrows. He’s got strong features to carry the rest of his face. I don’t. My face is so oval.
RENÉE: Isn’t that supposed to be the ideal face shape?
ME: For women! When was the last time you saw a guy and were like, “I just wanna hop on that sexy oval face, ya big stud.”
RENÉE: You may have a point. But I still like your face.
ME: Thanks. You know, sometimes I think I may be invisible to birds.
RENÉE: What makes you say that?
ME: They’ve been flying at me, like I’m not there. But then at the last minute, they dart away. It’s like my bird force field has gotten thinner or something. I should Google that. What if my fucking aura is fizzling out? Birds can see things we can’t see, you know. The birds used to be able to see my aura and they could steer clear of it. Now, it’s barely there. Can’t see it until you’re right up in it.
RENÉE: Do you feel like your aura is fizzling out?
ME: Sometimes.
RENÉE: Why?
ME: Old age. I don’t know. Stacy [London] and I had our aura photographed once a long time ago. We were in a New Age shop shooting part of the show in our first season. We were in Nashville. We had matching gold auras. The guy who owned the shop said we were practically angels or some shit.
RENÉE: Well, you were helping people.
ME: When was the last time an angel helped you by suggesting you wear dark-wash jeans and ballet flats?
RENÉE: Do you ever miss that show?
ME: Next question.
RENÉE: When did—
ME: I should have another gummy because I don’t think this one is on.
RENÉE: You’re OK with the one.
ME: Prolly. You know what this country needs?
RENÉE: What?
ME: A makeover. I think we’d all be happier if we looked cuter. [laughs] And had some GOO-me bears. When I’m president, I will make America fabulous again.
RENÉE: Ah, you want to be president.
ME: Well, it’s obvious I’m the most qualified. To make people fabulous. The dream is real.
RENÉE: And what exactly does being fabulous mean in this context, Candidate Kelly?
ME: A chicken in every pot and—what’s that expression?—a car in every garage. A pasture-raised, organic chicken. And an electric car. I’d like it if the chickens were killed really fast and didn’t see it coming, and if the cars were colorful, like in the old days. Just a rainbow of cars, plus pink ones. Pink isn’t in the rainbow, but pink cars are cute. Now all the cars are black and white. Some are red. Did you ever notice that everyone driving a Nissan Maxima is an asshole?
RENÉE: Will you mention that on the campaign trail?
ME: I’m not going on the campaign trail. That seems exhausting. And all that food they make you eat. Gross. Do you want to order room service? They do a nice cheese platter here. It comes with quince jelly.
RENÉE: Maybe later. We’re on a roll here. Let’s discuss some of your specific policies.
ME: If you insist.
RENÉE: Transgendered individuals in restrooms. What are your thoughts on that topic?
ME: To be honest, I don’t know what all the hubbub is about. Does it really matter who’s peeing in the next stall, and whether they’re wearing a ball gown or overalls? I find the whole process so revolting, I just want to get in and out with as little fanfare as possible.
RENÉE: But people are concerned about the children. Specifically, little girls using a public restroom with a man.
ME: Why the fuck are you letting your little girl enter a public restroom alone anyway? That’s neglect. Your kids should be interacting with absolutely no one in a public toilet, whether they have a penis, a vagina, both, or neither. Quite frankly, I think we need sweeping change in the way we publicly relieve ourselves. I dream of a future in which public restrooms are gender neutral. Hear me out on this. You enter the restroom, which would have a series of completely private rooms with a hole on the floor. You do your business, a onesie or a twosie into the hole, wipe as necessary, and leave. When you exit, the door closes behind you and the entire room is sprayed down with warm water and a biodegradable disinfectant. So the next person who enters gets a completely clean, odor-free toilet experience. That can happen. If there are people smart enough to make all these goddamn Snapchat filters, someone can figure out a new toilet system.
RENÉE: Wouldn’t it be expensive to convert all existing bathrooms to the kind you’ve described?
ME: It’s a jobs program! Someone has to make and install these toilets. Pronounced “toilette,” by the way. And we’ll start with the unemployed. Oh, and I’ll raise taxes. Imagine, for an extra twenty dollars a year, you could be guaranteed a safe, hygienic pee whenever you wanted one.
RENÉE: What about your stance on abortion?
ME: This is another thing that’s pissing me off. Nobody wants an abortion. Kind of the way nobody wants to use a public restroom, but multiply that by about a thousand. There would be a shit-ton less abortion if we made it easier to get contraception in this country. I don’t know why there aren’t buckets of free condoms in every classroom in America. Oh, when I’m president, I will institute a Contraception On-Demand program the second I am sworn in.
RENÉE: Can you explain what you mean by Contraception On-Demand?
ME: Drones. Contraception is delivered to your front door whenever you want it. Have a hot date? Tap a button on your phone, and—bam—a box of condoms, spermicidal jelly, sponges, whatever you want. It’s at your front door. And if you made a mistake last night, tap an icon on the screen of your phone—I guess you’d need the geo-location function turned on—and in five minutes you could literally be showered with morning-after pills, like Skittles. Taste the rainbow and flush out that zygote you created six hours ago before it turns into anything.
RENÉE: That seems like a lot of pills just lying around on the sidewalk.
ME: Well, maybe we could use small drones, like the size of hummingbirds, that drop a single pill right into your hand. Or we could train actual hummingbirds. Wouldn’t that be cute?
RENÉE: What about men? It seems like the onus is on women here.
ME: Oh, hell, no. I want to incentivize men to have vasectomies. Reversible ones, of course. You come to the local hospital. Snip snip, no charge. When you’re ready to responsibly procreate, we sew your vas deferens right back up again. Nobody’s inconvenienced.
RENÉE: What’s the incentive?
ME: A guarantee of no child support payments. And we can throw in a free pizza with all the toppings. Oh my God, how awesome would pizza be right now?
RENÉE: I can’t see a male-dominated Congress passing any of these laws.
ME: Me either. That’s why my second slogan is, “Don’t be a dick, Vote with your vagina.” I don’t know why women aren’t furious that they’re not at least 50 percent of the House and Senate. And there should be more gays in there, too, now that I think about it. Let’s put more homos in da House! The parties will be much better. And slim-leg pants. What is with the old dudes still shopping at Men’s Wearhouse? Even Paul Ryan. I don’t like him, but he’s kind of good-looking. The jackets are too long. The pants are all big and baggy. I don’t like it. I did like his beard, when he had it.
RENÉE: How does it feel to be the first gay man running for president?
ME: I’m pretty sure a couple of gays have run or maybe even been president. I’m just the first to admit it. That being said, it feels fine. I could do without the e-mails telling me God hates me.
RENÉE: Does that happen?
ME: I’ll get one tweet a month or one Facebook message where some asshole is quoting Leviticus to me and telling me I’m going to burn in hell. I don’t believe in hell, so I’m not too worried about it. It’s like someone saying to me, “You’re gonna go to Wally World.” Um, no, that’s from a movie, dipshit.
RENÉE: Does religion not play a big role in your life?
ME: It doesn’t. I don’t really see the point, to be honest. I can have a relationship with God without all the middlemen. If I shut my eyes and say, “Hey, God, thanks for all the good stuff around me,” what difference does it make if I’m in a church or on the subway? Did you know I’m kind of obsessed with the New York City subway system? There are few things in life that make me as happy as seeing an Arab, some Hasidic Jews, assorted blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, gays, and European tourists peacefully coexisting on an uptown express train in the middle of the afternoon.
RENÉE: When did you realize you were gay?
ME: Hmm. I can’t point to any moment in particular. But I do remember not feeling quote-unquote “normal,” whatever that means. Just less aggressive, drawn more to the beautiful things in life. I remember being around seven years old and throwing rocks in our suburban neighborhood. That’s what kids, boys especially, did back then, roam around looking for things to do and throw. The rule was be home before it gets dark. Can you imagine telling your child that now? You’d be shamed out of suburbia. But it was a different world. The entire neighborhood was the playground, with mothers everywhere keeping eyes on kids who were not necessarily their own. At one point—it must have been early summer, because I wore jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, I remember it clearly—I found myself atop a mound of dirt. Which seemed substantial to me at the time, but may have only been a few feet high. The boys were throwing rocks into a nearby bush, and so I picked up some rocks and began to do the same. “Why are we throwing rocks into that bush?” I asked one of the other kids. “Because there’s a rabbit in there,” he said. Horrified, I dropped the rocks I held in my hand and ran down the dirt mound and stood in front of the bush. I threw my hands in the air, waved them the way one might surrender to opposing forces, and yelled, “Stop! You might hurt the rabb—” when a rock hit me so hard over the right eye that I fell back into the bush and blacked out.
When I came to, maybe five minutes later, my eye was filled with blood. I closed it and looked to the mound of dirt, where a half-dozen boys had been standing, and saw that it was now empty. It was the first time I had ever felt profoundly alone, deserted. I rose to my feet, my head aching and my stomach wobbly, and heard the pack of boys yelling. They were coming my way with my mother in tow. “Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Kelly,” they yelled. Because she was Mrs. Kelly then. “Clint’s eyeball’s hanging out.” And I had an image of myself as a deformed monster, my beautiful blue eyes, which even complete strangers complimented me and my mother on, were ruined forever. Terri grabbed me by the shoulders and looked at my face. “Is my eyeball hanging out?” I asked. “No,” she said, “but you’ve got a bad cut. I’m taking you to the emergency room.” “I was trying to save a rabbit,” I said. She was holding my arm as we walked through the neighbors’ backyards to our house. “Well, now you’re going to the hospital,” she said.
I didn’t know if she was mad, inconvenienced, or frightened. Maybe a combination of all three, plus some emotions I wasn’t yet aware of. Anyway, that was probably when I realized I wasn’t like the other boys. But of course it wasn’t sexual back then. I don’t think I was sexually attracted to men until high school. Not that I acted upon it. That didn’t happen until college in Boston.
RENÉE: Do you think the country is ready for a gay president?
ME: Hell no. [laughs]
RENÉE: What’s so funny?
ME: It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? The country would go apoplectic. People talk about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. Damon and I are completely monogamous, but a heterosexual couple can swing every weekend, and somehow their marriage is more sacred in the eyes of God than mine. I’ve got a real problem with Chinese restaurant–style religion. “I’ll make two choices from Leviticus and three from Deuteronomy, and ignore the rest because they inconvenience me.”
RENÉE: That probably won’t endear you to a substantial portion of the American electorate.
ME: Probably not.
RENÉE: So what do you think your chances of winning are?
ME: I’d calculate them to be somewhere in the neighborhood of zero. But if I really thought I’d win, I wouldn’t run. That job’s gotta suck. I’d like to go to bed now if that’s OK with you.
RENÉE: Sweet dreams, Mr. President.