How to interview P.J. O’Rourke on drugs while getting your mind blown and not embarrass yourself

TheDC: There’s a great section in the book where you talk about your move to the right. Which gave me the impression that there are two distinct P.J. O’Rourke’s: The guy who wrote “How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink,” and the Dad.

P.J.: [Laughs]. I was a Republican by the time I wrote that. The wing-wang story was not a product of my leftism.

TheDC: Republicans love getting their wing-wang squeezed.

P.J.: Yes. And we have the proof.

TheDC: Do you think if you were coming of age today, you’d be a leftist? Liberal politics seem kind of boring today. In the 60s, you had the possibility of revolution.

P.J.: There was the possibility of getting laid!

TheDC: Oh, c’mon!

P.J.: I’m serious!

TheDC: You don’t think that’s sort of reducitonist?

P.J.: Looking back on it, I think it was sex appeal in the broadest sense of the term. I and my friends were lefties because that was the hip, cool thing to do. I started getting into this in the early 60s when I was in high school. It was the hip time from Camus, right through until it all sort of blew up in our face in the 70s. You can probably go back even further in time. From the 1929 stock market crash to Pol Pot, it was the hip thing to be, to be on the left. It was cooler and it was sexier. Let’s not forget which side Rick from Casablanca ran his guns during the Spanish Civil War.

Then people were out there saying, wait a minute, not so fast. Especially people who were familiar with Stalin’s show trials. Then again, we were the New Left. We didn’t identify with the Soviet Union. That was passé.

It had all the mojo going for it, and I was just a kid, swept up in the tides of fashion, as kids are. Today, I don’t know where the tide of fashion would sweep me. For one thing, they’re not as unitary as they used to be. Kids all kind of moved in lockstep back in those days—everybody did. Now, society is more diffuse and differentiated. Who knows what would have an influence over a light-minded kid like me in modern times.

TheDC: Do you think it’s fair to say that there’s absolutely nothing sexy about the Tea Party movement?

P.J.: Yeah, I think that’s fair. [Laughs].

TheDC: There’s nothing sexy about fiscal conservatism.

P.J.: It’s a middle-aged, responsible populist movement. As a middle-aged person who tries to be responsible, I’m all for it. But I wouldn’t call it sexy.

TheDC: Maybe with beer goggles on. Then again, you wouldn’t call liberalism sexy right now either.

P.J.: I wouldn’t think so. It’s really earnest now.

TheDC: It’s a square movement.

P.J.: Yeah, there’s a strong element of in loco parentis in the Obama administration.

TheDC: We’re all parentless.

P.J.: Everyone’s parents are in nursing homes.