Ah, the automobile. The ultimate status symbol.* Whether it’s the nicest Integra in the poor-as-sh*t neighborhood or the nicest Ferrari in the rich-as-f*ck gated enclave, everyone wants their whip to be admired – if not generally – than at least by those in their peer group.

Don’t believe us?

97% of US car sales are financed, which is to say; 97% of people probably should have gotten a model more akin to a 3-year-old-Kia-under-50,000-miles if their oft-espoused “Cars are just to get from point A to point B” saying was actually something they believed in rather than just something they said to sound all sensible, prudent and un-materialistic.

Weird thing is, the most status-y of the status-symbol models have no balls.

“Huh?” you sputter. “But the fanciest cars always have the sickest engines!”

True, but still No.

Let’s explain…

Case I: The SUV

Nothing says “I have a lot of money” like a Range Rover SUV- specifically, the Supercharged top model version that boasts 510HP.* Preferably in white, just like in the rap videos.

“Wow…look at it…dripping with chrome. The dashboard submerged within rare oak and the seats hand-sewn with custom, creamy leather. So sleek…so stately. A subdued power. A kind of ferocious elegance. I…I……I want one.”

NO! Stop right there, friendo. Sure, it’s pretty. Granted. Tough to knock that body style. And 510HP? Very impressive. But slow down: It’s got no balls.

“No balls?”

NONE!

“510 horse? That sounds like a f*ckload of balls!”

No, palie, no. It’s a mirage. …Let’s put it this way: If a Chevy Tahoe hit that thing full on it would crumple like an effete British boarding school kid getting punched in the stomach by a large, black man from Detroit. Yes it would crumple and burn along with all the Holt Renfrew* shit in the trunk.

“Huh? But the very best model Tahoe only has 403 horse??”

OK, let’s put it another way: if a Chevy Tahoe hit that thing it would buckle like Orlando Bloom getting hit in the chest with a crowbar by Marshall Mathers. It would buckle and burn along with all the organic, gluten-free, hypo-alergenic Whole Foods groceries in the trunk.

“Ohhh…I think I’m getting it. What’s in my trunk? In the Tahoe??”

Sh*t from The Bay**. And normal groceries from a normal grocery store. And maybe an M16.

“Oh, I like that.”

Yeah, that’s right. You still get some oak on the dash, not-retardedly-chrome chrome wheels and leather seats to make you feel all warm inside, but not so much of that sh*t that you’re left driving a purse-with-wheels.

“Ah, nice.”

And get this…

“Yeah?”

…the Tahoe is what the Secret Service drives.

“Oooo.”

Check the grill, friend.

“Ahhhh…sick.”

Yeah, baby. And it isn’t stupid expensive. Half as much.

“I like that.”

Best part?

“Yeah?”

It’s got balls.**

“Ohhh, yes. Now I get it.”

Yes.

We knew that you would.

Now, let’s move on to the only other type of car a person ever really needs…

Case II: The Sports Car

We were wrong before: Nothing says “I have a lot of money” like a BENTLEY- specifically, the Bentley GT Continental.* Again: preferably in white, just like in the rap videos.

And again: the chrome, the oak, the leather- oh my! And the latest, best model? Boasts 592HP.

“Dude- that’s hitting concept car balls. Surely, you can’t again say…”

Oh, yes; yes we can. And we will. Even with near 600 horses under the hood. This thing…has no balls.

“What!?”

Let’s put it this way: If a Chevy Corvette ZR1 raced that thing it would be like Jim Brown sprinting against Piers Morgan.

“Yeah? What’s the horse on the Corvette? This is pretty important in the f*ckin’ sports car category- ya can’t just gloss over it like ya did before with the trucks!”

We agree: 638HP.

“OK, OK- more horses; but not by much. What’s the torque? I mean the Bentley has 479 ft-lb’s!”

604 ft-lb’s.

“Shit.”

Yeah, your giant status symbol would get mowed down by Detroit brawn worse than the British did at Bunker Hill.

“Yeah, I get it now.”

The ‘vette would smoke that ostentatious ‘tardmobile harder than Miller Genuine Draft smoked Amy Winehouse.****

“Look: I said ‘I get it,’ OK?!”

Hey baby:

It just. makes. sense.

Case III: The Minivan

No one covets a minivan. That’d be like comparing two turds.

A minivan says to the world “I have given up on life.”

And if you need space – a perfectly reasonable request – and seats for soccer practice and the occasional 3 AM dead hooker when the kids are asleep and so on and so on, well; refer back to Case 1!

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*Beyond Robb Report shit like motoryachts and whatnot. We’re talkin’ everyone here…I mean, what other possession do you parade around town more than your car?

**This is the uber-yuppie, premium department store of Canada. US readers: please sub in “Saks 5th Avenue.”

***US readers: ummm….JC Penney? But, ah, like back in the 80s when it was still reasonably nice? …Like the JC Penney Marty McFly would have gone to?? Yeah. Like that.

****too soon?

The French boy thanked Roman Polanski as an unceasing artistic inspiration.

The dog from Frasier was also among the overjoyed artists; however, by the time the Best Picture category was reached at the very end of the night he was so coked-up he barely knew where he was and couldn’t even distinguish that he’d won. (Note the picture, inset. Yes, so high he’d lost sense of where the audience even was.)

And yes, that is James Cromwell from Babe* waaay in the back there amidst all those Frenchmen.

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*and Babe II: Pig in the City

Kim Jong-Un. A chubby, unremarkable manboy. He’s basically a carbon copy of the fat Korean kid everyone had in their class during at least one year of elementary school. You know, that guy John Kim? He really liked Super Mario Brothers?? Well this Kim is just like that Kim…except this Kim has just inherited the world’s last feudal kingdom. “This harmless half-wit?,” you say? “There must be some misunderstanding.”

Sadly, no. With his devilish daddy Kim Jong-Il gone, Kim Jong-Un is stuck as sole inheritor of the family business.

Indeed, his idyllic, simple life as the anonymous son of a “wealthy Korean businessman” at a Swiss boarding school is now permanently behind him.* The shy, stocky little chubbster – who once spent most of his time happily snacking and watching NBA games – has now been thrust into a swirling and potentially deadly world of intrigue, rivals, coteries, cliques and, worst of all, one where he is confronted daily with the obligation to make decisions that have geopolitical ramifications.

Kim soon found that his faultless knowledge of Michael Jordan’s historical shooting stats would have been better replaced with a faultless knowledge of the Ming Jyap Brigade’s historical shooting stats, as far as his day-to-day responsibilities go.

Rumor has it that Kim is lucky enough to have a wisened, octogenarian Uncle playing the role of Cardinal Richelieu to Kim’s obese version of the famously naieve King Louis XIIIth…

“Kim-San, while pretending to be on maneuvers, elements of the 105th Armored Division were planting mines on the DMZ in express violation of the Geneva Convention and have captured several UN peacekeepers that stumbled upon their operation. Shall we decapitate these rats immediately or do you have specific instructions as to the nature and extent of their suffering? What does the Great Leader desire??”

‘Ohhh, Unkauwww! I dauwno!! I jus’ ‘avin’ shum toastauw strudews enn’ warrtcheeng 1991 Burrz v. Wakeghws Finarrs auw Betamax ovah heeyah!! Shoot dem I guesssh…’**

“Your command is God’s spoken breathe, Kim-San.”

….

“Kim-San, General Kwon and several of his officers have been apprehended organizing a coup against your divine rule. Shall we decapitate these rats immediately or do you have specific instructions as to the nature and extent of their suffering? What does the Great Leader desire??”

‘Ohhh, Unkauwww! I dauwno!! I jus’ ‘avin’ shum Mirk Durrds enn’ warrtcheeng supah-funny neugh Amewikan pwogwam Wirr & Gwace auw ratest weaahw-pwojection beeeg skween ovah heeyah! Shoot dem I guesssh…’

“Your command is God’s spoken breathe, Kim-San.”

….

“Kim-San, a horde of peasants has robbed your divine commissary of many glorious pastries. They claim they are starving and have eaten all the soles of their shoes. Shall we decapitate these rats immediately or do you have specific instructions as to the nature and extent of their suffering? What does the Great Leader desire??

‘Ohhh, Unkauwww! I dauwno!! I jus’ ‘avin’ shum Oh Henwy’z enn’ warrtcheeng wearry, wearry twipy neugh Amewikan mooovie Nevah Endeeng Stowy ovah heeyah!! Hory sheet, dis so tweepy I hope eh’WEAWWY nevah enn’! Shoot dem I guesssh…’**

“Your command is God’s spoken breathe, Kim-San.”

….

…And despite the never-ending coups, assassination attempts, starvation riots and the whole global castigation thing, Kim has reportedly just discovered his father’s harem room.

So life is good.

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*classmates noted he was completely ordinary save for a tendency to be ferociously rude to the staff.

**the BBC has reported that Kim insists on speaking broken English to his retinue…so don’t even bother getting started on that racist slander email, mister! …More specifically, Kim insists on practicing his English at all times with his sycophantic staff in preparation for an operation to abduct Jennifer Aniston and make her his Eternal FRIEND (wink).

Billy Jack Rommel, 34, of Miami, Ohio hates Jews. “Bankers and dentists- the worst people!” he often says to no one in particular, his eyes gleaming with unadulterated hatred. “They love money…and they HATE J-C.”

Usually, his bitter utterances are followed with this fascinating little revelation: “And they planned 9/11!” …How or why “the Jews*” did, Billy is a little vague on.

Most notably of all, however, Billy Jack displays that strange dichotomy that all frothy-mouthed, close-eyed anti-Semites exhibit regarding the Holocaust: the most stringent denial that it happened coupled with a deep adoration of the concept.

“That whole Holocaust thing never ‘appened!” explains B-Jack, discursively painting a weak picture of a massive PR stunt involving millions of people. “Zionist hoax. Them yids, see, them yids wants ya ta’PITY’em. That’s the thing of it, ya see. So they made up this whole gas oven story during DubyaDubyaTwo, ya’understand.”

Even shown pictures of Dachau and Auschwitz, including ones clearly illustrating hundreds of bodies, Billy Jack was able to shrug them off. “Ya call this evidence? Thems coulda been anyone. It was a WAR. Hello? Hell- that one right there’s a mannequin, I tell you whut. I use ta’work at JC Penney and I knowz a mannequin when I seez one.”

Given a moment to think, unmolested by questions, one could literally see the strain in BJ’s fiery eyes as the rusty cogs of his thought process ground away behind them…”But imagine how many of’em you could get in that there oven,” he whispered, tapping one of the photos. “Woooh-hee. If only we’d finished’em off.”

Called to account on his transparent admission, Billy Jack was quick to backpedal: “Naw, naw I mean hypothetical like, ya’see. Ya. Didn’ ‘appen ya’understand. Hitler even had a dog. Golden retriever by my rekollekshin’. So it didn’appen. They justs wants tha’ pity fur’it. ….But if it had, uh, if it had, uh…it’a'd been nice if they’d got’em all.”

For more of Billy Jack’s insights on the falsity of the Holocaust or any other massive historical event that didn’t happen, please visit the Wapakoneta Waffle House just off Route 75 during regular business hours.

He’s there most days.

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*a collective group – despite their apparent variety – all cooperating behind the scenes towards realizing their one overarching, secret goal of world domination…or something.

During WWII the “k-ration” non-perishable meal for every American soldier included three delicious cigarettes. On the other side of the front? Hitler was psychotically anti-smoking,* devising the world’s first domestic anti-smoking campaign. Indeed, his generals were constantly “nicking” as they were forced to listen to him rave map-side for hours on end in any one in his shrinking ring of various command bunkers. Flash forward 50 years or so and Germany was the last member country to bend to the EU’s draconian smoking laws entirely due to this particular, persevering social memory of old Adolf, the world’s original “anti-smoking Nazi.” German society’s post-Nazi intolerance for intolerance still persists though; for instance, smoking booths still exist within German airports.

Almost everywhere else in the developed world?

Well, save for a handful of Libertarian redoubts such as Florida or Arizona, you are absolutely prohibited from lighting up anywhere indoors – even in a bar. Yes, our freedoms have been so downtrodden that today no one even notices the disgustingly smoke-free character of the modern bar. Actually having to smell the cheap perfume, reeking cologne and stale beer aroma that permeates every bar in the known world back in 1990? Unthinkable. Today? Par for the course.

You could say that the vast majority of bars in 2011 exactly resemble Hitler’s command bunkers of the early 1940’s…that modern society in its indoor smokeless-ness perfectly reflects Hitler’s plan for the smokeless dystopian paradise that was to be the thousand year Third Reich.

He would be nothing short of delighted.

Of course, Adolf Hitler lost WWII on all fronts. …Save for this “front,” where – though Hitler be dead – his pioneering vision of a society purified of all tobacco seems poised for triumph.

Unfortunately the side representing freedom and individuality dwindles in number and lacks the resolve to be heard against the despotic clamor of the “smoke-free” masses** who seek to impose a puritanically intolerant, smoke-free totalitarian regime upon everyone.

The tactical victories scored by the anti-smoking Nazis began in the late 1950s and continue to tally up today. You can’t hack a butt in Central Park in Manhattan anymore. Likewise, you can’t flame a fag even on the sidewalk in many towns across the USA. A pack of cigarettes that use to be as costly as the impulse chocolate bar purchase now weigh on Joe Smoke-pack’s monthly budget almost as badly as his gas expenditures for his Tahoe Hybrid.***

Indeed, in the Western world it is largely just the working class segment of society that continues to smoke. Cynics and Liberals would make all kinds of highly insulting claims correlating this fact with education-level-attained or some other condescending metric but, in truth, it is the common sense inherent to the character of the working man allows him to see through their alarmist agenda, champion individual freedom, and soldier on with his deliciously satisfying habit.

Yet, do the so-called Liberals**** in every country across the developed world – those who have levied taxes on cigarettes to the point that what was twenty years ago a $3 (USD) purchase is now $13 (or higher) – even care that they have effectively created a poor tax? No.

Of course they don’t.

Despite their bleeding heart rhetoric about every supposedly hard-done by group in society since they can’t make cigarettes illegal they are more than happy to attempt to make it prohibitively expensive through crushing taxes, even if the working class smoker – he who ostensibly represents their base – is economically crushed as well.

Not to mention the demonized tobacco manufacturers themselves. Where is the disgusting graphic of a dead fat man on a slab with his bloated stomach torn open in full glossy color on a Big Mac or a Whopper container? Clearly Phillip Morris remains a more than adequate whipping for every Western nation’s ubiquitous Government Ministry of Well Being and Morals. Given that the preachy 80% still gorges itself on hundreds of metric tons of fast food a day, it will be a long while until McDonald’s and its ilk are set upon by the government like a leech upon a cow for that sweet, sweet tax revenue once poor old Phillip Morris’ drained, skeletal carcass is cast into the fiscal ditch.

OK- the health issue. “We’re not anti-smoker, we’re pro-health!” some unhinged soccer mom froths at 120 decibels into some poor veck’s face who was smoking innocently on the sidewalk. Well, let’s examine that…sure, smoking is obviously bad for you; undeniably so BUT obesity is the #1 cause of lowered life expectancy in North America, not smoking. Yet a Double Quarter Pounder is not only unadorned with color closeups of a clogged artery but costs about $3, having climbed only with inflation through the decades. Where’s the fat tax?? A short trip through Pennsylvania and even Stevie Wonder could see that this debt ceiling business would be immediately resolved if a Whopper cost as much as a pack of lights.*****

Now clearly we propose a fat tax in jest, and obviously the left has no compunctions about beating up on smoking since it’s so convenient, being a vilified, increasingly unpopular so-called “vice.” And let’s leave aside that this is really just a nice, greedy tax grab (disproportionately suffered by the poor, of course) under a painfully transparent veneer of some noble “healthful” cause, because we have a more pressing question: Where the hell does the government get off telling me how healthy I can be? If I want a cheeseburger and 15 cigarettes for every meal, well; I’m the one who’ll have to find a Big’n'Tall with a wheelchair ramp. If you want vegan food 24/7 and a smoke-free house, well; sure, masochism is not illegal either.

However: in the airport?

“Sorry pal, you don’t own the air five inches in front of my face. If I have to smell your Axe body spray, you can deal with a tiny spiral of smoke heading for the ceiling. If your virgin lungs are sprouting tumors by the dozen, stand one foot that way. Theeere we go. All better now.”

Of course, the Liberals’ tyrannical legislation in every Western nation that propel cigarettes into ever costlier stratospheres is accompanied by their usual refrain: “It’s for your own good.”

Ah, the protectionist Liberal. Truly a pan-national phenomenon. Once again curbing my ability to make choices for myself as an adult…for my own good. Giving me a nice patronizing pat on the head with one hand while they reach for my wallet with the other.

Luckily the forces of personal choice, responsibility and freedom – while huddled in a veritable smoke-filled Bastogne – are not yet beaten.

Yes, smoking remains cool.

Like the small child who stick his penis in the electrical socket precisely because he was told not to ten times, casual cigarette smoking continues to be a choice upheld by upwards of 40% of the 13 to 17 year old demographic of both genders. A reinforcement in the battle against hypocrisy, censure and pseudo-liberal authoritarianism for the next generation lights up every day under Junior High bleachers across the globe. Sure, they’re not adults yet (in the eyes of the law anyway…insert your own American Indian pregnancy comment here) but they certainly aren’t toddlers and appropriately kick violently back at all attempts to treat them as as such.

“If smoking is so bad then how come John McClane – who famously saved a skyscraper full of yuppies from Alan Rickman in 1987 – obviously adored his habit?” a young person might rightly ask.

“If smoking is so bad then how come it is such a delicious digestif to big meals or sex? Or the unbeatable compliment to a coffee or a beer?” another youth may ponder.

Popular media hasn’t even tried to counter these plain truths, and somewhere between 13 and 17 they become common knowledge. Whether the talented propagandists of the Liberal moralist majority trump a teenager’s sense of free will and empirical learning is only a case by case question.

“So what?” you ask, “I quit ages ago. What do I care??” Well, TTT recommends that if you gave up your habit in 1986 when Skylar was born…well…she’s off to college now, so why not get re-acquainted with an old friend? He’s missed you.

And if you never even smoked in the first place?? Hey- your fortune cookie told you that “You will try new things this month.”

Of course, your friends – terrified at the sight of your smokecrime – will almost certainly have a problem with you enjoying your new-found, age-old gentlemanly habit in their cars, homes or even very likely on their lawns during a BBQ and move to verbally reprimand you at first whiff. We suggest that you just politely reply, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Jewish on my father’s side. Is that going to be a problem too?”

So, “Welcome back” and “You’re welcome,” respectively.

Excuse us, we must (sadly) step outside.

That steak and scotch calls for a smoke.
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*only one of many things he was psychotically antagonistic towards, these also including people who talk during movies and Jews.

**the preachy smoke-free majority witnesses inordinate membership by the morbidly obese and fans of Ugly Betty.

***11% more efficient than the standard Tahoe 5.7L V8

**** “So-called” or “pseudo” because the confiscatory, interventionist character of the modern Liberal seems to have perverted the otherwise noble dictionary definition of “liberal.” That is to say, a hundred years ago a Liberal was a choice-upholding, progressive radical and a Conservative would be taxing you to death and banning all your hobbies. Granted, unless you get to abortion or gay marriage or marijuana, then today’s Conservative is also confiscatory and interventionist just like the mean old monarchical conservatives of a hundred years ago so…it gets a little confusing…..TTT advises that you just subscribe to Libertarianism, a magnificent and inexplicably peripheral ethos.

*****Sorry “signatures” or some other euphemism for light. “Light” has been banned as it implies that this is a “healthier” type of cigarette and, by implication, that smoking itself might be “healthy” (-full stop-)…even though with less tar, “lighter” or even “healthier” is precisely what a light cigarette is.