There certainly are a lot of Teslas driving all around the town where I live in the suburbs outside of New York City. And every so often, you spot one with a bumper sticker designed to ward off those who, despite seemingly being from the owner’s own “tribe,” might want to key—or even set on fire—the driver’s car:
a YouTube screen grab.
Of course, most Tesla owners are aligned with the very vandals who wish to send a message to Elon Musk and the Trump administration. For some reason, though, they do not appreciate Musk’s investigation into government corruption and waste, and his sincere desire to save American taxpayers from being duped and overcharged by shysters.
This tongue-in-cheek defensive message, along with others I have seen (i.e., Fly to Mars, Elon, and Take Trump with You and I Love the Car, Not the CEO), reminds me of some of my early years living in Manhattan.
Decades ago, there was a spate of robberies on the streets of New York where the burglars would break car windows and pry the radios out of the dashboards. Eventually, it reached epidemic proportions. You could walk down a city block in the morning and see two or three cars with smashed windows and missing radios. To fight back, once they parked, many drivers were removing their radios and locking them in their trunks—and then displaying a handmade sign prominently on their dashboard, saying, “NO RADIO!”
I did not own a car way back then and, therefore, I was fortunate enough never to need a parking space on the street. However, since I was doing standup and using a lot of props in my comedy club routine, I ordered my own vanity license plate from a novelty company:
Author photo.
As it turned out, the quick sight gag eked out only a few scattered titters from the audience, which made me think after a couple of shows that maybe I had just blown twenty bucks.
However, my comedy-writer friend and collaborator, Bob Pagani, took the nefarious radio-theft craze a huge step further after his own vehicle was broken into overnight.
Driving home to Jersey the next morning with a smashed side window and missing radio naturally got Bob hot under the collar. However, Bob being Bob and a friend of Andy Kaufman and a student of that great American prankster, Alan Abel, by the time he got through the Lincoln Tunnel, he had come up with a wacky scheme to make light of—even profit from—the unfortunate event.
Bob devised a faux charity that would benefit two NYC problems at the time: the rampant homeless street population and the destructive car vandalism. His “charity” was called “Asleep at the Wheel.”
The idea was that a homeless person, for a nominal fee, would sleep inside your car overnight. He (or she) would benefit by enjoying a nice, warm place to camp out; you would get a “security guard” as a deterrent, assuring that your radio would still be there in the morning. A win/win all around.
Bob made up some impressive-looking flyers designed for media eyes only (he certainly didn’t want anyone taking him up on the offer) and dropped them off at various Manhattan news outlets. Once he got a “bite,” Bob was able to convince an actor friend to pretend to be homeless and sleep in his recently restored car.
Bob was able to catch some nice press, including local television coverage:
Of course, the TV crew never caught on to the “joke,” but Bob sure did have a great laugh.
Perhaps, “Asleep at the Wheel” should be resurrected for real so that nervous Tesla owners themselves can sleep at night?
I recently provided this tongue-in-cheek cartoon here at American Thinker:
Candid Camera,” may have gone the way of the original Earth shoe and New Coke. Perhaps it ended because making someone look foolish by catching them in a silly prank might lead to claims of “victimization”—and maybe be followed by a lawsuit? And has the goofy hoax now morphed into something sinister, like Jussie Smollett and his MAGA-with-a-noose attack?
Presently, perhaps the best humor with some bite can be found at The Babylon Bee. In my mind, it is the conservative Christian version of the old National Lampoon.
We need more “Bee,” certainly.
One day, when we as Americans can put victimhood and hurt feelings and an attitude of me-me-me behind us, maybe we can get back to lightening up and enjoying a joke or two, even at our own expense.
Wouldn’t that be funny?
Albin Sadar is the author of Obvious: Seeing the Evil That’s in Plain Sight and Doing Something About It, as well as the children’s book collection Hamster Holmes: Box of Mysteries. Albin was formerly the producer of “The Eric Metaxas Show.”
Jesus Christ is King
