News Flash! Ads! Ads about smoking! I mean about not smoking! Ads with celebrities! Celebrities like Shortland Street star TK Samuels telling people it’s time they started smoking! I mean started stopping smoking! They will ask you why you would want to do that to your body and bring your self-respect into question, so have a good excuse ready. Just all this talking about it makes me feel like a smoke. But no! – I will be in steely resolve against it – I will not compromise – at least until StudyLink pays me this Wednesday.
TK Samuels is actually here in the Salient writing studio with me while I write this article for you, because, being a celebrity, he feels strongly about the smoking issue because the government gave him lots of money and cocaine, paid for by the new tax on cigarettes. He is a really level straight up kind of dude, and he is going to fill me in on the political and health aspects of smoking that lie unseen by the average person.
The government has spent squillions of dollars to get people to stop smoking, but don’t worry – this campaign is paid for by the huge new cigarette tax, and if people didn’t smoke they couldn’t afford to pay TK Samuels and myself to join the war on smokers, so keep up the smoking New Zealand, because TK and I, along with the government, need your cigarette money to get you all to stop smoking.
So what TK is telling me is this: the Prime Minister of New Zealand has recently demanded that cigarette packets be made to look a bit cooler, because the Government was worried that our homegrown Kiwi smokers weren’t quite cutting the mustard with regard to international coolness levels, and that we, as New Zealanders, must get way cooler with our smoking if we are to compete with the Europeans and South Americans, who have the whole smoker thing down, man. Those guys never try to give up. They don’t even talk about giving up. They don’t know what giving up is. So to make the packets cooler, the PM decided to get stills of the really violent gruesome bits of her favourite zombie movies and put them on the packets, thinking that they’d be way more brutal. No-one thought it would work, but you know what? The mouth cancer one actually is pretty cool.
Another policy of the government to help let other countries know we’re good with our smoking is to call New Zealand the “Land of the Long White Cloud,” although some political analysts believe this was originally meant to be inclusive of crystal meth and marijuana smoke as well, to help with tourism.
The reasons that groovy, young, handsome and suave yet humble mega-celebs like myself and TK Samuels are anti-smoking is because we are both aware of a sexually transmitted disease called cancer. Now let me explain: there are important things at stake here, so pay attention. There is the shameful, guilty phenomenon of secondhand smoke, which is when someone scabs a smoke off you and also pockets your lighter. Naturally smokers feel very strongly about this issue. Smokes are expensive enough, without having to buy a new lighter every time you have mates around. There are cool pictures of mouth and prostate cancer, and a girl involved called Nancy, who is apparently preg. There is also the Government, who are jerks, but have most of the cocaine.
The new laws made by the Government can be summarised thusly:
1) If you buy a second hand baby off the government, make sure it isn’t smoking or pregnant, but if it has mouth cancer that’s pretty cool.
2) If you don’t know how to smoke, and you are pregnant, that could harm your baby.
3) To stop this, the government will get TK Samuels to teach you how to smoke and do things to your second hand body.
Okay, hang on, TK has just informed me that that’s wrong. Okay everyone? Good thing TK is a cool dude and understands I am reasonably new to the field of investigative journalism. So what the deal is with smoking is this:
1) If your baby second hand smokes while you’re pregnant and you audition for Shortland Street, you get mouth cancer, and it’s way harder to get a kissing scene with Alice or Tanya.
2) A good kissing scene would be Alice and Tanya.
3) TK Samuels doesn’t like it when people try to scab his smokes.
4) You’ve got more chance of scabbing a rolly off TK, he’s only got a couple of tailies left.
5) Did you swipe TK’s lighter?
6) If you can’t scab a smoke off TK Samuels do not pass WINZ and do not collect $200.
7) TK just told me to tell you “Giz us your smokes cunt. Hurry up, dick, or I’ll smash you. Yeh bitch, and your wallet.”
Oops! That’s not what I mean! Man, I need a cigarette!
Okay, I just read the warning on TKs Marlboro pack again, and now I totally get it, no worries, after a couple of smokes TK has calmed down a bit more and he’s explained it to me and it’s totally like this:
1) If your baby is bad, then you and TK Samuels have to do a smoking ad in the government with both of you getting pregnant and catching mouth cancer off each other.
2) When you get mouth cancer from the government, TK Samuels sell his baby second hand to buy some smokes.
So, smokers, it’s time to take a toke on the grim and bitter inhalation of reality: The moral is, if the government smokes your baby, you can get a second hand one off TK Samuels. Who is bad and has mouth cancer.
This means that smoking is bad, and if you smoke, you can’t be on Shortland Street. And if you’re never on Shortland Street it means you’re a terrorist. So smoke! I mean don’t! Be on Shortland Street! I mean don’t be on Shortland Street! I mean don’t be shorter than TK Samuels when you bump into him on the street, and he’s trying to scab a smoke. Because you’re pregnant! Which is bad if it’s your second! ‘ . . . So now TK is just shaking his head, he’s had it with you all, he’s saying just do whatever you like, he’s given up on you, he doesn’t care what you all do anymore. But don’t smoke! What’s that TK? I mean do smoke! Eh? Oh, okay, don’t smoke then!
Just whatever you do, feel strongly about it and government will kiss your ass, because they are so excited on cocaine right now and have WAY TOO MUCH enthusiasm. But just think of all the money that you spend on smoking. Tobacco companies are all American, man, you don’t want to help those scumbags out do you? Be patriotic, come on man, Kiwiana, right? Why feed Uncle Sam? Screw Uncle Sam! We don’t wanna be like them! Don’t you love your country? I love this country! I mean let’s be patriotic here! And if someone isn’t patriotic, get a gun and shoot them! Yeah, let’s all have guns! Everyone should have a gun!
But anyway, according to TK, buying cigarettes doesn’t help the economy, so you should only buy New Zealand made cigarettes. Oh, so now he is suddenly saying that you shouldn’t buy cigarettes at all, which would totally defeat the purpose of this anti – smoking campaign, I mean you can’t get people to give up if there’s no-one doing it, we would all just look like dicks.
I think if you are going to give up smoking make sure you get one of your friends to start smoking, so the government can afford to keep the anti – smoking campaign going, and buy some more cocaine. But no, TK isn’t happy with this, he just wants everyone to all be the same or something, but there’s no money in that. I don’t understand.
TK suggests saving money on ciggies by going over to OP brand (Other People’s). This is definitely the most financially viable brand for you students out there, although it doesn’t help you make friends at parties. A lot of people on Courtenay Place and Manners Mall have gone over to this brand.
But TK has one last mental exercise he wants you to do: he would have you imagine all those thousands of dollars that you Kiwis spend every year on cigarettes that you could be spending on more important things, like Speights or Tui. So get it together, New Zealanders! Next time TK Samuels offers to sell you a smoke, JUST SAY NO!!!!!
Save your money, spend it on something good. Add up all the money that you’ve spent on cigarettes in the last year, and think about how you could have spent it on something WAY better, longer lasting, and rewarding. Something that helps you work toward your long term goals. I mean you could have spent it on beer. Or cocaine.
So kids, just remember the moral of this week’s message:
If you give Alice and Tanya a smoke, they will kiss in a second hand shop.
Guy Armstronge is in the Justice League, he is Batman. Well, he has Batman pyjamas.