Dear Gentleman Driving Gray Grand Prix,

Perhaps you could explain how you can get upset at me when you’re the one who blew through the stop sign and nearly t-boned my car? Do you realize that when both of our windows are up because it’s 20 degrees outside, yelling and waving your arms isn’t a very effective means of communication? This is why after a few seconds of you doing it, I responded by making a gesture representing the act of fellatio.

Additionally, it’s probably not a good idea to get out of your car and walk around chest-thumping like you’re going to do something when the other guy happens to be wearing wrestling shoes, a cup, and gloves because he just left the gym where he was deadlifting two of you.

Fortunately for and unlike you, I am a grown-up and my pride isn’t so easily wounded as to compel me to regain it by acting like a tough guy, let alone risking a criminal conviction and an ass beating.

Sincerely,

Guy in Red Mazdaspeed 6

I was born in KC and grew up in Texas. So while an appreciation for country music and mullets, or a predilection for window decals of Calvin pissing on random things never took hold (thank FSM), I did develop a taste for good barbecue.

Creative license and a desire for meaningful backstory might get me to suggest that a love for BBQ was one of the reasons I left California and moved back to KC. I’d be blowing smoke up your ass if I did though. Mundane crap such as the cost of living, traffic, taxes, and hippies, and the general douchebaggery of many Californians (particularly the Bay Area) were the real reasons. I wasn’t thinking so much about food as I was about paying 20% more for everything and the privilege of waiting in lines for an hour or more just to get it. The Bay Area would be a wonderful place if it had half the people and a quarter of the Nanny-State devotees.

But much like Kalib Starnes’ MMA career, I digress.

We ducked out for lunch yesterday and visited Holy Smoke BBQ here in Lee’s Summit, MO. I won’t drone on too much about how good this place is. I’ll just leave it at that: they’ve got the best BBQ in Kansas City.

And that ticks me off a bit, to be honest. Here’s why: they’re a “Christian” restaurant.

Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t care if the owners are Christian. Actually, that’s 100% accurate; I don’t care that the owners are Christian. It doesn’t make the food taste any better (or worse), and just comes off as passive-aggressive proseltysing. To their credit, they don’t completely beat you over head with God’s “comforting” rod (lol, Psalms). But once you realize that the “Holy” in “Holy Smoke” goes beyond just another trite pun-based restaurant name into sanctimonious jerk territory. We get it, you believe in Jesus. You and the other 85% of the country.

Either the owners are really sincere about their beliefs and want to interject it into all areas of their lives, or it’s just an arguably clever marketing device. “Oh yeah, well I love Jesus more because I eat only Christian Barbecue!” Apparently there was a contestant on this past season of American Idol who staved off going home/being voted off the island/whatever by singing “God Bless the USA”. Using Jesus in your business is a similar tactic and betrays either a lack of confidence in your product or a sincere belief that it sucks. Which is sad, because these guys really do make ridiculously good food.

And if the owners really are sincere in their beliefs, that’s perfectly fine. For the most part, Christians are great people when they’re not trying to abuse Democracy in order to vote Jesus into schoolbooks and Science out of them. But frankly I just find the whole idea of Ideological Food annoying at best, and completely repugnant at worst. If it didn’t taste good I wouldn’t eat at a “Flying Spaghetti Monster’s pizza joint”, or get a “Libertarian Sandwich,” or drink “Second Amendment Coffee”. There’s just something completely distasteful (pun somewhat intended) about interjecting your beliefs into a restaurant or food product in general. (You hear me Ben and Jerry?)

All that aside, yeah, this is some great food. I ordered “The Summit” and here’s where the regret comes in. It’s an angus beef hamburger, covered in bbq sauce and cheese, along with two other meats of your choice. On mine was brisket and sausage. Yes, I ordered a BBQ Cheeseburger with Brisket and Sausage. The whole thing was a tower of savory angina and I enjoyed the hell out of it. I had to casually toss aside the vegetables (they kept sliding off the tower o’ meat) so this sandwich had no redeeming nutritional qualities other than the massive amount of protein.

Oh, and they have sweet potato fries. Hell yeah.

I realize I spent most of this post rambling about everything but the food, but honestly it’s so good there’s really not much to say about it. I just wish they’d have one less side on their menu because I can do without the Extra Jesus. Still, the “Regret” isn’t about handing over money to Christians, some of which will undoubtedly go towards them trying to spread their meme. It’s because that burger was probably 1000 calories (of awesome) and I had to get up this morning and work out twice as hard for having eaten it. Hell, I’ll probably work out twice today just to make up for that. Jesus.

I went here to catch some video and see what was what. I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting to see that many people show up. Someone said there were upwards of 70.

A few notable things:

• Guy with a beard and long hair in only a button up shirt and tie, yelling “Scientology Eats Babies” and “Scientology Gave Me Hemorrhoids”.
• Xenuanon
• Someone holding a poster that read “Scientology Says Jesus was a Pedophile”
• People shouting “Ebaumsworld.com”
• The cops bringing 2 squad cars and the paddywagon until ultimately realizing nobody was actually going to blow up the CoS building or anything
• A massive hawk that flew up and perched above the CoS building, seemingly taking in the spectacle.
• Huge numbers of people honking at the signs (“Honk if you think Scientology is a cult”, etc).
• Very out-of-place couple that looked like they just walked off of the set of Melrose Place 2008 or something, asking questions. Maybe they were with the CoS?

I wasn’t around to see this, but one anon on the KC raid thread on Enturbulation.org noted:

There was a grand exit at 1:30 when everyone counted down from 10 to 0, then everyone just went in every direction, was def lulz. We had 1 guy following our group as we left, but he noticed us taking pictures of him and dropped off tailing us. All in all, a good day.