The topic in Defector's internal chat on Friday was a ban, in the nation of France, on smoking in most outdoor spaces. How can the French—the French!—ban smoking? David Roth observed that "this feels like one of those things that leads to a bunch of guys in day-glow vests overturning a police van"; Kelsey McKinney said "they're gonna light the streets on fire"; Barry Petchesky quipped that it is "time for le vape."
The discussion then drifted onto the topic of which world populations smoke the most cigarettes (the Balkans, apparently?). But suddenly, Slack warned: Dave McKenna is typing. This is the Slack equivalent of hearing the hiss of a burning fuse. Here, lightly edited to remove various lols and feeble attempts at returning to the subject of world smoking habits, is what ensued.
Dave McKenna
back to france: do you french knowers know if the french still sell hams and potatoes out of trucks
i'm not worldly but for a time before kids leigh and me were going to the south of france every other year, and this slack got me thinking back to those days and a highlight for me was the ham trucks all over the roadsides, but i can find no reference to ham trucks on the internet
i asked leigh if i had dreamed up the ham trucks and she said nah
ham trucks are real
but there's been some sorta hamwashing
Tom Ley
mckenna i'll be honest this sounds made up
Dave McKenna
pommes de terre
Tom Ley
"ham and potato truck" ?
Dave McKenna
yes!
a staple
of the south
Tom Ley
hmmm
Dave McKenna
i asked leigh!
hamwashing!
Barry Petchesky
well i don’t trust you but i do trust leigh, so not sure what to think
Tom Ley
what state are the ham and potatoes in
Dave McKenna
hams are small and rotisseried
potatoes at the bottom soaking in the grease
small potatoes too
little ass potatoes
Tom Ley
ok so it's like a cooked meal
Dave McKenna
yeah it's rotisseried
David Roth
Everyone stop saying hamwashing
Barry Petchesky
does the ham truck bring the ham to you, or do you have to go to the ham truck
Dave McKenna
roadside
and at markets
Brandy Jensen
roadside ham seems reasonable to me
Dave McKenna
[link]
not sure this is ham but this was the setup i'm talking
"meat"
Barry Petchesky
i don’t see a truck
Tom Ley
dave, care to comment on the lack of truck?
remember that you are under oath
Dave McKenna
roadside cart is a truck
lost in translation
stop being so american
[link]
there's one ham at the bottom!
hah
le vindication!
Tom Ley
lol ok the ham just sitting the pile of potatoes is a funny image
Dave McKenna
not exactly as i remembered but i'll take it!
i mean, i had roadside chickens in france too but that's not that different from going to super chicken in falls church other than you're surrounded by france
the hams, however
vivre le difference!
[link]
a-ha!
a-ham!
and what part of "street" in the description are you going to quibble with here, ugly americans?
--30--
i'm starting to wonder if you have even been to france actually
Tom Ley
i refer the committee to my earlier statements
Kelsey McKinney
i would eat this ham
Dave McKenna
[link]
BCT, i really do need your help here
in this photo from france, a little below the hams, is that a tire?
[link]
is that TWO tires?
and, help me with my englais here, but i think that's "ham" on the menu
Barry Petchesky
those are some funny-looking hams
didn’t know hams had wings
Dave McKenna
the chickens are just there to drop grease on the hams
gravity, heard of it?
Chris Thompson
I didn’t see any ham trucks when we went Dave & Leigh mode a couple years ago, and I woulda noticed
Tom Ley
some interesting new testimony....
Dave McKenna
dyin
and steamed
i bet Chris didn't see a guillotine either
the hamwashing has to stop
Albert Burneko
how do you get "ham truck" out of this thing that has 200 chickens on it and like 1/1000th as much ham. seems like there’s some hamflation going on here
mckenna trying to ask anyone if there are any halal carts in manhattan: "hey, do they still have those lemonade trains"
Samer Kalaf
dave missing the chickens for the hams
Tom Ley
Dave, care to answer these additional important questions that have been raised by the committee?
Dave McKenna
i addressed them above
Tom Ley
in that case i reclaim my time
Dave McKenna
rotisserie chicken is in falls church
rotisserie ham is not
it registered differently
Samer Kalaf
he does have a point, definitely more memorable
Kelsey McKinney
blog it imo
David Roth
Have You Seen The Ham Trucks?
Albert Burneko
Dave McKenna, On The Nation Of France: “Ham Trucks”
Kelsey McKinney
i agree send him
Tom Ley
im dyin at "it registered differently"
David Roth
Run the raw copy. One big paragraph margin to margin like a Beckett novel.
Tom Ley
french hams register different fr
Dave McKenna
here is my text with leigh when i first started questioning myself because the smokins and france talk got me thinking about france and roadside ham was one of the sharpest memories and i coudln't find any reference online so i went to leigh before slacking!
Tom Ley
"you find any ham on the net"
Barry Petchesky
tbh that looks like leigh is humoring you about the ham aspect of the trucks
Tom Ley
fuck me im dyin
David Roth
You find any ham on the net
Dave McKenna
awaiting response
just sent that
Kathryn Xu
really good clarification that the hams, should they exist, were not in the same bag as the potatoes
Tom Ley
You find any ham on the net, the kind that registers differently?
Barry Petchesky
grown man asking his wife to google hams, to win an argument with his coworkers
Albert Burneko
hams, on the net
Barry Petchesky
the two-hour gap!
she left your ass on read
David Roth
"What I do have is a very particular type of ham. The kind that registers differently."
Tom Ley
Leigh getting a phone call at work: hold on i have to take this, my husband needs me to find ham on the net
Kelsey McKinney
you find any ham on the net
Barry Petchesky
ham on the net?
ham on the net queen?
Kelsey McKinney
ham on the net tonight queen
Maitreyi Anantharaman
must be an irish fascination
Luis Paez-Pumar
hmm should I scroll up or just enjoy "you find any ham on the net" with no context
Kelsey McKinney
did she?
Brandy Jensen
dave i'm trying to help you here
[link]
been reading french ham guides
David Roth
On the net?
Brandy Jensen
where else
so far they register a normal amount, though
Kelsey McKinney
i can’t believe she said she remembered you getting chicken so nicely
she loves you
Barry Petchesky
unfortunately if we blog this—this will dominate the search results for ham truck france
leigh will never find ham on the net
Kelsey McKinney
i bet leigh has found the ham on the net
and is gonna destroy our asses
Barry Petchesky
leigh is not googling ham
she humored him as long as she could
Kelsey McKinney
dave did she ever text you back
David Roth
"Sorry I was in a meeting. I have found the ham you seek."
Brandy Jensen
i am texting my friend who lives in marseilles
Dave McKenna
Kelsey i have not heard back from leigh
Big Hamwashing got to leigh
Kelsey McKinney
not your wife!!
Dave McKenna
i have provided photos from france of hams being sold on vehicles with wheels
french
ham
truck
do the math
David Roth
The pics of like 36 chickens on a rotisserie and one ham are so good.
That's a pretty good stand-in for how memory works. Like me thinking of Florence as "the place where I got that pasta"
It has the Uffizi in it but honestly that is not my problem.
Kelsey McKinney
i’m desperate for brandy’s friend to respond
Samer Kalaf
this would be like if proust remembered the napkin he used
Barry Petchesky
you are, as my cat’s vet would say, food-motivated
Dave McKenna
mock away
i pity the people who went hamless in france
Kelsey McKinney
to support dave: maybe all the hams were gone because everyone was buying them
so there was only one left
Barry Petchesky
maybe they were being cleaned
hamwashing
David Roth
Putting up one of these but it says "hams being cleaned"
Dave McKenna
Kelsey you have been there for me throughout this and i will never forget
the mob descended
Kelsey McKinney
i think brandy is actually your true supporter
Dave McKenna
i'm joan of arc
joe of pork
burned at the rotisserie
Patrick Redford
i can’t wait to report this out in a few months
Excusez-moi, monsieur, pouvez-vous m'indiquer le véhicule de Ham?
David Roth
Mais oui mon frere!
Bien sur!
Lauren Theisen
ham a la net
Tom Ley
stumbling around villages in the south of france, holding up this picture: "As-tu vu ce jambon???"
Dave McKenna
i can't take much more
Kelsey McKinney
the ham is also
so small
compared to the chickens
Patrick Redford
où puis-je trouver le fameux jambon d’internet?
Dave McKenna
caviar isn't sold by the gallon
David Roth
It's just a little guy
Barry Petchesky
give me your finest and only ham
Brandy Jensen
the little piggy that went to market
David Roth
No no that ham is too big
Dave McKenna
it's from a truck!
a ham truck
--30--
David Roth
That ham relative to the amount of potatoes is like if you put a bay leaf into a big minestrone and then kept calling it "bay leaf chowder"
Tom Ley
it's definitely not supposed to be there
but it registers differently for sure
Brandy Jensen
maybe that was the truck driver's lunch
he just set it down for a minute
surely when you make a living selling chicken, and only chicken, all day, you might want something else for yourself
Billy Haisley
Brandy Jensen
Barry Petchesky
hamwashing
David Roth
I know one man who would say that, though.
Dave McKenna
this is helpful
...
.....
NOT!
what neighborhood in paris does this person live in
get me somebody from claviers or bargemon or callas
Brandy Jensen
he lives in Marseille!
Dave McKenna
lotta heroin in marseille
(according to "The French Connection")
Jasper Wang
that one ham on the potatoes definitely looks like someone was trying to find visual evidence of a ham & potatoes truck and tossed their own ham into frame
Dave McKenna
thank you Jasper for confirming the ham is indeed on a truck
--30--
Tom Ley
lots of testimony mounting against McKenna......
Dave McKenna
au contraire
as they say in truck ham country
Jasper Wang
so the Back To Me mechanism today was link about france banning smoking on playgrounds -> "i used to buy my meals in france from ham trucks, which was the style at the time"
which is actually probably not among the 5 most egregious back-to-mes mckenna has done in 2025
David Roth
Yeah it's pretty linear
Dave McKenna
this is the plot from the feature film "yesterday" only instead of everybody but me having no memory of the beatles it's everybody else's memory of roadside ham in france that's been wiped out
