This painting features a Cuban 3 Peso note rolled up and smoked as a cigar. It is being smoked by a champaign socialist that modeled his look off of Che Guevara, and thinks he's so edgy with his popped collar.

The gag is in his healthy set of teeth. It is something that simply doesn't exist in socialism. At the time (2011), I was going through severe dental problems, and it took a couple years to fix them all of them with superior capitalist American dentistry. The Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia took its toll on my mouth eventually. I did receive regular dental care, but poor nutrition brought about from a terrible economic system finally came to collect its debt in my late 20s.

There is a reason that the myth that Russians do not smile exists in the West. It is because most older Russians all have messed up teeth thanks to 'free' dental care. They are self-conscious. Russian is one of the most rich, sarcastic, and humorous languages on Earth. We are always trolling or winding someone about something so we can smile. If only we had as many dentists as alcoholics...

This work was painted on a 24"x36" canvas.