I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, I can’t whip out an essay for you’s this week on account that my buddy Little Jimmy Iodine has another birthday in a day or two; so’s rather than tell you for the umpteenth time about how the Republicans and their whitewashed Tea Party “rebels” suck ass and harbinger the new fascism, I got to instead go shop for a nice greeting card for my friend.

It’s no piece of cake on the beach trying to find a greeting card these days, I kid you not. Fortunately, I’ve still got one I bought for a rainy day that’s got a glum bulldog wearing a party hat on the cover, and the inside says, “In dog years, you’re dead.”

So my day shall be full with the effort to find a nicer, better card I can hand to Little Jimmy when we get together to toast a’plenty his one-year-closer-to-death anniversary over by the Uptowner tavern/charm school later.

But it’s early, so I’m thinking of a nice relaxing breakfast ala caffeine du jour over by my favorite open-daily 23-hours and 59-minutes restaurant. Come along if you want but you leave the tip. Let’s get going.

Bea: Hey there Artie, nice to see you. What’s your pleasure?

Art: How ’bout a nice cup of the blackest, thickest and cheapest cup of whatever you’re calling plain-old American coffee today, thank you very kindly.

Bea: Coming right up. So what do you hear, what do you know.

Art: I know I’m going to have to cancel my imagined overseas vacation to Iceland, what with their volcano situation.

Bea: That’s a shame, Artie.

Art: On the other hand, I can always get my fill of volcanic ash-holes by checking out a tea-party convention here in the homeland, so what the fock. Cripes Bea, if you only had all the time in the world, you could accomplish anything, I kid you not. But instead, each and every single day that comes around, you get a measly 24 hours—then subtract 8 hours right off the bat ’cause evolution has decided to dictate that a guy’s got to get some sleep, and now you’re down to 16 hours for the day before you’ve even started, ain’a?

Bea: I suppose you’re right, Artie.

Art: You betcha, Bea. Now, with the meter running down from 16 hours, you climb out of bed and have a couple, three cups of coffee, peruse the sports section in the papers, stare out the kitchen window, plop your butt on the porcelain throne for your morning constitutional, then search for a pair of mostly clean, matching socks, schlep to your crummy job to suffer 8 hours of disrespect if not downright abuse, then schlep back to your dinky apartment except you probably got to stop off at the supermarket on the way back ’cause you’re out of lunch meat or some goddamn thing. By now your hours-in-a-day are down to a mitt-full.

Bea: Life can be difficult, can’t it now, Artie.

Art: So you make it home, you crack open a nice ice-cold bottled beer and start fielding the phone calls—those that suck each and every drop of juice from the jug that holds your creativity by making you fess up a dozen different ways as to how come you don’t have the money yet. After about an hour of this aggravation, you yank the cord from your phone jack, just so you can prepare your TV dinner in peace, warm up the Magnavox ’cause maybe there’s a ballgame on, glance at a magazine or two and DING-DING-DING-DING-DING—that’s all she wrote. The previous bunch of hours are history and it’s time to slip into your Dr. Denton’s so as to blow off the next 7, 8 hours sawing wood, then get up and endure the interminable hodgepodge of your waking hours all over again. I ask you, Bea, from riding such a freight train day-in, day-out, from where are you to unload the time you need to work on what you really should be working on?

Bea: Couldn’t tell you, Artie. And just what is it are you supposed to be working on?

Art: My movie, Bea—“Art Kumbalek vs. the Focking Martians and Whatever Else You Got.” A surefire blockbuster.

Bea: Lordy. Got a lot of action in it, does it?

Art: Bea, I don’t get out to the theater very often, but I’m guessing that an action motion picture starring some kind of superhero is going to be big—maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives. Plus, my picture is politically correct with the violence. It’s not like I’m slaughtering Indians or Mexicans, fock no—I’m ripping the focking Martians a new asshole, and who could complain about that?

Bea: Couldn’t tell you, Artie.

Art: Come to think of it, now that some court said our Wisconsin high schools can’t use Indian names for their sports teams, why not use “Martians”? If you’ve seen the movies I’ve seen, you know these Martians are kick-ass motherfockers. So if Menomonee Falls can’t be known as “Indians” now, why not they be the “Martians”? And I’ll tell you, the last time I was out there in Monotony Falls some years ago, I might as well have been on Mars, what the fock.

Bea: I wouldn’t mind visiting, but I could never figure a transfer from the No. 30 to a route out there.

Art: And you never will. For some of us, we only get there if that’s where the cemetery is, otherwise forget about it. God bless America. But I got to run, so thanks for the coffee and for letting me bend your ear there, Bea—utiful. See you next time.

Bea: My pleasure, Artie. Always nice getting talked at by you. Take care.

(Okey-dokey, off to the Uptowner. If I see you there, then you buy me and Little Jimmy one ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.)