Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh man manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, no essay here. I’m off to see my gang over by the Uptowner tavern/charm school, where today is always at least a day before tomorrow and yesterday may gosh darn well be today. Come along if you’d like, but you buy the first round. Let’s get going.
Ernie: How ’bout when it’s time to demolish the Bradley Center they schedule it for when we have that air show at the lakefront like last weekend. They could have those jet fighters fire a couple, three missiles into the ol’ B.C. or maybe drop a smart bomb on it, ain’a?
Emil: That would be some focking show, you betcha. But first, maybe they could let in a bunch of convicted serial killers and terrorists, but they’d have to sit up there in the nosebleeds ’cause they got in for free.
Little Jimmy Iodine: Hey, Artie! Over here. Put a load on your keister.
Art: Hey gents. What do you hear, what do you know.
Julius: I hear there’s some kind of lion on the loose in town, what the fock.
Ray: Kind of a cowardly beast though, don’t you think? Seems to be always hiding in the focking bushes—that’s more Deputy Barney Fife than King of the Jungle for christ sakes.
Little Jimmy: Unless they spot a scarecrow and tin man in the area, I’m staying indoors as much as I can.
Ernie: When Dorothy wakes up and her Oz companions are back to being itinerant farmhands, I always wondered what the fock their backstory was. You think Dorothy’s uncle ever did a background check on those knobs?
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Julius: Probably not. I’m guessing each one has a rap sheet yea-long and they’re hiding out in Bumfock, Kansas until shit blows over, ain’a?
Emil: This lion’s been good publicity for Our Town, and if it disappears or gets run over by a bus, the city ought to let loose another one somewheres.
Ray: Why just one? Let loose a focking baker’s dozen and we could attract the big-game hunting crowd to come and spend their money here.
Herbie: Big-game hunters, what the fock. Like Ernie “Papa” Hemingway, the flatlander who flatlined himself 54 years ago July 2 in Ida-focking-ho from shooting himself to the ever-living not-so-make-believe death, coda to a lifetime of climbing the Kilimanjaro, drinking, shooting the shit with hoity-toity types in Parisian swanky joints, dicking around with Spanish bulls, bagging Hollywood movie bimbos, drinking and shooting guns at big animals that now tread the line of being gone from our sights for focking ever, the kind of creatures nowadays we only see in a circus, zoo or on cable TV—but then-a-days, were animals that ballsy writers and native natives used to see as common as the dandelions a suburban landowner surveys and… I forgot my point, what the fock.
Art: How ’bout you file Big Game Hunting in the “Hey, Seemed Like a Good Idea At the Focking Time” folder under History. It’s a mighty fat, focking folder, I tell you’s. Let’s see now, what the hell’s all in here… Virgin Sacrifice, check. Slavery, ’natch. Writing Everything in Focking Latin; Dumping’st Thou Full Chamber Pot Out Yonder Window Into Thy Street Below; The Edsel; Establishing a Russian Front in Winter; Saddlin’ Up With George focking Armstrong Custer; Replacing Living, Breathing Musicians with DJs; The Reagan Presidency; Booking Round Trip on the Ti-focking-tanic—yes sir, all kinds of stuff in this folder. What a world.
Ernie: Any you’s guys hear that an animal rights group made a church up north give up the “pig rassling” event for their festival?
Little Jimmy: I did and remembered this little story:
So this kindly old priest was taking a stroll on a beautiful spring day when he passed by a farm on the outskirts of his village. And there in the front yard he saw a most beautiful little girl sitting beneath a blossoming apple tree, playing with the friskiest, happiest little dog he had ever seen in his long life. Overcome by this vision, the old priest couldn’t help himself but to approach the little girl and ask her name. “Blossom,” she said. It was the most fitting name that the priest could have imagined and he asked her if she knew how she came by such a wonderful name. And the little girl said, “When I was in my mommy’s womb, one day she sat under this apple tree and a blossom landed on her tummy, so she decided to name me Blossom.” The priest thought this was the most precious story he had ever heard. Then he asked her what her dog’s name was. “Porky,” the girl said. “What a delightful name,” the priest said. “I imagine he’s named Porky because he’s so roly-poly, cute and cuddly.” And the little girl said, “Oh no, Father. We call him Porky because he likes to fock pigs.”
(Hey, I know you got to go, but thanks for letting us bend your ear ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.)
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