Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? And yes indeed, I do believe that my buddy Herbie was onto something when he said, “I swear the Russians have learned to dick with our U.S. weather through their fancy commie computers, I kid you not.” Focking-A.
For example, think we’ve had enough rain here this not-so-merry goddamn damp month of May? Cripes, the other day I was about to shave, looked into the mirror and thought I noticed a crop of sprouting chest hair. What the fock, fresh chest hair at my age? On closer inspection, I deduced that this growth was not of chest hair, no sir. It was moss. Focking moss. So now I got to piss away some time trying to find out if Medicare covers moss removal, what a world.
Anyways, I’m taking my Memorial Day holiday early, as in right about now, so this page will be a tad light on the word count. Benefit to you the reader is that the type size ought to be larger than usual, which means you shouldn’t need to rent the Hubble Space Telescope just to take a focking gander here.
But the main reason I’m not able to whip nor pump out a heavy-dutifully thought-invoking essay for you’s this week is on account that I be otherwise occupied with slapping together what I would intend to be the “Art Kumbalek Gala Spew to Our 2018 Graduates Be They of University; College; High, Tech, Trade, or Matchbook School; Middle School; Academy Charter Institute of Some Learning for Young People; Grade School; Prison Substance-Abuse Good-Neighbor Sanity Program for Early Release; Pre-School; Nursery School; Daycare Center Who Employs a Bus Driver Who Can Conduct a Head-Count.”
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Why? Because it’s that time of year, and I could use a paying gig, you betcha.
And what of my speaking-fee as it would affect you’s tight-budgeted school administrators, not to mention the wanna-be embezzling lady suburban-school bookkeepers undergoing divorce proceedings because they’ve developed a gambling habit as to substitute for what had been their wifely duties as required by the connubial boudoir?
To address your scholastic assemblage, I ask fifty bucks in cash upfront to be followed by a case of ice-cold bottled beer following the ceremony. Done and done.
And yes, I’ve got experience. I’ll always remember—and perhaps you will, too—a commencing gig some years back over by the Wee-Wee Park Your Tot Lot, Institution of Lower Learning (Bedwetters Welcome) Institute.
It was a memorable oratorical performance. I was interrupted mid-speech several times, once even with applause when they mistakenly thought my remarks were concluded, plus numerous other times when young scholars were forced to visit the Poo-Poo room following the dropping of a full-load drawers-side.
It was ’round about the time that I quoted the great American Eugene Debs—“Years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on Earth... While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free”—that most of the kids started bawling and I was asked to hit the focking road.
I don’t know if those kids got much out of my discourse, but I sure learned something: If I ever got another speaking engagement, I vowed to be abso-focking-lutely certain to demand the case of ice-cold bottled beer upfront, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
