Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? Listen, I’m way past due to get my campaign to be your governor off on the good foot; so time to meet with mine own brain trust up over by the Uptowner tavern/charm school situated at the corner of Hysteric Center Street & Humboldt.
Come along if you’d like, but you buy the first round. Let’s get going.
Herbie: A toast to our Supreme Court that we can now all be millionaires thanks to their green light for all kinds of sports betting. Fellas, time to grab a seat on the gravy train about to pull into the station.
Little Jimmy Iodine: Soon as I come up with a spare couple, three grand, I’m putting it on the Cleveland Browns to go unbeaten and win the Super Bowl next year.
Herbie: I swear the Russians have learned to dick with our U.S. weather through their fancy commie computers, I kid you not.
Ray: And somehow Putin will fix it so’s the torture queen what’s-her-name Gina Haspel is top spook at the CIA and before you know it all American Democrats get a ride on the Catherine wheel before getting stuffed into the iron maiden.
Emil: I wonder if they had torture on the Star Trek Enterprise that we never learned about.
Ernie: You talk like a sausage, Emil. Of course they would’ve had to what-you-call “torture” at some point. Listen, you’re on a five-year mission for the United Federation of Planets to explore strange, new worlds and every time you turn around, all you’re getting is some-kind-of shit from space aliens whose only purpose in the universe is to fock you up; and not in a good way.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Julius: Sounds logical. I can imagine that while the Captain Quirk and that pointy-eared Nimrod what’s-his-name are shoveling their dime-store philosophy in front of the cameras up on the bridge of the ship, deep in the bowels are a couple-three beefy redshirt uncredited crew members kicking the ever-loving crap out of some three-eyed squishy-headed piece-of-work from the planet Upyerz II, ’cause they’re trying to get this pus-bag to fess up to messing with one of those bullshit crystals focking Scotty was always whining about, ain’a?
Little Jimmy Iodine: Hey, Artie! Over here. Put a load on your keister.
Art: Hey gents. What do you hear, what do you know.
Emil: I hear there was torture on the Star Trek Enterprise.
Art: If the Geneva Convention covered acting, I suppose a William Shatner line-reading could be… construed as… ag-… ainst… the rule… s.
Little Jimmy: He always did seem a little wooden, ain’a?
Ray: He was the only actor on that show who didn’t go to make-up before a scene. They used varnish instead.
Ernie: I watched some old Star Trek movies last weekend ’cause it’s been a while, so what the fock. Remember Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan?
Herbie: Fockin’-A. That’s the one where Ricardo Montalban with long hair looks like Kellyanne Conway with big knockers, ain’a?
Julius: No. I thought he looked more like the other Republican bitch-harpy, Ann Coulter, but with bigger knockers.
Ray: “De ship! De ship!” Yeah, TV’s “Mr. Roarke” with the hair and a set of jugs, por favor, not my kind of fantasy. But I’ll tell you’s, when Rumpel-thinskin gets kicked out of office, he can be the bad guy in a Star Trek movie called “The Wrath of Con.”
Art: I never saw that Khan movie ’cause it’s like Groucho said, he never went to a picture where the leading man’s tits were bigger than the leading lady’s.
Ernie: Doesn’t it always seem like the future’s here before you know it and when it shows up, it’s like “big focking deal”?
Julius: You got a point, Ernie. There was that movie, “2001: Space something-or-another” that was actually made in 1968. So what the fock, it’s 2018 now and we still haven’t stepped on another planet?
Emil: You’re full of a crap. I seem to recall that as a species we’ve been to the moon, have we not, Mr. Einstein?
Ernie: Fock the moon. All those millions and millions of dollars spent so a couple, three flyboys could knock a golf ball around a place that looks just like the middle of Nevada but without all the gambling and legalized prostitution. Like I said: Big focking deal.
Little Jimmy: The future has always been hard to figure for mankind. Again, like Groucho said: “Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.”
Herbie: And don’t forget, about man’s yearning for knowledge of his place in the universe, he said: “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
(Hey, it’s getting late and I know you got to go, but thanks for letting us bend your ear, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.)
