Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So first off, a big honking thank you goes out to my old friend, the legendary political operative, artist and Brewtown treasure Jimmy Von Milwaukee, for sending my way the finely fashionable and timely headgear you see me sporting in the souvenir picture hereabouts. Yes sir, Art Kumbalek predicts that by the time you take a gander at this page, those Brewers of ours will be off to the World Series. So much winning, what the fock.
Anyways, I don’t have much time to whip out an essay for you’s this week on account of having to get up over by the Uptowner tavern/charm school to meet with the guys so’s we can make plans about which movies we want to see at the Milwaukee Film Festival (Oct. 18-Nov. 1).
Sadly, I noticed that there’s no Russ Meyer Tribute Night scheduled let alone a solo showing of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, but I did hear the festival has more than 300 motion pictures ready to run through the projector, so I’m sure me and the fellas can find at least a couple, three we’d like to see, you betcha.
And I can tell you that once again there will be no productions from Kumbalek Studios to be seen at the festival, because I either ran out of time or was too lazy to finish them. But here’s a couple, three projects I plan to have wrapped up in time for next year’s fest, I kid you not:
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Ex-Men: ’Til the Court Do Us Part. In this flick, I examine the men who enter holy matrimony and their subsequent mutant status. Certainly, they are no longer men. They are less than men. They are “other.” Sure, during the day at work, on the street, they have the ability to pass as men, but upon return to the wife they undergo a testosterone-numbing transformation and revert to their mutant personas, which include Pussywhip, Henpeck, Doghouse. As mutant men, they’re the ones who wear the leotards in the family. And we’ll recall the words of Helen Rowland in 1922’s A Guide to Men: “A Husband is what is left of a lover, after the nerve has been extracted.”
Daddy Day Care: Please Don’t Flush the Toilet. A light-hearted comedy for the entire family. Gambling debts force me to start up an under-the-radar day-care hideout for some extra dough. First day, some snot-nose tries to flush a bad-guy action figure down the can, except Juggernaut gets jammed down the pipe maybe halfway toward meeting the sewer; so, the kid flushes again and now backing-up all over the bathroom floor come the fecal remnants of the burrito supreme I relieved earlier in the day from the night before. I launch an interior monologue about how 8-year-olds, instead of having so much time on their hands so’s they can dick with the toilet, ought to be out in the world a couple, three hours a day with a nice little job to pick up a little spending money I could use (adult exasperation always plays big at the box office—see: Spencer Tracy). The Russian mafia and a bunch of nuns get involved and hilarity ensues, what the fock.
Also, besides trying to secure funding for a picture that’s destined to be my masterpiece—Art Kumbalek Versus the Focking Martians and Whatever Else You Got: The Musical—I’ve been working on a scene for an as-yet-named comedy, and it goes something like this:
So, this guy loses his hat and since it was a Sunday morning, decides to stop by a church to steal one off the hat rack. When he gets there, he can hear the priest giving a sermon on the Ten Commandments. Something in the sermon gives the guy a flash of insight and after mass, he goes to confession to tell the priest what he was going to do:
Guy: Forgive me father, for I have sinned.
Priest: Go ahead, son.
Guy: I lost my hat and I came to church today to steal a hat off the rack.
Priest: Is that so?
Guy: But then I heard you talking about the Ten Commandments, and I changed my mind.
Priest: Really? My son, did you make this decision when I was discussing the commandment: “Thou shalt not steal”?
Guy: No, father. It was when you started talking about “Thou shalt not commit adultery” that I remembered where my hat was!
Ba-ding! ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
