Shut-in Shout Out

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, I was sitting around the other day with nothing better to do than to think I ought to decide pretty damn soon to decide about which side of the gubernatorial candidacy pot I ought to pee in—in it, or on it.

And whenever I got an important decision to pull off, I first seek consul with my personal brain trust, already ensconced within the friendly confines of The Uptowner tavern/charm school, majestically crammed at the corner of wistfully historic Humboldt Boulevard and the fabled Center Street. Come along if you’d like, but you buy the first round. Let’s get going.

Herbie: All I’m saying is that Trump really ought to know from “shithole” but good. Just look at some of those goddamn states that went big-time for him in the election, for crying out loud.

Ray: Yeah, President Dumbass doesn’t want any more people coming here from “shithole countries,” he says. He only wants people from Norway named Dag.

Herbie: Except the people from Norway don’t want to come here. To them, the U.S. is a shithole country as long as the asshole orange circus peanut is president, ain’a?

Ernie: What the fock, where’d the bartender go?

Emil: Hey, that’s my bar change, numbnuts.

Julius: The hell, “your” bar change. You talk like a sausage. Ray’s got you two rounds now and you haven’t bought even one yet to have money on the bar that’s yours. That’s my bar change.

Little Jimmy Iodine: Hey, Artie! Over here. Put a load on your keister.

Art: Hey gents, what do you hear, what do you know.

Ray: I know I saw O.J. on TV the other week ’cause he was in Vegas to watch a football game with some Buffalo Bills fans.

Little Jimmy: I heard Trump wants to make it official for O.J. to go out and search for the three million people who voted for Hillary illegally. And I’ll bet you a buck two-eighty some of those three million could be the murderers, to boot.

Julius: And I know we haven’t seen much of you’s lately, Artie. What, are you some kind of shut-in these days?

Art: No, I get out once in a while. Heck, I was just over by the Potawatomi with a couple good old buddies, and I was wondering how come they don’t have some slot machines at the Milwaukee Public Museum in the Native American area. Seems like a perfect fit.

Julius: And potentially a lot more lucrative than pushing the secret snake button they got there, what the fock.

Art: Listen guys, I need to tap your smarts on an important decision I got to be mulling over on soon.

Ray: What the hell is “mulling”?

Herbie: Isn’t “mulling” one of those kind of words you only ever find in a newspaper headline? I think it means same thing as “bullshit.”

Ernie: Artie, you want to tap something important? How ’bout you get behind the goddamn bar and tap me a focking Leinie.

Emil: All right Mr. Smarty-focking-Pants, if this really is your bar change, tell me who’s on this five-dollar bill I’m holding.

Herbie: Artie, if what you’re “mulling” is about paying back that ten bucks you owe me, I say yea before I mull to kick your butt ’round the block and back but good.

Art: Hey! One for Herbie over here. Yeah, put it on Ray’s tab.

Little Jimmy: So what you trying to decide, Artie?

Art: To run for governor or not.

Herbie: Oh christ, not this again. How many times you run now, six, seven?

Ray: Yeah, about the same number as votes he’s gotten all put together, ain’a?

Little Jimmy: So why not run, Artie? Seems everybody else is.

Ernie: Hold on, Artie. I thought you’s were going to run for the county sheriff.

Ray: Did you say “for” or “from”?

Art: I’ve bailed on the county sheriff gig. I figured a while ago that I’d probably need a driver’s license to be sheriff, and I don’t have the dough to get one. Cripes, how would that look, the county sheriff trying to pull over a speeder from the back seat of a focking freeway flyer?

Little Jimmy: I don’t think you should be governor or anything like that, Artie. It’s too dangerous. Don’t forget they let that nutbag John Hinckley, who shot at Reagan, out of prison the other year. We haven’t had an assassination for a while, but it would be just your luck that you’d be the guy some crackpot would hanker to take a pot shot at, I kid you not.

(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.)