A Holy Shamoley Night

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Photo illustration: Dave Zylstra

Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, seems it’s been one goddamn piss-poor hell of a week or three of death and destruction this December around the world, again, I kid you not. 

Yeah, I got the big-time holiday stress, you betcha. So what better for me to do to relieve minest focking seasonal stress than visit the Uptowner tavern/charm school, quaintly nestled over there by the Hysteric Corner of Center and Humbold street, where today is always at least a day before tomorrow, and yesterday may gosh-darn well be today, what the fock.

Come along if you’d like, but you buy the first round, cheap-ass. Let’s get going.

Lem: Hey dere, Artie. Artie Kumbalek.

Art: Son of a gun. Lem. Lem focking Radke. Haven’t seen you since hell froze over. So, taking a break from the taxidermy racket up there by Hayward to help out behind the bar here?

Lem: You got that right dere, Artie. The taxidermy; she’s a little slow this time of year for me. To stuff and mount a piss-ant chipmunk won’t pay the bills. So what’s your pleasure dere, Artie?

Art: How ’bout a nice bourbon Manhattan, Lem. It’s the holiday season. I know that’s a fancy cocktail for this joint, so make it heavy on the bourbon, maybe an ice cube if you feel like getting swell, no garnish and hold the vermouth. 

Lem: Can do. So dere, Artie, what do you hear, what do you know.

Art: I hear the world is nothing but schmutz, again, again, this time of year. Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men. Yeah, goood luck.

Lem: Now, you’re not some kind of Scrooge, are you Artie?

Art: Heck no, Lem: . It’s just that a guy like me can feel a little left out of things—especially when it comes to Santa. Hey, I like Santa just as much as the next guy but the fat fock is always tied up doing stuff with snot-nosed kids—he’s got no time for the likes of me.

Lem: I hear you’s, Artie.

Art: Darn tootin’, Lem. The Fat Man’s calendar is booked solid but good this time of year. It’s Breakfast with Santa, Brunch with Santa, Storytime with Santa, Face-painting with Santa, Barnyard Balloon Animals with Santa. Jiminy Christmas. I wish one of these years he’d carve out a little time for guys like me and make himself available for a couple, three adult activities for a change.

Lem: Like what, Artie?

Art: Like how ’bout Poker with Santa, Bucks Game with Santa, Shots and Beers with Santa, Boys Night Out at the Gentlemen’s Club with Santa. I’m sure he’d enjoy any one of those activities a heck of a lot more than having a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal at the crack of dawn with a crowd of kids who still have a difficult time negotiating the nuances between a pair of training pants and a diaper.

Lem: You could be right, Artie.

Art: Abso-focing-lutely, Lem. Hey, how ’bout you hit me with another glass of holiday gas.

Lem: My pleasure, Artie. There you go. On me. Busy time of year though, these holidays, ain’a Artie?

Art: For some, I guess. But not for yours truly, no sir. I know how to avoid all the hustle and the bustle.

Lem: Really, Artie.

Art: Oh yeah Lem. While everybody else is running around like a chicken with no head, I’m just sitting back with my feet up, enjoying a nice hot focking toddy. You see, I don’t celebrate the Christmas ’til way later in January ’cause it’s just too gosh darn practical and cost-efficient not to. Take your Christmas tree, for example. Those babies can run you a lot of dough, can’t they.

Lem: I should say.

Art: Not me, Lem. I haven’t spent one red cent on a tree since 1972. Come the second week of January, I got all the free trees I can carry, just sitting at the curbside ready for the taking . And you can usually find at least one that’s still got some tinsel on her, I kid you not. How ’bout you, Lem. You busy with the holidays?

Lem: Lordy. I haven’t even started baking my traditional fruitcakes.

Art: Oh yeah, the fruitcake. I’ll tell you, Lem, if the Cro-Magnon man, thousands of years ago, had had the technology and the knowledge—not to mention the stomach—to have baked fruitcake, I’d bet you a buck two-eighty that the archaeologist would discover, alongside the fossilized tools and fossilized bones—Cro-Magnon fruitcake. Perfectly preserved and just as edible as if it had been baked yesterday, which to me, isn’t saying much. They make a decorative doorstop, though.

Lem: So what’s on your Christmas wish list this year dere, Artie?

Art: An all-expenses paid vacation to Tahiti, or what the fock, any well-ventilated yet ripened part of the world where the indigenous ladies of the land maintained a quaintly cavalier and casual definition of the term, “fully clothed.” I’ll tell you Lem, I’d sure as hell would like to get out of this town to somewheres far, far away just once in my life—like that movie what’s-its-name, the one where George Bailey plays the character who wants to see the world but every time he tries to leave town, someone or something chews him a new asshole and he’s forced to stay.

Lem: Yeah dere, that’s a wonderful movie.

Art: Lem, the big focking deal isn’t what the world would be like if you’d never been born—it’s what the world is like if you haven’t been born yet. You’re always luckier if you can get born as far into the future as you can. Focking-A, those poor slobs who got born a thousand years as opposed to today sure got the shaft up the butt sideways, ain’a? 

Lem: How so, Artie.

Art: No indoor plumbing? No TV? No snack cakes at a grocery store? No thank you. Plus, there’s just more to do with your spare time in the modern day. A thousand years ago, you wouldn’t even have spare time on any kind of regular basis ’cause you were too busy hoeing, fixing something, starving, getting slaughtered or sleeping. And when maybe you did have a little spare time, once every couple years, all there was to do was paint reindeer on a wall inside some cave—hey, let’s party. No sir, Lem. Eking out a life in the past was not much a wonderful life compared to the future. The future’s has just always got to be better, Lem, ’cause if it isn’t, what’s the point? What the fock is the point.

Lem: OK Artie, I’ll answer that question with another: What’s the difference between snow men and snow gals?

Art: Oh, brother.

Lem: Snow balls. Ba-ding! So how ’bout another cocktail dere, and I’ll join you. To the holidays.

Art: To the holidays, Lem. Come hell or high water, or both.

(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.)