Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, about our immigration brouhaha, there’s this:
So this housemaid who hailed from another country asked for a pay increase. The wife of the house was upset and asked: “Maria, why exactly do you want a pay increase?” And Maria said, “Well señora, there are three reasons. The first is that I iron better than you.” And the lady of the household asked, “And who said you iron better than me?” Maria said, “Your husband said so. And the second reason is that I am a better cook than you.” And the heir-to-a-fortune wife of a presidential nominee said, “Nonsense, who said you were a better cook than me?” And Maria said, “Your husband did.”
And then Maria said, “The third reason I want more pay is that I am a better lover than you.” And the lady of the estate asked, “Did my husband say that as well?” Maria replied, “No, señora. The gardener did.” Ba-ding!
And have I mentioned that the first essay I wrote to be published in the Shepherd was conjured in May 1986, 30-focking-years ago, back when “conservative” Ronald Reagan was pumping the federal debt through the roof while the Milwaukee Bucks were coming off a 57-25 season on their way to be swept by Larry Bird’s Beantown Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, I kid you not.
After 30-focking-years of whipping out these essays from off the top of my head, I could abso-focking-lutely pony up to a new challenge: chief editor and correspondent of the “science section” this newspaper so sorely needs for the enlightenment of its readers.
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Enough with the entertainment and restaurant dishes. For christ sakes, the discipline of science has been getting crucified by your Christian and Republican nutbags and I say it’s high time that “The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena” (i.e. “the criticism of myths”) gets some ink spewed from an objective source, like me, ain’a?
Cripes, I’d never run out of material, and I’d make sure to craft my coverage nice and lively if not dang near practical, to boot. It wouldn’t at all be like the butt-boring science they tried to cram down your throat in school ’til you could barf lunch’s pigs-in-a-blanket, no sir. I’d give you “who’s hot/who’s not” on the latest Periodic Table, photos with captions on anatomy, cutting-edge info on the science of statistics you could use on your next Vegas junket.
Or take a branch like entomology, the scientific study of insects. I’d like to delve into reasons why on the TV pest-control commercials, the bug guy driving the snappy van wears a white shirt and tie on the job. Is this some kind of weird-ass psychological ploy? Do bugs dish up extra respect to a guy in a shirt and tie and simply vacate a premises on their own accord so that Herr Death won’t feel the need to unleash his secret chemical vapor storm right there in the kitchenette—a storm that could otherwise reduce a Southeast Asian rain-focking-forest to pure pud for the next two, three millennia?
And I’d give you top-dollar anthropology and botany coverage, you betcha. Jeez louise, I’d sure like to tell you about a Letter-to-the-Editor from some public sensitivity fruitcake-expert I read in a newspaper a while back. This hosebag was absolutely divined to inform us that “All of the earliest indigenous peoples of the world treated the Earth as a living, breathing...[blah-blah]. They did not ‘rape’ the Earth as modern...[blah-blah].”
Hey buddy, of course they didn’t “rape” the Earth. They didn’t have focking time. They were too busy raping each other. How the hell you think evolution happened, what the fock?
Then Dr. Tinkerbell shovels on about the reason ancient peoples were so groovy was because “they practiced animism—the belief that everything has a soul: people, animals, plants, trees...[blah focking blah].”
Plants have souls? What next? I’ll tell you “what next.” I heard some English doctor say he’s recorded the “screams” of plants when they get chopped, diced or minced. Now, the conclusion I reach here is that those people who do not eat the meat for soulful reasons—and I’m hoping that includes the letter-writer—will now have to starve to death if they have any shred of self-respect. Well, see you in hell, along with the rest of us.
And naturally, there’s political science. The old-fart Greek Aristotle wrote, “Therefore, the good of man must be the end (i.e. objective) of the science of politics.” Hey, nice try, Ari. But simple observation has surely proved you were full of crap on that one. I never bought the term “political science.” Combining something so foul with something so pure always sounded like bullshit to me, but of course if “politics” is involved, what the hell else could it sound like? You tell me, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
