Better Call Foul

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, lo, these days, I sit around my dinky apartment whilst tapping my foot and twiddling my thumbs in hopes that soon our U.S. attorney general will step away from the scorer’s table and whistle a big-time flagrant foul on the Orange Circus Peanut; thus my anticipation of viewing the spectacular spectacle on the nightly TV news of The Donald Trumpel-thinskin getting hauled out of one of his ill-begotten focking palaces whilst sporting the latest in handcuffs (gold, probably) on his way to the FCI Butner Low, North Carolina, Wing D, where he can share a weekly one pint of Blue Bell Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream with his cellmate neighbor, Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman, two supreme con men in a pod, and I think this sentence is now long enough (but, please, way not longer than the one the former “president” gets slapped with), what the fock.

Anyways, what with the Milwaukee Irish Fest down by the lakefront ’tis this weekend, I thought it a nice thing to share a wee often-told story with you’s afflicted with affection for “Ye Auld Sot,” and it goes something like this:

Catholic guy enters the confessional box. To his right there’s a fully equipped bar with Guinness on tap. To his left is a shelf laden with a dazzling array of the finest Cuban cigars not to mention a well-thumbed stack of gentleman’s periodicals of a variety to succor any and all preferential needs. He hears the priest clear his throat from the other side of the confessional window, and so the guy says: “Father, forgive me, for it’s been a heck of awhile since I’ve been to confession, but I must first admit that the confessional box is much more inviting these days.” The priest replies: “Yes, my son. And now you will leave to go say 500 ‘Hail Mary’s’ in penance for trespassing Father’s side of the confessional.” Ba-ding!

And let’s not forget that we’re around the 45th anniversary date of “Elvis “The King” leaving life’s stage, but this week we could also celebrate the 53rd anniversary of the original Woodstock music fest—“peace & music” and chlamydia, you betcha.

I mention this on account of the fact that just the other night me and the fellas got together over by Little Jimmy Iodine’s place to reminisce and watch the Woodstock documentary movie from years ago on his still-functioning VCR, seeing as how it’d been the 50 years-plus since we ourselves piled into Ernie’s 1958 second-hand four-door rusted-out Pontiac Star Chief (gas consumption for the Chief was not measured in miles, no sir, it was measured in city blocks) to head to the festival out there somewheres in New York state, and by way of crap-ass directions we ended the journey off Route 66 at a filling station in Amarillo, focking Texas, on account of a “bum fuel pump,” as analyzed by the Johnny Reb pump-jockey moments after routinely checking our dip stick and license plate: “You Yankee boys who don’t know shit from shinola when it comes to a Yankee automobile engine driving through the Lone Star State got yourselves a situation here. Do hope you’re not in a hurry to get somewheres.” And all these years later, I still believe that I would choose an eternity in hell over a day in Texas, what the fock.

Anyways, we were well into our third case of ice-cold Rhinelander whilst watching the movie when Joe focking Cocker hit the stage and Herbie says, “What the fock. What would I do if you sang out of a tune? I’ll tell you what I’d do, I’d tell you to go take some focking music lessons, that’s what, and then I’d tell you to go find a focking day job and leave the rest of us listening public alone. How come Roy Orbison’s not in this movie? There’s a guy who could sing in tune, I kid you not.”

And then Little Jimmy wondered what the young people of today would nostalgialize 53 years from now as a remembrance-anniversary in the year 2075.

“It sure as hell won’t be the focking Brewers finally winning a World Series,” Ray says.

“Maybe it’s the last summertime when every focking day wasn’t over 100 focking degrees,” Emil says.

And Julius says, “I can’t think of a good goddamn thing that’s happened in 2022 that’ll be worth a nice remembrance in 53 years. What, mass massacres, disease, every time you focking turn around? Although, say, if the fockstick who used to be the president and all his corrupt cronies were to be abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore and never to be heard from again, now that would be an event worth celebrating every focking day for the next 1,000 years, what the fock, ain’a?”

So Little Jimmy says, “Fifty-three years since the Woodstock. Maybe what we ought to watch right now is that Easy Rider movie ’cause that goes back to 1969, to boot. And about what’s going on these days, I still remember from that movie when the hippie Dennis Hopper hippie-biker character says to the older Jack Nicholson Louisiana-lawyer character: “What the hell’s wrong with freedom, man? That’s what it’s all about.” And Jack Nicholson/George Hanson says: “Oh yeah, that’s right, that’s what it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it—that’s two different things. I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. ’Course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are. Oh yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.”

So it goes, ain’a Kurt, whose greatest novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, came out fifty-focking-three years ago, wouldn’t you know—America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves.—what the fock, and so it does go, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.