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Art Kumbalek - Summer Heat Wave

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, still alive and sorta well for the time being what with the now monthly immunotherapy yet concomitant brain fog and fatigue, thanks for asking.

But now, not much time on my hands to whip out an essay this week ’cause I’ve got a boatload of phone calls (remember those?) to make on account of this heat and focking humidity we’ve got up the jock and back.

Yeah yeah, I can’t afford to have one of those cell/I phone mini-computer things in my hip pocket, but I do have an Alexander Graham Bell land-line connection, a decades-old rolodex and connection to the sometimes informative internet. Eureka!

Hey, I got to find out who ordered this goddamn weather; therefore I’m going through what constitutes the phone book these days, A-Z page by page, and dialing it up the jock, hoping to find the knobshine who fesses up to placing the order so’s I can stop by the location and kick his/hers butt ’round the block and back.

Simmertime and the livin’ is queasy ’round our town, I kid you not . I sit and sweat inside my dinky apartment with none central air conditioner and the only way I can tell I haven’t died and gone to hell is ’cause I’m not having my ears reamed out by a max-vol endless loop of “Tony Orlando & Dawn’s Greatest Hits” or Green Bay Packers game videos from the ’70s-’80s.

And cripes, every time I do choose to step outdoors, lo, these days, I get nervous, jumpy, you could say disoriented ’ cause I don't know if I'm within the friendly confines of the greatest city in the upper Midwest anymore. No sir. Seems more like I involuntarily stepped in to some kind of deleteriously delirious transport machine and got shanghaied direct to New focking Deli, where when the thermometer dips to a 120 degrees Faren-focking-heit above freezing, the people call up a UNICEF to hurry up and airdrop emergency sweaters and hand-muffs, for christ sakes.

You know what? It’s too pissing hot to groan and moan even for a guy like me, a guy who practically but hardly makes a living at it.

But you got to stay positive, so I hear. After all, we still do live in the greatest city in the upper Midwest (mentioned above)—even if it feels like it got relocated to a Missis-focking-sippi devil’s delta .

And hey, let’s not forget, especially you kids, that Beer Town also happens to be one of the largest cities in southeast Wisconsin. But in these cotton-focking-picking hot summer months, this town becomes the DEI-ist city in the whole wide world whilst we embrace and celebrate peoples all manner of stripe, custom, color, costume, vernacular, talent and what have you, with our vibrant chain of ethnic fest pageants played against a lazy yet restricted lakefront, or something like that. I’ll bet you a buck two-eighty that you could sneeze, blow your nose-snot on your sleeve and if it’s summertime, somebody will throw a festival about it, and that’s got to count for something, ain’a?

So the other day, I noticed that the mail-in election primary ballots for the upchucking elections have been sent out and Art Kumbalek is not listed as a bona fide candidate for governor nor anything else. What the fock?

Obviously, I needed to confront my campaign brain trust as to why they had dropped the ball in collecting enough John Hancocks so’s I can be included on the menu for your choices, god bless America.

So it’s off to the blessed Uptowner tavern/charm school, quaintly nestled at the idyllic if not hysteric corner of Humboldt and Center, to demand an answer from these ass clowns. Come along if you feel like it but you buy the first focking round. Let’s get going.

Emil: You got to be jerking my beefaroni. You really think they’re putting innocent people to the death right along with the assholes?

Julius: Abso-focking-lutely right they are.

Ernie: I thought putting innocent people to death was supposed to be for private industry types like Doc Kevorkian used to do the years ago. Jesus H. Christ, just goes to show you one more example of the goddamn government dicking around with free enterprise, ain’a?

Herbie: And Texas is the worst. Guilty? Innocent? Who gives a flying fock. They choose to croak the whole kit and caboodle and then let God sort em out ’cause that’s the Christian way to do it. They believe that when you get to the Pearly Gates, if the Lord figures you to be innocent he gives you the green light to come on in and what the fock, that sure beats sitting around in prison for the rest of your life, ain’a? And if you’re guilty as sin after all, he sends you to Hell, which from what I hear is exactly like being dirt poor and living in Texas, so big focking deal.

Ernie: Yeah yeah, I don’t understand why our state Legislature is so hot and bothered to have the public execution for the Dairyland. Aren’t those Republicans supposed to be against the government interference in something the private sector could do better and at no cost to the taxpayer?

Emil: We haven’t had the death penalty here since like forever; so where the fock are we supposed to all of a sudden get executioners from—illegal aliens?

Ray: No way. Executioner sure as hell isn’t one of those jobs Americans “just won’t do.”

Herbie: Schooling. You’d get like a two-year associate degree in Capital Punishment, and would pay more than an art history degree. Some hands-on training would be good, so maybe for lab they could practice on philosophy students—especially the ones always asking, “What is life?”—who’ll only be a burden to society once they graduate and find out they have no employable skills in today’s economy.

Little Jimmy Iodine: You’s guys, you read in the papers some people saying how it would be a good idea to televise these executions, maybe on a pay-per-view like the Big-Time Wrestling and this ultimate fighting schmutz?

Julius: But they’d have to really jazz it up or it would be good and goddamn butt-boring but good, I tell you. Who the hell wants to pay good money just to watch some guy lying on a cot get a shot in the arm and then just go to sleep ’till he croaks?

Herbie: You got a point, Juley. Very little value for your entertainment dollar, there. That’s why the government’s got to get out of the capital punishment and turn it over to the private sector. Let the people over at the Fox network or some-such handle a show like that: “America’s Wildest and Wackiest Death Row Executions”—load up a rusted Ford Pinto or some kind of van with these cons and drive it off Pike’s Peak. Or maybe send a bunch of these bastards up in a hot-air balloon and for ten bucks a bullet, members of the general public get a shot at bringing that baby down to Earth.

Ernie: Or they could make it be part-travelogue by sending the doomed prisoner-of-the-week to one of the Arabia’s where they whip out a scimitar and chop the guy’s noggin off right smack-dab in the middle of the town square, ain’a?

Little Jimmy: Hey, Artie! Over here.

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

Ray: Artie, listen, I heard one the other day maybe you can use for in the little article you write for that hippie magazine/website whatever: A lawyer walks into his client’s death row cell and says, “I’ve got good news, and bad news for you.” Prisoner says, “OK. Give me the bad news first.” Lawyer says, “The bad news is that the governor won’t issue a stay of your execution.” Prisoner says, “Oh for christ sakes. So what the fock could possibly be the good news?” Lawyer says, “The good news is that I got your voltage reduced!” Ba-ding!

(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.)