Come and Get Me

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, as only a second-generation American citizen, I’ve got my undies in a bundle what with all this deportation hit-the-highway schmutz, I kid you not.

What the fock, Ice Ice Baby could decide to ship me over by Poland somewheres just because I knowingly believe President Trumpty-Dumbty is a fockstick who sucks ass?

Fock. What am I going to do in Poland besides hold a light bulb whilst Stosh and Mikolaj rotate the ladder so’s to be the butt of an ethnic joke?

And about this immigration brouhaha that’s all the rage, lo, these days. Here’s a little story:

So this skilled housekeeper from a country not the United States asks for a pay increase. The wife of the house was upset and asks: “Now Maria, why exactly do you want a pay increase?” And Maria says, “Senora, there are three reasons. The first is that I iron the clothes better than you.” And the lady of the household says, “And who said you iron better than me?” Maria says, “Your husband said so.

“And the second reason I want a raise is that I am a better cook than you.” And the heir-to-a-fortune wife of a powerful member of the U.S. Senate says, “Nonsense, who said you were a better cook than me?” And Maria says, “Your husband did.

“And the third reason I want more pay is that I am a better lover than you.” And the lady of the manor says, “Did my husband say that as well?” Maria replies, “No, Senora. Juan, the gardener did.” Ba-ding!

Anyways, about that commencement-speaking gig for your graduating students I’ve been ballyhooing about ($50 bucks and a case of ice-cold bottled beer, I’ll be there)? Seems I’m a day late and a dollar short. Not one call, what the fock.

But wouldn’t you know, the other day underneath a stack of old Bendover magazines, I found a dog-eared draft of a commencement speech I slapped together some years ago. So if anybody had any doubt that I could deliver the graduation goods for the speechifying needs of your young-ins, let me run this by you’s. And yeah, call me maybe next year, I should live so long:

Art’s Commencement Gasbagging for Whenever

Students, parents, surviving relatives, friends, Romans, countrymen, assorted hangers-on, please grab a seat and take a load off for I’ve come to praise these former matriculators, not chew them a new one. Thank you and smoke ’em if you got ’em ’cause what the fock.

I shall attempt to hold this intercourse to an ejaculatory length because I’d like to get the hell out of here and start pounding the cocktails even more than you do, I kid you not.

In my effort to whip something together for you’s to listen to today, I reflected upon what I wished someone had said to me when I was your age. And what I wished is that someone would had told me that a long lost, distant relative had croaked and left me a hundred million bucks, that’s what. Sadly, I never got that message and I’ll bet a buck two-eighty that none of you ever did either, ’cause otherwise why would you be sitting here today listening to me? If you had a hundred million bucks, hey, screw school, ain’a?

But you didn’t have a hundred million bucks, so instead you had to go to school. Yeah, I’ll tell you about school. Better yet, I’ll let somebody else tell you about school, name of Mencken, newspaperman, editor and critic out of Baltimore, who said a good while back: School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, brutal violations of common sense and common decency. And if they aren’t exactly like that, then either you’re absent a lot or I’m at some poshtown private school, what the fock.

But there is something I’d like you to chew on as you leave here today, so let me tell you a story: Little Timmy was on his way to visit his grandmother. Seated next to him on the plane was a stranger who turned to Little Timmy and said, “Let’s talk. I’ve heard that flights pass by more quickly if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.” And little Timmy, who had just opened The Austere Academy from the “A Series of Unfortunate Events” series, closed the book slowly and said to the stranger, “OK, what would you like to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the stranger said. “How about nuclear power?” And little Timmy said, “That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat grass—the same stuff, yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?”

“How about that,” the stranger said, “I have no idea.”

“Well, then,” little Timmy said, “how is it that you feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don’t know shit?”

And that’s what I want you to remember. Sure, you might be walking out of here with some kind of sheepskin but you don’t know shit, and if you’re smart you’ll want to remind yourself of that each and every day. The smartest thing one of the smartest guys I ever read about said more than 2,000 years ago, “I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.” And that’s really all you need to know.

Hey, you may think you’re getting out of school today, but guess again. There is no getting out. Ha! Once you get out of the regular school, the first thing you learn is life’s nothing but one big focking school you go to day-in and day-out where you’re going to learn something each and every day whether you like it or not; so like it or lump it.

You betcha, you’re going to learn a lot outside these walls but as long as you know that you don’t know shit, you ought to pass through the big, wide, world with honors just fine ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.