Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh man manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, I hear that come summertime the living is easy, what the fock. Well sir, perhaps for some, but not in the neck of my dinky apartment, no sir. Summertime’s wearing me down what with the noise, the commotion, those goddamn seagulls—I’m ready for fall, you betcha.
So I’m taking a day off and there’ll be no jam-chocked essay for you’s to peruse. Instead, I’m going up down by the Uptowner tavern/charm school, enjoy a nice cocktail and cool my heels until my gang shines around. Come along if you’d like, but you buy the first round. Let’s get going.
Lem: Hey dere, Artie. Artie Kumbalek. What’s your pleasure, dere?
Art: Lem? Lem focking Radke. Behind the bar, what the fock. I thought you were up in Crivitz always this time of year taking care of your taxidermy business.
Lem: Times are slow with the taxidermy dere, Artie. Nothing but the house pet to stuff. Not much dough in making the canary look like she could still tweet your Puccini aria ’til the end of time, darn tootin’. So I come down to town for the German Fest and the good tuba playing, and grab a shift at the bar like the old days for some extra dough for the wiener schnitzel.
Art: You can’t beat the German Fest. Didn’t they used to have a guy who’d guess your age and weight, but for the ladies the weight would always be the same—“she’s too fat for me”?
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Lem: Ein prosit, Artie. So’s what’ll you be having dere I can brings you, mister?
Art: How ’bout a nice bourbon Manhattan, Lem. Heavy on the bourbon, one cube, no garnish, and hold the vermouth as an afterthought, say ’til tomorrow.
Lem: Can do. So dere, Artie, what do you hear, what do you know.
Art: I know you’re a big Packers fan, Lem. You watch any of the Brett Favre jubilee the other night?
Lem: A historic night it was, ain’a Artie? For the first time ever the Comeback Kid stood on the hallowed ground of Lambeau Field and, cry-eye, didn’t throw a single interception. I loved that guy more than even fishing, but I still got a bit of the bitterness that he ended up with the Minnesota Vikings, dere.
Art: And how Minnesota ever got a team named “Vikings” beats me. The Vikings belong in New York and I’ll tell you why.
Lem: I’m all ears here dere, Artie.
Art: Go back to the 1958 movie called The Vikings. They don’t make movies like that anymore especially when it comes to historical accuracy, I kid you not. And talk about casting—Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis and Ernie focking Borgnine. No one at the time realized the brilliant subtlety of casting guys from New York and Jersey as a bunch of Vikings. But what the picture was trying to say was not only that the Vikings were obviously the first to discover the New World, but also among the first to stay settled in it—most notably around the area we now call the Bronx. For proof, just listen to Tony Curtis, as a Viking, when he says, “Ovah yonduh floats the boat of my Viking bruddah.” And that’s still the way they talk in that part of the New World 1,000 years later.
Lem: Isn’t that something dere, Artie.
Art: You got any other plans while you’re in town, Lem?
Lem: Maybe some golfing, Artie. I’ve just started but I find golf is like life. You always strive to improve yourself.
Art: Is that right, Lem.
Lem: Listen to this, Artie. I was walking to my car in the parking lot after the last time I golfed and a county sheriff comes up to me and asks me if I teed off on the 18th hole about a half hour ago. And I says, “Yes I did, officer.”
Then he asks me if I hooked my ball so that it went over the trees and off the course. And I says, “Yes I did, officer, but how did you know?” And he says that my ball flew out onto the highway and crashed through a driver’s windshield—that the car went out of control and crashed into five other cars and a fire truck—that the fire truck couldn’t make it to a fire and a building burned down. And then he asks me, “So, what are you going to do about it?”
Art: Cripes, Lem. What did you say?
Lem: I looks him straight in the eye, Artie. I says, “Officer, this is what I’ll do. I’ll close my stance a bit, tighten my grip and lower my left thumb.”
Art: Attaboy, Lem. Better every day, in each and every way.
(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.)
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