Ding-Dongs

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, no essay this week. I’ve got to get over by the Uptowner tavern/charm school, majestically crammed at the corner of wistfully Hysteric Humboldt Boulevard and the fabled Center Street, to discuss Halloween plans with the fellas, such as do we want to pass out healthy scrambled eggs or headcheese sandwich-ettes to the ding-donging trick-or-treaters. Come along if you’d like, but you cover the first round. Let’s get going.

Little Jimmy Iodine: Anybody hear how one of those Back to the Future movies had the Cubs winning the World Series in 2015?

Julius: Except it’s the Mets and Royals in the Series this year. I always knew those movies were bullshit, what the fock.

Emil: So the wife made me watch that “Dancing With the Stars” TV show the other night. Any you’s guys seen that yet?

Herbie: You got to be jerking my beefaroni. That show tells me just how much this country has lost its direction. Hey, it’s not 19-focking-55 anymore. Fock this “Dancing With the Stars” and their foxtrots. When I turn on my free prime-time TV in this day of age, I ought to be able to watch “Doggie-Style With the Porn Stars” goddamn it, ain’a?

Ernie: Was it Paul Ryan who was the kid on the old “Munsters” TV show? Eddie Munster—the little vampire kid. Spittin’ image.

Julius: No way. Ryan’s not old enough. He’d be like 70-years-old now if he did.

Emil: Big focking deal. Those vampire types don’t age like the regular guy. For all we know, that bloodsucker from Transyl-Janesville could be like 500 focking years old.

Little Jimmy: He’s a vampire, you betcha—the way he wants to suck the money out of the poor people’s wallets all the time, ain’a?

Ray: Any you’s guys remember that time a while back when some gal with hairy armpits came in here wearing a tank top, and she raises her arm and shouts, “What man here will buy a lady a drink?” And this drunk guy at the end of the bar says, “Give the ballerina a drink.” So the bartender—I forget who was working that night—pours the drink, the gal slams it, raises her arm and shouts again, “What man here will buy a lady a drink?” And the drunk guy says, “Give the ballerina a drink.” After a couple, three more times of this give-and-take, the bartender says to the guy, “Hey buddy, it’s your business if you want to buy the lady a drink, but why do you keep calling her a ballerina?” And this knobshine says, “Any gal who can lift her leg that high has got to be a ballerina, I kid you not.”

Ernie: I kind of remember that. But she wasn’t a ballerina. She was a professional wrestler known as “Ilsa the Nutcracker,” and by the end of the night didn’t we have to call 911 for this guy ’cause he ran out of dough for a cab? Jeez louise, anybody remember who that was?

Little Jimmy Iodine: Hey, Artie! Over here. Put a load on your keister.

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

Herbie: I hear the difference between a wealthy-ass candidate for political office and a sack of manure is the sack.

Ray: And I heard about this guy who rubs a genie out of a lamp who says he’ll grant the guy one wish. “I want to live forever,” the guy says. “No can do,” genie says. “I’m not allowed to grant wishes like that.” So the guys says, “Cripes. OK, then I wish that I want to die after that Freedom Caucus in Congress gets their heads out of their asses.” And the genie says, “You focking crafty bastard.”

Ernie: And I heard the president thinks our school kids have to take too many tests.

Emil: I heard that some members of Congress still think Obama Barack was one of the terrorists who flew a plane into a World Trade building.

Art: I could’ve used him as president back when I was at Our Lady in Pain ’Cause You Kids Are Going Straight To Hell But Not Soon Enough flunking tests right and left.

Ernie: Lot of people think the American school children ought to be going to school all year-long ’cause how else can we compete with the Japanese kids going to school 30 hours a day, ain’a?

Julius: Hey, we got a hard enough time finding teachers already; who the hell’s going to want to take that job if it means putting up with those focking kids all the year instead of just three-quarters?

Herbie: And let me ask you this: If kids are schooling during the summer, exactly who does that leave to shuck our corn, thatch our wheat and lift that barge?

(Hey, it’s getting late and I know you got to go, but thanks for letting us bend your ear, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.)