The Dudes Imbibe

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh man manischewitz what a world, ain’a? Hey, anybody seen that loitering lion lately? I know, what the fock. That cat’s disappeared faster than you can say “McLean Stevenson post-‘M*A*S*H.’” This calls for some investigating, so I’m skipping my essay this week ’cause I’m off to the Uptowner tavern/charm school to see if any of my gang have recently spotted the King of the Jungle sashaying down Our Town’s boulevards—besides, we got to make our plans for Lebowski Fest over by the Cathedral Square Park this weekend. Come along if you’d like, but you buy the first round. Let’s get going.

Emil: So explain this ozone bullshit to me ’cause I don’t get it. Maybe I’m an idiot.

Ray: You’re an idiot.

Emil: Fock you, Ray. This is what I don’t get: The other day when it was about a hundred and focking fifty degrees, they were talking about some kind of ozone alert. I thought we were running out of that ozone, but now we got too much of it or something? What the fock.

Ernie: So this black guy walks into a bar with a parrot on his head. Bartender says, “Where’d you get that?”

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

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

Ernie: Parrot says, “Africa. There’s a billion of them down there.”

Julius: I heard that same one only different, where the parrot walks in with a Mexican guy.

Emil: You sure they got parrots in Mexico? Maybe the Mexican guy should’ve had an iguana on his head.

Herbie: Ecologically feasible, Emil. When the layman thinks “iguana,” he thinks “Mexico.” The problem though is that iguanas don’t focking talk, you nitwit. Parrots do. That’s why the joke is funny. Whoever would tell that joke where the guy has a focking iguana on his head instead of a focking parrot is even more of a focking idiot than you are.

Ernie: Herbie’s right. That’s why you can’t tell that same joke and make it, say, be a German guy come into a bar with a sausage on his head.

Herbie: What?

Ernie: The joke wouldn’t be funny then, ’cause sausages don’t talk either.

Herbie: Says who? You seem to be doing a pretty focking good job of it.

Art: Jokes; I’ve been trying to come up with one for the longest time about the same-sex marriage business.

Ray: Tough one, Artie. What do you got to work with? Maybe something like you always got to buy two sets of towels to get one His and His set? I don’t know.

Herbie: Hey, Thief of Bad Gag—already heard that a hundred times.

Emil: “Same-sucks” marriage?

Julius: What’s the big deal about the gay homo marriage anyways, ain’a? At least they’re in the same species, so what’s the problem. I’ve been married 30 years to a buzzard. It’s not natural, but I don’t hear any Bible-thumping politicians crying about that for christ sakes.

Ernie: Come to think of it, it wouldn’t be funny even if the German guy had a parrot on his head, ’cause they don’t have a lot of parrots just flying around natural over there, ain’a?

Herbie: No shit, Sherlock.

Emil: So what would be funny to have on the Kraut-ski’s head then?

Ray: Good question. Maybe you could still go with the parrot, but you’d have to make it like a Nazi “just following orders” thing, something like all the German people be parrots with Hitler on their head.

Herbie: Sounds more like a visual, Ray.

Art: I don’t know fellas, I read this article in a New York newspaper that said the “joke” is dead. Either too many people get offended or they think it’s corny and focking stupid.

Little Jimmy: I think maybe the young people don’t have the education like we did years ago so that they can appreciate the offensive joke anymore. I read some survey that 98% of the new college graduates couldn’t name Harry Truman’s vice-president after he took over for Roosevelt.

Emil: What about if you put a duck on a Polish guy’s head?

Ray: A talking duck? No go.

Art: And I read a science survey says only 9% of the people know what a molecule is.

Herbie: A unit of substance equal to or greater than the size of Emil’s focking brain.

Art: Survey also said a lot of people are afraid of science, can you believe it?

Ernie: So? What’s so focking stupid about that? Look at what some of these scientists are doing, like coming up with new super-genetic mice and gerbils in their laboratories.

Little Jimmy: I always thought the idea was to come up with a better mousetrap, not a better mouse, ain’a?

(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.)