Extra Vaganza

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, here we be midway of the first month of this so-called “new” year. And so I decided to finally become a savvy investor into my financial future, something I probably should have done years and years ago, except I never had a dime for such a project, what the fock

So yes, just today I marched up a couple, three blocks to my nearby Pick & Pay grocery store, stood firm at the Customer Service vestibule and demanded purchase of one $2 ticket that would allow me entry into this Mega Millions lottery bonanza extravaganza. Yes, it was a $2 investment that could potentially result in a return of $1 billion bucks and change. Viva Las focking Vegas—hey, I’m ready to park my dupa on a muckety-muck seat over there by Wall Street, you betcha.

(Query: “Extravaganza.” I ought to really research the origins of the word when I’ve got some time on my hands. And, “time on my hands,” I’ll research that, too. Yet, “extravaganza”? Is this a word that some overachieving modern junior copy editor somewheres decided to lose the hyphen (extra-vaganza) and so the word/expression has become the one-word “extravaganza”? Hey, you tell me.

And then I’ll tell you’s that it’s time to examine an hyphenated (extravaganza) extra-vaganza like we’re in a goddamn spelling bee, shall we. The word “extra” is a word I think I understand. “Extra” means more of this-or-that: extra cheese on your pizza for example. So, what the fock then is “vaganza,” of which one is getting “extra” of, as in “extra-vaganza”? Yes, I may really like to have some “vaganza” especially if I get “extra,” I kid you not

But just what the fock is “vaganza”? Is it a subatomic quantum particle or is it an Italian vegetable soup served cold? If it’s discovered that “vaganza” is a piss-poor Italian vegetable soup served cold, I’d say Dio mio, no grazie, you can hold the “extra” and please toss the rest into the dumpster out back, molto grazie.

I can only hope that our scientific physicists and language linguists can get together and one day solve the mystery as to the meaning and significance of “vaganza” before I kick the bucket, because I’d really like to know, you betcha.

And come to think of it, I’d also like to know why “kick the bucket” performs as a phraseological stand-in for “dying” or “croaking.” All I can figure is that perhaps in the olden days a bucket was placed near the bedside of one who didn’t look or feel too good, and if the one who didn’t look or feel too good suddenly felt the need to cross the river Styx, he or she would kick a bucket so as to alert those nearby that it was time to grab a shovel so as to dig a hole so as to bury his or her sorry ass. Honestly, fock if I know.

All I know is that perhaps in this universe, there are things that mankind was/is not meant to know, ain’a?

Such as: How the fock could the Green Bay Packers lose a must-win game with a playoff pay-off to the Detroit focking Lions last Sunday evening at Lambeau focking Field? You got to be jerking my beefaroni.

And so, now that this Green & Gold season has become just another fart in the wind, once again I’m thinking to start a support group for those who are sick to death of trying to look on the bright side of things, who are sick and focking tired up-to-here of hoping and wishing for good things to happen.

As I’ve proclaimed in the past during the life of this expanding then collapsing universe, I, Art Kumbalek, am a recovering blue-sky high-octane sunshine on your cotton-candy lolli-focking-pop kind of kitten-up-a-tree optimist. How ’bout that? And I have to live each day the rest of my life knowing that at any time I could slip and have a cheery thought powerful enough to send me back through the door of insanity and unreality, making my life unmanageable.

The road of my recovery has been long. It was 1959, I was a lad when our Braves lost a one-game playoff to the L.A. Dodgers for the opportunity to advance to the World Series. It was then, simultaneous with the final out, that I made a searching and fearless inventory of myself and the real world I lived in and realized that maybe life does suck after all. A little more than a year later, when our Packers, charging down the field, lost 17-13 to the Eagles in Philadilly-dally-phia ’cause time ran out, there was no “maybe.” Life focking sucked.

And my support group for losers will not be just some kind of men’s thing ’cause really, how far can you really get sitting around complaining about how there’s no topless hardware stores and how they keep jacking up the fine for parking in handicap zones? You tell me.

And then I’ll tell you that Art’s Doom of Actual Reality Group is for everybody of a sex—there’s plenty of snuggling room under my big top. Come one, come all, and repeat after me: “Expect to lose, expect the worst, and you can never be disappointed.” And if that doesn’t make you feel better, then the hell with you’s, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.