Art Kumbalek
vaccine shot in the arm. Praise be to the Brit Dr. Edward who back in 1796 figured a way to kibosh the small pox that had previously sent “300 to 500 million people” to the boneyard. Ouch!
It’s now 2026, and I await a perturbed notice via post-office letter, email or phone call from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trumpel-thinskin’s “Health and Human Services” guy cum-roadkill chef, to express his dissatisfaction with my choice for health assurance over the blatherings of a nut-job. Fock ’em. I plan to get every vaccine they got for this and that, ’cause that’s the kind of scientific American I am, what the fock.
And when I returned to my dinky apartment from my healthful visit to the pharmacy, there awaiting me in the mailbox was a requested 11.5 x 5-inch envelope containing my “Official Absentee Balloting Material.”
God bless America, and I say “up yours” president(?) Trumpel-thinskin.
Yeah yeah, I always feel firm and fit afterward an exercise of my voting right, and at my late age with the health schmutz, it’s a miracle, what the fock.
Anyways, I’ve lately been hearing here and there that “everything old is new again.” I’m talking your vinyl music records, your compact discs(CDs) of music and such, Nazi blather, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
But I have yet to be aware of the genre known as film noir (Double Indemnity, Out of the Past, Pickup On South Street, etc.) to return from the shallow-buried yester-year.
And so, I offer a hard-boiled treatment of a movie treatment script of mine I’ve peddled for years with no luck, so’s to restore the genre to its respective place at the backend of a double feature to be popcorned at your local cinema place, or something like that:
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Are You Axing, or Telling Me?
SCENE I:
(A.K. repasts at a swinging cafeteria, his swankily long-legged date excuses herself to visit the powder room and plug the condom machine. Buxomatic waitress approaches and leans over his corner of the counter.)
Waitress: Are we all through here, Mr. Kumbalek, or can I fill your cup?
A.K.: “Through”? Doll, I don’t recall that you and me ever got started, know what I mean? But I’ll tell you, if you can fill my cup about a half as well as you fill the two of yours, I’d like to see you for dessert. Know what I mean?
(Waitress excuses herself to use the powder room as a Duane Eddy tune plays on the jukebox xand plug the condom machine. There, she discovers A.K.’s swankily long-legged date dead on the floor due to an ax taking up residence in her retro-stylish ’70s Farrah Fawcett-coiffed noggin. Screams. Cut back to A.K. who leaps off his stool and races to the men’s room, enters, and to his visible chagrin finds it standing-room only. A.K. exits, tosses some loose change on the counter and rushes out the front door.
SCENE II:
(Cop shop. A.K’s getting grilled but good by a detective—female, statuesque out-to-here up-the-jock-and-back who knows her way around diction for the whole nine yards, you bet.)
A.K.: Hey, if I’d known I was going to get the third degree, I would’ve packed the Coppertone, know what I mean?
Detective: Don’t play funny with me, Kumbalek, ’cause funny you are not. You were seen running out of a swinging cafeteria seconds after your lady friend turns up dead for the axing.
A.K.: That’s got to hurt, ain’a?
Detective: And you’re trying to sell me the reason you fled from the scene is that you were on the hunt for an unoccupied toilet? I’m not buying, mister. I’ve been trying to nail you for a long time, Kumbalek.
A.K.: So get in line, doll. Based on the coroner’s report, seems I’m currently unattached. How ’bout dinner?
Detective: I need to frisk you.
A.K.: No problem. Your place, or yours?
(Exterior shot: Two cars traveling high speed with lots of symbolisms like going in and out of tunnels and stuff. Pull up in front of swinging townhouse. Cut to townhouse interior.)
Detective: Mind if I slip into… nothing?
A.K.: Hey, was Mother Theresa a woman?
(A.K. saunters over to the wet bar, blends up a tall and frosty. Sits down at the grand piano, pounds out a couple, three fugues with a hot toccata thrown in for good measure. Blends another king-size tall and frosty. Takes off his shirt, gets down on the floor, pumps out 50 no-arm push-ups. Stares out the window introspectively at twinkling light-strewn mid-major American-city vista—his city. Knocks on bedroom door.)
A.K.: Hey doll, I’m ready for some frisking, I kid you not.
(No response. A.K. enters boudoir. Finds Detective on bed, dead, head resting deep on business-end of ax. Smiles wistfully.)
A.K.: Nice pillow, doll.
SCENE III
(Couple, three more homicides, snappy dialogue, A.K. hot-to-trot on trail of crazed ax-murderer uncovers clues as well as totally stacked tertiary female characters of an expository manner.)
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SCENE IV:
(For budgetary cost-savings, we’ll work out details-schmetails during shooting. Suffice to say, A.K. nabs murderer after numerous pistol whippings of potential suspects and sundry bystanders, what the fock. Ax maniac turns out to be nutbag leader of right-wing religious outfit dedicated to stamping out TV and movie violence not to mention health-care reform.)
EPILOGUE:
(Back at townhouse, A.K. in arms of statuesque Detective who turned up not completely dead on account of Kumbalek’s street-wise ways with Band-Aid and hydrogen peroxide-soaked Q-Tip.)
Detective: So about that frisking…
A.K.: Balls in your court, beautiful. Hold on. (A.K. turns to camera) Well folks, that’s our movie about a show within a movie. See you next week ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so
(A.K. douses the Edisons to fade; and out.)
Okey-doke. Here’s hoping this old earth can take me and you’s for a couple, three more whirls, these precious days.
Go Brewers! Go Pack! ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.)
