Foctober Schmutz

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, I’m feeling a bit bereft due to the fact that our beloved Milwaukee Brewers have puked away their shot at post-season playoff baseball over there by Am Scam Field (cripes, what they charge for a single brewski would’ve been worth a couple, three cases of cold Kingsbury back in the day when Hall-of-Famers Hammerin’ Hank and No. 41 Eddie Mathews were sending home-run shots into the outer reaches of the cheap-seat outfield benches for the Knothole Gang kids to kvetch recovery rights).

So how ’bout we move on from Knothole to “nut-ass-hole.” Of course, I’m talking ’bout Badgerland’s ball-of-goofiest, our U.S. senator, Ron Johnson (once chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, good lord) who I learned from cnn.com/2022/10/04/politics/ron-johnson-january-6-flag-poles, had this to mention the other day:

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson repeated his claim Tuesday that the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was not an “armed insurrection,” adding however, that protesters “did teach us how you can use flag poles, that kind of stuff, as weapons.”

Flag poles. Weapons. For you and me. Homeland Security.

And so, now, for a musical interlude in this essay, I welcome The Crystals "Da Doo Ron Ron (When He Walked Me Home)," youtube.com/watch?v=L0dikX80Ed8:

I heard him on a Monday and my heart stood still

Da-Doo-Ron-Dumb

Somebody told me that his name was Vlad

Da-Doo-Ron-Dumb

Yeah, my heart stood still

Yes, his name was Vlad (maybe Kim-something?)

And when he nuked my home

Da-Doo-Ron-Dumb

And, at a “rally” held in Michigan and performed by Trumpel-thinskin last Saturday, one of his warm-up acts, the absolutely bat-shit crazy Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor “Mean Jo” Greene, said at one point during her vomitus regurgitation of QAnon bullshit, this: “Democrats want Republicans dead and they’ve already started the killing,” she said.

Huh! News to me, I’ll tell you’s. Maybe she was referring to the current Q “theory” that Hurricane Ian was a plot by the Deep State to wipe out Red State voters through the use of weather-manipulation technology that somehow the Deep State has access to, I kid you not.

As a sometime impartial observer of the world’s woes, I might suggest that these nutbag Republican types might consider using truth as a weapon rather than a flag pole, you think?

Anyways, I’m all akimbo these days given the state of our world’s trials and travails. But I hear that self-help advice and such bullshit is quite in demand, given these “troubling times.” So what the fock, here’s some random thoughts off the top of my lid, free of charge, that you may practically find of use given what I imagine is your own crappy state of affairs:

Work of the Future

—Are you one to look over your shoulder or one who looks forward. There are those, like philosopher Alfred E. Neuman, who prefer to live in the past, because the rents are always cheaper. But then there are those, like myself, who prefer to look toward the future where surely one day they will find a cure for having to work for a living. What’s the hold up, I’d like to know?

—Don’t work harder. Work less, especially if you’re getting paid for it. You’ll live longer.

—Motivation: It is more lucrative to B.S. about making a living than actually going out and earning one.

—Joe Blow Knobshine will swallow anything, and the more you charge, the more he swallows.

—The soothsayer will always predict a bright future for you that shall begin as soon as he secures your credit card number.

—The future’s always here before you know it, gosh darn it. If you have not prepared, you will get caught with your pants down, trip, and crack your head open as you flee the inevitable. Don’t sweat the future. Keep your pants on and tomorrow takes care of itself.

Furry Companionship

House pets—they don’t drink, the don’t smoke, don’t gamble. No wonder they don’t live that long—heck, who’d want to?

—Animals belong either in the woods or on a menu, but not in my living room going nuts trying to get at something that rolled or crawled under the sofa. Until they put a house pet on the market that can operate a microwave, flush a toilet and acquire a valid chauffeur’s license, you can forget about me having something with four legs in my dinky apartment besides a coffee table, what the fock.

Relaxation

There was a championship bass-fishing tournament held in Ohio the other week (I swear) that capsized topsy-turvy due to cheating allegations. And so this:

If golf is as exciting as watching paint dry, fishing is like listening to it dry.

—Fish make me think that maybe evolution isn’t all it’s cracked up to be after all. Thousands and thousands of years of swimming around and taking a bite out of the first thing they see, you’d think fish would be extinct by now, ain’a? They eat worms. What do fish know from worms?

Worms live in the ground, fish live in the water. Please tell me what possibly could be going through a fish’s head, besides absolutely nothing, to just go take a chunk out of something they’ve never seen before. That kind of behavior does not strike me as the kind that fosters survival for eons, let alone a day.

Consider the consequences if you or me were to be walking down the street and out of the clear blue saw some brown stuff we never saw before, so the first thing we did was take a big honking bite out of it, like a fish from a worm. The Homo sapien as a species in general would’ve been in the crapper years ago by now and God’s universe would be even more a lonely place than it already is, you betcha.

And finally, thankfully, a snippet of conversation I had with my buddy Little Jimmy Iodine over by the Uptowner Tavern/Charm School the other week:

“Is it true that when you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you?” Jimmy asked of me right after the bartender bought the ol’ “Hey buddy, you got two 10s for a 5?” ruse.

“Jimmy,” said I, “there’s no way to know for certain. Sure would like to think so, though. Hey, what’s the harm in trying, ain’a? What the fock,” ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.