From The City That Always Sweeps

×

Expand

Photo by Viorel Poparcea - Getty Images

Art Kumbalek Trick-or-Treat Pirate

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, here we are, Oc-focking-tober, the year of 2023 I hear, for christ sakes. 

Seems just the other bunch of years ago when I was a tyke-ish katzenjammer and forced to study symbols and what-not over there by Our Lady In Pain That You Kids Are Going Straight To Hell But Not Soon Enough over there down by the South Side, this time of year said that “Braves” meant Milwaukee stomped the baseball world, and “I Like Ike” was the bee’s knee’s when it came to a snazzy presidential hotcha-chotcha campaign slogan-ad broadcast on the 10-inch screen Stewart Warner black-and-white TV where’s you almost needed binoculars to focus in on “Uncle Miltie” Milton Berle parading ’round the stage whilst wearing a lady’s dress, lipstick-make-up and beauty-parlor hair. Remember?

OK, maybe not. Either way, allow me to remind you’s that it’s the month of October we now need to deal with once again, the supposed tenth month of the year according to our ferkakta calendar of the so-called Julian and Gregorian calendars from some 1,000 years ago. However, Oct seems to be a root for the numerical “eight” around the world (“ocho” Spanish; “otto” Italian; “acht” du lieber, German; 八 (捌) bā Chinese; “oito” Portuguese).

So “eight” became “ten”? Cripes, mathematics seems to be the devil’s work when it comes to calendar months of the year, but somehow we put a man on the moon more than 50-focking years ago. What a world.

Warning: This essay has abso-focking-lutely nothing to do with “good” writing. Hey, this is a magazine/website, not Oprah’s Book Club, for christ sakes. Now about this supposed need to segregate your foul language from your good writing: This was not always some kind of standard of choice on the part of writers who today are known as “good” who wrote books yesterday that today are known as “good.” Hell, no.

Nay, a segregated and separated state of fair and foul was for two reasons: one, ’cause of the heavy-duty censorship going around like chicken pox in the olden days; and two, because people got the short-stick on freedom of expression, they were long on reading ’tweenst the lines.

In fact, I’ve delved into some hardcore investigation and boned up on this very topic whatever-it-is, and wouldn’t you gast your flabber to know that Hermie Melville’s original title to the whale book was Moby Focking Dick until some pisspot wrote a prissy letter to his publisher? Same damn thing happened to the Russian guy Dostoyevsky (The Brothers Kara Focking Mazov), and it happened more recently to Papa “Watch Where You’re Aiming That Thing” Hemingway (For Whom the Focking Bell Tolls). Jeez louise, they even made one guy change his own name, from Fockner to Faulkner.

The last instance of this practice occurring that I know of came in 1960 with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Fockingbird just so it could win one of those Pulitzer Prizes. She was so upset with the forced title change to “Mockingbird” that she never wanted to publish another book the rest of her life, I kid you not.

(Hold on a second. It’s the focking phone; could be my doctor with test results since it’s that time of year for scary. OK, it’s my buddy Little Jimmy Iodine. Relax and have a nice smoke, I’ll be right back.)

“Yeah, so Artie, you still coming over Trick-or-Treat morning to help me make the mashed potatoes, gravy and scrambled eggs for the kids when they come by later to ring my bell with their costumes?”

“I forgot about the trick-and treating, Jimmy. But I remember last year, this little kid who’s got one of those what-you-call speech predicaments knocks on my door. “Bick or beet,” he says. I say, “And what are you supposed to be for Halloween?” Kid says, “A birate.” I say, “So where are your buccaneers?” And the kid says, “On the side of my buckin’ head, fockstick.”

“I’ll tell you’s, Artie, this Halloween time can be spooky ’cause it underlines that you never know what’s coming to burn your butt-ski but good in a minute, an hour, a day, next week, month or year. We’re all like that boat The Titanic. Each and every one of us has some kind of big-ass personalized iceberg out there somewheres just waiting to tear us a new one sideways at any moment, one that would be the farthest thing from your mind, I don’t care who you are. I got to go.”

OK then, so do I. But I’ll leave you with this: “Ziggy zaggy, Ziggy zaggy, Oi! Oi! Oi!” ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.