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Art Kumbalek jester on ferris wheel
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, just so you’s know, it’s the month of August already (snuck up on me, too), one of those rare holiday-less months of the year; although we do get what they call the Dog Days—or diēs caniculārēs as they inscribed in the ancient land of fair Latinia before it sank to the bottom of the sea, so I’ve heard.
Yes, August, a month chock-packed with 31 days of dwindling summertime, finally—days “marked by dull lack of progress,” as was my schoolboy study of Latin so marked, back at Our Lady In Pain Because You Kids Are Going Straight To Hell But Not Soon Enough, what the fock.
But yet, lest us not forget the eighth month of the year does present us with the greatest focking spectacle on Earth—the Wisconsin State Fair, you betcha.
Me and my aging buddies love the Fair, all the way back to when Ike Eisenhower ran the White House in a respectfully patriotic fashion and we believed snot to be a snack food.
Love the Fair, we do, always, forever. And it seems every year, after healthfully chowing down on all kind of fried matter served on a stick, me and the guys gravitate to the Midway, where the amusement rides are guaranteed to be well-maintained and operated by the finest staff of tattooed, toothless safety experts this side of a halfway house for Nazi bikers from hell.
And you just can’t beat those games of skill the Midway offers, can you—where the 120-pound guy of short stature wearing the frayed, used-to-be-green tank-top blows $50 focking bucks in the attempt to topple the tripod of bottom-weighted faux milk jugs, so’s to win the buck two-eighty stuffed Garfield/Snoopy for his abundantly zaftig lady friend.
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Of course, as tradition would have, there is the sharpster who attempts to guess your age and/or weight for a small stipend; your reward for his failure being a cracked Whiffle ball or listless goldfish. Me and my gang like to play our own game of skill, which is to guess which carny/associate technician appears to be the responsible party for the most bodies buried in shallow graves to be found in remote locations above and below the Mason-Dixon Line, east to west, north to south. Don’t forget, nearly all these crackerjacks spend the off-season in Florida, which just happens to be Spanish for “serial killer” by-the-by, so what the fock, ain’a?
And speaking of days with dogs, about this high-rise Downtown condo/fancy schmancy apartment fad lately and people with dogs moving in down here by the boatload nearby my longstanding dinky apartment, I do declare that thissucks., I kid you not.
Cripes, the reason I live Downtown is to get away from that kind of suburban pet/dog crap. As I’ve said before, dogs are intellectually challenged and we already got enough of that Downtown, given the car-driving habits.
To the point: Why the hell do these idiot canines go berserk every goddamn time the doorbell rings? Do they actually imagine inside their peach-pit brain that this time it be something or someone come for them? Hey, they don’t go yelping nuts when the phone rings, do they; or do they?
No. At least a dog is smart enough to know that no way in a million years is that call for them. Even if it was, they know they’ve got not a damn thing to say, even to another dog. What the hell would they discuss with Fido, Rover or Bailey down the block: How much they’d like to tear the mailman a new one? How much food they swiped off the kitchen table when no one was looking? How the best time to pass gas and lick your privates is when company comes to visit? “Yeah yeah, big focking deal, been there, done that.”
(Yes, “Bailey,” or “Madison,” or “Levi”; today’s young, youngish, not-so-young, “urban professionals” have taken to naming their focking dogs such as they would children, if they deigned to have any, which they won’t, since a dog is maybe only a 12-year commitment, tops, with no teacher-parent conferences involved while a child would be a big-time lifetime emotional and financial commitment with visits to the orthodontist, soccer camp and/or inconvenient weekly cartage to the youngster’s private clarinet teacher to boot, and what sensible urban professional has the time and true heart for that?)
Anyways, dogs. “Man’s best friend” for only two reasons that I can see: They’ll never tell you how to drive, and never ever wake you up in the middle of the night to “talk” about something, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
