Got a Plug Needs Pulling

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, speaking of this so-called Death Panel our new Nazi health insurance policy is supposed to have, I’m thinking maybe that’s not such a bad idea, provided I get to be the panel’s head honcho ’cause I’ll tell you I got a list, oh boy do I ever have a list I’d like reviewed and approved, what the fock.

And besides the Death Panel, I’d like that they include an Idiot Panel to bolster the mental-health portion of our new insurance policy. First case I’d assess would be that of an ex-governor of Alaska who believes that she’s really a former deranged red-baiting senator from Wisconsin by the name of Joe McCarthy.Next case would be that of an aged delusional wannabe NFL quarterback from Mississippi who I’d send to Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic for observation with a reality-check tossed in for good measure.

And speaking of observation, perhaps you’s have heard somewheres that the newspaper business seems not to be exactly a bed of roses, lo, these days, what the fock. And come ’tis to think of it, did you ever wonder how good a night’s sleep a guy or gal would actually get if spent on a bed of focking roses, anyways? I’m guessing none too swell. Besides the obvious thorn-situation, you’d have a firmness issue to boot. Yeah, it sounds like a great thing but I’ll bet you a buck two-eighty that one night on a bed like that and you’re going to have an aching back for at least a week, and who needs that kind of aggravation? Hey, you tell me.

And then I’ll tell you in case you didn’t know, that it was the English dramatist and poet Christopher Marlowe who first dreamt the notion of a bed of rosesAnd I will make thee beds of roses(yeah, thanks for nothing, pal) in The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, his poem all about how badly he’d like to nail an unidentified Limey bimbo back in the days of yore some four-focking-hundred years ago. And I’ll also tell you that it wasn’t exactly “merry olde” England nor a bed of roses for this Marlowe character, no sir. He got his ass kicked bloody dead before the age of 30 back in 1593 during an argument over a tavern bill. (Shocked, shocked I ama focking poet not being able to hold his liquor.)

And before I forget, you got any idea what’s better than roses on your piano? Hey, how’ bout tulips on your organ, oh yeah. Ba-ding!

Anyways, me being a newspaper guy chagrined by the alleged dire straits this industry be floating upon, I figure the best way to offer assistance is for me to attract more readers to my cozy newsy nook back here in this paper.One small step for man, one kind-of leap for peddling products you don’t really need, or an “experience” soon to be forgotten.

And so I need to attract not just any kind of reader, but better readers (no offense intended), the correct kind of readers as opposed to the ’til-now usual low-rent scrubby rabble that turns out for my weekly oracle, the kind most likely to spend a Saturday evening riding the bus, talking to themselves, what the fock.

Hey, I need the reader who’s with it, on top of it, lives it, breathes it, eats it, full of it: I want “today’s” readertoday lends me ten bucks; tomorrow, can’t remember. Yeah, that kind of reader, the kind of focking reader I can turn around over, under, sideways down to advertising types who will then solicit my contractual John Hancock and turn me into a mega-media pitchman, so’s I can commercially endorse their fine products to you whom I’ve herded to the marketplace. Boner pills, anyone?

OK, so talking about the right kind of readers I need, I ask this: Gents, how do you measure up? Ladies, how do you stack up? Fock if I know, but let’s find out with this brief exercise in analytical reasoning. I got to know from you’s what you think the following animals, vegetables, minerals and stuff got in common. Here’s the catalogue: Forbes Field, the pie-billed or pied-bill grebe, Dick York, sulfuryl chloride, the Treaty of Ghent, caulk, trinomials, Paul Gonsalves, sufferin’ succotash, compound umbel and Parcheesi.

Take a couple, three minutes to figure. I’ll go have a smoke.

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Ready for the answer? If you guessed “not a thing,” or more accurately, “not a focking thing,” you are abso-focking-lutely correct sir, or madam. Random material in a random universe. Welcome aboard. And if you’re still working on the exercise above, forget about it. The best I can do is save you a seat on the bus. Try the No. 30 on a Saturday night. You’ll recognize me. I’ll be the one, right rear, talking to myself ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.