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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, I’m currently enjoying a nice cocktail here in my later days just as I enjoyed a nice cocktail in my younger days, as I prepare to launch what should be just another Pulitzer Prize winning essay all about this and that, what the fock.

[Warning: Extra reading assignments below]

First off the bat, in the event you missed this news nugget quote:

I don’t want to die and not see a woman president. 

Quiz time: Who said that? Was it Susan B. Anthony, Bill Clinton, Pocahantas, Frank Zappa, Shirley Temple, Calamity Jane, Dorothy Parker, Moms Mabley, Emily Dickinson, Clark Kent, Betty Friedan, George Burns, Alice Kramden, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Aretha Franklin, Bishop Sheen, Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt, Oprah, Eleanor Roosevelt, Nina Simone, or…?

OK, give up?

So, I’ll tell you’s the answer. It was Jesse Ventura, hall-of-famer professional wrestler icon. Yes, that Jesse “The Body” Ventura: Vietnam War vet and later elected 38th gopher governor of Minnesota, god bless ’im. That’s who.

But here’s a sneak peek excerpt from your first reading assignment:

Ventura added that it’s time for a female leader in the United States: “Us men have screwed it up enough, haven’t we”?

Amen Jess, pinned to the mat we are.

Check out the entire match here:

newsnationnow.com/politics/2024-election/kamala-harris-jesse-ventura-walz

Hot ’cha, ain’a?

Second reading assignment for you’s begins here, in regard to Trumpel-thinskin and his democracy dwarves pinning the radical red commie corsage onto the Democratic nominee for president of the United States: 

Trump called Kamala Harris a communist.

(A headline I noticed the other day over by cnn.com)

What the fock, Communist? (And a quote from James Liddell at The Independent: “Trump also posted another AI-generated image on Sunday which showed Harris speaking to a crowd of communists with a huge banner adorned with the Soviet Union hammer and sickle in the background.”)

Anyways, here’s your other reading ass., from Newsweek newsweek.com:

Headline: Lawyer's Theory That Republicans Are Closer to Communism Goes Viral

Giddy-up. Sneak peek:

Daniel Miller, an attorney based in Philadelphia who frequently writes about democracy issues for national publications: “When you think of book bans & government purges, two hallmarks of Communist rule, do you think of Democrats or Republicans? Look at the book bans across the country. Look at Trump’s & the #Project2025 plan to purge civil servants. These are REPUBLICAN efforts.”

Here’s the full boatload:

msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lawyer-s-theory-that-republicans-are-closer-to-communism-goes-viral

Yeah yeah, that’s a load of linkage, but if you’re too farshimmelt/firschimmelt/ferschimmeled/farshimmeled/farschimeled/fershimmelt (Yiddish spelling can often be a cruel mistress, oy vey.) to clink the link, here’s the finale to the piece:

Finally, Miller pointed out the use of the color red, often associated with communism and embraced by Trump and the Republican party.

“I’m not suggesting go call Republicans Communist. But it’s absurd so many people think Democrats are Communist because they want people to have health care and homes and good schools.” He continued, “Only 1 party wants to massively centralize power & give it to a cult-like figure. Only 1 party believes in book bans. Only 1 party is OK w/ government attacks on private industry for political reasons. Only 1 party rejects democracy. The GOP is a deeply authoritarian party.”

So forward: what with another Milwaukee Irish Fest down by the lakefront come and gone ’tis this past weekend, I thought it a nice thing to share a wee often-told story with you’s afflicted with affection for “Ye Auld Sot,” and it goes something like this:

Catholic guy enters the confessional box. To his right there’s a fully equipped bar with Guinness on tap. To his left is a shelf laden with a dazzling array of the finest Cuban cigars not to mention a well-thumbed stack of gentleman’s periodicals of a variety to succor any and all preferential needs. He hears the priest clear his throat from the other side of the confessional window, and so the guy says: “Father, forgive me, for it’s been a heck of awhile since I’ve been to confession, but I must first admit that the confessional box is much more inviting these days.” The priest replies: “Yes, my son. And now you will leave to go say 500 ‘Hail Mary’s’ in penance for trespassing Father’s side of the confessional.” Ba-ding!

And let us not forget that we’re just past the 47th anniversary date of “Elvis “The King” leaving life’s stage, but this week we could also acknowledge the 55th anniversary of the original Woodstock music fest—“peace & music” and chlamydia, you betcha.

I mention this on account of the fact that just the other night me and the fellas got together over by Little Jimmy Iodine’s place to reminisce and watch the Woodstock documentary movie from years ago on his still-functioning VCR, seeing as how it’d been the 50 years-plus since we ourselves piled into Ernie’s 1958 second-hand four-door rusted-out Pontiac Star Chief (gas consumption for the Chief was not measured in miles, no sir, it was measured in city blocks) to head to the festival out there somewheres in New York state, and by way of crap-ass directions we ended the journey off Route 66 at a filling station in Amarillo, focking Texas, on account of a “bum fuel pump,” as analyzed by the Johnny Reb pump-jockey moments after routinely checking our dip stick and license plate: “You Yankee boys who don’t know shit from shinola when it comes to a Yankee automobile engine driving through the Lone Star State got yourselves a situation here. Do hope you’re not in a hurry to get somewheres.” And all these years later, I still believe that I would choose an eternity in hell over a day in Texas, what the fock. 

So Little Jimmy says, “You know, guys? Given our age of time, maybe what we ought to watch right now is that Easy Rider movie ’cause that goes back to 1969, to boot. And about what’s going on these days, I still remember from that movie when the Dennis Hopper hippie-biker character says to the older Jack Nicholson Louisiana-lawyer character: “What the hell’s wrong with freedom, man? That’s what it’s all about.” And Jack Nicholson/George Hanson says: “Oh yeah, that’s right, that’s what it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it—that’s two different things. I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. ’Course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are. Oh yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.”

So it goes, ain’a Kurt V., whose greatest novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, got out the same fifty-focking-five years ago, wouldn’t you know—America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves—what the fock, and so it does go, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.