Gripes From Wrath

×

Expand

Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, here we be in the top-half of the month that is called July, a month named, apparently, in “honour of Roman general Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.,” good lord, that’s a steaming heap of a long time ago, I don’t care who you are, you betcha.

And, hey, didn’t this future emperor/dictator get mixed up with the Kardashian of her time, that being the Egyptian well-stocked and fully loaded temptress, Cleopatra? And if you don’t believe me about the “well-stocked and fully loaded,” I suggest you take a gander at photos and what-not from Elizabeth Taylor’s 1963 embodiment of the queen with a wicked asp, oh boy.

Curious, though, that Cleopatra apparently spoke with a bit of a British accent. I’d suggest that historians more accomplished than yours truly may want to sift and winnow as to the why and how. Had the ancient Egyptians, who had created a system of mathematics, construction techniques, papyrus sheets for writing, had yet to discover a homegrown speech accent for the people to be effectively used in movies about them to be created many, many centuries into the future? Fock if I know.

I’m telling you’s, what a world it would be today if the ancient people of a couple, three thousand years ago had the technological chutzpah to discover reality TV so that the simple folk who spent their 36-hour days farming dates with only the assistance of a piss-ass camel could then relax in the evening and enjoy the exploits of Cleo and her various paramours: Caesar, Marc Antony, a young hot Tut-like king; cripes, any ambulatory guy with a reported dick as long as the Nile and wide as historical interpretation—Queen on a Hot Stone Pyramid: “Ignorance—of mortality—is a comfort.” You betcha

Anyways and so on, here we are post-Independence Day (No. 247 on your calendar, just so you’s know), and in the words of the late, supremely great Dark Side jazz voice, Ron Cuzner, “I sincerely hope you are warm tonight, and that you are together tonight, and that your cookie jar is filled to the very brim… with the cookies of your choice, of course.”

Which reminds me of a little story:

A very old man. There he is upstairs, lying in his bed at death’s door—he’s ready to kick—and he smells the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies wafting up from the kitchen. With all the strength he has left, he pulls himself out of the bed, leans against the wall and slowly makes his way out of the bedroom to the stairs, grips the railing with both hands and somehow makes his way downstairs. He’s weakened and exhausted, but he’s got to make it to the kitchen where that delicious smell is coming from. So he gets on his hands and knees and crawls all the way down the hall to the kitchen where he sees a sight that if he wasn’t still breathing—he would’ve sworn he was in Heaven. There on the table, all spread out on waxed paper are literally hundreds of those chocolate chip cookies, obviously one final act of love from his devoted wife; so that he would die surely a happy man. He painfully pulls himself across the kitchen floor to the table, his lips parched and parted; the wondrous taste of a chocolate chip cookie already in his mouth seemingly bringing him back to life. His aged and withered hand trembles as he reaches for a cookie at the edge of the table. WHACK! He takes a wooden spatula right across the knuckles and the wife says, “Stay out of those, mister! They’re for the funeral.” Ba-ding!

But it’s summertime, ain’a, where the livin’ has become queasy what with this ferkakta Supreme Court laying down the sour cold law on the picnic table for a band of ultra-rich gypsies from another universe to feast on. And so I am reminded of one more little story:

So this priest, a doctor, and a Supreme Court justice by the name of Samuel Alito are out trying to enjoy a nice round of golf at the club, but the groups in front of them are really, really slow. The priest, doctor and the justice (by the name of Samuel Alito, Republican asshole, so you don’t forget) get to the second hole and they’ve got to wait 20 minutes to tee off. Third hole, they’re waiting another 20 minutes. Fourth hole, same thing. Fifth hole, the wait is up to a half-hour and now they’re getting good and ticked off and begin to shout all kinds of insults toward the group in front of them—some of which couldn’t be printed in a goddamn family focking newspaper, I kid you the shit not.

This goes on for another couple, three holes—slow play, insults, slow play, heated invective—until the course marshal approaches the priest, doctor and the SCOTUS justice by the name of Samuel Alito and says, “I’m sorry gentlemen, if I neglected to tell you, but I ask you for a little patience since today we have an outing for blind golfers.”

Right there and then, the priest drops to his knees and commences to bewail how badly he feels for getting so angry, how one of his parishioners is blind and has the sweetest biggest heart in the world, how this blind guy always volunteers for the church’s annual cook-out for orphans.

Then the doctor chimes in with how he has a blind uncle who helped support him through medical school and so must go apologize at once to the group in front of them for his rude behavior.

And the “justice” by the name of Samuel Alito says, “You got to be jerking my beefaroni. They’re blind!??! What the fock, they could’ve played last night!!!” Ba-ding!

Okey-dokey. What with the Bastille Days “Oui-Oui in the Boulevard” fest about to commence soon once again around the corner near the door to my dinky Downtown digs, I must bid you’s au revoir, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.