Half-Looped Compulsory

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, no essay this week. For me right now it’s Tuesday, Feb. 20 and I’m meeting up with my gang up over by the Uptowner tavern/charm school situated at the corner by Center & Humboldt there, like we always do after a hard day’s voting the day after Presidents’ Day. Come along if you like, but you cover the first round. Let’s get going.

Emil: I always wondered what did Ebenezer Scrooge think about Valentine’s Day. I don’t think it’s ever mentioned in any of his books. But I suppose a good “bah, humbug” can get a guy through any kind of focking holiday.

Julius: The hell with Valentine’s Day. It’s Lent now, and I still can’t decide what to give up for the damn season yet. One thing I know, I sure don’t have the personal constitution to ape the Lord and do something like fast for 40 days out in the wilderness. Cripes, how ’bout that, ain’a? No way could I pull that off; although, to be fair and balanced to myself, that was probably a little easier for him to do than it would be me, after all, from the pictures I’ve seen of the Lord, he really didn’t look like a very big eater to begin with, what the fock.

Little Jimmy Iodine: Anybody been watching Olympics?

Emil: I know I won’t watch Olympics ’til they have goddamn ice fishing in it. Fock ’em.

Herbie: If they don’t add competitive ice fishing for the next Winter Games, forget about it. They could stand to add an extra event or two ’cause, jeez louise, it seems every time I think to tune in it’s the goddamn curling they show, what the fock. Could watching an Olympian angler pull up a nice 13-ounce crappie through the ice be any less interesting? I think not.

Ernie: I didn’t see any Olympics last Sunday. I was watching the NASCAR at Daytona. Danica Patrick’s final race—our quarterback’s new girlfriend.

Julius: Didn’t I hear Richard Petty once say the only way the Danica Patrick would win a NASCAR race was “if everybody else stayed home”?

Little Jimmy Iodine: Hey, Artie! Over here. Put a load on your keister.

Art: Hey gents. What do you hear, what do you know.

Ernie: I hear the Olympics are still going on.

Art: I don’t watch much of the snowy Olympics. What the heck do I know from winter sports? If they had events like Hot Toddy Mixing and the Thermostat Crank I’d tune in, ’cause those are two events I participate in on a daily basis during the wintertime so I’d have some interest, I kid you not. The best thing about them is that every four years I get to ask: What the fock, Dick Button? You got to be jerking my beefaroni. Is that the name of an announcer or a name for some kind of protective genitalia device that hockey players gird their nut cups with, ain’a?

Julius: And I hope some of those skaters who don’t win a medal are prepared to spend their Sunday afternoons for the next 10 years wearing a 20-pound Snoopy head for the kids at the ice show.

Ray: How some of those halfpipers and skeletoneers don’t die pulling off their stunts, I’ll never know.

Little Jimmy: I always wondered about who the first guy was, like back in the days of the early, early cavemen ’round about the time they first discovered they could notice something; the first guy who discovered death to the point of actually being able to think like something wasn’t exactly kosher going down around him. You always hear about the guy who invented fire or discovered the wheel, but what about the guy who discovered croaking?

Herbie: What the fock are you talking about?

Little Jimmy: Just wondering what went through the mind of the first guy, when one of the other guys croaked, and he went over and nudged him and thought, “Hey, this dude’s not moving and even if I come back tomorrow, I’ll bet you a buck two-eighty he still won’t be.” To actually realize something wasn’t regular, you know?

Ray: And then what about the guy who had the advanced intelligence to rifle the dead guy’s pockets, or pouch, or whatever the fock they had back then. Laws about that didn’t come in ’til at least the ancient Greeks I seem to recall.

Herbie: Correct. Laws were not bandied about until government was discovered.

Ernie: Cavemen didn’t have crime, then. They must’ve called it survival.

(It’s getting late and I know you got to go, but thanks for letting us bend your ear, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.)