Happy Huchmus

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, as I prepare my annual award-winning “Year-in-Review, Year Ahead” essay for next week’s paper, two words keep ringing a bell in my head from this 2010: failure and disappointment, oy vey.

Which reminds me of a little story:

A little kid sits on Santa's lap, and Santa says, "What would you like for Christmas?" Kid says, "A focking swing set."

Santa says, "You'll have to ask nicer than that if you want Santa to bring you presents. Let's try again. What else would you like?"

Kid says, "A focking sandbox for the side yard."

Santa says, "That's no way to talk to Santa. One more time. What else would you like for Christmas?" The kid thinks for a minute, says, "I want a focking trampoline in the front yard."

So Santa lifts the boy off his lap and goes to talk to the kid's parents. He tells them what the kid said, and says, "Best that you don't get him anything for Christmas except dog-doo. Put a pile of dog-doo in the back yard where he wants the swing set, put another pile in the side yard where he wants the sandbox, and another pile in the front yard where he wants the trampoline. That should make him change his tune."

Christmas morning the kid goes downstairs to open his presents, and there aren't any. He runs out the back door, looks around, and comes back in. He runs out the side door, looks around, and comes back in. He runs out the front door, looks around, and comes back in, shaking his head.

His father says, "Anything wrong, son?"

The kid says, "Yeah. That fat bastard Santa brought me a focking dog, but I can't find him anywheres." Ba-ding!

You betcha, and now deep into the holiday season I find nothing to celebrate but my own failure to deliver the goods I had on my list this week for you’s this time of year. And here’s why:

I thought for sure by now at this late date in the season, I’d have the new holiday song I’ve been working on ready for your preview, ’cause if you hear what I hear this time of year every year, you know damn well that the creaky seasonal canon needs new ammunition. Yes sir, “Every Day’s Just Another Focking Holiday” not only would hit the charts Numero Uno with a big ol’ bullet, but it would be the first holiday tune in human history that could be played each and every day of the year. And then some hotshot impresario would turn it into a Broadway musical and I’d be a millionaire, I kid you not.

But I’m having troubles working out the bridge to the tune, such that I feel like jumping off a bridge like a regular George Bailey, and it definitely is not a wonderful life. Not when you’re flirting with the iron maiden of deep, dark despair on account of another failurethat being my inability once again to get the Art Kumbalek Mistletoe Belt Buckle to the holiday market. This really blows.

And I tell you, based on the number of queries I field throughout the year as to the availability of this fine gift idea, the Art Kumbalek Mistletoe Belt Buckle is also a million-dollar moneymaker waiting to happen. You may recall that the AKMBB-24/7 is conceptualized to be so much more than just a focking stocking-stuffer gag gift, in that the belt buckle is designed to be compatible with the Art Kumbalek Big Boy Belt. Modeled on Batman’s ultra-handy utility belt, the snazzy Big Boy Beltto be available with the Mistletoe Belt Buckle for only an additional buck two-eightywould sport all kind of clips, loops and high-tech doo-dads so as to hold practical items like a can of beer, Bowie knife, ChapStick, bourbon flask, carton of Pall Malls, pair of clean socks; so that you could cart this stuff around the town and maintain accessible convenience. It’s to wonder.

But alas, again with the production problems, in that this Santa can’t locate a decent sweatshop. I found that a lot of these Fourth World elves are looking to make 14 cents an hour and I simply can’t do business if I have to focking fork out blue-chip Third World wages like that. Hey, who could? You tell me.

And then I’ll tell you’s that as 2010 is about to be shoved in the trunk of a four-door sedan so’s to be buried in a country cornfield out yonder whilst we welcome the bright prospect of 2011 as a top earner, I wish you all “happy huchmus.”

(Huchmus, by the bye, is a Yiddish word for “baloney” I had to spell phonetically ’cause after all these millenniums, you still can’t rub two schlemiels together and come up with the same spelling for a Yiddish word, for christ sakes.)

And speaking of baloney, one more thing, again, this time of year, from me to you: Screw the New Year’s resolutions. Resolutions are for quitters, and quitters never win, and winners never quit, you betcha, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.