Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, here I sit with a hard case of the heebie-jeebies wondering how soon after the inauguration of President Orange Circus Peanut will he shut down newspapers like the Shepherd and send the former employees off to enjoy a stint at some kind of re-education camp that will definitely not resemble a resort hotel except for those that feature canvas tents and open latrines. On the bright side, upon graduation I suppose I might be able to pick up some work helping to build that goddamn wall what the fock.
So, time for me to get my booze heels to be wandering over up by the Uptowner tavern/charm school and meet up with my campaign brain trust to figure out how my own candidacy tanked so spectacularly badly. Come along if you like, but you buy the first round. Let’s get going.
Little Jimmy Iodine: Anybody seen Artie lately?
Julius: Maybe Trump had him locked up already.
Ray: There you go. I just knew that a Trump presidency couldn’t be all bad.
Herbie: Take a gander at who he might stuff into his cabinet and it looks like those people did take back their country—too bad that country is Germany, 1938.
Emil: I don’t even want to go outdoors these days. As an old white guy, I know people look at me and think, “Bet that focker voted for Trump.” This guilt-by-association sucks.
Ernie: How the hell did this happen? Trump as leader of the free world is like tossing the car keys to your 8-year-old and telling him to run down to the 7-Eleven and pick up a pack of smokes for you.
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Julius: A recent survey said 42% of the American public does not believe in evolutionary biology. There’s a piece of the focking puzzle for you, right there.
Herbie: Voter suppression, or voter elimination? Trump was right, the election was rigged. “Spasibo,” Vladimir Putin.
Ray: Trump makes Bill Clinton look like an altar boy. How many wives has this guy boffed? If I was a lady intern at the new White House, I’d sure as hell put “shop for chastity belt” on my to-do list.
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: Where you been, Artie?
Art: Sitting at home, waiting for the president-elect to call me about maybe filling an opening in his cabinet.
Ray: What, the liquor cabinet? I don’t know about filling it, Artie, but you’d be the man to empty it, for sure.
Julius: You’d be better off calling Ted Thompson about the Packers’ head coaching job. Pays a hell of a lot more than secretary of what-the-fock.
Emil: Yeah, those Packers. Do they suck or what?
Art: No. I’ll tell you what sucks. What sucks are the knobs who piss and moan about how the Packers suck.
Ernie: Up yours, Artie. The fans got rights to complain if they focking feel like it.
Art: Fock the fan and his rights. Let me tell you this: To get shit-faced in the tavern and bitch about stuff you don’t know a damn thing about is easy; but to explode your knee seven days a week on the gridiron is hard.
Ernie: Did you watch the TV newscasts at night when the news people talked to all those fans in the taverns about how the Packers and their defense look so suck-butt?
Art: No, I did not watch the newscasts talk to any fans; but I did see them talk to a bunch of nitwit assholes whose biggest challenge in life is to get up out of bed at the same time five days a week in order to go to a crappy job of which chances are good a circus animal could perform just as satis-focking-factorily. But then somehow on football Sunday, nitwit fan asshole squeezes into a green item of outerwear with a “G” on it and miraculously transforms into some kind of strategic Knute Rockne rocket-pigskin scientist? Give me a break.
Julius: All I know is that up there by Green Bay, the times they are a-changin’, ain’a?
Emil: Didn’t somebody write a song about that once?
Herbie: Yeah, this Bob Dylan character. I saw this TV show, and somebody called him a visionary.
Emil: What the fock’s a visionary supposed to be?
Little Jimmy: That means somebody special who sees things that aren’t there.
Ray: Hey, after 15, 16 cocktails I see things that aren’t there too, so big focking deal.
(Hey, this is going 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.)
