Hey! Mr. Quarantine Man

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, based on some photos I’ve seen of a recent gathering-of-the-goons at Lake of the Ozarks down there by Missouri—“The Show Me How Big a Fucking Idiot You Are, and Screw Your Cardinals, State”—apparently this Coronavirus hullabaloo has decided to cease and desist. Who knew? What the fock.

Around this Trump-carnaged country, I’m hearing the fockstick chorus turn up the volume knob: “Masks? We don’t need no stinkin’ masks!” But I’ll tell you’s, yours truly is going to keep on keeping on with the “empty the register and make it snappy” look, as I continue to adapt an Edgar Allan Poe story into a someday Broadway musical, “No Masque, Then Dead Death for You, Asshole,” or something like that.

Yes sir, back on Feb. 24 if you had told me that by May 24 I would have read a couple, three, five-six, books, I would’ve said, “You got to be jerking my beefaroni. I’ve got no time for the books what with watching the Bucks march toward an NBA championship and the Brewers starting pitching suck the big one.”

And on Feb. 24, I also would not have believed that by May 24 I’d be negotiating the circle of hell known as “unemployment compensation,” or that I wouldn’t have received nary one tentative offer as a commencement speaker ’cause there’s no commencements. (Next year, if things get back on track, my deal is I’ll come by your learning joint and for 50 bucks, plus a case of ice-cold bottled beer, I’ll make a Barack Obama seem like a Crazy focking Guggenheim. And for an additional pint of Jim Beam, I’ll croon a nice “Impossible Dream” as my closer.)

But I did have a graduation spiel at the ready, had I been called to serve. So maybe some of you parents and what-not who have been isolated with graduates who need speaking to—be they of University; College; High, Tech, Trade, or Matchbook School; Middle School; Academy Charter Institute of Some Learning for Young People; Grade School; Prison Substance-Abuse Good-Neighbor Sanity Program for Early Release; Pre-School; Nursery School; Daycare Center Who Employs a Bus Driver Who Can Conduct a Head-Count—what’s say we do one of those “virtual” thingamajigs, and you read to them what follows below, free of charge:

Graduation Gasbag

Hey, is this a great-looking crowd or what? You may now grab a seat and take a load off. And don’t forget to smoke ’em if you got ’em, por favor.

So anyways, today we come to praise you former matriculees and fatriculees, not to bury you. That comes soon enough, buried up to your neck but good in jobs, family, debt, bullshit. I don’t envy you’s but you made it this far, so what the fock. Some didn’t make it, so those of you’s who did ought to know how many school dropouts it takes to go ice fishing, ain’a? Give up? Six, I kid you not. One to melt a hole in the ice, and five to put the boat in. Ba-ding!

Yeah, I kid the dropout. What kind of future can they have? Fock if I know but I’ll tell you this: Andrew Jackson thought the world was flat and he was the seventh president of the United States. So now you know that your fancy-schmancy diploma guarantees squat, same as the lack of having one, so shut up.

And I’ll tell you’s another thing. The nearly prehistoric philosopher who went by the moniker of “Socrates” never graduated from high school, and yet he was often a pretty smart guy, as you’ll find out in the following anecdote:

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about your friend?”

“Hey, keep your pants on a cotton-picking minute,” Socrates replied. “Before telling me anything, I'd like you to pass a little test.”

“A test?”

“That's right, mister,” Socrates continued “Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made abso-focking-lutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

“No,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and…”

“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of goddamn Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?”

“No, on the contrary...”

“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, but you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because there's one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”

“No, not exactly.”

“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”

The above exchange illustrates why Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.

It also explains why he never found out his best friend was porking his wife.

But seriously, I’ll try to make my remarks brief ’cause I’d like to get the hell out of here and start pounding the cocktails even more than you would, believe me you. And then tomorrow, you all will begin to pursue your dreams, sheepskin in hand. With that in mind, let us not forget what the English philosopher John Locke had to say way back in the olden days: Where all is a dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing. Focking-A, I’m not sure what he’s saying but all of a sudden I’m dreaming of four more years with Humpty Dumbty Trumpel-thinksin in the White House, I kid you not.

And so in conclusion, if I told you once, I told you twice, and now I’m going to tell you’s again: As you disembark out of this institution of some learning so as to embark upon who-in-the-hell-ever-really-does-know, I’ve always found it wise to regard that which we call life as one big butt-kicking banquet; and although unfortunately the only thing served is crap casserole, I do believe that one can learn to develop a taste for it. Bon appétit and bon voyage, time for my boot heels to be wandering ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.