Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, no time for an essay this week. I’ve got to get over by the Uptowner tavern/charm school and make sure my gang is aware about the “Artie Turns 30”-years-at-the-Shepherd shebang sponsored by Milwaukee Irish Fest over by the Lakefront Brewery on Thursday, July the 28th, 6-9 p.m., with music provided by the mighty Brewhaus Polka Kings. I hear there’ll be special food/drink stuff to boot, provided you fork over your $20 entry fee (I know, “You got to be jerking my beefaroni!”), what the fock.
Anyways, it’s off to the Uptowner. Come along if you’d like, but you buy the first round. Let’s get going.
Herbie: Iceland. I shit you not. Iceland got a focking medal in 2008. When they let Iceland into these Summer Olympics and take away a medal that otherwise should’ve gone to one of our American amateurs, then you know the globalization and outsourcing bullshit has really gone too far.
Ernie: And the Chinese got the second-most gold medals in 2012.
Ray: You got to be jerking my beefaroni. There’s that many Ping-Pong events now?
Little Jimmy Iodine: Yeah, but still no horseshoes. I’d watch that, you betcha. Those Olympics don’t have enough events the common man can relate to, like poker, ain’a?
Julius: The Commie countries would never let poker in the Olympics—a game about the triumph of the individual who gets to keep all the dough instead of passing it out to every Tom, Dick and Dickless with his hand out? Focking forget about it.
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Emil: I wonder if any of those gal gymnasts have hit puberty yet from four years ago.
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 know I want to get down by the German Fest this weekend.
Ray: You can’t beat the German Fest. Didn’t they used to have a guy who’d guess your age and weight, but for the ladies the weight would always be the same—“she’s too fat for me”?
Herbie: Kraut Fest is always at the Milwaukee’s Summerfest grounds. I don’t understand why some of the other towns around our area don’t make a bid to host the Fest, say your Germantown, your New Berlin.
Ernie: I remember seeing some bullshit list some years ago—Best 100 Places to Live, or maybe America’s Best Small Towns—and New focking Berlin clocked in at number 34. What the fock?
Little Jimmy Iodine: Number 34? Must have some pretty fancy strip malls out that-a-ways, ain’a? Never been to New Berlin, but I hear some people call it the “new West Allis,” but without all the white trash.
Herbie: Sounds nice. Diversity’s overrated anyways, what the fock. Had a brother-in-law pass through there once on his way to Dodgeville Correctional. Told me that if a slice of your future-heaven was never-ever again having to sit next to a fat guy with bladder issues on the bus, New Berlin would be a final resting place for you. They don’t have buses. And on top of that, things are so spread out, you got to get into a car and drive just to go take a leak, I kid you not.
Julius: Fock ’em. It’s no Cudahy, and never will be. I can’t imagine being a kid and not being able to focking walk to the diamond of my Little League game and then afterward visit the liquor store on the way home for an ice-cold bottle of Squirt and a pack of baseball cards, with no adult supervision involved besides the asshole behind the counter.
Herbie: Yeah, that’s a nice youthful remembrance, Juley. What, all of a sudden you’re Ray focking Bradbury and next you’re going to tell us your ma and pa are carnival magicians from Mars? What the fock. So listen you guys, I heard a Michael Jackson song on the radio the other day, and for the focking life of me I couldn’t remember that old joke about his glove and baseball.
Ernie: Oh yeah, yeah. I remember it as back in the year-after-year when the Brewers really sucked-ass, something like “What do the Milwaukee Brewers and Michael Jackson have in common?”
Emil: Neither one knows how to get a hit anymore?
Ray: You talk like a sausage, Emil. Think “glove,” Emil. “Glove” is at the center of the axle that drives that joke, for christ sakes. The answer was, “They both wear a glove for no apparent reason.”
Emil: Michael Jackson played baseball? Who knew, what the fock.
(Hey, 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.)
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