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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, for the first time ever, all you’s readers and what-not have the golden opportunity to purchase Art Kumbalek stock, I kid you not. For a measly $300 a pop (negotiable), you will receive one share of AK stock that, if nothing else, would certainly make a timely nice stocking stuffer for a loved one come the Christmas ’cause I’ve got no supply-chain issues, no sir.

And what benefits do you get in return for your purchase? Abso-focking-lutely none—the same you’d get if you pissed away your dough on that ferkakta Green Bay Packer scam “stock.” But with the purchase of a couple, three shares of Art Kumbalek stock, I imagine you would certainly receive the satisfaction (not to mention a scrap of scratch paper with my signature on it) of helping out a downsized small-market guy to renovate his liquor cabinet and perhaps make rent on his dinky apartment so’s not to be forced to relocate to a park bench in a warm-weather city, what the fock.

Just send your checks and cash to the Shepherd Express c/o Art Kumbalek, and our wonderful relationship should be able to continue on its merry way, god bless. Go Art, Go!

So like I said, I’m Art Kumbalek, a guy who just revisited via the TV 1947’s noir classic Out of the Past with Bad Bob Mitchum and randy Rhonda “va-va-voom” Fleming; Art Kumbalek, your altered boy Napoleon in rags haberdashed and blitzened with a hatful of hard rain, shooting out the living daylights with the language that I use while moving and swinging to the death march beat of this our commanded communion, already embarking up a complete unknown tree for the sake of tricking the jugglers and the clowns with another note from roam that wasn’t wrote in a day. Or something like that.

And as they say in 1948’s The Big Clock: “Isn’t it a pity? The wrong people always have money.” Yeah, but enough about me. Hey, how was your week past anyways? Swell. That’s enough about you’s, now more about me, which is: What the fock, I’ve been feeling like in this dream I had about where all of a sudden I’m working sack duty at the local focking Pick ’n Pay and each bonehead shopper is coming down the line with 10-pounds of crap and all I had for the stuffing were two-pound bags, one per customer. Know what I’m saying?

Yeah, down in the dumper I’ve been, but then I heard all over the news the other day that Britney is free again, back on the street! But wouldn’t you know, after these years as time goes by, that blond canary hasn’t yet focking called me not nary once. Can you believe it?

I had it all planned after she’d be sprung, see. I figured that once she got out from under that cockamamie conservatorship, she’d come to Our Town for a visit and we’d just get together socially at first, you know, head down by the South Side and roll a couple, three strikes and spares over at the Holler House, then pound cocktails like a pair of parched perch up and over by the Uptowner tavern/charm school and have a few laughs (So Grandpa’s driving with his third-grade granddaughter and beeps the horn by mistake. The little girl turns and looks at him and he says, “I did that by accident.” The little girl says, “I know that, Grandpa.” He asks her how she knew and she says, “Because you didn’t say ‘focking asshole!’ afterwards.” Ba-ding!); come closing time we’d head over to Webb’s for a Super George Combo and then wrap it up with wraps off out at the cozy 40 Winks, to cling all-night like supine vines, “…Baby One More Time,” you betcha.

And then before you know, it’d be Mrs. Oops! We’d have a little home that’s meant for two-plus. Quiet evenings together, the feathers of our love nest flush with the fervid heat of our turgid passion; maybe order out from Pizza Shuttle; plug in a motion picture, Lolita I’m thinking maybe. I’m your buck, babe, no doubt; and since I don’t have any, I’d have no problemo with you supporting me with the millions you’ve made from whatever the hell it is you did, supporting me in the style I have always had a hankering on getting accustomed to, what the fock.

But the once “Princess of Pop,” has yet to give me, the Suzerain of Sot, a jingle so’s to add yours truly to her portfolio. So thanks for dashing a poor slob’s dreams, doll, yeah, thanks for nothing. We could’ve been one swinging duo, you betcha, “with my brains and your looks, we could go places,” ain’a?

But what the fock, maybe it’s for the best. Better you don’t hitch your hotcha hopes, your desultory desires, your tremulous trust to a wagonload of trouble like me. Who’s to say I wouldn’t be off taking it on the lam to lie down with the loin the very first time some new outrageously toxic bimbo bombshell came cruising down my love street?

No sister, better to forget a guy like me ’cause one way or the other—like if I get nominated for a MacArthur Foundation genius grant or Pulitzer Prize next time around—you know I’d have to leave you, leave you with nothing but the flagrant memory of having had one hell of a good focking time ’cause you would’ve spent it with me.

Yeah, call me if it rings your bell to do so, but I can’t promise I’ll answer. And if you think I say this to all the enhanced fading former teen tramp trailer-trash trollops who tumble into my life, well then, oops! I’ll say it again: Learn to live with it and without me, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.