Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? And let me tell you’s, the only benefit I get from those Winter Olympics is that every four years I get to ask: “What the fock, ‘Dick Button’? You got to be jerking my beefaroni. Is that the name of an announcer or a name for the protective doodad hockey players stick down their pants to keep from getting their rocks racked?” Ba-ding!
Yeah yeah, I don’t watch much of the snowy Olympics. What the heck do I know from winter sports? If they had events like Hot Toddy Mixing and the Thermostat Crank I’d tune in, ’cause those are two events I participate in on a daily basis during the wintertime so I’d have some interest, I kid you not.
Anyways, I thought you ought to know that I’m this close to officially announcing my name for the office of Milwaukee County Sheriff in the election come November. I already got a slogan: “Vote for Art and Get a Free Lap Dance!”
So right now, I got to go hammer out some details with my campaign brain trust over by the Uptowner tavern/charm school situated at the corner by Center & Humboldt there. Tag along if you like, but you cover the first round. Let’s get going.
Ernie: Hey, which one of you’s jag-offs swiped my bar change again?
Little Jimmy Iodine: But I will say this about those Olympics. It’s nice to see that so many of the young, white people have spent their time, effort and somebody’s money to acquire employable, marketable skills ’cause I tell you this: Once the final gun sounds on these Games, those kids can write their own ticket ’cause I would imagine no matter how bad the economy sucks, you just got to figure there’s always a need for your biatholinist, your bobsledder, your halfpiper, ain’a?
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Herbie: You bet they’ll have jobs just as soon as they memorize to say, “And would you like some fries with that today?”
Emil: I never understood why these Winter Olympics all the time got to be some place colder than a witch’s tit. Hey, pick a place where they’ve got nice weather all the time, like Tahiti, so that more people would go to it and then your various countries would make more money to improve their deficits and poverty.
Julius: Winter Olympics in Tahiti. You talk like a sausage, Emil. A focking sausage.
Emil: Are you saying I talk like a sausage?
Julius: No, Albert focking Einstein talks like a sausage—what the fock, you listen like a sausage, too.
Little Jimmy Iodine: Hey, Artie! Over here. Put a load on your keister.
Ray: And speaking of sausage, here comes baloney.
Art: Hey gents. What do you hear, what do you know.
Ernie: I know I won’t watch Olympics ’til they have goddamn ice fishing in it. Fock ’em.
Julius: I heard Richard Petty said the only way the Danica Patrick would win a NASCAR race was “if everybody else stayed home.”
Emil: She should spend less time checking her hair in the mirror, and more time racing, ain’a?
Herbie: And that’s why it was so unfortunate Petty said what he did ’cause it’s only more ammunition for knobshines like Emil who not only think the ladies shouldn’t be allowed to drive racecars in circles, but they shouldn’t be allowed behind a wheel—period. They’ll say how the gal drivers are a hazard ’cause they pull into and out of the pits every single lap just to check their makeup. They’ll say the ladies’ racecars have to come with a back seat ’cause that’s where they’re used to doing their driving from when surrounded by men. These are the same yahoos who’d like to make it nearly impossible for the ladies to qualify for a race by insisting that instead of taking part in the time trials, the members of the fairer sex demonstrate a rudimentary familiarity with the mystery of parallel parking.
(It’s getting late and I know you got to go, but thanks for letting us bend your ear. And if you got any questions, comments, criticisms about my campaign for county sheriff, please haul your butt over to the Milwaukee Public Museum this Saturday evening the 22nd where I’ll be musically assisting the mighty Brewhaus Polka Kings during the “Food and Froth Fest” fundraiser to raise some dough so that they don’t toss the mummies and dinosaurs out on the street with nowheres to stay.)
(And a special enticement bonus for the ladies who may toy with the notion of coming for the Froth, I can show you a hidden button to push on the second floor—or my place after the Fest—that’ll make a secret snake stand up and rattle its head off, my pleasure, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.)
