Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So I hear we got that Masters golf tournament coming up and that Tiger Woods, after quite a focking fallow spell, is looking pretty gosh darn good again. But apparently there’s one aspect of his game that has yet to come around, as illustrated by this old chestnut:
What did Lady Di have that Tiger Woods doesn’t? A better driver, don’t you know. Ba-ding!
Or something like that. Anyways, maybe I’ve been watching too much college basketball on the TV of late, but I don’t contemplate much of an essay for you’s this week ’cause I really ought to suspend myself with pay for being flagrantly foul. And I got to tell you, it couldn’t come at a better time. I’ve been experiencing some stiffness if not downright soreness in the skull compartment and before I take the measure of having my head examined, maybe a little time off is what the doctor would’ve ordered anyways, so what the fock.
Besides, I got some off-the-page personal matters that need tending to before they fester into some kind of career-threatening carbuncled calamity. I abso-focking-lutely need to deal with the chaotic morass that is my sock drawer ’cause I’ve just got to believe there has to be at least one sock in there that bears a resemblance to another. I need to check the sofa for loose change. And speaking of morass, I need to renew my subscription to Bend Over Magazine ’cause they’re offering a free Jane Russell Bra Phone if you sign up for two years, I kid you not.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
And I got to finish filling out my goddamn income tax form—no sense waiting ’til the last minute—which every year consists of a short note I mail in, and it goes something like this:
Dear Sir or Madam,
Hey, I already paid. The federal tax on cigarettes alone I cough up yearly to you’s ought to be enough to buck-up a bridge or fill a focking pothole somewheres, ain’a? So let’s call it even. And may I remind you that in the Book of Kumbalek, “income” is a synonym for “imaginary.”
But thanks for your interest.
Sincerely,
Art Kumbalek
As I’ve said maybe in the past, I do believe this Internal Revenue Service tax compact really ought to be made voluntary, like they did with the military service. How ’bout they turn tax-time into a pledge drive, à la National Public Radio. If the citizen chooses to flip the government some dough, he and/or she at least should receive a focking tote bag or coffee mug for making the donation, don’t you think?
And if any high roller chips in big time to the government, say, in appreciation for all the corporate welfare entitlements the Feds provide, the high roller receives, not some crappy-ass tote bag, but the CD boxed set of all the John Philip Sousa marches, as recorded by the United States Air Force Band.
Talk about listening pleasure, you betcha. JPS all told wrote 136 marches; or was it he wrote one march one hundred and thirty-focking-six times? I forget. But I do know that a CD collection of the Sousa marches would last me a musical lifetime. I could listen to one of his marches and, what with all those blaring flugelhorns blasting their butts off to kingdom come and back, I’d say it’d be at least a year ’til I was ready to listen to another. One down, only 135 to go, yes sir.
But before I go, a little story. My buddy Little Jimmy Iodine told me he was over by his brother-in-law’s place in West Allis there on Easter Sunday when they had the Easter egg hunt in their dinky backyard for Jimmy’s two little nephews. So these katzenjammer kids are traipsing around and they come across some rabbit turds, except the younger kid doesn’t know that, so he asks his older brother, “Hey, what’s that?”
The older kid says, “They’re smart pills. Eat them and they'll make you smarter.” So the younger nephew chews on a couple, three and says, “Hey, these taste like shit.” And the older boy says, “See? You’re getting smarter already.”
Yeah yeah, I take it the moral being that the older you get, the more you know what shit tastes like. But the trick is that you never want to develop a taste for it, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
