Pro Noun

Expand

Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, here we be with the month of June soon to plant its ass on the bench as July rounds the hot corner headed for home, what the fock.

Nearly July now, the month we celebrate on the fourth day of our nation’s stumbling democracy’s independence from those bastard limey colonialists. Yes, plenty of us will be attempting to croon our Anthem that day, what with its words of “bombs bursting in air” and “ramparts,” ’tis thee.

Hold on. Ramparts? I’ll bet you a buck two-eighty if you asked ten-out-of-nine of our fellow country-men-and-women and what not to define “ramparts,” they’d say it’s something you’d find in your gyro sandwich down by that Greek joint near the college campus, I kid you not.

And speaking of “patriotic” tunes, I’ve never been comfortable with the forced sing-along to “God Bless America” about-around the 7th inning of a Major League baseball game whilst you race to grab one more brewski before they shut all taps. 

I think the song kind of sucks, lyrically, although it’s a lot easier to sing than the “Star Banner.” But really: “Stand beside her and guide her.” Whoa, Nellie: Her? Hey, isn’t her one of those pronoun-types seems our Republicans got their Fruit of the Loom undies in a bundle about these days?

How ’bout, then, we substitute her with the third-person pronoun them, or better yet, the object pronoun us (Stand beside them/us, and guide them/us)? Fock if I know. Lord knows I’m not a cunning linguist, not to say I haven’t put into practice that to be declared as one, you betcha.

Or maybe best yet, we kibosh the 7th-inning dirge of “God Bless America” and replace it with the Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” as NASA and the USAF give the green light to a squadron of UFOs for a spy-flyover.

Or best yet, perhaps the stadium announcer could recommend to the ladies and gentlemen and snot-nosed kids in attendance that we stand on our feet for a patriotic rendition of “Elmer’s Tune!”

(OK, just so you know, “Elmer’s” is a popular song from the 1920s, and you can hear a nice version by Glenn Miller & His Orchestra on YouTube so’s you know the melody—and why not we call it “America’s Tune,” ain’a? And don’t forget that F. Scott Key ripped off the melody to an English drinking song for our Anthem, so what the fock.)

OK, got the melody? Here’s the lyrics, so let’s sing along for America, a nice, bouncy key of G, the people’s key, as our Brewers are taking one to the chin, or not, in the middle of the 7nth. Rise to your feet, and all together now:

Why are the stars always winkin’ and blinkin’ above?

What makes a fellow start thinkin’ of fallin’ in love?

It’s not the season, the reason is plain as the moon;

It’s just America’s Tune.

What makes a lady of eighty go out on the loose?

Why does a gander meander in search of a goose?

What puts the kick in a chicken, the magic in June?

It’s just America’s Tune.

Listen, listen,

there’s a lot you’re li’ble to be miss-in’;

Sing it, swing it,

any old way and any old time.

The hurdy gurdies, the birdies, the cop on the beat [I’m thinking that last phrase may need to be tweaked along with some gender stuff here and there, you think?];

The candy maker, the banker, the man on the street;

The city charmer, the farmer, the man in the moon—

All sing America’s Tune.

Play ball!

And then, so this:

I was catching up on my reading so I cracked open my latest subscribed issue of Bendover magazine, what the fock. The big feature was a historically pictorial spread called “The Tarts of the House of Hohenzollern.” I never knew the box camera had already been discovered by the 1700s. Sometimes their research articles seem a little shaky, like the time they said that scientists had discovered a food that diminishes a woman’s sex drive by more than 90%. So I’m reading and reading, and it turns out the food is Wedding Cake, I kid you not.

But in this issue, they had a Father’s Day article that said a bunch of scientists whipped out some newfangled research on the male line of this DNA stuff that led them to surmise, if not downright deduce, that all beings of human actually have the same one-kind-of father from ’round about 250,000 years ago, give or take a couple, three millenniums.

Imagine that. One dad, lots of kids. Me and you and Plato. Me and you and Marie focking Antoinette. Me and you and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Malcolm X. Xerxes I. Karl Marx. Harpo Marx. Pinky Lee. Peggy Lee. Lee Marvin. Marvin Gaye. Faye Throneberry. Fay Wray. Martha Raye. Martha Mitchell. Billy Mitchell. Billy Martin. Martin Heidegger. Dean Martin. Dean Wormer. Dizzy Dean. Daffy Dean. Muammar al-Qaddafi. Al Jolson. Prince Albert. Princess Grace. Gracie Allen. Allen Toussaint. Eva Marie-Saint. St. Guy of Pomposa. Guy de Maupassant. Buddy Guy. Buddy Hackett. Cesar Chavez. Julius Caesar. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Anna Nicole Smith—all right, enough, you get the picture.

You and me and everybody, past, present and future, we’re all honest-to-gosh related. One big family. And still people wonder why there’s war all the time all over the world? Give me a focking break. Like they say, you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose; but you can’t pick your relatives, so it looks like we’re stuck but good. Have a nice day.

So, I got to go now ’cause smoke gets in your eyes “when a lovely flame dies,” and what can you do. Except to say that an old, and dear, acquaintance and friend of mine shall not be forgot. His cup o’ kindness offered to me through so many years shall always be brought to mind. And so paddle on, Doug, my life preserver when sailed turbul