Sprung My Head

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Photo illustration: Tess Brzycki

Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, lots of schmutz all around the world, same as it ever always was and will continue to be, lo, these days/eons post big-bang, so what the fock.

Hey, “what’s going on,” as callers to a sports-talk radio show often preface their blab.

But thanks for asking, and so I’ll tell you’s “what’s going on.” Plenty. For starters, I am yet trying to adjust to the loss of that one hour of sixty minutes we suffered last Sunday due to the ferkakta daylight saving time, I kid you not.

I had planned to use that hour for self-improvement purposes, such as finally curling up with James Joyce’s boatload-page paperback edition of Finnegans Wake. And if I had any time left over, I thought to blow the dust off my long-in-the-case Buffet licorice stick and perhaps reconnoiter a Mozart clarinet concerto or two.

Alas, my clocks told me that hour was nonexistent and I would now have to wait until Sunday, November 3, when we “fall back” rather than the bullshit “spring ahead” so’s to regain the hour a guy my age desperately needs to cling to, what the fock.

Anyways, just so you’s know, I expect a phone call any minute from my buddy Little Jimmy Iodine’s nephew, Eddie, who has a high-school project for his English class (apparently, some school boards still allow such a thing these days). And that project is to interview a “writer” and ask questions about the “profession,” as to how, and whether-or-not a young person could, or should, get hooked up with such a gig. And wouldn’t you know, there’s the phone a’ ringing now. Please pardon the interruption, what the fock.

Art: Art Kumbalek here. And if this is Vinnie from the back room at Sullivan’s, about that UWM-Oakland game, I ought to have that dough for you by Friday, one of these weeks.

Eddie: Hello, Mr. Kumbalek sir. It’s Eddie Iodine, Uncle Jimmy’s nephew, calling for my class-project about writers and writing.

Art: You can dispense with the “sir,” Eddie. I’m only royalty to the degree of “royal pain in the ass.” Ask anyone. What can I do for you’s?

Eddie: First, I’d like to ask how did you get into writing?

Art: Well my young friend, it began many, many years ago, back when President Dwight D. Eisenhower golfed his way through two terms and we had only three TV station to watch on a black & white 12-inch screen. And so I guess I’d pin my salad days, back when no one knew what the fock a salad was, in writing to my juvenile stay at Our Lady in Pain That You Kids Are Going Straight to Hell But Not Soon Enough. I believe it was 3rd grade when I was commanded after regular school hours to write upon the blackboard in chalk 50 times the following: “I will not pretend to pass gas in class.” I grew weary of writing the same thing every goddam day, and so I expanded my horizon. Soon, I was writing on the chalkboard 50-100 times a day after-school such things as “I will not pencil in a Hitler mustache onto the face of historical figures in our history book.” “I will keep my index finger out of my nose during class.” And so, well, time passes, the rest is history and here I am now nearly 40 years of flinging the schmutz for the Shepherd, blackboard and chalk not required. And you, Eddie, do you write?

Eddie: Sort of. I just started a band called Donald’s Dirty Diaper…

Art: Catchy.

Eddie: … and I wrote the lyrics to our song called “Young, White & Stupid,” about people my age who vote for Republicans.

Art: Music to my ears just as long as your instrumentation doesn’t sound like a cat crammed into a blender with the setting put to purée.

Eddie: Mr. Kumbalek, there’s all kinds of writing a person can do, like poetry, correspondent, screenplays, sports reporting, books, advertising copy and what not. Is there one you would recommend to go after?

Art: Forget about advertising copy—there’re more self-respecting avenues that lead to hackdom. But being a professional writer is a worthy aspiration, even if the wages are akin to being a mid-18th-century Russian serf. From personal experience, I can tell you that for starters you mostly don’t have to go anywhere to do it. You can just stay home, which is focking great ’cause with no boss around, you can have the TV on all day long if you focking feel like it and an ashtray is always at arm’s length, not to mention the bourbon. And it’s the kind of job where there is no limit to the number of excuses that can be used for not doing it, and how do you beat that, ain’a? Hell, a lot of these novel writers come out with only one book every other year or so. That’s 730 days and the book is like 200 pages long. That means, to be a productive writer, you only have to write one focking page every three-and-a-half days—piece of cake, what the fock. And to boot, writers write on a computer, lo, these days, so when you can’t think of what to write, the young writer can while away the hours perusing various free porn sites and learn a thing or two that could help make one’s first date a rousing success.

Eddie: Any other suggestions, Mr. Kumbalek?

Art: Read. Read everything and anything you can get your hands on, especially if your suck-ass “school” bans this book or that. Read—from Thomas Hardy to Gabriel García Márquez to Mickey Spillane to Walter Mosley to Chaucer, Joyce, Joan Didion, the Bard, Vonnegut, the Russians, Ralph Ellison, Bradbury, Ray Chandler, focking Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Nelson Algren, newspapers, magazines, the fine print when you sign up for some focking damn thing on the internet. Read!.

Eddie: Thank you for your time, Mr. Kumbalek.

Art: Hope I helped, Eddie. Just remember what Groucho said: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” Ba-ding! ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.