SuperRadicalisticFragileDemBodacious

×

Expand

Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, I hear another Halloween has come and gone, which always reminds me that another wintertime is right around the corner down the block. And this season I plan on practicing what-you-call your “safe winter.” You can bet your bottom’s dollar that no focking way am I leaving the house without my rubbers ’cause you never ever really do know when Old Man Winter will rear his frosty head and administer one of his more than several patented massive snowjobs, and that sure as hell is no time to be caught with your pants down, what the fock.

Also, I just received my renewed/updated Wisconsin driver license in the mail the other day ’cause for me, it’s that time of year and age for such a thing, even though I have not owned a car since 1992, I kid you not.

Natch’, to have notched such an accomplishment, I had to trek up to the aging WI Division of Motor Vehicles building over there by N. Sixth and W. Wells streets, a block east from Our Town’s also aging but great Milwaukee Public Museum; although, I always thought that the Streets of Old Milwaukee exhibit should have included an interactive historic Edison Street bordello so that Dad could’ve enjoyed to relieve himself of some kind of anxiety whilst Mom and the katzenjammers were up on an upper floor pushing the snake button.

And the European Village over there by our museum, good lord. My favorite exhibit, as opposed to the Rainforest deal, where I could imagine being attacked by rabid monkeys, snakes, South American fascists or who knows what.

Yeah, the European Village exhibit at the museum, the ethnic customs displayed, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, are interesting and sweet, right before said village would be demolished plus destroyed by some kind of war or another.

And so I gazed at our public museum with fond memories that go back to when I got hauled over there by the parents years and years ago when it was lodged in what’s called the Milwaukee Central Library, pit stop for the homeless, and I completely my journey to the DMV, an environment I would describe as “modern Soviet.”

So I opened the envelope from the Division of Motor Vehicles and eyeballed the photo on my renewed license and thought “holy crap, who the fock is that guy???” Apparently, it was me, a dead ringer for some low-rent serial killer whose mug shot is printed in the papers when he’s finally nabbed 40-50 years after his committed crimes. Good lord!

Obviously, the DMV employee who operated the photo camera was neither a Henri Cartier-Bresson nor a Diane Arbus, cripes, she even wasn’t the guy with a Polaroid who’d snap a shot of you and your sweetie for a buck two-eighty that one of you’s would toss into the trash—years later, once the divorce was finalized—as you strolled down Wisconsin Avenue on your way to the Strand motion picture theater to see “Lawrence of Arabia.”

I’ll tell you’s, if somehow I’m elected Badgerland governor next Tuesday on account of a massively unexpected statewide write-in vote, I promise to flip some dough the DMV’s way so’s they can hire a couple, three cosmetology/modeling interns to help the license applicant achieve a more eye-catching photo, a photo you’d be more than proud to show to family, friends, law enforcement, election workers, the young clerk at the liquor store and any random EMT who’d search for your license to see if you were an organ donor after you got run over by the focking bus, what the fock.

Jeez louise, I look at that photo on my updated driver license and wonder how the fock did I get this focking old? Cripes, I can remember the first time I legally pulled out of the driveway behind the wheel of the family Buick Skylark sans any adult or otherwise passengers. I was overcome with the biggest boner a teen could handle back then in 1966. And now, 2022, the only boner I’m going to get is come a Thanksgiving, pulling on the turkey wishbone and wishing something would break my way for a change, yes sir.

But you got to stay positive and look on the bright side of life, I hear.

And so I’d like to think that happy days are soon to be here on for me, the first happy day commencing Wednesday, Nov. 9, a day I’d like to believe that I will receive not a nary one robo-loco phone call from some Republican Party minion asking me to support their radical-fruitcake anti-truth-and-common sense agenda.

Cripes, the GOP tying up my telephone to ask me for my vote is like somebody calling up the late noted astrophysicist Stephen Hawking to peddle him a pair of Shake Weights. Forget about it. Neither one of us got the time nor patience for dumbbells. Life’s too short, I kid you not.

Listen, last weekend when the costumed kids somehow reconnoitered their way to my door for the trick-or-treat (yes, I had set traps to prevent such an event, no avail) instead of handing out some focking candy, I passed out useful advice, like “Never, ever mix good booze with soda” and “Get a job and buy your own focking candy.”

So what the fock, with a big-time scary Mid-term Election Day right around the intersected corner of “Do or Die,” I’ve got some advice for the American electorate whose trick-or-treat experience comes next Tuesday, Nov. 8. One word for you’s:

VOTE!

Got it? No excuses. Vote for the knoblin of your choice. And what the fock, if you’re out of work it’ll give you something to do. And don’t forget, voting won’t cost you a dime—yet. Of course, if big business and rich guys keep getting away without paying taxes, it’s only a matter of time ’til they’ll slap a user fee on the ballot box (and an extra charge for your voter-registration license), and the more dough you can shell out, the more times you get to vote. God bless America.

So vote now while it’s still focking free and open to any Tom, Dick or Dickless from sea to shining sea, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.