The Seventeen Year Itch

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, experiencing somewhat of a left-eye vision difficulty these recent days. I guess that’s what you get when you start putting on age like a pair of bell-bottom jeans and paisley shirt from out of the deep recesses of the bedroom closet, what the fock.

Suffer through I shall, as well as the Memorial Day weekend ahead, which apoplectically marks for me the beginning of summertime, my least favorite season of the year, I kid you not—the heat, humidity, stupidity, loud boom-boom music in the air and plethora of bugs everywhere you turn.

And speaking of insects, heaped onto the usual load this year is the return of the cicada after its 17-year hiatus spent underground. Focking swell. So, to welcome the Cicadoidea back to the surface, I’ve got a little thing for them to read that’s also been in the dirt these past 17 years since 2004, the same year the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years—talk about a lengthy cycle, ain’a? And it goes something like this:

Commencing Spew

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? Listen, it’s that time of year once again that I am behooved to remind all you school administrators and what-nots out there that I am indeed available to be the keynote gasbag at your institution’s commencement sheepskin giveaway. Cripes, if the nearly communicative George W. Bush—the focker’s one step removed from “blink your eyes twice for yes, once for no”—can get invited to bumble his way through a graduating address, you can bet your buck two-eighty that I ought to, too. Fifty bucks and a case of ice-cold bottled beer and I’ll come by and harangue any group you got, from preschool to Joe College, I kid you not. So raid petty cash, get on the phone and I’ll be right over, what the fock.

That’s right. I can speechify preschool to Joe College ’cause I deliver the same oration no matter where I might find myself podiumed. And that’s because my thoughts and words are what-you-call universal—they transcend age and language discrimination; transcend bourgeoisie definitions of “species,” transcend space, time, velocity, molecular matter; transcend whatever needs transcending.

And I tell you I’ve got experience in the racket that you can take to the bank, you bet. Take for example my lone commencing gig from a couple, three years back over by the eunuch-owned-and-operated Wee-Wee- Park Your Tot Lot, Institution of Lower Learning (Bed Wetters Welcome) Institute.

It was a memorable oratorical experience. I was interrupted mid-speech several times, once even with applause when they mistakenly thought my remarks were concluded, plus numerous other times when young scholars were forced to visit the Poo-Poo room following the dropping of a full-load drawers-side.

There was also one milk-and-cookie pause, which I found unacceptable. What the fock is a “health” cookie? Cripes, back when I was a tadpole if they’d a’ foisted some kind of health cookie or piece of fruit on us kids, we would’ve had Miss Whoever-the-Fock buried neck-deep in the sandbox so fast it’d make the speed of light look like a Piggly Wiggly check-out lane on Senior Citizen Double Coupon Day. (Fast.) Besides, any kind of cookie break for these katzenjammers was a total waste of time since they’d been seriously snot-snacking during my address from the get-go.

Jeez louise, years ago these focking kids would’ve been told to get their fingers out of their schnozz-then-mouth every two seconds, but in these enlightened days the caregivers must figure that since somewhere in the world snacking on your own focking snot is acceptable behavior, they don’t want to seem responsible for weighing down our future ambassadors with some kind of cultural bias at an early age. Kumbaya.

It was ’round about the time that I quoted Eugene Debs (a guy who should’ve been elected president at least once out of the five times he ran)—“Years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth... While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free”—that most of the kids started bawling and I was asked to hit the focking road. I don’t know if these kids got much out of my discourse, but I sure learned something: If I ever get another speaking engagement, I will be abso-focking-lutely certain to demand the case of ice-cold bottled beer up-front.

Anyways, I’d like to congratulate all our soon June graduates of what-have-you out there, even if I don’t get paid to do it in the flesh. To those of you’s who do not plan on ever getting another ounce of education, I applaud your savvy. Yes, you blink a crafty eye toward the world’s ways, knowing full well that, hey, you can pull down 5 bucks on the hour just as easily without more sheepskin as you could with it. Dunderheads never qualify for the bum’s rush out-the-door at the job interview ’cause they’re over qualified, no sir.

And to those of you who plan to break camp and track the noble entrails of yet even more educating dropped by educators, I say in the parlez vous of your peers: Go for it. What the hell else you going to do. Get a job? Get real.

But to one and all, remember this: It’s not what you learn; it’s how you know how to make some other schmuck look like a focking nitwit in the mind’s eye of Big Chief HooHa, he who signeth the check of pay.

Now some of you’s may run around in focking circles drawn by false scents wafting ’round the job hunt. Do not despair. Let me tell you, the one thing they didn’t teach you en route to the ceremonial diploma bologna is that jobs suck. Baker, banker, candlestick maker; sailor, tailor, shyster financier; 8-10-12 hours of suck-butt a day just for a stinking roof over your head bites. It’s so bad that the only thing worse is not having a job ’cause 8-10-12 hours a day stinking up the public library and blowing your beak on your sleeve bites even bigger, and… hell, I forgot my point; so skip it ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.