Thought You Knew

×

Expand

Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, thinking about to whom you ought to flip your big-time franchised vote later this year coming Tuesday, Nov. 5, for some kind of suit who would be your next president of the United States?

Here might be something to consider come decision-making time, from Brian Karem on the salon.com, long-time correspondent/journalist/reporter not to mention pain-in-the-ass of those who require that pain:

salon.com/2024/04/25/maga-begins-to-panic-may-not-make-it-to-the-ballot

The Trump White House was unlike anything I have ever seen—nor will likely see again. It was unprofessional, intolerable, idiotic, chaotic and filled with innuendo. It was a grade-B Hollywood production led by a self-loathing narcissist with delusions of adequacy. 

Ouch! ain’a?

And so, let me tell you that this week I got to serve up something a little outside-on-the-corner from my usual essay form through which I pound the political and societal pud until insightful common sense literately drips from the screen/page. But not this time, boo-focking-hoo. 

As a candidate again for the presidency of all the states in the union (although I’ll tell you’s, if a couple, three decided to cut ties, say your South Carolina, Texas, your Florida, and what the heck, Utah, I sure as hell wouldn’t lose any sleep), I figure it’s high time to go serious about getting my list of possible running mates by the short hairs, so that the people would have a better clue as to what they’d be getting into come a Kumbalek administration, what the fock. 

I know that somewheres out there is exactly the guy or gal whose name rightfully should be added to that august veep list that includes the likes of Elbridge Gerry, Schuyler Colfax, Levi P. Morton, Garret A. Hobart, and all the other vice presidents, household names each and every one, known in every American civics class (before fascist school boards disallowed such a thing) from Natchez to Mobile, from Memphis to St. Jo’.

Since the lucky stiff I select could one day assume the catbird seat if I were to choke croaked on a chicken bone, run over by a bus or get sent up the river on some kind of trumped up phony Republican charge, I thought I’d do a little snooping around former presidents and see if I could come up with anything even remotely resembling a quality that I’d want in my vice president. For the research, I turned to the internet that Al Gore discovered, and gosh darn, I’m constantly amazed that these computers can do more for you than get smut stuff and sports scores, I kid you not.

So in lieu of my essay just so’s you got something to read while I go work on my V.P. list, I will publish the findings on presidents I found along with the notes I made that I can actually read. And just to make it more fun for you’s, I tried to stick with presidents whose names may even be somewhat familiar to at least a couple of you’s executive-branch scholars.

• President Taft, who weighed 340 lbs., got stuck in his bathtub on his Inauguration Day and had to be pried out by his attendants. His bathtub was large enough for four averaged-sized men. (Not a bad idea, except as president I’d make sure that tub was big enough for three averaged-sized gals, and me.)

• Jimmy Carter was the first president born in a hospital. (Hope his parents had health insurance.)

• President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other—simultaneously! (Big focking deal. What, no hand for English?)

• Andrew Jackson was the only U.S. president to believe the world is flat.(Yeah, and I can just hear Ronald Reagan saying, “Ha ha, see? I’m not the only the only one.”)

• The first president to ride in an automobile was William McKinley. After being shot, he was taken to the hospital in a 1901 Columbia electric ambulance. (Kind of a “good news—bad news” deal there, ain’a?)

• Gerald Ford pardoned Robert E. Lee posthumously of all crimes of treason.(Cripes, so who’s next on this treason train: Timothy McVeigh, James Earl Ray, Donald Trump? What the fock.)

• George Washington was deathly afraid of being buried alive. After he died, he wanted to be laid out for three days just to make sure he was really dead. (Hey, stick a wooden fork in him, he’s done all right already.)

• The Roman emperor Caligula made his horse a senator. (Man oh manischewitz, no downsized government for those Romans, ain’a? Maybe I should be emperor instead of president. They used the whole goddamn horse whereas in our Senate today, the president gets only the fat-ass back-end to work with.)

• Richard Nixon left instructions for “California, Here I Come” to be the last piece of music played, softly and slowly, at his funeral were he to die in office.(Yeah yeah, never such luck.)

• All U.S. presidents have worn glasses. (And yet perhaps only a handful could actually see.)

• No president was an only child. (And each one had at least one nitwit knobshine as a sibling.)

• John Quincy Adams took his last skinny-dip in the Potomac on his 79th birthday. (And I’m thinking Beyonce could take her first Potomac skinny-dip on her election as my vice president.)

• George W. Bush. (A dumbass beholden to his political base of nutbag conservative Christian groups who believe that the dinosaurs factually lived with Adam and what’s-her-name in the Garden of Eden, and the reason they got extinct is because they drowned in Noah’s Flood ’cause they were too damn big to fit on his focking dinky ark. Sounds far-fetched to me, but on the other hand, I never had to take an Earth Science class at a Texas middle school, so go focking figure.)

Just checking back in to see how you’re doing. I haven’t made much headway on my veep list, sorry to say, but I’m going to keep working on it because as in the historic tradition of many of the men who served our country in the land’s highest office, it’s the least I can do ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.