Top of the World, Ma!

×

Expand

Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, lo, these days, what with all the all the immigrating here-to-there hellzapoppin’ gasbagging going on, I’m reminded of a little story from past days:

So a Polish guy, an Italian guy and an Irish guy got out of work constructing some kind of high-rise for future ritzy condo dwellers and confabbed about where to go for a post-labor cocktail. The Irish guy says, “Let’s go to O’Donoghues. With every third round, the bartender will give us each a free Guinness.”

The Italian guy says, “Sounds a’mighty good to me, but if we go to the Baldini’s, every third round they bring us a free bottle of wine to the table.”

And the Polish guy says, “You’s guys, listen. At Kowalski’s, we drink free all night and then go out to the parking lot and get laid but good.”

The other two would-be ethnic stereotypes agree that it sounds too good to be true, but the Irish guy asks the Polish guy if he’s actually ever been to Kowalski’s. Polish guy says, “Heck no, I heard about it from my wife. She goes there all the time.” Ba-ding!

And I got to tell you’s that I think that the jocular tale above just may show how far we’ve come in being sensitive to the peccadilloes if not downright peculiarities of ethnic types who hail from other cultures that got started in other countries of land that would be foreign to the American experience but then became such, I kid you not.

Years ago you see, our three fictitious melting-pot co-workers in need of a cocktail refresher would’ve been stereotypically called “Luigi,” “Paddy,” “Stosh.” But hey, just ’cause you’re a’from the Italy doesn’t necessarily mean your name is “Luigi” and you gesture like a madman on crystal meth as you verbally butcher the English language. Just because you’re from the Emerald Isle doesn’t necessarily mean your name is “Paddy,” you have 17 siblings and you are chronically tardy for work ’cause you’re too focking hammered to know which end is up. And just because you were born in Krakow doesn’t mean your name is “Stosh” and you’re focking stupid.

No sir, “the Italian guy,” “the Irish guy,” “the Polish guy”—these are terms of a palatable generic-ness that perhaps can help inform and civilize the dissection of the discussion of our country’s peoples’ differences in this day of age. God bless America, you betcha.

So anyways, I got to go and get ready for the Mother’s Day coming up, the day we celebrate the lady from whom we all traveled within so as to enter out into this ferkakta world as we know it.

(Oops! Hold on, I got the land-line ringing here and I better take the call. It could be this Nigerian prince I ran into on the Internet who sent me a message that he’s got like a couple, three million bucks with my name on it if only I can help him out with a little misunderstanding he’s having with a United States financial institution, the bastards.)

“Hey Artie, so you know if you’re coming by my place Sunday yet?”

(It’s my buddy Little Jimmy Iodine. He’s planning to have a Mother’s Day brunch for us fellas whose ma’s have gone to a better a place, and by better place I don’t mean Vegas on a three-day junket. I’ll make this call short so’s we can get back to business.)

“Jimmy, call me later. I’m right in the middle of whipping out an essay for the Shepherd.”

“Yeah, OK Artie, I understand—power of the press, or what’s left of it, et-focking-cetera. But I got to know now how many Polish sausage I got to get for Sunday. And don’t forget, I’m making my famous ground-beef stuffed cabbage rolls and yes, I got plenty of horse radish. Hey, did I tell you Felix Bryszeswiczkowtowski said he was coming?”

“You got to be jerking my beefaroni, Jimmy. I haven’t seen that wag since that night a hundred years ago when he got barred-for-life from the Dutchland Dairy restaurant after he loosened the tops to all the salt-shakers right before the crowd from Our Lady In Pain That You Kids Will Go Straight To Hell But Not Soon Enough came in for their post-prom repast.”

“Yeah yeah, Artie. Justice could be harsh for a young guy back then. So’s you know, his ma died the other year but he still puts flowers on her grave each day of the week.”

“That can be expensive.”

“Tell me. But Artie, he works out at a cemetery. Same one his ma’s buried at, and it doesn’t cost him a dime for the flowers. What he does is when he’s out cutting the grass, raking leaves, picking up doggie poop and he sees someone put flowers on a grave, he’ll wait ’till they drive off and then move them over to his ma’s grave.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

“You betcha, Artie—especially with this economy. Listen, I know you got to go and do your little article, but I want to run by you for suggestions a little spoken-word thing I put together that I’d like to recite right before we cut into the ring baloney on Sunday. I call it “How I Spell Mother” and it goes something like this:

“M: is for those meals you cooked I always tried my best to be way late for. I’ll never forget those pot roasts. I’m still trying to swallow a piece from one of them that I’ve been chewing since 1963.

“O: is for the first vowel in the word “vocabulary.” And you taught me well that “o” is also the first word in “soap.” Cripes, I was the only kid in fifth grade who could swear and blow bubbles at the same time.

“T: is for the one hundred-thousand dollars my baseball/football collector cards and comic books from the late’50s and ’60s would be worth today if you hadn’t tossed them in the trash while I was elsewhere some afternoon performing my community-service obligation. Lucky for you, ma, I couldn’t afford a better lawyer when I sued and took you to court for “loss of income.” T-anks for nothing.

“H: stands for those what-the-hell-kind-of-cancer-patient haircuts you administered in the kitchen while I sat beneath the salad bowl just so you could save the two-bits that the ribald Italian barber up the street would’ve otherwise charged. I still can’t look at the photos from my first wedding to this day.

“E: what the fock, still haven’t figured out what “E” stands for. And R: is for that even with all the toil and trouble we gave each other, I really miss you, I kid you not. I do really miss you. A-women.”

“Nice, Jimmy. Yeah, OK, see you Sunday.”

And hey, talk about the spoken word come to think of it, if you’re looking for a nice champagne toast at your own Mother’s Day brunch, how ’bout you pop some Oscar Wilde into your raised glass: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.

O-Wilde, you be the dandy man still, to take the rainbow, wrap it in a sigh and soak it in the sun, or something like that, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.