Tourney Kit

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Photo illustration: Dave Zylstra

Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, now that USA USA USA has gone down in defeat in the championship game to Venezuela for cripes sake in the World Baseball Classic, how long you’s think ’til Trumpel-thinskin puts a hit on and takes out Rob Manfred, commissioner of Major League Baseball? What the fock.

Anyways, you betcha by golly, still struggling over here by me on whether or not I ought to yet forego this-or-that for the half-over Lenten season, if for no other reason than a saintly bi-partisan gesture ’cause that’s the kind of guy/goy I am, I kid you not.

So now I thought about maybe giving up symphony conducting ’til the Easter. But on the off-chance I were to get a call to mount the podium and twirl the baton for a bunch of bow-slingers hacking their way through some Rimsky-Kovsky, I can’t afford to turn down a paying gig, so what the fock.

Timeout: Hey, why’d the orchestra conductor get booed at the grocery store? He forgot his Chopin-Liszt. Ba-ding!

Hold on a cotton-focking-picking minute here, stop the music, stop the music. I should warn you not to expect much of an essay this week. This essay will be infected neither by length nor dense ponderance (you’re focking welcome) on account of because I’ve come down with a case of this March Madness, a debilitation I’m struck by annually—usually this time of year, go figure.

And what with Holy Week fast coming up like a bad burrito, I feel behooved to take time off from the day-to-day godforsaken insane ways of this world so’s to bless myself with a retreatfully quiet period to observe and religiously fulfill the solemn task of completing my bracket-form-thing for this year’s Men’s NCAA College Basketball Tournament, praise the lord.

For those of you tipping your toe into this pool for the first time, let me tell you’s that a symptom of this madness can be diagnosed as the craving to screw your employer (wherever they may be) out of a few days of honest labor because you are sick with the need to contemplate and complete successfully the tournament bracket wherein you conjure the victor of each and every of 60-plus games just so’s you can win a couple, three bucks in your pissant pool, which will afford you the ability to explain to your fellow contestants/employees what a bunch of losers they are, have always been, and always will be.

Lo, the many years of participating in these yearly collegiate bracket contests, I learned that pissing away eight-hours-a-day of company time on making my selections just wasn’t getting the job done—that if I planned to enjoy myself one shining championship moment with the seashells and balloons, I also had to put up huge numbers in the “Lost Worker-Productivity” department.

This was especially true my last year’s bout of the madness. To focking wit: Somehow, my own selection for the 2025 Final Four included the Electoral College, and my championship-game had the New Jersey Institute of Technology hitting the hardwood against the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Yes, they are the same school. Yes, neither one qualified for the tournament in 2025, or ever I’m thinking, I kid you not.

But I had always heard and believed that anything can happen in the NCAAs; so I thought, what the fock, go for the long shot from deep ’cause who the hell else would have a team playing itself in the final game? I’ll tell you’s who. A guy who didn’t take the time to study. A guy like me.

So I sign off here, perhaps to study some colleges I never knew existed, investing an amount of time that will supersede that which entire major university roundball squads will spend near or in a classroom any given year, you I kid you not.

And speaking of the madness this March, if you’re still hungover from St. Patty’s Day Week-and-a focking-Half, here’s a little story that may make you feel better:

A young Irish lad had fallen in love with a girl and felt the relationship had gone far enough to take her home to meet his family. One fine Sunday evening the lad, his lady friend and the rest of the family (about 34 members, wouldn’t you know) were gathered around the dining-room table. The matriarch of the family asked the girlfriend, “So, tell me, lass, what is your occupation?”

The lass hesitated a moment, then said, “Truth is Mrs. O’Malley, I’m a prostitute.” Well sir, the lad’s mother fainted away then and there, surrounded by the 34 family members who splashed her face with water and ale. Finally, she regained consciousness, the family calmed down and the meal resumed. By-and-by, the O’Malley lad’s mother once again inquired, “Forgive me, dearie. Perhaps I did not hear you correctly earlier. What is it that you do?”

Again the girl answered, “I’m a prostitute, ma’am.”

This time Mrs. O’Malley did not faint. Instead, she laughed and raised her glass, “A Dhia mhóir! for a moment there I thought you said you were a Protestant!” O’ ba-ding!

Go Badgers! ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.