Vax Populi

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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, first, thank you to those who read; yes, reading all kinds of things (like this essay), a regular thing people do (or used to) to learn of truth, justice and the American way (such as it is), what the fock.

Second, for those of you’s privileged to have been out of BeerTown last Labor Day weekend (summertime’s finale, finally), here, eventually, follows some newsy bits you may have lost out on ’cause you were too busy out-of-town in beloved Hayward or up by Crivitz to be helping your doofus brother-in-law try to pull up his focking dock for the winter down lakeside from his crappy-ass coldwater cabin nestled quaintly above the shore of the algae-ridden acre of 30-inch deep Lake Quicksand Bottom and your phone dropped out of your pocket to be consumed by the muck below. Or something like that, what the fock.

And just so’s you know, I happen to believe that a free-will choice that involves the secluded spectacle of outdoor camping out in the boon-focking-docks is a notion that not only flies in the face of the natural course of human evolution, but may also be some kind of unnamed perversion to boot, I kid you not.

But before we begin with my semi-timely news and information update for you vacationing slackers to use so as to improving our geologically relative brief life on this so-called planet, there is this question:

Climate focking change? How ’bout these Venusian planet-surface temperatures we’ve had to endure here on Earth in Brewtown and elsewhere of late? You got to be jerking my beefaroni. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of this rerun of a summertime all right already, I kid you not. The only good thing I can say about heat and humidity is that it renews my appreciation for the invention of ice in the shape of a cube small enough that a couple, three can float comfortably on a bourbonic sea outlined by the goodly dimensions of my beaker o’ cocktail to be enjoyed within the friendly confines of my dinky apartment or perhaps a booze joint, dank and dark, where the proprietor understands the value of setting the AC on “stun,” and conversation volumetrically—in both its amplitude and frequency of address—approximates that of a seminary for deaf monks, you betcha. 

So as I was saying, another Labor Day weekend is done and over, the holiday where many honor the working-man by pissing the time away drinking beer in the backyard or a park or in the Dells or Up North somewheres whilst searching the area for a couple, three brats alongside a healthy spade of some kind of potato salad.

Hey, how ’bout instead we somehow ramp-up the tribute to those who need to work twice as hard and twice as long day-after-day with no union support so’s to maintain multi-millionaire-dollar CEOs comfortably cocooned within their 500-acre estates known as Peckerwood financed by his underpaid serfs and peons?

OK, the newsy bits: I heard that Mitch (“The South Shall Rise Again as Long as I Get a Generous Cut),” Mc-focking-Connell, Senate minority leader, had the other day a second what-they-call “brain freeze” whilst speaking to reporters. People are concerned—“Without Mitch, who’s going to flush down the toilet Democratic nominations for the Supreme Court?” etcetera.

I, for one, am not farmisht by “brain freeze” within D.C.’s halls of power. Cripes, no one remembers George W.’s eight years wandering the White House in search of locating where the White House was? Or Ronald (“Huh?”) Reagan, assessing and collecting the very best coloring books with which he could stock the shelves of his presidential library following his overdue passing?

And, another newsy bit that may have flown by you. Seems there’s a new Covid trickster variant out and about, like a teenage kid who figured a way to jimmy the lock you recently put on his/her window. 

And so of course, there’s this from this invaluable guy: “Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Read this: 

salon.com/2023/09/02/its-come-to-this-the-anti-vax-movement-is-now-after-your-dog

Here’s the headline and sub to the article, just so you’s know what you’re getting into:

It’s come to this: The anti-vax movement is now after your dog

The anti-vaxxers are now going to war against rabies vaccines for dogs

Need more enticement? OK, here’s an excerpt:

“This is a bigger problem than you’d think. According to the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 99 percent of all rabies cases worldwide are contracted through dogs that are household pets. Even scarier than that, rabies is almost always fatal once dogs or humans show symptoms.”

Focking swell. 

As I’ve said in the past, dogs are stupid. Why the hell do these idiot canines go berserk every goddamn time the doorbell rings? Do they actually imagine inside that peach-pit brain that this time it be something or someone come for them? Hey, they don’t go yelping nuts when the phone rings, do they? No. At least a dog is smart enough to know that no way in a million years is that call for them. Even if it was, they know they’ve got not a damn thing to say, even to another dog. What the hell would they discuss with Fido down the block: how much they’d like to tear the mailman a new one? How much food they swiped off the kitchen table when no one was looking? How the best time to pass gas and lick your privates is when the kids’ grandma comes over? Yeah yeah, big focking deal, been there done that.

“Man’s best friend” for only two reasons that I can see: They’ll never tell you how to drive, and never ever wake you up in the middle of the night to “talk” about something.

So there. But if you truly love your mouth-breathing companion(s)—be it husband, wife, ferkakta kids, grandma, canine, feline, etcetera etcetera etcetera—get you and them the shot whatever it is, I kid you not. Science and history will bless you and that ain’t beanbag, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.