We Are Olden

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, what with the Irish Fest down by the lakefront ’tis this weekend, I thought it a nice thing to share a little story with you’s afflicted with affection for “Ye Auld Sot,” and it goes something like this:

Catholic guy enters the confessional box. To his right there’s a fully equipped bar with Guinness on tap. To his left is a shelf laden with a dazzling array of the finest Cuban cigars not to mention a well-thumbed stack of gentleman’s periodicals of a variety to succor any and all preferential needs. He hears the priest clear his throat from the other side of the confessional window, and so the guy says: “Father, forgive me, for it’s been a heck of awhile since I’ve been to confession, but I must first admit that the confessional box is much more inviting these days.” The priest replies: “Yes, my son. And now you will leave to go say 500 ‘Hail Mary’s’ in penance for trespassing Father’s side of the confessional.” Ba-ding!

So listen, I should tell you’s that I don’t seem to got the gas to pony up an essay’s for you’s this week since I’m still in recovery from the other night when me and the fellas got together over by Little Jimmy Iodine’s place to reminisce and watch the Woodstock movie from years ago on his VCR, seeing as how it’d been 50 years since we ourselves piled into Ernie’s 1958 second-hand four-door Pontiac Star Chief to head to the festival in New York, and by way of crap-ass directions ended the journey off Route 66 at a filling station in Amarillo, Texas, on account of a “bum fuel pump,” as analyzed by the Johnny Reb pump-jockey moments after routinely checking our dip stick and license plate: “You Yankee boys who don’t know shit from shinola when it comes to a Yankee automobile engine driving through the Lone Star State got yourselves a situation here. Do hope you’re not in a hurry to get somewheres.” And fifty years later, I still believe that I would choose an eternity in hell over a day in Texas, what the fock.

Anyways, we were well into our third case of ice-cold Rhinelander whilst watching the movie when Joe focking Cocker hit the stage and Herbie says, “What the fock. What would I do if you sang out of a tune? I’ll tell you what I’d do, I’d tell you to go take some focking music lessons, that’s what, and then I’d tell you to go find a focking day job and leave the rest of us listening public alone. How come Roy Orbison’s not in this movie? There’s a guy who could sing in tune, I kid you not.”

And then Little Jimmy wondered what the young people of today would celebrate 50 years from now as remembrance-anniversary in the year 2069.

And Julius says, “I can’t think of a good goddamn thing that’s happened in 2019 that’ll be worth a nice remembrance in 50 years. What, mass massacres every time you focking turn around? Although, say, if the fockstick who is presently the president were to be abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore never to be heard from again, now that would be an event worth celebrating every focking day for the next 1,000 years, what the fock, ain’a”

So Little Jimmy says, “Fifty years since the Woodstock. Maybe what we ought to really watch right now is that Easy Rider movie ’cause that’s been fifty years to boot, 1969. And about what’s going on these days, I still remember from that movie when the hippie Dennis Hopper hippie-biker character says to the older Jack Nicholson Louisiana-lawyer character: “What the hell’s wrong with freedom, man? That’s what it’s all about.” And Jack Nicholson/George Hanson says: “Oh yeah, that’s right, that’s what it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it—that’s two different things. I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. ’Course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are. Oh yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.”

So it goes, ain’a Kurt, whose greatest novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, came out fifty-focking years ago—America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves.—and so it goes, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.