Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, hope you and yours had a wonderful fourth of July what with your wieners and firecrackers whilst celebrating the 249th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, notarized by 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress, all white guys by the way, I hear.
I’ll tell you’s, in (re)reading that aging document the other day for the heck of it, once I got past the early hoo-yah of “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” blah-blah, I read farther on to where it says this:
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
Okey-doke, tell me more.
There follows a list of 27 bugs-up-the-butts listed on the document, such as:
“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”
“He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable (love that), and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.”
“He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”
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“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.”
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”
“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.”
“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”
“For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments”
Apparently, there was a time when we the people had a situation with King bullshit.
I could go on, but boy-oh, those white-wigged colonists surely did love themselves some CAPITAL letters not to mention an addiction to the overuse of vowels, ain’a?
Brave guys they were to have John Hancocked such a document back then in the original Tea Party days. You had your rock stars such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and then there are the lesser knowns (the roadies of the day), such as Button Gwinnett out of Georgia but born in England (1735-1777, shot dead at the age of 42 from the dire results of a duel with a political rival—no word if Lin-Manuel Miranda has a new rap musical in the works).
Yeah yeah, “Button.” There’s a name you don’t often hear, lo, these modern times, unless you know somebody with a bunch of house pets, what the fock.
Cripes, I think it’s time for your Uncle Artie to take a vacation, I kid you not. But jeez louis, they never turn out the way I’d prefer. You want to know what my vacations are like? I’ll tell you what they’re like. They’re like what happened to this friend of mine. Here:
One day this guy I know is on his way to lunch and walks right by a snazzy travel agency with a sign in the window that says, “Four-day cruise down the Murray River—$40 all inclusive!”
He can’t believe the price, and a nice relaxing river cruise was exactly what he had in mind for vacation that year. So he races into the agency, slaps two Jacksons down on the counter and tells the agent he wants to book a Murray cruise. Agent says, “Very good, sir,” whips out a baseball bat and knocks the guy stone-cold out.
So he comes to and finds himself strapped to a floating log racing down a white-water river. A little ways down, he sees another guy strapped to a log rolling down the other side of the river.
“Forty-dollar Murray cruise?” he shouts out. “Hey, you betcha,” says his fellow cruiser on the other side.
“This blows. I’ll bet we don’t even get breakfast,” he yells. “I don’t know,” says the other guy, “we did last year.” Ba-ding!
So, I’m guessing my vacation will be an indoor activity scaling the mountain of health-care bills upon my kitchen table. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—the cat’s pajamas, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
