When I’m 64 plus Number 9

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Painting image by sedmak - Getty Images

Art Kumbalek angel

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, I heard the Fab Four (Fab Two?) finally put out a new tune, “Now and When,” so’s to slake America’s thirst for more Brit-pop one-two-three-four. Haven’t had the courage to lend an ear to this manufactured opus as of yet, in fear that maybe we got another good-golly-Miss Molly-awful spin on “Paperback Writer,” “Yellow Submarine, “When I’m 64” on our futuristic hands, what the fock.

“Will you still need me / will you still feed me / When I’m sixty-four”

Feed me? Like I’m some kind of hungry potted plant out of Little Shop of Horrors? Backoff caregiving asshole, I’m perfectly capable to sprinkle the Metamucil upon my breakfast bowl of Grape focking Nuts all by myself. I’m a big boy. I’m 64.

Seems to me that back there in your 1967, youngish songwriters imagined that a physical age of 64 should be considered to be goddamn Methuselah-esque, who, by the by, according to sources cited in the Bible, died at the age of 969 years old. Whoa Nellie! That’s a nice run, I don’t care who you are, ain’a? And that was back 5,000 years ago when health insurance was just a shyster’s dream, I kid you not.

So yeah, I had a what-you-call a birthday just the other day (cold hard cash is always appreciated), and here’s a little story of such a day:

A young girl says to her mom, “Instead of buying me clothes for my birthday, can you send them to all the other girls that haven’t got any?

“And who may they be?” asked the mother.

“The ones on daddy’s computer.” Ba-ding!

Yeah yeah, when I’m seventy-three, like the other day for fock’s sake, November 6, a birthdate I share with Agrippina the Younger, Suleiman the Magnificent, Adolphe Sax and John Philip Sousa (“The March King” who wrote one march about a thousand times over).

But here’s my deal: I’m presently out-of-sorts with some kind of medical condition, again, some kind of post Daylight Savings Time stress—PDSTS, ask your focking doctor about it like the TV suggests, for christ sakes. Brighter days may be around the corner, but today the best I can do for you’s is to recall the past, which very well may be today, what the fock. It goes something like this:

Another Daylight-Saving Time fall back/extra hour day has come and gone and it’s left me feeling a whole bunch down and blue in deep despair, what the fock.

Oh my, what big plans I had to put that extra hour to good use: Learn Etruscan; consume The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings; darn a couple, three pair of socks; visit Potawatomi Hotel & Casino for a little relaxation and monetary gain. And in the end, what did I accomplish with that free 60 minutes? Nothing. Abso-focking-lutely nothing. I failed. I overslept. And now fully firschimmelt, all I can do is piss and moan whilst supine on the davenport with the TV lighting the room 24 hours a day, I kid you not.

And so this lack of lead in my pencil prevents me from laying the necessary pipe needed to inflate a full-blown essay that would serve to satisfy the needs of a vivacious if not wanton reading public. Here I am, depressed, housebound and dependent on the kindness of acquaintances and hangers-on for fortification. (In that regard, my buddy Little Jimmy Iodine stopped by this morning to bolster this soldier’s mess kit with a handful of Slim Jims and a couple, three bags of beer nuts. A regular Florence Nightingale that guy is. Too bad the focker forgot the economy-size crock of Old Crow that I really need to restore my strength and sunny outlook so as to return to fighting form.)

Anyways, I got to go on account of feeling rather weak if not downright impotent for this week’s intercourse. Besides, the History Channel’s got a show coming on about big-deal historical discoveries and discoverers—probably the usual suspects, you know, your fire, movable type, Tycho Brahe, flight, Albert Einstein, combustion engine, the transistor, Leonardo da focking Vinci—which sounds like a good chance for me to get a little nap, so’s I can awaken with more energy for pissing and moaning.

Heyyyy, I’ll bet you a buck two-eighty one thing they won’t mention on that show is the discovery of the liquor store—“The Stores That Made the World.” I tell you, the guy who came up with that kind of scheme should be in the historical hall of fame. A thousand years ago, I don’t know if people even had stores for anything, much less one devoted only to good times stored in bottles on shelves that are never empty. I suppose hundreds and hundreds of years ago, if a regular guy had a taste for a little eye-opener, he had to go make his own. What a pain in the butt, ain’a? Probably what happened is that breakthroughs in political theory proved that the more time spent making hootch, the less time spent drinking it—an equation that gave rise to wars that could last a hundred years at a crack, what the fock.

And I’ll bet this TV show won’t touch on the importance of the discovery of the gentlemen’s periodical and its role in the creation of the modern society we enjoy today. Hard to imagine the hoops you’d have to jump through even 500 years ago just to see a gal buck-naked. Sure, a lot of those old-fart fine-art painters you might’ve heard of in school knew from putting skin on canvas, but during their time in the Middle Ages, most of their paintings were scooped up by some kind of liege lord and locked up for safekeeping in a dank castle, unavailable for the perusal and nut-relieving edification of the common Joe Blow.

OK, one last thing before I forget. Little Jimmy had a story he told me, thinking that laughter would be the best medicine for me, god bless him. I’m not sure how good this medicine is, but here it is anyways, what the fock:

So this little kid just got potty trained. But when he went to the bathroom to go Number One, the kid managed to hit everything but the toilet. So his mom had to go in and clean up after him every goddamn time the kid went to take a leak. After two weeks, she had enough and took him to see the doctor.

After the exam, the doctor said, “My good woman. The problem for your son is that his, shall we say, ‘unit’ is too small. An old wives’ tale is to give him two slices of toast each morning, and his unit will grow so that he can hold it and aim straight. You may want to try that.”

Next morning the little kid jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to the kitchen. There on the table are 12 slices of toast.

“Mom!” the kid says. “The doctor said I only had to eat two slices of toast.”

The mother says, “I know. The other 10 are for your father.”

Ba-ding! ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.