Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, I heard the other day that some kind of DNA testing and ancestry outfit called 23andMe is going bankrupt down the toilet. History schmistory, what is it good for, huh yeah? Just ask Tumpel-thinskin, he’ll tell you: “Absolutely nothing, say it, say it, say it, listen to me.”
Anyways, the 23andMe ancestor schmutz reminds me of some many years ago when in the mail I got advertised a “remarkable collection of valuable information available only in ‘THE NEW WORLD BOOK OF KUMBALEKS’.” It promised me that my flabber would be gasted by “historic Kumbalek facts” from “actual immigration records,” that I’d “discover never-before-published facts about the Kumbalek population,” that I’d learn about family crests and blah-focking-blah-blah plus there’d be historic wood-cuts and archival photographs, I kid you not.
Usually, I wouldn’t suck at an outside pitch like this ’cause I’m betting that just like anybody else, nine out of ten ancestors were jags and knobshines when you average out the course of human history starting from your cave-man fore-fore-fore-father, and who wants to pay for what you already know, ain’a?
Yet, I thought maybe there’s an out-of-the-park shot that some focking fossil of a Kumbalek somewheres sometime hit the big big-time, and maybe I could search out some upper-crust branch of descendants and knock them up for a buck two-eighty or three, what the fock.
So I sent in for the guaranteed money-back trial order. Time passed, and I got the first installment of my “custom made to order” first edition book of all things Kumbalekian, and I got to tell you’s it was surprisingly not too shabby. It even had an archival photo of some antediluvian Kumbalek standing around watching the Magna Carta get John-Hancocked by King John back there in June of 1215.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Now, the question of how a Polish guy from whatever constituted “Poland” in the 13th century could be found shining around in the background at the signing of Limeyville’s most historic document must have an answer that sadly has been lost to history, according to my alma-focking-nac.
Perhaps if I were to order the second installment of “THE NEW WORLD BOOK OF KUMBALEKS,” the answer would be revealed to have been discovered, but if this relative’s at all like me, he showed up to crash the after-party for the free hors d’oeuvres, motivated by the notion I’ve heard that hunger was widespread if not rampant in the olden days.
As I studied this more than 800-year-old photograph, so as to determine if this lower-limbed Kumbalek was the one who sat on the branch of the family tree from which my chiseled yet questionable good looks sprouted, I discovered the old fart was wearing a wrist-watch, I jerk your beefaroni not. And here I thought wrist watches were not de rigeur du jour until at least the inventions of Sir Isaac Newton and Ben Franklin.
So what the fock, I can only deduce that some sort of Kumbalek must have discovered the wrist-watch way back in the 1200’s and then either lost the goddamn thing or was too focking lazy to get a patent on it. Hey, I’d be on Easy Street for life if I didn’t have such a focking nitwit for an ancestor.
The only other thing I got with the first installment was some moldy document that showed that when a couple, three Kumbaleks finally found/discovered Ellis Island a couple, three centuries after the wrist watch fiasco, around the time Grover Cleveland Alexander was president the second time, persnickety immigration officials with a yen for copy editing decided to shorten the name from the original KumbalekarwiczchowiakensteinDeLiaccO’Rodriguezbergchan’elSharmasseinskisonski.
Yeah yeah, had a nice ring to it, but how the hell you’s ever going to put that on the back of an athletic jersey? Fock if I know. What a world. And what a country.
To recall, as I awaited my next “Kumbalek” installment, I remembered the words from that ancient old-fart Greek guy who went by the name of Anonymous: “More important than where we’re from is where we’re going.”
Bon voyage, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
