Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, the Shepherd had asked me again to write a gasbag investigative story about whether there’s lost productivity on the part of the American workingman during the NCAA college hoopla tournament. After a little research and hobnobbing, I find I can boil my article down to an elite eight words ’cause that’s the kind of self-editor I am: “You can bet your sweet ass there is.” End of story, what the fock.
And I ought to know. After pissing away four consecutive days and nights watching college basketball on the TV, I lost the 30-40 minutes I need and demand to carefully craft and hone my piece of work customarily found on this back page. But it being a holy time of year with the Lent and all, when it comes to worship I believe you take from religion what you can use, and I can use some time off from this essay. Yes, I’ve had the heebie-jeebies over how my employer would view my choice of sacrificial duty vis-à-vis my typically hardy labor ethic—but I’m guessing he won’t notice any difference.
(And if you’re wondering how my own carefully considered fur-focking-shlugginer basketball bracket is faring, it’s the same old story. The two well-known schools I had chosen to meet in the championship game changed their names last weekend to The University of Jack Shit and Long Gone State. Yeah, that’s how I’m doing. Thanks for asking.)
But before I go, I ought to mention I hear it’s springtime now, that very special time of year when a young man’s fancy turns to ha-cha-cha hoochie coochie with whomever, whenever, wherever, as often as possible. And god bless the heartily youthful of loin as they go about their bra-snapping and crotch-grabbing ways, so as to keep the Homo sapien gene pool deep and moist, as a garden whose flowers could be selectively picked by an evolutionarily new and improved (and wishfully, more thoughtful) version of the genus Homo.
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And to the aging, old-fart-of-the-loin baby boomers, I fear the best of us may no longer be with us. Vasectomized, high on Viagra, sporting white facial hair to draw attention from the tragically receding hairline where once flew proudly one’s hirsute freak flag, let’s face it, our time is done. We are yesterday’s news—so much for our “youth revolution”; although, through sheer numbers, we may still be able to blow up the Medicare and Social Security dough like nobody’s business but our own. Power to the People!
Yeah, once upon a time, chanteuse-goddess Joni Mitchell hastened the Pepsi Generation “to get ourselves back to the garden.” Little did I know then that the “garden” 45 years later would be the Country Garden Restaurant for the Early Bird Special. It is to laugh. It is to cry.
Yes sir, March 20, first day of focking springtime, one of only two days in the whole year when lightness and darkness slug it out to a standstill. A tie, a draw—what they call in the sports-world “kissing your sister” (historically considered a “marriage proposal” in the south-central-eastern United States).
Yet, in the olden, olden days when there were even more weird-ass religions afoot than there are today, this day was marked as one of barely a handful of rites the common people had during the year where they’d take the day off from fighting the plague and getting kicked in the ass by their liege lord, so as to celebrate by slaughtering a barnyard animal or three as some kind of nutty sacrificial offering to the deities du jour.
Now, I’m no religious expert but I’m telling you’s, just imagine if those wacky ancestors of mine and maybe yours were on to something, that maybe they knew something we’ve forgotten—that hacking up a perfectly good lamb or cow on the first day of spring actually did buy you a couple extra days of sunshine during the year, or maybe relieve that toothache you had since coming back from the Crusades 10 years ago. What a world.
Anyways, about this onslaught of the season called spring, all it means to me is that we’re one step closer to summertime’s goddamn hot and humid, noisy and sticky weather, the kind that makes me feel like I’m living in some Third World sweatshop of a country instead of being an American. So to spring, I say thanks for nothing, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
