Yesterday and Today

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Photo illustration: Dave Zylstra

Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, what with this covert killer COVID hodgepodge making the rounds, still, lo, these days, I hear, another Summerfest has not come and gone, and the fests do not keep festering around the town, and with no Bastille Days French frolic Downtown that would’ve been a shebang ’round about now—the Drink Beer on the Street and Oui-Oui in Le Boulevard fest, which always begs the question: How do you get a French waiter’s attention? Hey, start ordering in German. Ba-ding! And of course there’s the story about the guy who asks his companion, “What’s the most common French expression?” And his friend scratches his head, shrugs his shoulders and says, “I give up.” Ba-ding! Yes sir, nothing like some good ol’ WW II humor to isolate the heart’s warmth, what the fock.

Yeah yeah, the good ol’ days, like just a year ago—go anywhere you want at any time, no masks required outside of a hospital, except for Halloween, avant-garde theatrical production or armed robbery.

And the bars. Me and my fellas, being of an older echelon, are reluctant to grab a stool at any of the semi-reopened taverns. Cripes, we have a hard enough time passing a stool in the best of times, virus be damned.

But as a nod to now nostalgic times, had this COVID never come to pass or had it mysteriously disappeared like Jimmy Hoffa or Tim Lincecum’s fastball, we’d surely be gathered up over by the Uptowner tavern/charm school at the hysteric corner by Center & Humboldt there. And given the time of year, I’m pretty goddamn sure the conversation would go pretty much as what follows. So tag along if you like, but you cover the imaginary first round as well as the actual first round someday soon, what the fock. Let’s get going.

Emil: Any you’s guys know what “ramparts” are?

Julius: Yeah, ram parts. That’s what they stuff in those sandwich gyros down at the Greek place, ain’a?

Emil: That can’t be right. I’m talking “ramparts,” like in the song you sing at the ballpark, what-you-call, “My Country ’Tis of Thee.”

Little Jimmy Iodine: Hey Emil, how come you didn’t come by my place for the Fourth? I ended up with too many wieners on my hands.

Emil: I wanted to but I had to go by my sister’s up there in Bumfock, Washington County ’cause the nephew was marching in the parade.

Herbie: I feel for you, Emil. Those high-school marching bands. I tell you, there’s not a song been written that those uniformed gangs of pimply faced masturbators with their blaring blugelhorns can’t slaughter, ain’a?

Ernie: All I’m saying is you take your Highway 27 out of Black River Falls on your way up to Hayward, and what do these towns like your Augusta, your Cadott, your Cornell, have in common?

Herbie: Lots of white guys like us parking their butts on a bar stool?

Ernie: Tons of parking, that’s what. Everywhere you look there’s a parking space.

Ray: No shit, Sherlock. Not a hell of a lot to park for up there.

Ernie: That’s beside the point. I tell you’s, they’re sitting on a focking gold mine and they don’t even know it. If some kind of business-Einstein could find a way to export all that parking to your Milwaukee, Chicago, your Hong focking Kong, the guy would be a billionaire, what the fock.

Little Jimmy Iodine: Hey, Artie! Over here. Put a load on your keister.

Art: Hey gents. What do you hear, what do you know.

Ernie: You’s guys might know, but I heard that this pandemic thing is still on the loose.

Ray: And what I’d like to know is how come whenever the TV news says something’s “on the loose,” it’s always something bad like a deranged asshole serial killer or some kind of epidemic flu? How come nothing good is ever “on the loose”—like a rich guy passing out $1,000 bills, or a cobbler who breaks in while you’re asleep and resoles your brown-patent wingtips?

Little Jimmy: I heard a little story you might want to put into your little article for the newspaper or whatever you’ve got these days, Artie: So these two elderly ladies were playing a nice game of Canasta when one says, “So tell me, Mae. Did you and your late husband ever have mutual orgasm?” And Mae says, “No, I seem to recall we always had State Farm.” Ba-ding!

Julius: And I heard we got one of those comets from outer space headed our way. The scientists are calling it “Neowise.”

Art: I hope it hits the White House ’cause “Neo-wise” is exactly what we need in there as opposed to “Neo-dumbass,” what the fock.

Herbie: I recall that a couple, three years ago there was a comet out there in space that the scientists thought could have some kind of alien life on it, I shit you not.

Emil: Aliens on a space comet? What the fock do they do for a living way out there?

Little Jimmy: But on a comet in space, I doubt they’d be illegal, ain’a?

Ray: Big focking deal. Didn’t I hear that space aliens landed in New Mexico back in the ’50s?

Herbie: That’s a load of crap. How come these so-called aliens always crash land in a desert or some hillbilly bayou? How come they never go down Fifth focking Avenue in the middle of rush hour? I’ll tell you why. There are no aliens from space. The only aliens they got in New focking Mexico are the ones who crossed over the illegal border.

Ernie: A lot of Mexicans say that the whole so-called American Southwest was stolen by the United States, that it used to be Mexico and they want it back.

Herbie: That’s just what Mexico focking needs, more cactus land with no water on it.

(Hey, it’s getting late and I know you got to go, but thanks for letting us bend your ear, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.)