ART FOR ART'S SAKE
From The City That Always Sweeps BY ART KUMBALEK entitlements the Feds provide, the high roller receives, not some crappy-ass tote bag, but the CD boxed set of all the John Philip Sousa marches as recorded by the United States Air Force Band.
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’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, as the too-long Lenten season culminates finally with a late Easter Sunday this month, let us pray, what the fock:
“Dear Lord, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal: “Remember me? It’s been a while, ain’a? Yeah, me, your spittin’ image under this orange doom-skinned earflap cap, a regular Davy Fockett, razin’, blazin’ new trails through this valley of travail. Ring a bell? That’s what I figured. Hey, you’re not the only one, so no need for you to feel like a jackass, I kid you not. “I’ve heard that a good prayer is supposed to be like a conversation with You, the Lord; so you mind if I beseech thee that for once you hold up your end of the gabfest? Thanks. “I can’t remember the last time I made an official prayer. I almost did that time years ago when I was riding with my buddy Little Jimmy Iodine and we just barely missed nailing that stalled Pinto in the middle of I-focking-94. But it all happened so fast, and then we had to turn around and go home for clean underwear. In all the commotion, seems I forgot about making out a prayer. I do know that I call out your name several times daily, requesting that you send this or that straight to hell—‘Jesus H. Christ, these focking Republicans…’—I suppose legalistically that might not add up to regular praying but it sure feels good, so what the fock, ain’a?
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“Talk about listening pleasure, you betcha. JPS, all told, wrote 136 marches; or was it he wrote one march one hundred and thirty-focking-six times? I forget. But I do know that a CD collection of the Sousa marches would last me a musical lifetime. I could listen to one of his marches and, what with all those blaring blugelhorns blasting their butts off to kingdom come and back, I’d say it’d be at least a year ’til I was ready to listen to another. One down, only 135 to go, yes sir. “Anyways, I can’t stay on this prayer line too much longer ’cause I got to get back to finishing off my goddamn April income tax form, yeah, April, the same month you got crucified; although, some years here in the modern times, on the calendar they say you were crucified in later March, go figure. “But I got to tell you, my tax return every year consists of a short note I mail in, and it goes something like this: “Dear IRS Sir or Madam, “Hey, I already paid. The federal tax on cigarettes alone I cough up yearly to you’s ought to be enough to buck-up a bridge or fill a focking pothole somewheres, ain’a? So let’s call it even. And may I remind you that in the Book of Kumbalek, ‘income’ is a synonym for ‘imaginary.’ “But thanks for your interest. “Sincerely, Art Kumbalek. “And good lord, I do believe this Internal Revenue Service tax compact really ought to be made voluntary, like they did with the military service years ago. How ’bout they turn tax-time into a pledge drive, à la National Public Radio. If the citizen chooses to flip the government some dough, he and/or she at least should receive a focking tote bag or coffee mug for making the donation, don’t you think? “And if any high-roller millionaire chips in big time to the government, say, in appreciation for all the corporate welfare
“But before I go, a little story for you’s. My buddy Little Jimmy Iodine told me he was over by his brother-in-law’s place in West Allis on Easter Sunday last year when they had the Easter egg hunt in their dinky backyard for Jimmy’s two little nephews. So these katzenjammer kids are traipsing around and they come across some rabbit turds, except the younger kid doesn’t know that, so he asks his older brother, ‘Hey, what are those?’ “The older kid says, ‘They’re smart pills. Eat them and they'll make you smarter.’ So the younger nephew chews on a couple, three and says, ‘Hey! These taste like poop smells.’ And the older boy says, ‘See? You're getting smarter already.’ Ba-ding! “So I’m guessing that the moral of the story is that the older you get, the more you know what shit tastes like. But the trick is that you never want to develop a taste for it. “Okey-dokey, Lord, that’s about it. And come to think of it, don’t worry about getting back to me ’cause like I’ve always said, one day you start hearing voices out of thin air, next day you’re out carving up Cub Scouts. I don’t need that kind of aggravation, what the fock. “And please grant me the continuance to be the hot flaming palaver poker lodged up his-or-hers butt sideways but good; so that an unfettered bantering of ideas may be bandied around the town today, tomorrow and yesterday. Amen, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.”
Frame image by thumb/Getty Images. Painting image by sedmak/Getty Images. Barrier rope image by Andrey Suslov/Getty Images. Background texture by ke77kz/Getty Images.
