From the City that Always Sweeps

BY ART KUMBALEK

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So how’s this new year been treating you’s so far? I don’t know if it’s just me but to be honest, I don’t notice a dime’s worth of difference from the previous crappy year, what the fock.

But I hear it’s a “new” year that experts are calling 2023, good lord, and I’m thinking the less said about the now dead year 2022 the better.

Yeah yeah, it’s that time of year when we’re up to our eyeballs with all kind of “prediction” malarkey, when all these so-called soothsayers come crawling out of the knobwork. “Soothsayer.” Look it up in the dictionary some time, why don’t you. I’ll bet you a buck two-eighty it says this: “Soothsayer— Bullshit artist of ancient times.”

And I’ll tell you’s, I recall that at the beginning of the last year, I looked back at 2021 and said it had sucked, and my crystal ball told me to say that the future-2022 would also suck, but even more. Cripes, I should’ve put my money where my mouth was ’cause if I had, I’d be living the luxury life on Easy Street and lighting my Pall Malls with $100-dollar bills, what the fock.

Anyways, I ask you this: Do I dare offer my decades-long traditional top-ofthe-year Look Back/Watch Out Ahead gala essay, once again?

Hey, I’ll provide the answer for you’s: Why the fock not.

Now to refresh the memories of you constant, if not always gentle, readers, (and to create new memories for the non-constant reader or never-been reader) to wit: In early January 2022, I wrote: And now, without further ado, my “Look Back/Watch Out Ahead” essay, and remember that pithiness is the soul of brevity; so here it is for you to pith on:

The Year 2021: Sucked, jeez louise, I’m telling you, and now we got the inflation while millions of yahoo wannabe fascists still turn down the vaccine???

2022: Will suck humongously when/if these knobshine Republicans regain top-dog control of Congress.

No sir, retrospectively not hard to believe at all and so not possible to argue that kind of accuracy, I kid you not. And just so you know, I’ve been putting out these kind of essays for more than 30 years and dag-fockingnabit if I’ve ever been off the mark. For example, here from Dec. 30, 1993:

1993: Sucked. And let’s go back to Dec. 30, 2004, when I opined:

The Year 2004: Sucked.

A Look Ahead, 2005: Will suck, even more.

And what about January 2017? Here:

The Year 2016: Sucked, but good.

Watch Out Ahead, 2017: Will suck, even more. Can you believe it? And the only surefire thing I predict is that there will be a sucker born at least every minute.

And:

The Year 2020: Sucked, but good, major big-time.

Watch Out Ahead, 2021: Will suck, even more. Hard to believe, ain’a?

There you go. Clean, economical and near-elegant with the pith, ain’a? And that’s all I’ve got to say about that ’cause I’d like to break this off right here, right now, and do something nice for myself like crank up the thermostat and mix another hot focking toddy, after all, it’s focking January ain’a?

But over the holidays I received a very nice and much appreciated card from a faithful reader, which caused me to reflect on what a very lucky fellow I am after all. We’re into January and the “holiday season” is much considered to be done and done, except by me. No sir. As I’ve said many times, many ways, every day’s just another focking holiday to a guy like me, you betcha. Yes sir, you name the day, and it’s sure-as-hell bound to be some kind of a focking holiday for Mr. Art Kumbalek. Nothing but seashells, balloons, topped with a generous dollop of you got to be jerking my beefaroni!!

So, as always, I wish that you’s all have a happy, at least relatively comfortable, new year and make a resolution that we may yet, lo, these days of age and rage, to believe that one of these days “We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet / For the sake of auld lang syne ”—hey, at my age I still like to think anything’s possible, what the fock, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.