From the City that Always Sweeps

BY ART KUMBALEK

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, what with the mid-term elections coming up around the corner of the very early November like a bad burrito, I hear that the people ask: How do you get two politicians to act bipartisan? Hey—lock one up in prison. Ba-ding! And the people yearn to know what is the difference between a multiwealthy-ass candidate for political office and a sack of manure? I figure it’s got to be the sack, what the fock.

Yeah yeah, it’s the month of October we now need to deal with, the supposed tenth month of the year according to our ferkakta calendar of the so-called Julian and Gregorian calendars from some 1,000 years ago. However, Oct seems to be a root for the numerical “eight” around the world (“ocho” Spanish; “otto” Italian; “acht” du lieber, German; 八 (捌) bā Chinese; “oito” Portugese).

So “eight” became “ten”? Cripes, mathematics seems to be the devil’s work when it comes to calendar months of the year, but somehow we put a man on the moon 50-focking years ago. What a world. (Hold on a second. It’s the focking phone; got to pick it up, it could be my doctor with test results since it’s that time of year for scary. OK, it’s my buddy Little Jimmy Iodine. Relax and have a nice smoke, I’ll be right back.)

“Yeah, so Artie, you still coming over Trick-or-Treat morning to help me make the mashed potatoes, gravy and scrambled eggs for the kids when they come by later to ring my bell with their costumes?”

“I forgot about the trick-and treating, Jimmy. But I remember last year, this little kid who’s got one of those whatyou-call speech predicaments knocks on my door. “Bick or beet,” he says. I say, “And what are you supposed to be for Halloween?” Kid says, “A birate.” I say, “So where are your buccaneers?” And the kid says, “On the side of my buckin’ head, fockstick.”

“I’ll tell you’s, Artie, this Halloween time can be spooky ’cause it underlines that you never know what’s coming to burn your butt-ski but good in a minute, an hour, a day, next week, month or year. We’re all like that boat The Titanic. Each and every one of us has some kind of big-ass personalized iceberg out there somewheres just waiting to tear us a new one sideways at any moment, one that would be the farthest thing from your mind, I don’t care who you are.”

“Any examples, Jimmy?”

“You betcha, Artie: Goliath had his David. Adam had his apple. Jesus had his Judas. The Persians had their Marathon. Mama Cass had her chicken bone. Rome had its Visigoths. Europe had its Plague. Garfield had his Guiteau. Dewey had his Truman. The U.S. had its Ho Chi-Minh. Mary Scot had her Elizabeth Virgin. Jimmy Hoffa had the trunk of a mid-’70s GM product. The Archduke had his Sarajevo. William Holden had his pointy cornered end table. Custer had his Big Horn. Frank Zappa had his prostate. Nixon had his 5 o’clock shadow. Nixon had his plumbers. McKinley had his Czolgosz. Socrates had his hemlock. Fonzie had his shark. Impressionists had their Expressionists. John Gilbert had his Talkies. Bobby Rydell had his Beatles. Trotsky had that ax in the skull, o-u-c-h, ain’a? Focking Nazis had their Russian winter. Abbott & Costello had their IRS. God had his Big Bang. Stevie Ray had his helicopter. Nellie Rockefeller had his secretary. Lincoln had his “American Cousin.” Raskolnikov had his old lady. Davy Crockett had his Alamo. James Dean had his Porsche Spyder. Galileo had his Inquisition. Liston had his Clay. Johnny U’s Colts had Broadway Joe’s Jets. Oscar Wilde had his Marquess of Queensbury. Hauptmann had his Lindbergh baby. Kobe had his whirlybird. Carter had his Ayatollah. The Big Bands had their Les Paul guitar. Marie Antoinette had her cake. Caesar had his Brutus. The Wicked Witch of the East had Dorothy’s slippers. And Artie Kumbalek will have his…”

“What the fock, Jimmy. Hey! I get the picture.

“Okey-doke, Artie. See you for the Trick-or-Treat. Later.”

Good lord, October, time to lock the doors, lower the windows and have a nice cocktail, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.