Art for Art’s Sake

ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS

By: Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, on top of everything else, now I’m hearing that our plastic president (not to be recycled, please), Trumpel-thinskin plans to dick around with the U.S. Postal Service so as to make its goods-of-service undeliverable, just like his administration, what the fock.

And of course, I’m reminded of a little story:

A married couple went to the hospital to have their baby delivered. Upon arrival, the doctor said he had invented a new machine that would transfer a portion of the mother’s labor pain to the baby’s father. He asked if they were willing to try it out. Both were very much in favor of it. The doctor set the pain transfer to 10%, explaining that number was probably more pain than the father had ever experienced before. However, as the labor progressed, the husband felt fine and asked the doctor to go ahead and kick it up a notch. The doctor adjusted the machine to 20%. The husband was still feeling fine. The doctor checked the husband’s blood pressure and was amazed at how well he was doing. So, they decided to try 50%. The husband continued to feel quite well. Since the pain transfer was obviously an aid to the wife, the husband encouraged the doctor to transfer all the pain to him. The wife delivered a healthy baby with virtually no pain. She and her husband were ecstatic. And when they got home, they found the mailman dead on the porch. Ba-ding!

And sports, lo, these days. How ’bout that D.C. football team that shall not be named unless you would say “Redskins”? Finally, the nickname shall be adjusted after years and years of a big heap of hoopla in regard to the offensiveness of R******* and how it ought to be removed. About time? No shit, Sherlock. And changed to what? How ’bout the Swamp Focks. Got a nice ring to it, ain’a?

Lost and forgotten in all the hubbub is mine own groundbreaking work in the nickname field from way-back in 1988 when I questioned the city of Cleveland’s baseball team’s use of the image of so-called Chief Wahoo (now benched as of the other year, courtesy of my sideline efforts I’d like to think)— the wild-eyed, toothy, single-feather head-banded caricature of some kind of Native American. Offensive? No siree, some would say. It’s just our way of saying, “Thank you for the gift of your homeland, oh Great Red Man. In return, we shall show honor by making you a focking sports team mascot.”

Jeez louise, aren’t team mascots supposed to be testicle-chewing wild animals and stuff, and not Sapien beings? Hey, if you got a Cleveland Indians, how come no Chicago Polacks with a logo of a hammer smashing a thumb, or a couple, three guys with a light bulb and ladder? What the fock.

Anyways, I got to get going to take some time to ponder whether or not I’d accept the No. 2 spot on Uncle Joe’s presidential ticket in the event mine own presidential run should happen to go down the crapper—a possibility, I admit.

But before I go, I got to tell you’s that I remember a TV show a while back on the Discovery Channel where the eminent rocket-scientist Stephen Hawking—a brainiac bon vivant whose résumé includes every goddamn thing with the exception of a guest spot on “Dancing With the Stars”—declared that intelligent life from other cosmos could be, well, dangerous, I kid you not.

He said visitors to our fair planet from outer space could be “nomads, looking to conquer and colonize.” Conquer and colonize? Yikes! And I agree—not just “conquer and colonize,” but how ’bout these technologically advanced aliens might hail from a resource-depleted corner of a solar system and so they’re out looking for new nutrient food sources.

Could we, the sapien de la Homo race of human beings, become the chickens who be sliced, diced, chopped, seasoned and fried to be served on a fast-food sandwich to 12- foot aliens who sport bald, large-cranium brains the size of elite university-library globes of the planet Earth?

You betcha, we can. And all I can say is it’s time to be no longer simply Native Americans, Native Mexicans, Africans, Euro-focking-peans, Muslimites, native blah-blah and blah-blah. Time to be Native Earthlings ’cause those alien extraterrestrials from the planet You Are Focked Up the Ass, Earthling Losers may be due any day now the way this year 2020 has been proceeding, and the first thing they want to do is reach up and tear our livers right clean out of our assholes, besides screw our Earthling women three-ways sideways ’til Sunday. Our history as a planet ought to Amen that notion, ain’a?

What a world, what a universe, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.

Art Kumbalek is a perennial candidate for any political office you got, and essayist for the Shepherd Express.