I’m Art Kumbalek
and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen up ladies and lassies, I
hear another Milwaukee Irish Fest has come upon us, which reminds me of a
little story:
This, a wee
tale of this Englishman, a Frenchman and an Irishman who were at the pub
discussing families. The talk turned to children and surprised they are to
learn they each have a 15-year-old daughter they struggle to understand. The
Englishman’s problem is that he found cigarette butts under his daughter’s bed.
“I didn’t know she smoked,” was his complaint. The Frenchman then says that
he’d found cognac bottles under his daughter’s bed. “I was not aware that she
drank,” he confessed. And the Irishman says his situation is the toughest—he’d
found condoms under his daughter’s bed. “Ah lads, what kind of father am I that
I did not know my daughter even had a dick?” Ba-ding!
Anyways, these
days I’m liking my chances to be your next president more and more, what the
fock. If elected, I abso-focking-lutely ought to represent a gentle return to
some kind of normalcy, I kid you not.
(Hold on, I got a phone call. It’s my buddy
Little Jimmy Iodine. I got to take this ’cause he owes me some dough. Smoke ’em
if you got ’em. Be right back.)
“Hey Artie, you
got two bucks you can spot me?”
“You got to be
jerking my beefaroni, Jimmy.”
“Yeah yeah, I
know I owe you but listen, I’m short of dough and if you give me a couple bucks
I can buy a Powerball ticket that’s guaranteed to win the $430 million jackpot.
Then, we take that dough to Potawatomi and double it on the 25-cent slots—then
we split it and I can pay you back that fiver I owe you from before, plus you
got enough dough to run for president, not to mention a nice down payment on
that used Buick Park Avenue you’re always talking about, ain’a?”
“So Jimmy, how
are you so sure you can win this Powerball? The odds are one in 292, 201, 338.”
“But I got the
numbers, Artie. Got ’em but good ’cause I did some research. You ever heard of
this writer, some kind of William S. Burroughs?”
“Yeah, wrote the
book
Naked Lunch, died at the age of 83 in 1997 to serve as a lesson to
the young people that a drugged and vagabond kind of lifestyle of lurid
dissipation more than often snuffs out even the best of us too soon. So?”
“He died in
August,
Artie—it’s August now—plus it’s the
20-year anniversary. I did some
research ’cause I saw that book in a used bookstore the other day and I
wondered how a lunch could be naked. Didn’t add up. Lunchers can be naked
’cause they’re people. But lunch is food and food doesn’t wear clothes, ain’a?
And then it hit me: This year is also the
40-year anniversary of the
unconfirmed death of Elvis Presley,
August 16. And then I remembered
that the Memphis minstrel’s middle name was Aaron, and that Aaron was also the
surname of the first man to go past George Herman Ruth’s total of career
baseball home runs. And I wondered, could there be another connection between
the King of Rock & Roll and the Sultan of Swat besides that they were both
known to dine like pigs? I rushed to my baseball encyclopedia and there it was:
Babe Ruth passed away on an
August 16, the same date as the man who
starred in
Viva Las Vegas.”
“Jimmy, I got to
go.”
“Wait, Artie.
Then I heard about some closet Nazis who are celebrating the
30-year
anniversary of nutty Rudolf Hess who hung himself in Spandau prison at the age
of 93 on
August 17, 1987—Rudy Hess, Hitler’s deputy and Nazi solo peace
negotiator who parachuted into Scotland in 1941 and said, ‘Hi, my name’s Rudy.
Want to surrender?’”
“Powerball
numbers, Jimmy?”
“For starters,
think of the anniversaries I just mentioned, Artie—20, 30, 40—plus the name
connections. Then chew on this: Bill Burroughs was born February 5, 1914; Babe
Ruth, February 6, who then first stepped onto a major league team with the
Boston Red Sox in
1914. Burroughs was
once cleared of obscenity charges in Boston. Babe played right field. Rudy Hess
flew in out of left field. Bill did drugs, shot and killed his wife in Mexico.
Elvis did drugs, shot and wounded his career in
Fun in Acapulco. OK,
Middle East connection: Rudy was born in Egypt; Bill regurgitated
Naked
Lunch onto the page in Morocco; in the bible there’s a Book of Ruth; Elvis
starred in
Harum Scarum. Also, Rudy spent years and years in Spandau.
Elvis spent years and years in Spandex…”
“
Numbers,
Jimmy.”
“Piece of cake, Artie: 16-17-20-30-40. Powerball is
8, for August, eighth month of the year. See you on Easy Street, pally.”
All right listen, I got to run up to the Pick ’n
Save, so I can’t finish the essay for you’s. Yeah, campaign financing is a
bitch, but once I’m in the White House I’ll be set for life, so what the fock
’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
