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Art Kumbalek doing taxes
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So here we be, April already, fourth month of any given year just so you know—And why?
I’ll tell you why. Because astro-rocket-mathematician types have done declared that as fact from all the way back to those ancient Greeks and then later the up-start Romans who had calendar schmutz up the butt that they needed to go try figure names and dates of months back when the Earth was flat and the people had no space satellites and such to tell them when to plant the zucchini or the best time of season to begin a slaughtering conquest of their neighbors and beyond. Getting one’s calendar notched up with the time of day/days of a year was a big deal, what the fock.
Oh boy, a rare April this year with no Easter Sunday, ain’a? Why? Here: The exact date when Christ became resurrected has nothing to do when Easter comes. Easter comes the first Sunday after the full moon, also known as the paschal moon that comes after the vernal equinox. Now, if the paschal moon—deduced from a system of golden numbers and epacts and does not necessarily coincide with the astronomical full moon—occurs on a Sunday, Easter day is the succeeding Sunday. Thus, unless you’re a focking idiot, you know that Easter can fall anywheres between March 22 and April 25. Kumbayah, ain’a?
But what do we really know of this “April”? We know that it’s supposed to bring showers, so that we have flowers come the month of May. We also know that the poet Thomas Stearns Eliot kicked off his famous “The Waste Land” with this, back in 1922: “April is the cruellist month.”
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How true that can be, especially if you happen to be a baseball fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates (Detroit Tigers/Chicago White Sox, anyone?), where April poetically begins again “the cycle of hurt, failure and sadness.” Play ball!
So yeah, April. What can I tell you’s? Well sir, I can advise that you best not fluff off your Internal Revenue Service obligation come the middle of the month. They know who you are, where you live, what you had for breakfast, I kid you not.
But here’s a tip from me in this regard, a tip from a guy who’s responsibly run for the presidency of the United States every four years since 19-focking-86, Jack.
My tax return every year consists of a simple short note that 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 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.
Talk about listening pleasure, you betcha. JPSousa, 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.
Yes sir, “Stars and Stripes Forever,” unless the big-time election come this November goes ferkakta and the Air Force Band chooses to musically execute the deservedly little-known “The Charlaton March” come inauguration day, cripes.
So let us conclude this month’s essay with a prayer, shall we?
“Please grant us the continuance to be a 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. A-focking-men, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.”
