From The City That Always Sweeps

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Art on St. Patrick's Day

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, I’m all agog and farschimmelt, trying to figure out and remember if our month of March has come in like a lion or a goddamn lamb, what the fock.

Yeah yeah, as this year’s edition of the month of March meteorologically may sports lamb’s clothing, you can bet your bottom dollar these days that the lyin’ from the Executive Office will roar from beginning to end, makes no difference what month you be talking about the next four (?) years, I kid you not.

But it’s the mercurial month of March, in like a lion, out like a lamb, goes the March trajectory as they say. Or, gosh darn it, is it “in like a lamb, out like a lion”? And in some quarters, does she go in as a lamb and come out as lamb chops? What with the climate change, who knows from the peculiarities of March anymore, ain’a?

Yes sir, yes ladies, it’s the third month of the year (unless President Trumpel-thinskin chooses to re-order such a thing), the one that the Romans named “Martius” way back when from the Gladiator Age.

Subsequently, so-called astronomers who had discovered the telescope sighted the fourth rock from the sun, and they decided to call it “Mars,” shorthand for the Roman god of war and agriculture (Martius, remember?), which from the pictures I’ve seen of late, did a damn good job of wiping the landscape clean out of life from the planet named after him without a chance of growing some corn or what-not. And such is war, gods and nonesuch be damned.

March forecast, 2025:

The madness with the college basketball tournament; St. Patrick’s Day; the first day of spring; daylight saving time (ouch!); International Women’s Day; Purim; a late-winter monumental snow storm; a couple, three celebrity deaths; Art Kumbalek figures how to come up with another rent payment; Harry focking Houdini’s 151th birthday not to mention Fred “Mister” Rogers’ 97th (who would’ve been a great president but I’m thinking he had more important work to do); and Chico (Leonard) Marx’s 138th. Jeez louise. That’s a chock-packed jam-full calendar load to deal with, I don’t care what month you’re talking about,

And this ferkakta month with the daylight-saving time where we lose an hour, as if a guy my age can afford to flush a focking hour pinched from out of my life’s dwindling minutes of days. If only there were a saving-time day where instead of pushing the clock back a measly hour, you could push it back, say, 40-50 focking years and then load up on Microsoft stock at a bargain-basement price. Now that’s the kind of dicking around with time that I could get behind, I kid you not.

Anyways, that stolen lost hour come the 9th just happens to be the hour I had set aside so’s to finally plow through the Irishman James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as a tip o’ the hat to St. Patrick’s Day. I’ve always been curious as to “who done it,” thus the need for a wake, duhh!. My guess is it’s either the leprechaun, a rowdy tavern rapscallion or itinerant sheepherder, ain’a?

But can some lass or laddie please tell me how St. Patty’s “Day” has morphed into St. Patty’s Week-and-a-focking-Half over the years, but yet the celebration will be culminated by many the morning after with the “pukin’ of the green” beer into the porcelain Saint Potty.

Tús maith leath na hoibre, St. Patty’s Day arrives mid-March, that time of year you can actually start believing that a winter around here might take up less calendar time than the 100 Years War. But here’s the thing: Yes, winter may suck, but did you forget about what comes next? Sure, you get some kind of spring come in for a week, 10 days, but then you’re right back into hot-focking-humid summertime with all kinds of insects and such, what the fock.

And so, I am reminded of a traditional story repeated often only here:

Mary O’Reilly finds Father O’Grady after his Sunday morning service, and she’s in tears. He says, “So what’s bothering you, Mary my dear?” She says, “Oh, Father, I’ve got terrible news. My husband John passed away last night.”

The priest says, “Mary, that’s terrible. Tell me, did he have any last requests?” She says, “That he did, Father.” The priest says, “Pray tell, what did he ask, Mary?”

“He said, ‘Please Mary, put the damn gun down.’” O’ ba-ding!

And as we spring ahead toward who-knows-what-the-fock, I wish “may the road rise up to meet you” as we march to the month of April showers, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.