Easter Art Kumbalek
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, right now I’m in the kitchen of my dinky apartment with a bunch of my buddies—all of us once youthful pupils over by Our Lady In Pain That You Kids Are Going Straight To Hell But Not Soon Enough—as we boil up but good a 10-pound ring baloney so’s to celebrate the end of the Lenten season, here, late-ish April, by clearing out a case or two of Rhinelander not to mention a boatload from our fabulous hometown Lakefront Brewery.
An essay bonus: Here’s a snatch of the conversation as we fumbled for the location of an ashtray, what the fock:
Julius: Any you’s guys know if any local radio stations play 24-hour continuous Easter music this time of year?
Ernie: Good focking question ’cause I believe Easter ought to be a way bigger holiday than Christmas. What’s the big deal with Christmas? For christ sakes, a lot of big-time guys get born all the time, but how many actually rise from the dead? Now that’s something to write home about; so’s you got your Easter Sunday ain’a?
Little Jimmy Iodine: Jeez, off the top of my head, I can only think of two other guys who got up from the dead—Richard Nixon in 1968 and that John Travolta actor after he made the “Pulp” whatcha-call-it.
Emil: Easter can never be bigger than the Christmas because every year they dick with the goddamn date it’s supposed to be on. Is that because Easter comes in spring and the Pope likes to check the weather forecast in the Farmers’ Almanac first before he chooses the exact date to make sure the people have a nice day for their Easter parade?
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Julius: You talk like a sausage, Emil.
Emil: Baloney.
Herbie: You focking bunch of nitwits. We go through this every goddamn year. How many times I got to tell you’s the exact date when the Christ became resurrected has nothing to do when Easter comes. Easter is 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.
Ray: What the fock, I never heard Sister talk meshuggah like that when she explained the Easter to us. But I tell you, when it comes to religion and they try to figure a date by using B.S. like full moons, equinoxes and golden numbers, it makes a guy feel like instead of going to the Pick ’N Pocket for the Easter ham, he ought to go buy a whole pig somewheres and slaughter it right there on his front lawn for the sacrifice. And maybe a couple of goats to boot.
Art: So Emil, what do you think about that?
Emil: I still believe that Easter falls on a Sunday this year.
Herbie: So I’m on the No. 30 bus and this guy next to me asks if I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior. I said I could accept Jesus as a son of a god—the son of a god who never flushed a toilet or picked up a bar tab. Sure, god knows everything, but do you think he ever had to remember where his focking car keys were? I think not. But how ’bout a daughter of god? Logically, there’s got to be one, and so I will only accept Marilyn Monroe as my saviour-ess. Now there’s a Second Coming I could get behind, so to speaketh.
(It was then I excused myself, briefly, from the confab since I needed to tie the ribbon on this month’s essay.)
And so I say, good lord, on the calendar I see it’s April, fourth month of this year 2025, how the time flies like crap through a goose, what the fock.
So, what do we know about this month known now in these modern days of the world as “April”? I’ll tell you’s what we know, ’cause I spent a good chunk of a handful of minutes researching this topic. Saddle up.
April is the month some scholars have deduced to be named after the ancient Greek goddess known around those olden vivilacious establishments as Aphrodite—“associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, and procreation.” Hot-cha!! You betcha!
Cripes, I’m guessing that if we had started naming months of the calendar back in the 1950s rather than a couple-three thousand years ago, the fourth month of the year would’ve been named “Monroe,” you think?
And so onward we march forward from showers to flowers, lord willin,’ ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
