From The City That Always Sweeps

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Art Kumbalek - Taxes

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, here we be, April already, fourth month of any given year just so you know—and why?

Thanks for asking. 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 so much 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 rutabagas 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 and year was a big deal, what the fock.

By the way, Easter comes early this year. April 5. “Jumpin’ Jehosaphat,” you might shout to the heavens. “This gol’ darn Easter. It’s early, it’s regular, it’s late. Sounds like I’m waiting for the goddamn bus instead of some kind of religious hoopla.”

Allow me to explain, and please be seated: The exact date when Christ became resurrected got nothing to do where Easter shows up on your calendar. Easter appears 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. Got that? Yeah, me neither.

Anyways, April 5 does have some historical significance. Cripes, it’s the date back in 1614 when the English colonist John Rolfe got hitched to Pocahantas who went on to become a major character in the early 17th-century drama, “The Housewives of Jamestown, Virginia,” which for all I know may be streaming somewheres, what the fock.

Perhaps more significantly, April 5, 1922, the American Birth Control League, progenitor of Planned Parenthood (bless ’em in each and every way), was incorporated.

But I beseech thee, what do we really know of this month called “April”? I’ll tell you’s what we know, ’cause I spent a good chunk of a handful of minutes researching. 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!

Jeez louise, bet you a buck two-eighty had we started naming months 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?

Also known is that the much ballyhooed poet Thomas T.S. Stearns Eliot (born 1888) kicked off his famous “The Waste Land” with this: “April is the cruellist month.” And for a guy born in St. Louis, Mo., who moved to England at the age of 25, you just got to wonder at what point of the voyage did he lose his spell checker, ain’a?

(Curious sidenote: Lauded hambone actor Vincent Price (1911) was also born and raised in St. Louie and would become quite comfortable adopting an English fop de rigueur; although Vince never won the Nobel Prize for Literature as did T.S, Vinny was awarded top-billing in Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine and that’s got to count for something.)

So yeah, it’s April. What else can I tell you’s? This: I can advise that you best not kibosh your Internal Revenue Service obligation come the middle of the month. They know who you are, where you live, what you had for breakfast. Count on it.

Here’s a tip from me: My tax return every year consists of a simple short handwritten note that I mail in, and it goes something like this:

“Dear IRS Sir, Madam,

“Hey, I already paid. The federal tax on alcohol 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 according to the Book of Kumbalek, ‘income’ is a synonym for ‘imaginary.’

“But thanks for your interest.

“Sincerely,

“Art Kumbalek”

Good lord, I do believe this Internal Revenue Service tax thing really ought to be made voluntary for the regular folks, like they did with the military service years ago. Hey, 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, abso-focking-lutely.

One more thing: Remember Earth Day, April 22. As long as we still have a blue planet that we can all call home, we ought to celebrate for at least one day, and then shall the preservation work continue.

And so onward we march forward from April showers to May flowers, lord willin’, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.