The Luna Park Gazette

It’s all Google’s fault. Yes, Google, the great all-seeing eye of Internet search engines, with its unnatural ability to find out anything about anybody, is the cause of all my problems. It’s turned me into Quasi-Modem. Now, thanks to Google, each night I climb into my digital bell tower, a bitter, twisted gnome determined to relive the past. I want to know all about the people I don’t like, people I haven’t seen or heard from in years, so I hurl my queries out into cyberspace only to have them come spinning back and hit me upside the head. It’s the Google-rang. And it gets me every time. I search for anyone who’s done me wrong, two-timing girlfriends, grade school bullies, obnoxious ex-coworkers, and discover the worst possible news imaginable: they’re happy. They’re not rotting away in a filthy dungeon in some sub-equatorial dictatorship; they’re not locked in a B-movie mental institution, trussed up in straitjackets and living on Thorazine and Rice Krispies. And they’re not st...

This has been quite a day: In addition to being the Chinese New Year and Ash Wednesday, it is also the last day of my unemployments benefits. A triple witching indeed. This is the Year of the Rooster, and I was born in that year in 1957, so a Chinese friend assures me this will be my year. I'll take whatever I can get at this point, as I quite nervous about the future. I have to find a place for myself in this world so I can pull my own weight. I don't want to be working at 70, but if I don't get a job soon, it looks like that's where I'm headed. Positive, positive. It is the year of the rooster after all, but if I don't get a job soon my goose will be cooked. Oh, gosh, I couldn't resist making that joke--even if it laid an egg. I wonder what the hell happened to me that I ended up in that situation. No career, no woman, no family--I'm just a middle-aged teen-ager. It's time to grow up and get a life...

There’s nothing like an old movie to teach you a lesson about modern times. I discovered this the other night when I sat down to watch “The Ox-bow Incident,” a classic western directed by William Wellman. The 1943 film stars Henry Fonda, Harry Morgan, Anthony Quinn and a cast of fine character actors straight out of Hollywood’s Golden Age. I thought I was just going to sit back and enjoy a fine old movie, but instead I found myself looking at a frontier rendition of George Bush’s war in Iraq. Sounds crazy? Tell it to Sponge Bob Squarepants—just as soon as he comes out of the closet. Based on Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s novel, “The Oxbow Incident” tells the story of a group of Nevada cowboys in 1885 who, upon hearing about a rancher’s murder, form a posse and inflict some hangman’s justice upon three hapless cattlemen they capture on the trail. In contrast to today’s multiplex McMovies, “The Oxbow Incident” has no digital effects, comic book heroes, vicious mutants, alienated alien...