The Luna Park Gazette

I saw a sign in the window of a Chinese restaurant that I think should be the theme of my 50th birthday. It was a handwritten note taped to the window that read "Grand Reopening." Now to the best of my knowledge, this place has not been sold, did not close down for renovations, or changed its menu. The only thing different about the place is the sign. I'm guess I'm showing my age here, but I can remember when a restaurant used to have one grand opening and that was it. I figured a grand opening was like virginity, once you lose it, you really do lose it. Apparently, I was wrong. I could quibble about the word choice, but I like the idea of taking something you can only do once and doing it again. Hell, every day for a restaurant is a grand opening if you really wanted to stretch the point. I think I'll look at my life in the same way. Every day will be a grand opening and I'll keep it going until I get it right. So far, I'm off to a good start. Here I am, ...

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes. --Rabindranath Tagore So now it’s official. I’m 50 years old today. It’s hard to believe I’ve been around for half a century. Five decades. Fifty years. A hell of a lot of time. It doesn't like that when I look over my life, but when you say fifty years-- fifty years --it's kind of scary. I just got off the phone with my brother in San Francisco and we talked about how time just disappears, how what seems like an eternity in childhood just flies by when you're an adult. So let's look back a little, shall we? On this day in history, the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883. The first public parking garage opened its doors in 1899; Samuel Morse sent the first telegraphic message—“What hath God wrought?”—1844, and the Marx Brothers first movie, "The Cocoanuts," opened in 1929. And, on this day in 1957, Robert Kent Lenihan was born in Shore Road Hosp...

( This is another piece I did for my solo performer class at the People's Improv Theater. I'm turning 50 on Thursday so I thought I'd post this little number. ) I was born in Brooklyn in 1957, the same year the Dodgers moved out. I'd like to think these two events are not related, but in my darker moments—which are pretty much all I have lately—I can’t help but wonder. I mean, here I am, making my debut in the world, and the beloved Brooklyn Bums are packing their bags and hot tailing it for the West Coast. As my first grade teacher, Sister Mary Rocco Agonista used to say—what the fuck? I have this image of Pee-Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and all those other baseball legends sneaking into Shore Road Hospital on a moonless night, peering into my crib and screaming, “holy shit, will you look at the mug on that little mongrel! That’s it, we’re moving to L.A.” In case you’re slow on the arithmetic, or you’re just stupid, I’m turning 50 this year. Fifty goddamn, oh, n...

Somewhere around 11 pm last right, just as my party was ending, it occurred to me that I was having a good time. After worrying about everything from a nuclear disaster to an attack by flesh-eating zombies, I am forced to admit that my 50th birthday party was a smashing success. The food was great, the company even better, and everybody got along. Obviously I got all stressed and bent out of shape for no reason whatsoever, thus proving yet again that I'm completely out of my mind. This is news? I'm sitting here in my computer listening to the overture from "Oklahoma!" on the radio while I can faintly hear the thump-thump-thump of the bands marching on Fifth Avenue in the Norwegian Day parade. I love this parade and I'm not even a Norwegian, which rhymes by the way. It's a Bay Ridge tradition and one of my favorite signs of spring. The Norwegian population around here has thinned over the years, but they still know how to throw a good parade. The costumes are ...

Next year I'm going to stick a candle in Twinkie and call it a day. That is, God willing, I'm still here, and haven't keeled over or been driven mad by the supreme agita I've got over this 50th birthday party I'm throwing for myself tonight. This thing is like the Blob—it keeps getting bigger. I just ordered an extra tray of food to feed these people and I’m still not sure if I have enough. I keep hearing from people I assumed—oh, that evil word!—weren’t coming. When the hell did I get so popular? Most weekend nights I can’t get arrested and now I’m going to have more bodies around me than Donald Trump. Only I don’t have his money. And the things I worry about. First I was worried there wouldn't be enough people. Now I'm worried there will be too many. I caught myself this afternoon worrying that my friends coming in from Manhattan might get mugged on the train coming in, or jumped on the streets as they walked down to the bar where I'm having this thin...

I was walking to the subway station this morning when I saw a man on the corner wearing a t-shirt with a simple message: Get Ready... He was a Mexican, doubtless waiting for day labor, like the rest of his buddies who hang around 68th Street. Usually they hang out by the coffee shop up the block, but maybe this man wanted to stick out from the crowd. I don't know how this particular spot got to be the pick-up area, but that's where you'll find these guys. I was in the coffee shop one time and a Mexican fellow ahead me thought I was his buddy, who was, in fact, behind me. The first man handed me a cup of coffee without looking. So I took it and said, “ gracias .” We all laughed and I gave the coffee to its rightful owner. We all got along just fine. I honestly don't know how to solve the problem of illegal immigration but building a wall, literally or emotionally, isn't the answer. That guy's t-shirt was getting to me, though. Especially the ellipsis—the three li...

I got into a terrible fight with my father the other night. The fact that he's been dead since January didn't slow him down at all. He still wanted to wring my neck. This was a nightmare, frightening and horribly accurate; a bad dream in the extreme. It was more like a newsreel from my childhood than a jumble streak of bizarre images. The only thing missing was narration by Walter Cronkite. In the dream, my father is right on top of my mother, screaming in her face. I'm standing in the kitchen, appalled by what I'm seeing and I say to myself, if he hits her, I'm going to kill him! And then he hits her. A brutal smash across the face that sounds like a gunshot. I shout at him to stop and then suddenly, like any nightmare creature, my father is now in my face, his eyes rolling around in his head like they always did when he was angry. "What's the matter with you?" he snarls. And, as in real life, I shrink from him, frightened by his rage. I don't pro...

There are eight million stories in the Naked City--and they're all crammed into landlord tenant court. At least that's what it seemed like to me last week when I went down to the courthouse on Livingston Street. I was there to attend a hearing to evict the animals who had been occupying the upstairs apartment of my family's house--until they took off in February without so much as a by your leave, as my dear mother used to say. In my mind, though, this was an exorcism, a holy ritual to drive these vile tenants, these two-legged rats, out of my ancestral home and back to the depths of hell from whence they came. So, yeah, I don't like these people. And I have to say that being forced to give up my morning, show up late for work, and waste three hours in court waiting for a two-minute procedure has done nothing to improve my opinion of them. But it was necessary. We had to go through this routine because even though these bums are gone from the property, we need an offici...

( This is the text of my solo performance. I can't say how much I enjoyed this class and how glad I am that I finally decided to take it. Reading the words is not quite the same as watching a performance, but I hope you get an idea of what I was trying to do. ) My house is so empty there should be an echo. Oh, there’s plenty of stuff: furniture, closets bursting with clothes, rows of bookshelves. It’s a two-family house, with three bedrooms, dining room, porch; it’s huge, a relic from a time when they really knew how to build houses. The only thing the place doesn’t have is people; no people at all. Except me. My family bought this house in Brooklyn in 1948. My grandparents passed the place on to my mom and dad, and now it belongs to their four children. It’s gone through many hands over the last 60 years, but it hasn’t moved an inch. My mother died five years ago and my father followed her in January. My sister and brothers all moved out years ago, and the last bunc...