The Luna Park Gazette

For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been.' --John Greenleaf Whittier I missed a big opportunity on Sunday and it’s still bothering me now, nearly a week a later. No, it wasn’t a woman, not this time anyway. This was something more personal, if that’s possible. I was riding on the N train to Manhattan when this elderly African-American couple got on board at Pacific Street. I had to pull my leg out of the woman’s way so they could sit down next to me and for a second I thought she was giving me a dirty look. My primal territorial alarm switched on and I started thinking who the hell she was giving me dirty looks when I realized how ridiculous I sounded even though no on could hear me. I’m sorry to say so, but this is how my father often reacted to people, only he spoke up and usually pissed people off. And I've put up with some many real slights and insults over the years because I was desperate to be liked, or I was trying to be a go...

We had a little bit of Baghdad come to Bay Ridge last night after a car blew up around the corner from my home. It was around 11:30 pm as I was getting ready for bed. I had recently come home from my adult swimming class—the last one of an 8 week program—when I heard a massive thud, as if something had actually struck the house. I looked outside, saw nothing and went to bed. I was just getting comfortable when I heard sirens heading in my direction and a low flying airplane buzzing over my roof. As it turned out, the airplane had nothing to do with the car explosion; it was just a matter of some rather funky timing. But that sound made me shudder as I recalled standing across the street from the Trade Center on September 11. Ever since then, I always tense up when a plane comes in too low. I got out of bed, looked out the front door and saw several people on the block had come out of their homes, too. Then I saw a huge plume of smoke rising into the sky from the next block. “Oh my God,...

I didn’t make it to my parents’ grave on Father’s Day. My sister and I had planned to go out there in the afternoon, but it looked like rain, so we scrubbed the trip. And then, of course, the skies cleared up. I don’t like going out there because I find it depressing and I don’t believe it means much to stand over a patch a ground, but to be honest, it’s also a long trip and I don’t like driving around the city unless it’s absolutely necessary. My Uncle Joe in L.A., my father’s brother, understood the situation. “You go pretty often at first,” he said, “and then gradually you go less and less frequently until you stop.” I hate to admit to that, but I think he's right. And I find that a bit depressing. Father’s Day was just another day for me and that feels wrong somehow, even though I’m not a father myself and I no longer have a father. I think there’s some regret about not having children combined with some bad memories and lingering resentment toward my father that has the stayi...

Hear, ye, hear, ye, all you Brooklyn bloggers! The incredible Brooklyn Blogade will be coming to Park Slope this Sunday, June 22. Blogade is a monthly meet-up of bloggers from around our great borough, where people come together to talk, network, exchange ideas, kvetch, kibbitz, and generally shoot the breeze. This month's event will be hosted by that famous man of letters from across the pond, Adrian Kinloch of Brit in Brooklyn . The emphasis will be on photoblogger, so shutterbugs take note. The particulars: What:Brooklyn Blogade: Picture This When: Sunday, June 22, Noon Where: Root Hill Cafe 4th Avenue and Carroll, Park Slope, Brooklyn RSVP: ak@adriankinloch.net As a Bay Ridge native, I'd like to see some of the peeps from my neck of the urban woods show up at this shindig. So don't just sit there in front of your keyboard. Haul on down to the Root Hill Cafe and introduce yourself to the funkiest bunch of bloggers you'll ever meet.

For more than four centuries, a massive storm called the Great Red Spot has raged on the planet Jupiter. And I thought I was unstable. I finally got my check from Jupiter this week—not the planet, of course, but a company by that name. I had interviewed with them back in March and had done a one-day tryout for them in hopes of getting a job. Friends warned me not to do this,that these people were just using me. But I didn’t mind. I had done tryouts for other companies and it had always worked out fine. You can show the editors what you can do and get a feel for the place and the kind of work you’ll be doing. And, if nothing else, you get some extra cash. I had a good feeling about this company, I really did. The people seemed cool, the worked seemed manageable, and I even liked their location. Well, I sure called that one wrong. As Fiorello Laguardia once said, “when I make a mistake, it’s a beaut.” Let me go down the list: first the editor forgets I’m going in on the ap...

I was walking through the Pacific Street subway station Thursday night when I passed this Hispanic man who was standing on the platform with a long wooden staff that was covered with clothespins and wire. I had no idea what that thing was supposed to be and for a second I even though it might be a modern piece depicting man’s inhumanity to laundry or some other weighty topic. I went a few more feet and then realized that this guy was a street vendor and the clothespins had been holding stuffed animals, or hats, or something of that nature. The fact that he was down to nothing but clothespins indicated that he had a good day at the office. I’m glad somebody’s doing well because after the Dow’s suicide leap on Friday, I’m a little nervous. Earlier this week, I was riding home on the D train when we came to the Manhattan Bridge, my favorite part of the daily grind. It was a beautiful spring day and I spotted some bicycle riders on the pedestrian walkway making the same trip to Brooklyn. I...

I was waiting for the light to change at the corner of Carmine and Bleeker streets the other night when a woman dashed into in the path of an elderly Asian man on a bicycle. "Where you look?" the old man shouted as he hit the brakes and took evasive action. "You're one to talk," a young man standing next to me yelled at the bicyclist, upholding the time-honored New York practice of kibbitzing . Still, the old timer had a point, as well as the right of way. I remember in grammar school that if someone ever said "you're losing altitude," you would immediately look down, because this a warning that your fly was open. I had a pair of pants in college with a faulty zipper that would open without warning if you turned in a certain way. And it wouldn't just open, it would dive bomb toward your ankles like an elevator going to the ground floor in a fire drill. It was like some kind of escape hatch. I suppose if you really were a liar, liar, and your pa...