The Luna Park Gazette

We didn't get to see the Macy's parade floats being inflated this year, but we did see a guy on stilts scratching his ass, so it wasn't a total loss. My sister and I went up to 79th Street on Wednesday, Thanksgiving Eve, in hopes of seeing the floats being brought to life. It was an intimate little affair, with just us and several million other people who had the same idea. We got close to the floats, we really did. But the crowd that circled around the Museum of Natural History was so big and so thick with humanity that the two of us, who share a deathly fear of being trampled, decided to skip this particular ritual. I seem to recall that at one time this event wasn't so incredibly popular, that only a handful of people actually knew about it. That has definitely changed. We tried to get in the perimeter from every possible angle and as we came down one of the avenues, we saw some of the members of Cirque Du Soleil setting up shop on the sidewalk. This group included ...

They say there’s a broken heart for every light on Broadway and at these prices I’m not surprised. I went to the theater the other night see in Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” and there was so much drama going on that it rolled off the stage and into my life. The production stars John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, Patrick Wilson and…Katie Holmes. Yes, that Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise’s wife, blah, blah, yak, yak, you know the drill. “All My Sons” opened on Broadway in 1947, back when the average weekly salary was about 46 bucks and theater tickets were about seven. How much did our tickets cost? Why, funny you should ask. They went for a mere…$116 each. Yes, that’s crazy, but we got them right before the stock market collapse, back in that strangely distant yet recent time, when costly theater tickets seemed like a manageable extravagance, rather than a certifiable act of insanity. What a difference a depression makes. The theater was packed on this night, but I suspect there were a lot of people...

I meant to be writing about something else tonight, but thanks to my crappy computer I'm putting that off until I know what the hell is going on. I am on what the Dell tech guy calls "Safe Mode" though I'm not sure what that it is. I guess it means nothing bad can happen now, like being safe at home in baseball. I wish they had safe mode for relationships and careers. Oops, did I say something stupid? That's okay, I said it in safe mode. Screwed up that big assignment? No problem; I was in safe mode at the time. Then again I've been playing it safe for most of my life and it hasn't done me much good. All I know is that I have been on the phone with tech support so often and for so long that I'm thinking of running for mayor of Mumbai. I know just about everybody over there and I think I'm developing an Indian accent. I've got a campaign promise, too. Vote for me and I promise I'll stop calling...as long as you fix my computer. I still can...

Did you ever see someone go by and wonder what his story was? We see God knows how many people in the course of a day and instantly forget the vast majority of them, but every so often someone sticks in your mind. I had that experience the other morning when I was riding the R train to work and I saw a man wearing a cowboy hat and boots. He was an older gentleman, easily in his seventies, wearing a jacket and tie with his cowboy attire. He sat down and took a book to read and I could see it was a western by Louis L’Amour , one of the all-time great cowboy writers. I didn’t think people read westerns any more and the really strange thing is that man’s book itself looked old; like it was printed back when paperbacks cost 60 cents. I confess I haven’t read much of L’Amour’s work, I admired how he strove for accuracy in his stories. He used to say that if he mentioned a spring in one of his books, then you could be sure that the spring really existed “and the water there is good to drink....

It's official--Barack Obama has been elected the next president of the United States. I have never more proud of being an American than I am tonight. Not only did we elected our first African-American president, but we're also pushing those horrible Bush year behind us, flushing them down the sewer of history where they so rightly belong. I still can't believe it. I was so worried that John McCain and that card-carrying freak he chose--or was told to choose--as a running mate, Sarah "Winky" Palin, were actually going to steal the White House and continue the Bush nightmare of war, divisiveness, and lies. I told my sister that if McCain had won, I would be calling her tomorrow from Canada (here I come, Jen!). But it was not to be. Obama overcame the attacks on his family, his religion, his name, for God's sake, and yes, on his race. These neo-clown sleaze bags had to hop through their own asses to keep from saying "don't vote for the black guy," b...

When I was a police reporter in Pennsylvania, whenever I heard the call for “November One” on the scanner, I knew somebody had just died. “November One” was the code for the county coroner so if I heard the code for a car accident (I think it was 10-15) followed by the coroner’s radio handle, I knew that we had a fatal accident—and a most likely a page-one story. Yesterday was Halloween and today—November One-is All Saints Day, so I guess it’s not surprising that I would think about a man who worked so closely with the dead. This is also the Day of the Dead in Mexico, or Dia De Los Muertos , where friends and family come together to honor deceased loved ones. And--my thanks for Flatbush Gardner for reminding me--today is also the 90th anniversary of the Malbone Street Wreck , where nearly 100 people died in the worst transit disaster in New York City history. It happened in Brooklyn, just outside Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. After the accident, the name of the street...