The Luna Park Gazette

I got a spam e-mail the other day that asked a simple, but important question: Joyous neuroses, Culpepper?‏ I don’t know who Culpepper is, but I often suffer from joyous neuroses at this time of the year. The email was an offer for Viagra, the gift that keeps on giving. But with the way my love life has been going, I have no use for Viagra, unless I need a place to hang candy canes. Joyous neuroses seems to be spreading as 2008 draws to a close. I noticed that I was the only customer in my local card store on Tuesday afternoon, which is just not normal. “How’s business?” I asked the owner, hoping he'd have some happy news. “Not good. There should be 20 people in the store at this time of the day.” He then delivered a lengthy diatribe about the alleged Ponzi scammer Bernard Madoff and $50 billion scam. I went to a supermarket to get food for the dinner and the place seemed pretty sparsely populated. While I was waiting on line at the checkout counter, one of the other cashiers—a you...

A year ago at this time I was healthy, happy, and in Hawaii. Now I’m sick, cranky and freezing in Brooklyn. This is progress? I am really trying to get some Christmas spirit going now, honest I am. My sister and I got the Christmas tree (a mere 75 bucks), dug the decorations out of the basement—all the lights work, praise Jesus—and brought out the best china in preparation for our family Christmas dinner on Thursday. Even as I write this, I’m listening to Christmas music, trying to get the yuletide feeling again. But it’s not happening. I’ve had a cold for the last 10 days and it’s not just any cold. This is the Blagojevich of colds: vile, debilitating, and it won’t go the hell away. I was coughing so much last week I sounded like Tiny Tim about to kick the crutch. This blows. One of my neighbors has an elaborate holiday light display, which features the word “JOY” crucified to the front of his home. It seems like an order or a curse instead of a proclamation. I’m tempted to put up an ...

I had this dream not long ago where I was meeting with my parents in the living room of our house. They were both alive and elderly, which is my most recent memory of them. My mother was sitting next to a walker, which she used in real life when her health began to fail. My father was standing next to her, not saying a word. This is probably the best indicator that I was dreaming. My mother was telling me that she and my father appreciated how I helped take care of my mother and they wanted to give me something. “We’re going to give you ten dollars ,” she said with great emphasis. I laughed and explained that they didn’t have to give me a reward, that it was my pleasure to help her and that 10 bucks really didn’t go far in today’s economy. Apparently the stock market meltdown hadn’t occurred in this dream world. I’m trying to think what happened during the day to spark that dream. One thing in particular was learning this woman I was interested in had a boyfriend. Even though I laughed...

In my sophomore year of high school, I was doing so poorly in several subjects that I decided only a miracle would keep me out of summer school. So I was pretty shocked when I walked into my home room class on the last day of school and found that I had passed all my classes—not by much, of course—but I was officially a free man until September. “It’s enough to make you go back to church,” I said, marveling at my narrow escape. Of course I didn’t mean that. I had no intention of going back to church. I was a smart aleck teenager who was much too cool for church. And I had suffered 8 years of abuse at Catholic school that would have had the Blackwater torture team screaming for their mommies. No, I was just making a lame joke in a desperate bid to make people laugh. My luck ran out a few years later when I failed math for real this time and had to take it over again in summer school. I had been going to lunch time services at Trinity Church in lower Manhattan for almost a year. It was c...

All right, people, listen up: the long wait is over. The 2009 full-color calendar, based on writer/photographer Brenda Becker's astonishing blog “ Prospect: A Year in the Park ”, has arrived. Yes, Brenda has knocked this one right out of the park--and straight into your life. Brenda, of course, is the multi-talented individual who also cranks out those other great gifts to the blogosphere, CrazyStable and, of course, Prospect: A Year in the Park. Ye gods, is there no stopping this woman? Let’s hope not. “Designed by the photographer and produced right here in Brooklyn,” Brenda tells us, “it is a perfect gift for anyone who is a Brooklynite by birth, adoption, or desire. Buy an extra one to send to those out-of-town relatives who always ask ‘why you live in Brooklyn’!" Chart the days of your life with the beautiful images of Brooklyn’s special wonderland, Prospect Park. "The calendar is a season-by-season reflection on the fathomless beauty and variety of Prospect Park: ...