The Luna Park Gazette

I walked through the old neighborhood for the first time last night. I was on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx with my aunt, sister, and girlfriend, who lives a short distance—though a world away—from the Italian enclave on Arthur Avenue. We had spent a fabulous day at the New York Botanical Garden, wandering over through so much greenery we forget we were in New York. It takes just under forever to get to the garden by subway from Bay Ridge, but you can get there in 20 minutes if you take Metro North from Grand Central. Plus you get to pass through one of my all time favorite sites in New York, which provides entertainment, a history lesson, and fabulous architecture along with a transportation hub. While waiting for our aunt to arrive, I saw a lady get on the ticket line with three huge parrots resting on her. She was pulling a large cage on wheels, but I guess she wanted to give her crew some fresh air before packing them in the carrying case. For a second I thought she was...

“Those who do not understand their own destiny will never understand the friends they have made nor the work they have chosen, nor the one life that waits for them beyond all the others.” --“All the True Vows” from The House of Belonging by David Whyte. I was leaving my house the other morning when I saw a minor traffic jam on my block. A huge black limo was trying to squeeze through the space between a double-parked van and a Poland Springs delivery truck. I don’t know what the limo or the Poland Springs guy were doing on my street, but there they were. The truck driver, who I believe was from Africa, guided the limo driver with one hand while holding his cell phone with the other and speaking into it in some language I didn’t understand. It had the potential of being a miniature disaster, but the delivery truck driver was doing a good job of guiding the limo to safety. When the limo was clear of the two parked vehicles, the trucker began waving his hand and chanting, “it’s good, it’...

Happy Norwegian Day. The annual Norwegian Day parade is going on in Bay Ridge today and from what I saw the turnout was pretty good. The parade is one my favorite signs of spring and it usually means my birthday is not far behind. That used to be a good thing but as my birth year becomes more and more distant, I’m finding fewer and fewer reasons to be cheerful. But I do love a parade. I was coming home from a night away and I had no idea what all the noise was about until I saw the people in plastic Viking helmets. Oh, yeah... I was holding two bags of groceries and I had to wait for a gap in the parade before I could dash... lurch ...across the street. I had dinner at a Thai restaurant in Manhattan with my best bud Hank on Thursday—the day before his birthday—and as I walked into the place I had this feeling of deja vu. Then it came to me. I had eaten lunch here in 1997, my first day on the job at Adweek , where I first met Hank. I had just moved back to New York from Waterbury, Conn...

Dear Mom, Happy Mother’s Day. I wish you were here so I could tell you in person, but I’ll have to settle for this. I miss you so much, yes, even after all this time. It’s still a little painful seeing all these Mother’s Day cards, commercials, posters and pop-up ads on the Internet. Advertisers can tie Mother’s Day into just about anything in an attempt to sell stuff. You hear “Makes a great gift for Mom!” for everything from flowers to industrial machinery. I can’t see you driving a fork lift, but if you had asked, I would have done anything to get one for you. I didn’t send any Mother’s Day cards this year. I know it’s nice to honor the mothers in my life besides you, but I let the time go by and then it was too late for snail mail, so I’ll have to make some phone calls. I regret that now because you certainly taught me better, so I’ll make a point of doing a better job next year. Your granddaughters, Kristen and Victoria, are getting bigger, maturing, which means I’m getting older....

Hey, Brooklyn bloggers, it's almost time. The Fourth Annual Brooklyn Blogfest is going to happen tomorrow night--that's Thursday to you--and you've got to be there. This stellar event celebrating the very best this bloggy borough has to offer will be taking place at powerHouse Arena in DUMBO. Doors open at 7 pm and you have to be there or you'll hate yourself forever. Well, no, you won't hate yourself. But I sure as hell will. And I'll cry and stomp my feet and eat junk food and put on a lot of weight and probably lose my job and wind up homeless and it'll be all your fault. What kind of heartless bastard are you anyway? All right, that's enough of this emotional crap. Here are some particulars: WHY WE BLOG will be the theme of a panel discussion moderated by BCAT's Megan Donis and featuring Jake Dobkin of Gothamis, Anne Pope of Sustainable Flatbush; Tracy Collins of Freakin' Blog and Melissa Lopata of Hip Slope Mama. This year Brooklyn Blogfe...

I saw a living legend the other night and I was so happy to learn that he’s still living. I was at the theater recently--God, I love how that sounds; it makes me seem so cultured. So like I was saying, I was at the theater the other night taking in "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" and during the intermission I headed for the gents. (We don’t call it “the crapper” on Broadway. We’re cultured.) The line was huge, rolling up a flight of stairs and into the back of the theater. The usher had to move us along in small groups to avoid a mutlti-male pile up, which sounds a little funkier than I intended. (Or did I subconsciously intend it to be funky and just won’t admit it? This is all your fault, Freud.) I'm used to seeing this kind of mob scene outside the woman's room, but never with my own gender. We’re supposed to be in and out and on our way. (Now that was intentional.) What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, the crapper. I finally got to the appointed place and as I cam...