The Luna Park Gazette

" What you do want from me? I’m a fucking human being! ” I was shopping in a vitamin store on 86th Street when I heard someone shouting those very words for the entire neighborhood to hear. At first I thought someone was auditioning for a local production of The Elephant Man . But then I saw a young woman walking done the street shrieking into a cell phone. Well, lady, I thought, since you claim to be a human being, perhaps you could act like one? It wouldn't take much. You could just lower your voice, clean up your mouth, and keep your private business private. That would be a great start. We’ve all gotten used to hearing bits of one-sided conversations as we pass people on the street and sometimes they can be quite loud. But this woman had reached a decible level so high she could have won a yodeling contest--without leaving Brooklyn. Her voice faded as she walked down the avenue and I dismissed the Jersey Shore reject from my mind, certain I'd never see--o...

You can’t keep a good zombie down. In fact, that’s pretty much what makes them zombies—that and the cannibalism. Like zombies themselves, the zombie movie refuses to die. There are some slight plot variations, but the basic story usually involves a handful of humans fending off a battalion of flesh-eating corposes. The humans fight among themselves, get picked off one by one, and then the zombies smash their way into wherever the heroes are hiding and then all hell really does break loose. Roll the credits. These movies will never be mistaken for great cinema, but some of them—a few of them--can be reasonably entertaining as you long as you’ve got nothing else going on. Now if you’re squeamish…you probably shouldn’t be watching a zombie movie. You know there’s going to be severed limbs and gallons of fake blood spilling all over the place, so why torture yourself? If you expect everyone to hug it out and go vegan, you don't know much about zombies. Zombies are pretty low on the mon...

I came home late one night last week and saw a small group of men on Fifth Avenue huddling around a silver van. At first I thought they were all friends, but then I noticed the air was charged in a way that was anything but cordial. Everyone was speaking Arabic, a sign of the neighborhood’s shifting demographics, and the tones were getting increasingly unfriendly. I know--I should have kept walking. You never know what can happen in these situations. Someone might not appreciate being eyeballed and decide to punch your teeth out. If things get really hostile and people start shooting, a bullet isn’t going to say “please” before it tears through your skull. But I wanted to know what was going on. I’m a journalist and I’ve been hanging on the edge of mayhem for years, waiting for the cops or fire fighters to give me the official story. I’m also nosy and this scene was like reality TV without the commercials. I moved through the crowd that had gathered to watch this incident, but I woul...