The Luna Park Gazette

Dirge for Two Veterans by Walt Whitman The last sunbeam Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath, On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking, Down a new-made double grave. Lo, the moon ascending, Up from the east the silvery round moon, Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon, Immense and silent moon. I see a sad procession, And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles, All the channels of the city streets they're flooding, As with voices and with tears. I hear the great drums pounding, And the small drums steady whirring, And every blow of the great convulsive drums, Strikes me through and through. For the son is brought with the father, (In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell, Two veterans son and father dropt together, And the double grave awaits them.) Now nearer blow the bugles, And the drums strike more convulsive, And the daylight o'er the pavement quite has faded, And the strong dead-march enwraps me. In the easter...

And so I’m now 54 years old. I’ll skip all the “I’m so old” and “where did the time go?” crap because this is a day for celebration not flagellation. A lot of nice things happened today. My sister treated me to a delicious dinner, I received some very nice cards, and I got a ton of birthday wishes from all my friends on Facebook. Plus Modell’s sent me a discount coupon in honor of my birthday and if that isn’t cause for unrestrained merriment I don’t know what is. I started the day early with a 7am boxing class because even though it’s my birthday, it’s also gym day and I never miss a chance for a little self-abuse. I pushed things today as I tried to keep up with a much younger classmate during a heavy bag workout. I survived the class, but towards the end I began to understand how the bag felt. My niece likes to tease me about not straining myself "because of your age and your condition." I'm starting to think she may be on to something. We had our annual health fair at...

Do you want to be happy every day? Save your money and time. Don’t miss the chance of your life! Just trust me and life will change to better immediately. Just do it! You won’t be disappointed! I want to help you with your infernal ache. I know the place where you can buy the best drugs. The preceeding statements were made in my name, but I had nothing to do with them. My email contact list was hijacked recently so everybody on it received messages about the secrets of sexual attraction, were told that sex is the only satisfaction, and advised that “OMG! I have never had such a long sex!” and “LOL! It’s the funniest thing in the world!” Only it wasn’t funny at all. It was downright creepy. I got messages from so many people demanding to know what the hell going on. There’s nothing quite like having an ex-girlfriend writing to find out why you sent her an ad for cheap Viagra. The only satisfaction for me would have been finding the idiots responsible for this spam-icide and inflicting t...

I made a new friend on my vacation and while she’s not very good at her job, she did teach me an important lesson. Her name is Gigi and she's not an actual person—that’s the name my uncle and his wife gave to their car’s Global Positioning System (GPS). I haven’t owned a car in years, I rarely drive, and I’ve never used GPS. I supposed it’s good idea, but it feels a little creepy to have some device telling you to turn here and turn there. I went through this once with the nuns in Catholic school and I don't feel like repeating the experience. I’ve got a cell phone that will mouth off without warning, asking me to please repeat my command, even though I haven’t made a command. This keeps happening, usually at the worst possible moments, and I can't turn the damn thing off. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve been known to pick up the phone and shout “ drop dead! ” in public places. Maybe I should calm down a little. But I got to like Gigi. She had some severe directional issues, ...

My sister and I stood on the trail to Vernal Fall in Yosemite National Park wondering what to do next. It was pretty intimidating. The falls, which measure 317 feet, were crashing to one side, while the narrow and rather soggy path before us seemed to snake right up to the sky. Neither one of us is very good with heights and we had a lot of climbing to do before we reached the top. What the hell am I doing here? I thought. I’m not Sir Edmond Hillary. I’m just a schmoe from Brooklyn. “It’s up to you,” my sister said. Oy, I was afraid of that. I really didn’t want to go any farther, but then I didn’t want to come on this trip to California in the first place because I really didn’t want to get on a plane, and I really didn’t want to leave Brooklyn and God forbid I should break up my precious little routine for 10 entire days. The way back down looked so inviting. “Let’s go a little higher,” I finally said. And so we did. When we got to the next level, I saw that the last leg of the trip...