The Luna Park Gazette

If there’s a patron saint of klutzes, I could sure use his help. I’ve been on what feels like a nonstop doofus run for the last week or so, as I break or lose just about anything I put my hands on. It started when I misplaced one of my crappy old gloves. I can’t even guess how these things are—I think they once belonged to my father--so it’s not like I lost some valuable piece of attire. But it’s just so goddamn annoying. There are few things as worthless as a single glove-- unless it belongs to Captain Hook. And what really bugged me was the fact that just the day before I remarked on how I hadn’t lost a glove in years. So I got a fistful of karma for mouthing off. In desperation, I hiked all over Bay Ridge, retracing my steps like some cut-rate Kojack in search of my missing mitten. But I came up empty. Luckily the glove turned up at my gym the following day and I thought, okay, life will now return to normal. Then disaster struck. I have a statue of St. Martin de Po...

I put it off for three whole days, but today I finally gave in. I shaved. I hadn’t touched my face for most of the week after deciding that I'd go to a barbershop on 74th Street and let Garry, the man with the razor, work his tonsorial magic. And be advised that I didn’t go for some run-of-the-mill whisker wipe. Oh, heavens no. I ordered up the royal shave for both my magnificent mug and my beautiful hairless head. It was decadent, selfish, a ridiculous waste of money—and I loved every second of it. Hell, I haven’t gotten a shave from a barber since the Reagan Administration. That was back when I went to Leo, a little old Italian man who had a small shop on 68th Street. Leo used to wave to me every morning as I walked to the subway station-even before I became a customer—and one of the first articles I ever did as a reporter was about Leo for a now defunct publication called Bay Ridge Life . Then Leo closed his store and for some reason I stopped getting shaves. I’m n...

I was taking my regular afternoon nap one Saturday when I heard my father’s voice. “ Rob? ” That’s all. Just my name spoken as a question, the way my father used to greet me whenever he called me on the phone. We spoke nearly every morning during the 10 years I lived away from Brooklyn and that’s how our conversations always started. My father’s been gone nearly seven years now, so I guess I was dreaming when I heard him speak. But this audio fragment was the only thing my aging brain cells were able to retain. Any accompanying images vanished the moment I woke up. And yet, as brief as it was, my father’s greeting still lingers in my mind. It got me thinking about my relationship with my father and I have to say that we got along extremely well when we were on the opposite ends of a long distance phone call. On the telephone my father was always supportive and kind. He’d ask me about what I was doing, what stories I was working on. I’d complain about the idiots I had to ...

Confession may be good for the soul, but it can be hell on the nervous system. One of my creepiest Catholic school memories—and they are legion—involved stepping into the confessional. I don’t know who thought children would benefit from kneeling in a pitch-black closet and stammering out their misdeeds toward a scary silhouette, but take it from me, whoever this person was, he was seriously full of crap. I was terrified when the nuns herded all of us little sinners into church to get our spirits buffed and shined. The worst part came after you dropped the curtain and sat in the dark waiting for the priest to slide back the screen on your side of the box. The only reason I didn’t run out screaming was that I knew the nuns would be ready to carve my heart out if they caught me going AWOL. So I knelt there and when the slide pulled back, I looked toward the light and did the routine. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned… Once you received your penance, you got the hell out o...

I woke up early Thursday evening just in time to see someone in a red sweater dash into my kitchen. Burglars , I thought in my semi-conscious state. I’m being robbed! I gradually became aware of my surroundings. I was stretched out on the floor of my living room like the victim in a Law & Order episode. I raised my head and saw my auntie sitting on the couch. What was she doing here? And why wasn’t she beating the crap out of that burglar with her purse? Then I realized it was Thanksgiving Day. That person in the red sweater who had just disappeared into the kitchen wasn’t an armed intruder; she was my sister. And I had fallen sound asleep in front of my guests. I’ve never held a Thanksgiving dinner at my home before, but I’m pretty sure that proper etiquette calls for the host to remain conscious for the entire event. But I was exhausted. I had been fretting about this dinner for weeks and now that I was worry-free, sufficiently stuffed, and only slightly soused, I d...

Now I have two more names for the list. There's a point during the mass at Trinity Church where we say the Prayers of the People, expressing thanks to God and asking for His help with the words “Lord, have mercy.” We pray for our leaders, for the sick and suffering, the widowed and infirmed, and “for all who have died in the hope of the resurrection, and for all the departed.” Each of us is then given the opportunity to name loved ones who have passed. I’m still not accustomed to speaking up in church, but I find it comforting to name my parents, aunts, uncles and others close to me who have left this world. Last week my family lost my both cousin Mary-Anne and my uncle Walter within the space of a few days. So I’ll be calling their names out in church as well. I’m sorry to say that I had pretty much lost contact with Mary-Anne and I had not seen my Uncle Walter in years. But it’s painful to think that they both died just at the start of the holiday season when we emp...

I stood outside the shuttered storefront on Fifth Avenue on Friday afternoon and peered through the grating. The last time I had been here, the place was crammed with all kinds of men’s clothing. But now it was bone empty, the lights were off, and a notice from the city marshal’s office was taped to the window. The store's owner had been shot to death last year by some psycho who went on to murder two more shopkeepers before the cops got him. I had heard the owner’s family was keeping the store open and I wanted to shop there as a personal tribute to a hard-working man who had been cruelly and senselessly killed. But the place seems to be the latest casualty on Fifth Avenue, my old shopping ground. I used to live right off the avenue and every Saturday morning I’d go on my weekly shopping expedition, hitting the bank, bagel shop, dry cleaner, and fruit store, before ending up at Picardi’s, a neighborhood butcher. By the time I got home I was usually staggering under ...

Whenever something bad happens, there’s a part of me that thinks I had it coming. God is punishing you, I’ll tell myself. God is coming after you for all the bad things you’ve done. It’s crazy, it’s unhealthy, and yet I still do it. I’m just getting over another bout with chronic fatigue and, as usual, I made matters worse by getting angry and believing that I had somehow brought this illness upon myself. You’re so arrogant about staying in shape, I scolded myself, that’s why you’re getting sick. It’s a dark kind of ego trip, where I believe the Creator of the Universe is gunning for me—like He doesn’t have enough to do already. It’s all about me—as long as it’s bad news. I got so upset last week that at one particularly low point I sent a desperate plea up to the Almighty. “Whatever I did,” I said, “I’m sorry.” Blind apologies usually don’t make much sense or have much value, but then I wasn’t thinking very clearly. Just a few days later I was listening to a web ca...

I high-fived the whole world today and then took a walk through time. The New York Marathon charged through the five boroughs today and once again I joined my sister to watch more than 50,000 runners race down Fourth Avenue in Bay Ridge on their way to the finish line in Central Park. I can’t believe I almost didn’t go this year. I seriously thought about staying home and looking through the Sunday Times while athletes from every corner of the earth were running just a few blocks from my house. Luckily my sister called last night and inspired me to get off my butt and away from the Sunday papers. I slapped palms with so many runners today my hand went numb—and I didn’t care. It was worth the momentary sting to connect with such a diverse group of people. We marathon spectators are really ambassadors for a day, representing our city and our country to throngs of speeding visitors. “Thank you,” one woman said to me as our hands connected. “Thank you ,” I replied. Thi...

“ All I can hear is the wind and sirens. ” And so began a blog entry I wrote a year ago when Hurricane Sandy slammed into the New York area. While I had electricity that night, the storm had taken out my television, telephone, and Internet connection. “ I am writing a post that no one can read,” I wrote. “I’d be completely off the grid if it weren’t for the cell phone and the radio. So I guess they weren’t kidding…. ” I’m writing this on an unusually warm autumn day. But things were different a year ago. “ The winds are wailing all around my house. From my third floor window I can see the tops of the trees being whipped from side to side. Hurricane Sandy has arrived and she is stomping all over this corner of the world. ” I was going through another one of my back episodes at the time and could hardly walk. While I was accustomed to being stuck in my house, I wrote that the hurricane “makes me feel even more cut off.” “ I have to write because there’s nothing else to do. ” ...

Victoria had it all planned. My 18-year-old niece called me from Colorado recently to tell me what I would be wearing for Halloween this year. As usual with Victoria, I have no say in the matter. “You’re going to be a garden gnome,” she said. Yes, that’s right, my brother Jim’s daughter didn’t see me as a pirate or one of those sexy vampire types I keep hearing about. No, she had decided that I should go out in public dressed like some mythic subterranean creature with severe wardrobe issues. “A gnome?” I demanded. “Are you serious?” “Yes,” Victoria said. “All the women will love it.” “With my luck the only thing I’ll attract will be female gnomes,” I shouted. I should probably pause here to mention that this would be a distinct improvement over my current dating status--but I still ain’t doing it. “No,” my niece insisted. “They’ll look at you and say, ‘wow, this guy dresses up like a gnome. There must be something to this guy.’” Yeah, he’s a mental case! “Why don...

I really thought I was going to need that toothbrush. I had to dump the contents of my pockets into a tray on Saturday, but I didn’t do it for Homeland Security. I did it for art. I had joined other members of the Meetup group “Everything Brooklyn” to attend the annual Gowanus Open Studios event in Park Slope. We hiked in and around old warehouses in Park Slope that have been converted into art studios. One of the artists, Joana Ricou , was working on a fantastic project where she asked people to take whatever they had out of their pockets, put it all in a tray, and allow her to photograph it. Joana explained that the contents of our pockets tell us who we are at a given moment in time. The photos are a freeze frame of our lives, particularly in this age of the smart phone, where we carry personal computers packed with all our vital information. I usually leave my house with my front pockets brimming with all manner of stuff—bloated wallet, I-phone, house keys, and a bus...

Maybe I should’ve stuck with the hamsters. I left my office in lower Manhattan on Friday night and walked right into the middle of an animal act. A man was setting up a series of boxes at the corner of Broadway and Cortland Street and unpacking a portable petting zoo. There was a line of hamsters crammed on top of one box and a cat on leash crouching before a bucket of dollar bills. I don’t know what this man was planning to do, but I don’t care for animal shows. If you need to make other creatures perform so you can feel superior, well, then we all know who the truly inferior animal is, don’t we? Besides, I was due uptown at Playwrights Horizons, where I was taking in a new show called Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play. I had recently bought a subscription for the company’s 2013-2014 season and I was looking forward to seeing the first show. So I left the hamster man and jumped on the E train for 42nd Street. There’s no place on earth like Times Square on a Friday night. ...

Every Sunday I like to sit down and read the New York Daily News “Justice Story” column. As a former police reporter and perspiring writer, I enjoy these old time stories of crime and punishment. After five years of chasing police cars and fire engines, being cursed at by lowlifes, and harassing victims’ families at the worst hour of their lives, it’s nice to sit on my rear end and enjoy all manner of mayhem without having to report on it. I’m cover accounting now, and while it’s nothing like police reporting, I get to work a normal schedule and I don’t have to fly out the door in the pursuit of havoc every time the police scanner squawks. Last week I was reading a Justice Story about Carl Gugasian , aka “The Friday Night Bank Robber,” a one-man crime wave who, over the course of nearly 30 years, had knocked over a series of banks from New England to Virginia. This guy hit his intended targets like a commando taking down a terrorist cell. He meticulously planned his robberies,...

Oh, come on now. Look, I know I’ll never be mistaken for Brad Pitt, but I can’t possibly be as ugly as this temporary office ID photo makes me out to be. I left my ID badge at home the other day and was forced to go through the ritual of posing for a temporary badge like a purse-snatcher being booked at a police station. This was the second time in six months that I've done this and I’m not sure if it’s a subconscious statement about my job, a sign of creeping dementia, or both. Whatever the reason, I can assure you that it’s a swift pain in the caboose. I think I handled things better this time around, or at least I was handling them better until I looked down at the ID photo and came face-to-face with an absolute freak of nature. Are you kidding me? I looked like an extra from The Walking Dead, for God’s sake. My head sits on my shoulders like a rotting pumpkin and for some reason I’m looking up to the ceiling as if the roof is about to come crashing down on me. ...

Most mornings I like to listen to a recording of a Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness called “ho'oponopono” that focuses on clearing the spirit of anger and other toxic emotions. The 10-minute session that I listen to merely repeats four simple phrases: “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. And I thank you.” It may not sound like much, but this mantra can have great cleansing power. The apology can be directed at anyone or anything--the universe, deceased loved ones, even ourselves, because God knows so much of our pain is self-inflicted. I had an opportunity to apply that practice to a real world situation last week. I got into an email beef with a co-worker on Thursday that turned quite ugly in a matter of minutes. I was having a bad day, to put it mildly, but that doesn’t excuse my obnoxious behavior. It started off with some snippy remarks and got more atrocious with each reply. That’s one of the reasons I hate email—that and the Nigerian ban...

I made some smart investments in the last few weeks and I must say they’ve really paid off. This had nothing to do with the stock market. I was working in the area of human capital and all I did was send a simple message: Thank you. That’s it. I just expressed gratitude to people who had helped me out and in return I was rewarded with a chronic attack of the warm and fuzzies. My first acknowledgement went to Ronit Keith, general manager of the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Toronto where I stayed earlier this month. I simply told her the truth, which was that I was impressed by the courtesy and professionalism of her staff. I know that’s their job—it is the hospitality industry, after all—but I felt that these people were particularly hospitable. I’ve been in too many situations where the “help” is anything but helpful. And I find I’m quick to complain but not nearly as fast to compliment. I wanted to change that, so I took five minutes to shoot Ms. Keith an email and got ...

Brace yourself for a shock. There were two mass shootings in America this week. Astounding, isn’t it? Mass shootings in the USA. I still can't believe it. We're such a peace-loving people. Or is that "piece-loving"? First, we had a deranged man shoot 12 people to death in the Washington Navy Yard. Then 13 people were shot in Chicago after a gunman with a military-grade assault rifle opened fire on a pickup basketball game. One of the victims in the Chicago case included a three-year-old boy, proving that you’re never too young to take a bullet. How is this possible? I mean, it’s not like we ever had anything like this ever happened before in this country. We never had a psychopath shoot his way into a school and mow down innocent grade-schoolers and their teachers. We never had a nutbag walk into a dark theater and start shooting into the crowd. And we never, ever have anyone shoot up an army base…or a shopping mall…or a church…or a Sikh temple..or a co...