The Luna Park Gazette

Whenever I walk into my kitchen, I get this feeling that I’m being watched. I live alone and I have no pets, but I do have a microwave oven that I have been steadfastly ignoring for the last few months and I think it’s starting to get pissed. The thing sits on the counter eyeballing me, soundlessly demanding to know what’s going on. What’s the story? It seems to say. Why haven’t you used me for so long? What can I say? Breaking up really is hard to do. And in this case, my dear little food zapper, it’s not me; it’s most definitely you. There was a time when my microwave was the only thing between me and starvation—or at least eating a lot of raw food. I lived to hear the sound of the little ping telling me dinner was ready as anxiously as a hamster hoping for his next food pellet. I watched the seconds tick away on the timer like Major Tom commencing countdown, engines on. But something happened after all those years of take-out, heat up and throw away. I started cookin...

Somewhere amidst all the noise, I heard music. I was sitting in my dentist’s chair last week with my head cranked back and my mouth wide open while Dr. Cohen went about cleaning the old ivories. No cavities, thank God, and in just a few minutes I would be out in the world enjoying the gorgeous summer weather. But above all the whirling and sloshing I could hear someone singing. Was I imagining things or had my dentist been working on a ventriloquist act in his spare time? “I have often walked down the street before but the pavement always stayed between my feet before…” Wait a minute. That’s “ On the Street Where You Live, ” a lovely song from My Fair Lady . It seems my dentist has music playing in his office, but he keeps it so low—and I am apparently so clueless—that I had never heard it before. And I like this tune so much that I was tempted to ask Dr. Cohen to hold up his noble work until it was over. But I kept my mouth shut--even though it was open. “ Tomorrow ” from...

I’m always on a subconscious search for pleasant memories of my late parents. I’ll be sitting around, reading or looking at TV and suddenly some random bit of the past will pop into my brain like a hot slice of toast. I recently recalled a scene from my childhood and even though it’s only a fragment, I think it says a lot about my parents’ personalities. This was about 50 years ago. (Good God ...) I remember sitting in our living room with my dad watching a horrendous Italian science fiction flick called Battle of the Worlds or Il pianeta degli uomini spenti . The movie starred Claude Rains, one of my favorite actors, in his final movie role. While he worked in television for a few more years, it’s a shame that Rains, who did such tremendous work in Casablanca, The Invisible Man, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to name a few, should have such a howling dog on his resume. But you do have to pay the bills. So we’re watching the movie when my mother walks in and sees Claude...

There’s this Native American story about an old man explaining the facts of life to his grandson. We all have two wolves fighting inside of us, the old man said, one is evil, filled with anger, greed, self-pity, and arrogance. The other is good, representing joy, peace, love, and kindness. “Which wolf will win?” the boy asked his grandfather. “The one you feed,” the old man replied. I had a serious run-in with my evil wolf on Saturday and I fed that bloodthirsty canis lupus everything from soup to nuts. And I do mean nuts. I got out of bed with a bad attitude. I’ve been having some kind of trouble with my upper back. Apparently I pulled a muscle and if I move a certain way I get zapped with a bolt of pain that makes me even crankier than usual. From there I stumbled through a series of boneheaded misconceptions that stirred up a massive thundercloud of vile emotions that threatened to overwhelm a beautiful sunny day. I’m going on vacation in a few weeks and I somehow bec...