The Luna Park Gazette

When David Cassidy died in November the last thing he said before he left this world was “so much wasted time.” Those words came back to me today as I sit in the hospital lounge waiting for 2017 to end. The new year will start in a few hours, and while I won’t be doing much to celebrate, at least I can take stock of my life. Since my movements are so severely restricted, I’ve been taking a closer look at what goes on in my brain and I don’t particularly like it. I spent far too much time regurgitating the awful past in a wasted effort to rewrite my personal history. I’ve said this many times before, but I have yet to learn the lesson. Now that I am not running around like a lunatic, I can see just how much time I’m wasting tilting at the windmills in my mind. So I think my New Year’s resolution for 2018 is going to be very simple: stop wasting time. I have lost a lot of time due to this accident and I will be spending most of the new year just trying to get back to wher...

I have this dream where I get out of bed, walk to the bathroom and start my day. And then I realize that my legs are wrapped up in braces following the knee surgery and I can’t walk anywhere. I will definitely not be home for Christmas this year, as I will be in the hospital rehab center for God knows how long. After that I have to find a way of living in my apartment without moving my knees, and maybe six months from now, when it’s spring, I’m might be able to walk. I’m trying to keep a positive attitude about all this, but I confess it’s very difficult. My doctor says it’ll be 18 months before I’ll be able to go jogging, which means my boxing class, the one I love so much, is out of the question. The thing about the boxing class is that it’s more than just a tough work out. There are so many great people in the class, and I probably won’t be seeing a lot of them again. There’s also my fabulous writing class, which is meeting again in February but I can’t go if I can’t...

I’ll keep this short. I am writing to you from my hospital room in Sunset Park Brooklyn. Yes, my hospital room. On Thursday as I was coming home from the gym I slipped on some snow and cracked up my left knee. I was in total agony and I called a cab to take me home. While getting out of the cab and walking to my front door I managed to fall and screw up my right knee as well I am in total agony and I still can’t believe this has happened. I just got out of surgery a few hours ago and I have a long road of recovery ahead of me. I am frightened, I’m worried about the future and I’m worried about my health. This wasn’t my plan to spend Christmas, but like the man says if you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans. I missed my writing class and our class reading today. I can’t tell you how unhappy this makes me. I can forget about the gym for quite a while—it looks like probably six months or more but if I come out in good shape I’ll be thankful. But right now I’m ...

“Is this going to upset me?” I asked my TV the other night. Naturally my TV didn’t answer. It’s a smart TV, but it ain’t that smart. No matter. I was gearing up for yet another crying fit as I watched a commercial—a goddamn commercial! —about an abandoned teddy bear looking to be loved. “Oh, yes, it is!” I shouted to no one, and began sobbing. I forgot what product was being peddled in this ad, but it doesn’t take much to get me reaching for the tissues. I don’t know if it’s age or lunacy, but I find that I’m getting tear-eyed at the slightest emotional prodding. If someone ever starts a group “Shameless Weepers Anonymous,” I will gladly sign up. While I’ve always been overly sensitive, lately I’ve been balling my eyes out at absolutely anything. And I wonder if there’s a part of me that looks for something to get emotional about just to get the weepy release. Recently I came across a stray memory of a short film that ran on Saturday Night Live 30 years ago called “ Love i...

As the lights dimmed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Friday night, the man sitting next to me leaned in my direction. “See you in four hours,” he whispered. And with that we settle in for the BAM’s mammoth adaptation of Ayn Rand’s turgid potboiler The Fountainhead . Two days have gone by and I still don’t know how the hell I feel, but after suffering through this thing I feel like somebody owes me either an apology or an explanation, but I’ll settle for a t-shirt. For the record, I despise Rand and her crackpot views on individualism with a passion. She peddles a particularly virulent strain of horseshit that magically makes mythic figures out of self-centered, money-grubbing assholes, which explains why Paul Ryan, Donald Trump and the rest of the Republican scumbags jizz their shorts at the mere mention of her name. In addition to being a five-star fraud, Rand, who is also responsible for that other literary slagheap, Atlas Shrugged , is a terrible writer who deposite...

All I wanted was a tube of toothpaste. A simple shopping trip went full-on fiasco this Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, as a I dragged my bloated self through the day in a tryptophan stupor. I did actually accomplish a few things one day after a fabulous turkey dinner with my sister and auntie. I got my printer back online after getting my computer’s operating system replaced, a relatively easy task that I had inflated to crisis-level proportions through the power of my nervous disposition. And I made some (very) minor progress in cleaning up my computer room, though that job is a long way from done. I finally got out of the house in the late afternoon to do some shopping and treat myself to a much-needed massage, but first I stopped off at a neighborhood thrift store for the aforementioned toothpaste. And that's when the owners’ kids decided to rub me the wrong way. The lady who owns the place has two lovely daughters and a really cute little boy. The two girls were ...

We were doing fine until we found that shoebox. For the last few Saturdays, I’ve been going over to my auntie’s house in Manhattan to help her clean her apartment. Last week we made some progress reducing the clutter in her walk-in closet and yesterday we renewed our attack, directing our efforts to the various boxes that sat on the shelves. We discovered two boxes of shoes that she apparently hadn’t worn in a while and then I reached up for a third box expecting to find yet another pair of kicks. But this time we struck gold. This box was filled with dozens of old family photographs, a ton of jumbled memories, many without names or dates, all thrown together in a haphazard history. The moment we pulled back the lid, my auntie and I both knew it was quitting time. I switched off the closet light, we pulled up some chairs, and went back in time. Clicking through digital images doesn’t begin to compare with looking at these old pictures, where you can almost feel the years p...

You see them in all corners of this great city of ours, just itching to spring into your life. New York has a seemingly vast population of unique individuals that some crass folks might refer to as nuts, kooks, weirdos, or freaks. But, hey, come on, without these characters this town would be nothing more than a plus-size Topeka. These people are very helpful in the event you forget what city you’re in. One look at their bizarre antics and you’ll shake your head and say, “Oh, yeah, that's right; I’m in New York .” Take, for example, the gentleman I spied last week walking down Fourth Avenue here in beautiful Bay Ridge shortly before the start of the New York Marathon. He was in his forties, wearing shorts and a straw hat and carrying a massive plastic fish slung over his neck like a Gibson guitar. I’m not sure where he acquired this particular item, but I suspect one of the local seafood restaurants might be missing a sign. And just to make sure we were all looking a...

And I was actually starting to feel hopeful... The New York City Marathon went off without a hitch today, just days after eight innocent people were slaughtered in Manhattan in the name of a psychotic delusion. Once again, my home was the target of a fundamentalist murderer, 16 years after the September 11 attacks. This latest scumbag told the police that he had planned his attack for Halloween because there were would be more people on the street. His victims included five friends from Argentina celebrating their high school reunion and a young mother from Belgium. Yeah, I’ll better Allah is just tickled pink by all these dead infidels, you asshole. I didn’t think things could get any worse, but then that Putin-loving fuckwad in the White House proved me wrong by tweeting a vile load of politically-motivated bullshit before the victims’ bodies were even cold. What the hell is wrong with this scumbag Trump? And what the hell is wrong with his idiot supporters who still stand...

Uncle Joe was mighty proud of me. I like to talk to my uncle in Los Angeles regularly to see what’s going on with the West Coast branch of the family. I’ve stayed with Joe and his wife more times than I could possibly count and it’s always nice to shoot the breeze with him. Joe called me this morning and I filled him on a recent trip I talk to Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island that turned out much better than I had anticipated. “So,” he said after I finished, “you got up off your arse and did something different?” Indeed, I had. I had been trying to decide if I wanted to go on this trip with one of my Meetup groups and, as usual, I was coming up with all kinds of excuses not to join in. My apartment was a mess, I haven’t been doing enough writing, I was tired. And I don’t know my way around Staten Island—what if I got lost? But I also knew that if I stayed in my comfort zone and spent the day by myself, I’d be miserable. Finally, late on Saturday morning, I made up my min...

I saw many fabulous sites during my London trip this summer, and one of them was just around the corner from me. I was staying a (very) small hotel near Bayswater Road and, though I was only there for 10 days, I miss my old neighborhood. I’d take my morning walks in Hyde Park, catch the tube at the Lancaster Gate Underground Station, and whenever I got the munchies, I’d bounce around the corner, walk by the Greek restaurant that was always packed, and get fruit, cheese, or similar stuff at one of two grocery stores. On the way back to my hotel one night, I saw a plaque on an empty building on the corner that had been put up by the Greater London Council which honored the American author Francis Bret Harte , who lived in London for several years before his death in 1902. I know that name , I thought. I know I do. Now, who the hell is he…? The title “Outcasts of Poker Flat” emerged from my old high school English class memories, followed by absolutely nothing else. I had to lea...

Christopher sounds like quite a guy: he wants to save the country, build houses for the homeless and be a good citizen. I became slightly acquainted with Christopher this week while walking along Third Avenue one morning last week. I was coming home from the gym when I saw a composition notebook on the ground. I have this fascination for lost writings and photos, so naturally I stopped to take a look. I saw instantly that the notebook belonged to a child—I couldn’t make out the last name, but “Christopher” was written clearly across the cover. I was a little surprised to see an old-school marble notebook, since I figured kids today are using I-pads, smart phones, and robots to do their homework instead of pencil and paper. I’m not good at determining children’s ages, but Chris is probably a first or second grader. He proudly declared his desires about adulthood on the first page: “ When I grow up I want to be in the army ,” he writes, “ so I can go and save the country from ...

Well, at least we can send thoughts and prayers. I just finished reading the Times’ story on Stephen Paddock, the latest American psycho to unleash his twisted fury on innocent people—this time at a country music festival in Las Vegas, where he fired down into the crowd from his hotel window, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds—yes, hundreds, of others. The carnage has been called the deadliest mass shooting in American history—until the next one, of course. And we all know that there will be a next one. Paddock is a man contrasts, according to the Times , who doesn’t fit the mass shooter profile, but we do know he was a fucking lunatic with ridiculously easy access to a shit-ton of firearms. The video footage of the shooting is sickening, with the unmistakable sound of machine gun fire ripping through the air while the singer on stage stops to figure out what’s going on and then turns to run. It makes me ashamed to be an American. The stories emerging from the shooting a...

I’m not sure, but that might’ve been a panic attack. I’ve been bouncing in all directions for the last few weeks, so I guess this probably wasn’t the best time to watch The Light Between Oceans , an incredibly moving story that I thoroughly enjoyed, though I’m sure some people would dismiss it as just a tear-jerker. Fuck them. The film tells the story of a couple living in a lighthouse in post-World War I Australia, who make an understandable but nonetheless disastrous decision when a boat containing a dead man and a live baby comes ashore on their island. It’s painfully ironic that people who are entrusted with providing this guiding light could stumble down such a dark path, but so many of us have trouble finding our way even at high noon. The thing had me weeping and wailing as the inevitable confrontation takes place, but I also found an excuse to conjure up all these terrible thoughts about what a lousy son I was, how I caused my parents all kinds of worry and misery with m...

Life got so awful last week I just had to ship out. I didn’t go far, but my brief voyages downriver did help wash away some of the rage, worry, and fear that have been eating away at me. The city recently introduced a ferry service from my neighborhood in Bay Ridge that stops at Red Hook, Dumbo, (that's "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass" for all you out-of-towners) and ends up at Pier 11 in Manhattan. Red Hook and Dumbo are difficult to reach by subway or bus from Bay Ridge so the ferry makes my life a lot easier. The ferry leaves from the 69th Street pier, which is a few minutes from my house, and where the Staten Island ferry used to sail from back before the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened in 1964. I have an extremely faint memory of sitting in my parents’ car as we lined up to get on that boat. The city shut down this service shortly after the bridge opened and that was it for the ferry in my corner of the world—until now. This ride costs the same ...

When in doubt, there’s always the little yellow book. I’ve been going through a rather strange period lately. My identity has been hacked, my bank account has been robbed, I’m making all sorts of bonehead mistakes in all facets of my life, and I’m starting to seriously wonder just what in the hell is my mission on this earth. About the only bright spot in all this grief is that my missing funds have been restored, and I’m incredibly thankful for this. I still don’t know how the theft happened and so right now my personal computer is in the shop getting a malware check to make sure it didn’t occur on my end. I blame my bank, but then I am pretty angry about the whole situation. I’m a great believer in signs and portents—fuck logic and facts—am I right, people?--and I’d like to think that this all started a few weeks ago when my cable unit went all schizoid and the repair guy decided that the only way to address the problem was to replace the entire unit without telling me. I ...

This is the day that never should’ve happened. Today is the 16th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, when I stood with a crowd across the street from the World Trade Center and watched life as we knew it go straight to hell. That day was also my father’s 80th birthday and the day after my parents’ anniversary. My mother was in Lutheran Medical Center’s intensive care unit at the time, but they moved her in anticipation of a wave of injured victims that never came. On 9/11, it was just the living or the dead. I recall the horror of that day, the chaos that followed; I remember the flyers, the desperate appeals that papered the city, looking for missing people who would never be seen alive again. And I remember the smell, how I remember that awful stench that hung over the city like a funeral shroud. I was listening to the radio on Sunday and Jonathan Schwartz played this fabulous recording of Frank Sinatra singing “Where or When.” He made that record nearly 70 years ag...

I saw this loser heading my way as I prepared to take a picture of the Tower Bridge in London. He was hairless, like yours truly, but nowhere near as gorgeous, of course. His eyes were bugging out of his head as he walked in front of a guy aiming his camera at the bridge and flipped the two-fingered salute—a variation of the American middle finger. I was on vacation and didn’t want to deal with freaks, but I realized that all big cities have their lunatics. I didn’t make eye contact as he walked by me—I am a New Yorker, after all--but I watched him until he was gone. To be quite honest, the incident paled in comparison with the belligerent costumed characters and aggressive desnudas who stalk Times Square on any given day. But a few days later I saw a poster outside my hotel with the douchebag’s face under the words “Urgent Appeal.” “ City of London Police have released a CCTV still of a man they are looking to speak to in connection with a number of harassment incidents ...

Well, that was pretty stupid, wasn’t it? I pulled a first-class hayseed stunt last week when I returned from my vacation in London—a move so dumb I still can’t believe it. So this is what happened: I get off the plane at JFK after a 7-hour flight and switch on my phone to call a car service to come pick me up. This was the same company that had taken me to the airport 9 days early so I knew I could trust them. But the dispatcher had put this bug in my brain when I called them earlier in the week and asked for a car. “Call us when you land,” he told me. “If the driver has to wait too long we’ll double the fare.” Double the fare? I had run into this problem once before at JFK when a driver threatened to double my fare because I had supposedly kept him waiting too long and it took a lot of screaming on my part to turn things around. I guess that ugly little scene was on my mind when I walked out of the terminal and was approached by this young African man. He offered to give ...

My finger quivered on the mouse as I moved the curser over the “Cancel Vacation” tab. One click and I wouldn’t have to go anywhere or do anything. I wouldn’t have to dig out my passport, fly on an airplane, or rent a hotel room and exchange currency. One click and I could stay in my nice little comfort zone eating wonton soup and watching DVDs. That was me about 10 days ago just prior to my most fabulous trip to England, where I was so stressed, so nervous, so freaked out that I was ready to scrub the entire mission and stay hidden under the blankets for a week. I was worried about my job, my health, the plane going down, terrorists, alien invasions, and a whole slew of nameless emotional gargoyles lingering on the rim of my subconscious ready to bum-rush my brain. But I couldn’t give into the fear. I had told just about everyone I knew that I was heading to the U.K. and it would like pretty ridiculous if I suddenly bailed on the whole shebang. And I had people to see, includi...

I couldn’t stay in the house one second more. It was late Saturday afternoon and I was losing my mind. I had spent a good part of the day either at the bank or in front of my computer as I prepared for my upcoming vacation and I still hadn’t knocked off several important items on my to-do list. I was angry at myself for blowing two hours on a Netflix detour and for failing to make plans for the day or evening—but the weather report said it was going to rain all day and I figured this would be a great time to get my chores out of the way. Then my computer starting slowing down and my blood pressure starting climbing and, once again, I found an excuse to get angry over nothing. When the sun finally came out at around 5pm, I grabbed a book, bolted out of the door, and made for nearby Shore Road Park where I could read, relax and rejuvenate. And that’s when I met Jacob. He was nine-years old and he walked right up to me, giggling and clutching a plastic ray gun. His father was...

At least the umbrella lady was nice to me. My identify theft woes continued this week when my bank sent me an email asking if I had authorized some yin-yang called Jorge Osoria to use my credit card, which of course I hadn’t. So, I had to dump another yet another credit card. This latest bit of misery follows my recent run-in with cyber-cretin Ruth Dingfield , who taunted me via email and whom I would cheerfully ding with a frying pan and bury in a field of skunkweed. The bank security woman told me that it’s probably some malware in my computer that could be reading my actual key strokes. (If that’s the case, Jorge, tell me what this says: “F-U-C-K-Y-O-U!”) I had already done a malware search and turned up nothing, but I downloaded a new program which took nearly eight hours to review every scrap of information in my computer and do you know what it found? Absolutely nothing. So, however these humps are getting to my account, it ain’t happening on my end. Things got even ...