The Luna Park Gazette

A generation ago, The Lovin’ Spoonful asked the musical question “Do you believe in magic?” and as of Saturday my answer is a resounding “yes!” The cause of the conversion was a pair of lovely run-ins I had with two adorable children as I walked home from the gym. The first meeting occurred on Fifth Avenue as I approached a local nail salon. A woman, presumably the owner or an employee, was standing outside with this beautiful little boy. As I got closer to the store the little guy broke away from his mother and came charging up to me with a flyer in his hand. “Is that for me, buddy?” I asked as took the sheet of paper from his hand. “Why, thank you so much!” I don’t think I’ll be frequenting the place, but I just loved how determined that boy was to help his mom. But it turned out that this young fellow was just the opening act of my exciting morning. I was just a half block from my home when I passed a house on 72nd Street where a young couple and their little girl were ou...

When I first got started in newspapers my mother did everything she could to support me. There was this one time early in my journalism career when my mother was trying to boost my confidence while she ironing some shirts. She was a multitasker long before the term was invented. Now I’m a half-breed, a child of an Irish father and an Italian mother, and that combination was often an issue in our house. “You could be the next Jimmy Breslin,” my mother said, God bless her. “Only you’re not obnoxious. And the reason you’re not obnoxious is because you’re not 100% Irish. Because when it comes to being obnoxious, the Irish, I’m sorry to say, corner the market.” She said this without venom or rage, but in a normal tone of voice as if she were discussing the weather. It was just a fact as far as she was concerned. My mother was the kindest, most loving person I’m ever known in my life and she did not have a bigoted bone in her body. But she was also human and she did harbor this ...

In my own defense, I was drinking a lot that night. While trawling through the cavernous storage locker that is my memory, I stumbled upon a rather odd recollection of one night in Stroudsburg, PA, back in the early Nineties while I was working at the Pocono Record . I worked a 2pm-10pm shift, which was out of synch with most other people, but it did allow me to hit the mall and other locations when they were practically empty. It also meant I stayed up later than most other people and I got into the habit of stopping at the bar near the paper most nights of the week and downing far too many beers before heading to my apartment on Scott Street. I confess that for a while there, I has getting plastered most nights of the week and I just figured I’d be fine the next morning because I could sleep in late. Technically this was correct, but I was also putting on weight, and more seriously, I was looking forward to getting wasted rather dealing with my various problems. Looking ba...

I wish I had taken a picture of that chair. Ever since I got my smartphone I’ve enjoyed snapping photos of just about anything that catches my eye and slapping it up on Facebook. Interesting graffiti, old buildings, theater marquees, restaurant signs, and selfies all get the social media treatment. The other morning I was walking up to my gym when I saw a tiny chair sitting outside a house waiting for the sanitation crew to take it away. I thought it would be a nice picture to put up on Facebook along with a wisecrack in the comments section. But I was running late so I kept going. As I walked on I started thinking about how the discarded chair meant that someone in that house was getting bigger and leaving a part of his or her childhood behind forever. It’s been a six years since we sold our parents’ house , when we had to throw out or give away toys, clothes, furniture, and God knows what else before we could put the place on the market, and that little chair brought bac...