The Luna Park Gazette

I sat in the back seat of my parent’s car while we raced down a dark country road. My mother and father, long since gone from this world, were sitting up front as we drove through an incredibly dark forest. This was a dream, of course, and it was about to turn into a nightmare. I haven’t dreamt about either one of my parents for a long time and I don’t think I’ve ever dreamt about them together. I used to travel a lot with my parents when I was younger, so the image of me sitting in the back seat of their car is definitely rooted in reality. During this dream ride, the only thing I could see was the twisting road ahead dimly illuminated by the headlight’s beams. I don’t know where the hell we were, but wherever it was, I could sense that it was cold, remote, and dangerous. And it got a lot more dangerous when my father keeled over behind the wheel. I could see his head rolling from side to side as the car started flying all over the road and I heard my mother screa...

“Where have you been?” It’s a question I’ve been hearing a lot lately as I slowly make my return to civilization. This latest inquiry happened on Saturday as I was walking up 69th Street near Colonial Road. The woman who runs the Hot Wok, my local Chinese food place, was crossing the street when we spotted each other. “I had an accident in December,” I said, giving her an abbreviated version of the slip in the snow saga that has dominated my life for the last five months. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ll be back soon.” “Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I’m just glad you’re better.” Yeah, me, too. I walked away feeling a little more human, a little more connected to the real world. April in New York has been too goddamn cold for my liking. I’m still doing my stairway climbs, but it sucks when you have to bundle up at a time of the year when you should be listening to the birdies chirping. But the last two days have been more spring-like and everyone outside of an in...

It was like Rocky …only in slow motion. I took my act on the road this week, or at least on the street, when my surgeon finally gave me the okay to walk out amongst humans without leg braces, walker, or cane. “I think you’re ready for just about anything,” he said Tuesday morning. Ready for just about anything. I have been waiting to hear those words since mid-December when I first hit the snow-covered deck and wrecked both my knees. Every morning when I went lumbering to rehab with those awful leg braces I told anybody within earshot that I was going to be walking every day by spring. This latest was much more optimistic than the original estimate, when my doctor thought I’d be out of commission for 18 flipping months. I walked home from the doctor’s office that day, both out of a desire to use my legs again and the fact that I’d had a brutal shouting match with a local car service driver and dispatcher earlier that morning after they left me hanging outside my house for 2...

There was a time back in Seventies when I couldn’t wait to watch the evening news. I wanted to know what was going on, of course, but I was especially interested in the sign off. During its weekend broadcasts, Channel 7, the local ABC affiliate, would show nighttime footage of New York City during the closing credits while playing this lovely, soothing music. This was well before, the Internet, DVRs or YouTube, where you can now access just about any kind of recording any time you want. Back then I had to make sure I was sitting in front of our old Motorola at 11:27pm or I would miss it. New York was in pretty rough shape back then, so these relaxing few moments provided a nice break from the wall-to-wall mayhem that seemed to follow us every day. As crazy as the city was, this mellow music seemed to tell you it was okay to slow down a little bit and look forward to the morning. It was a little melancholy perhaps, but it was also a soundtrack for hope. My mother loved the ...

Seriously…that was Pat Boone? In honor of Easter, Turner Classic Movies last night showed “ The Greatest Story Ever Told ,” the 1965 epic biblical story that I saw way back in the fifth grade. I was in Catholic school at the time and my teacher, Sister Joseph Goebbels, suggested we see the movie or we’d surely burn in Hell for all eternity with demons gnawing on our genitals…or at least that’s how I remember it. The film had an all-star cast, of course, but the only actor I was interested in seeing was David McCallum as Judas Iscariot. You young people out there may know him as cranky old Doctor Ducky from NCIS, but back then David McCallum portrayed the young Russian badass Illya Kuryakin in my favorite TV program of the moment, “ The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ,” a Bond-era spy show. Each week I’d watch Illya and Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) take on the dirtbags from THRUSH, and so getting to see one of my heroes in a different role was a real thrill for me. I did a little resea...