The Luna Park Gazette

I wonder what Klaatu would think of us now. I pulled up a beach chair in my local park Friday night and treated myself to a screening of the science fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still . I’d made certain earlier in the day that the folks at the Narrows Botanical Gardens were screening the 1951 original starring Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal and not the 2008 atrocity with Keanu Reeves. This was the last night of the summer movie festival and I was feeling kind of low. I hate winter with a passion and in my mind once we clear Labor Day, it’s a screaming hell-plunge into freezing days, 16-hour nights, and no outdoor anything. So, this seemed like a fine way to start the summer send-off: a beautiful night, a great film, and a five-minute walk home. Of course, you have to deal with traffic noise, winds ruffling the movie screen, and noisy kids running around and shrieking at each other, but the price was right, as my father used to say, meaning it was free. Based on...

Okay, I probably could’ve handled that a little better. Last week I got the bill for the double knee surgery I had back in December and since I had switched insurance companies in the interim, I figured I should touch base with the old outfit to see what was going on. The price tag is sizeable to say the least and I wanted to know what was going on before bill collecting commandos kicked my door its hinges. So, I called my old insurance company and what followed was a nearly hour-long waking nightmare that would’ve scared the screaming Jesus out of Rod Serling himself. The experience left me shaken, exhausted, barely able to speak, and perilously close to insanity. And I’m not exaggerating about the time: my cell phone clearly showed that 52 holy-shit-on-a-shingle minutes had burned up during the course of this telephonic fiasco. This was the same week I reconnected on Facebook with a novelty song from 1966 called “ They’re Coming to Take Me Away ,” which turned out to be th...

You think I would’ve learned my lesson with John Ford. Several years ago, I rented " How Green Was My Valley " from Netflix because I thought it was time I finally caught up with Ford’s 1941 classic about a family of Welsh miners in the early 20th Century. I had seen so much of Ford’s work that it seemed wrong to have this one slip by for so long. But I confess that I wasn’t feeling terribly excited. Yes, it was supposed to be a great movie, but I thought it might be stuffy and dated. And what the hell did I know from Welsh coal miners anyway? I was responding to this film with all the enthusiasm of a trip to the dentist. Well, when I finally sat down to watch the thing, I was sobbing so hard that I was nearly dehydrated by the time the credits rolled. The setting may have nothing to do with my life, but the characters and the emotions grabbed hold of me like few films ever have in my life. I strongly suspect this is the reason why it’s called a classic. Now I’ve...

Saturday night went so well even the R train cooperated. Residents of Bay Ridge and the surrounding areas know all too well the misery associated with the Broadway local that chugs through our fair neighborhood…whenever the hell it feels like it, apparently. In fact, the R train and its express associate, the N train, are often referred to as the Rarely and the Never ‘round the parts. But last night the little engine that wouldn’t came through big time to put the finishing touch on an awesome save as I abruptly flipped the bird to the comfort zone. Now my weekend started off nicely on Friday when I met two of my writing class buddies in Park Slope for an evening of food, drink, and yakking. We had talked about meeting up and, following the advice of sister and auntie, I took the lead in making the thing happen. Saturday’s weather report had initially called for rain most of the day, so I decided to skip making any serious plans to focus on a slew of household chores that I h...