The Luna Park Gazette

And to think I was just starting to doubt myself. This morning I sat down to write about my latest attempt at curbing my anger. I have a variety of techniques that have worked to some extent, but since I declared 2019 to be my Best Year Ever (BYE) I decided to go old school—as in old Catholic school—and find a saint that can me help out with my rage issues. One of the great things about being Catholic—and that’s an awfully short list—is that you can find a saint for just about anything that ails you. I have prayed to Saint Martin de Porres and Saint Jude over the years, but I wanted to find someone whose intercessions are fury-centric. A quick Google search came up with Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin directly from the Hebrew texts of the Old Testament, instead of relying on the Greek translation. In addition to anger management, Jerome is the patron saint of translators, librarians and encyclopedists. And I was astonished to learn that St. Jerome is cred...

I placed the headphones over my ears and strained to hear the beeps. I was taking a hearing test at a facility in lower Manhattan on Wednesday where I was required to sit in a soundproof booth and listen. I hadn’t had a hearing examination since grade school and the only thing I recall from that distant time was how frightened I was that I’d get something wrong—as if you could actually study for a hearing test. This time out I was confident that I was killing it, but I soon found out otherwise. The only reason I was here in the first place was due to a reoccurring earache that seemed to be getting worse over the last few weeks. Naturally I began inventing all sorts of horrific scenarios that all ended with me checking out of this life and--God willing!--passing through the Pearly Gates. I thought perhaps I should see someone for a second opinion and I found this fantastic doctor, Kamran Jafri , just a few blocks from my office. He believes the earaches are the result of a ...

Hey, boys and girls, according to the clock on the wall, it’s time for another look through the old spam mailbag. Every so often I like to bring the lunatic fringe out to center stage and try in vain to make some sense of all the gratuitous gibberish. These robo-comments are stuck onto the nether regions of the blogosphere the world over like barnacles on the bottom of an oil tanker. They peddle various products and services while actually pretending to give a rat’s ass about my ravings as they dump their messages on unsuspecting posts like a team of over-fed Clydesdales. So, when I wrote a post about my local massage service back in 2014, Chassiday felt compelled to tell me about “the pretty queens from Pakistan” who are “extremely the fantastic call girls in Dubai.” “Dubaikik (?) bring the charm and luxriousness girls from all over the Pakistan in Dubai,” the comment continues. “If you are a true fan of Pakistani hot girls and are looking to appoint one of your desirable Pak...

I got off the ferry this evening and saw a group of school kids gathered on the pier. They were musicians who were taking part in the local 9/11 memorial services. As I walked by them, a man who had been riding on the ferry with me stopped and nodded in their direction. "They don't look old enough to remember 9/11, do they?" he asked. "No, they don't," I said. It's 18 years today when the World Trade Center came crashing down to earth, when fundamentalist psychotics crashed hijacked jetliners into the iconic buildings, destroying thousands of lives and ripping right through this nation's heart. All that time gone by since I stood with the crowd across the street from trade center, outside the Brooks Brothers store, and watched the North Tower burn, and ran with everyone else when the second plane crash into the South Tower. All those years, all those people. It was my father's 80th birthday and I always tell people how beautiful t...

I am writing to you from deep in enemy territory. I’m in my computer room, the place where I blog, write my fiction, think my great thoughts, and watch kitty videos on YouTube. It’s my Bat Cave, my Fortress of Solitude, the adult version of the little boy’s tree house. It is also dump. I don’t like saying this; it’s quite painful to admit, actually, but it’s the truth. And what hurts even more is that I am the reason that this allegedly sacred space is in such awful condition. There are piles of stuff all around, stacks of books and papers, there’s a plastic storage container filled to the brim with God-knows-what and a “caja grande” cardboard box that the movers gave me when I first arrived here something like 8 years ago. Every single year on January 1st I say that this is the year I get organized, the year I throw out all the junk, crap, and trash, and every year it doesn’t happen. I’ve been telling myself this pathetic lie that all I need is a few hours on a Sunday aft...

Every day after lunch, I get up from my desk, leave my office, and walk among my people. Well, they’re not exactly my people. They’re the tourists who come to the Wall Street in droves to visit Federal Hall, the stock exchange, the 9/11 Memorial, and so many other fantastic sights that the financial district has to offer. But seeing as I’m a born-and-bred New Yorker who has worked in and around this area for a dozen years, I feel a bit of a connection with these folks who have traveled to my hometown from all corners of the globe. They come alone, or with their spouses and families, and often in groups led by mic’d-up tour guides who stand before the building where American democracy was born and speak with great authority—apparently—in languages I don’t begin to understand. On Thursday there was actually two tour groups standing side-by-side before the towering statue of George Washington. I don’t know what they’re saying, but I get a real charge out of the energy coming ...