The Luna Park Gazette

In retail, they call it “a soft opening.” New restaurants usually debut with a grand opening, as they announce their presence with all kinds of fanfare and hoopla. On the other hand, a soft opening involves working with a limited number of customers, so the owners have a chance to try out their menu on real people. I’ve taking that second approach for the New Year. Rather than waiting for the ball to come down in Times Square at midnight, I’ve been implementing—or trying to—some of my resolutions ahead of all the noise and confetti. I like this plan, but inner saboteur, as usual, is getting in the way of things. This morning I woke up with a bad case of the New Year’s heebie-jeebies, where I’m convinced that I’m not changing fast enough, and I go into emotional vapor lock. This usually starts in the first week of the year, but I guess my shadow self doesn’t feel like waiting. So, I’ve decided I’m going to ease into 2024. I’ll work on the stuff that needs fixing, but I’m

So, let’s talk about last Christmas. It’s the holidays once again and I’m thinking about a song and my state of mind from Christmases of long, long ago—or at least 12 months ago. Okay, first the tune. “ Last Christmas ” is a song by Wham! that was released on Dec. 3, 1984, back when Ronald Reagan was president, the average cost of a home was $148,000 and Beverly Hills Cop was the No .1 movie in America. The song spent five consecutive weeks at number two in the UK Singles Chart and it was held off from the top spot by Band Air’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” on which Wham!’s George Michael performed. Michael wrote “Last Christmas” a year earlier in his childhood bedroom while he and instrumentalist Andrew Ridgeley were visiting George's parents. He played Ridgeley the song’s introduction and chorus melody, which Ridgeley later called "a moment of wonder". It was releases as a double A-side via Epic Records with "Everything She Wants" in

Two guys walk into a bar and one of them looks down to see he’s not wearing any pants. This isn’t the start of joke, or a reminder that No Pants Day is observed on the first Friday in May--I'm sure you already knew that--but rather a scene from a nightmare that came hopping out of my hippocampus late last week. This is a story of fear, confusion, a runaway faucet, and the crankiest plumber in creation. The dream starts off with me riding around in a car with a guy I hadn’t seen in over a year through the streets of some cartoon version of New York. Somewhere along the way I spot an old-time police car with a bubble light and fins, prowling through the streets. But the vehicle was heavily armored in a strange way that defied reality—which dreams tend to do. We get to the bar and I’m wearing this bulky turtleneck sweater that’s weighing me down like a bearskin rug. Everything seemed to be okay until I happened to look south of the border and then—ay, caramba!---I wa

When I was young, all I wanted to read was science fiction novels. Every few weeks, I’d go to the Brooklyn Public Library on Ridge Boulevard and head straight for the science fiction section to find books by such writers as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke. I am indebted to these authors because they—along with The Hardy Boys-helped me develop my love of reading. As I got older, my interest in science fiction gave way to crime stories with Raymond Chandler muscling out Robert Silverberg. I’ve since moved away from genre stories for the most part to more "serious" fiction. Obviously, our tastes change as we get older, but I do feel a little wistful sometimes when I think about the kid in his Catholic school uniform so eagerly looking for his next trip to space. I’ll still look at science fiction movies—if they’re good, but I’ve always had a bit trouble defining a good sci fi film. Recently, however, I watched two films by the same director that help

It looks like Lon Chaney was ahead of his time. Several years ago, I went to Prospect Park to see an outdoor screening of a Lon Chaney movie called “ He Who Gets Slapped .” The 1924 silent film tells the rather bizarre story a man who is so shattered by his wife’s betrayal that he becomes a circus clown whose act consists solely of being slapped and abused by 60 of his floppy-shoed co-workers. It’s supposed to be a classic, but it was late, I was hungry, and I didn’t much feel like sitting through this battered Bozo story. So, I bailed. I had pretty forgotten the movie entirely until Friday when I caught some footage on YouTube of something called Power Slap. For those of you who have never heard of it, well, first of all, consider yourself lucky. Power Slap is a…sport?...freak show?...where two competitors face each other and, after a coin toss to decide who goes first, one of them hauls off and slaps the other one right across the face. Then it’s the other p

Annemarie Wiesner should be alive today. She should have celebrated Thanksgiving with her family like so many of us did on Thursday and she should be looking forward to the holidays and the start of a new year. But that’s not going to happen. Annemarie Wiesner, 72, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver on Nov. 16 as she was crossing the street with a shopping cart. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The accident happened at Marine Avenue and 96th Street, which is a short distance from me and just a block away from my sister’s house. She was one of three people killed by hit and run drivers in New York City in a 24-hour period. Local news reports noted how Marine Avenue goes on for several blocks without traffic lights, speed bumps, stop signs or anything else to slow down the maniacs that tear through this neighborhood like characters straight out of “Mad Max.” I can hear them at night on the Belt Parkway, along Shore Road and other streets in this neighborhood

We don’t need Sherlock Holmes to figure this one. Being a good Catholic boy, I live to feel guilty, and in the past few days as I climb out of the Covid abyss, I am getting those familiar stirrings once again. You should be working on your novel. You should clean up this apartment, it’s a hellhole. You should be eating better . There’s nothing like guilt to let you know you’re healing. When I’m sick, I don’t give a damn about writing or cleaning or reading or healthy eating, or any of the other various vows I have made to myself over the years. And guilt is nowhere to be seen. But now, I’ve finished my first week of work since coming back from L.A., I’m starting to feel a little stronger, and, thus, thoroughly ashamed of my inaction. Yes, I’ve been watching far too much TV. My living couch has permanent dent in the cushion where I’ve parked my keester for far too many days. But my head has been too fried for reading. I’ve been especially enjoying the old Sherlock Holm

I staggered into the lobby of the Glendale Express Hotel with a heartful of misery and Dr. John on the sound system. It took me a few seconds to recognize the 1973 hit " Right Place, Wrong Time " and a few more days to realize that the song perfectly described my disasterous visit to Los Angeles. I had been staying with my Uncle Joe and his wife for what was supposed to be a 10-day visit, but I was forced to scrub those plans and evacuate his home when what I thought was a sinfus infection turned out to be Covid-19. Yes, after dodging this dreadful disease since 2020, the coronavirus finally caught up with me in sunny California. I was feeling fine when I left--I'd never visit my family if I were sick, even with the common cold. I met up with my West Coast cousins, I zoomed into my writing class, and I was all set to do some touristy stuff. I was feeling so good--except for a slightly scratchy throat which started on my fourth day. The TV weather peop

I woke up this morning some time before dawn convinced that I had lost my job at the Associated Press. I had completely bungled an assignment, a fact that not one, but two, editors drilled through my skull in a pair of royal reamings that made me feel like I was back in Catholic school. I lay there in the dark wondering how I had destroyed my only chance to work with this prestigious news organization and if there was any possible way to undo this disaster. Gradually I calmed down. I became more aware of my surroundings, and I suddenly came to a startling conclusion. I don’t work for the Associated Press. I have never worked for this company. I haven’t applied for a job there since the early 2000s, when I Amtraked up to Albany to meet with the bureau chiefs and discuss a position that sounded more like SWAT than AP. They described a monstrous workload that involved racing to all corners of Upstate New York anytime day or night to cover every kind of catastrophe.

When something goes wrong, self-help coach Tony Robbins advises people to ask themselves a simple question. What’s great about this problem? Yes, it sounds counterintuitive and probably a bit corny, but having tried this method myself, I can attest to its effectiveness. I’ve found that asking myself this question is an improvement over my usual response to challenges, which is to throw up my hands in despair, wail that life sucks, all is lost, and demand to know why does this always happen to me? But even though I have a fourth-degree black belt in self-pity, I’ve been trying to change my ways. I finally got around to asking myself that question on Saturday as I started feeling better from this hideous cold that’s been dragging me down for the last week. I was sitting on my couch, merrily feeding my internet addiction when I came across a meme about Christopher Nolan, the director of Oppenheimer, Dunkirk and the Batman series with Christian Bale. The meme claimed that Nol

Okay, I’ll start with the good news: I don’t have Covid-19. I’ve been coughing my lungs out, my head is so stuffed it feels like it’s going to explode and I can barely walk down the stairs without keeling over. Whatever the hell I’ve got sucks royally and I hope it goes away real fast, but at least it ain’t the coronavirus, which I have been successfully dodging—praise the Lord—for the last three years. In fact, I have not been this sick since January 2021, which is an excellent run, especially given some the health problems I’ve had. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that came down with something, seeing as how I’ve been running around like a loon for the last several days. First there was last week’s film shoot, where it rained for most of the day, and then my niece Victoria and her husband came to town from Colorado. I took some time off from work so I could join them and my sister to visit the Museum of Natural History, take in a Broadway show, bounce over to Coney I

I wonder if this ever happened to Alfred Hitchcock. So, there we were, across the street from the United Nations, where a scene from “North by Northwest”—one my favorite Hitchcock films--was shot. I was the director now, having signed up for The 48 Hour Film Project , where a team writes, shoots and edits a submit a film in, well, 48 hours. Only we were contending with a massive worm that was wriggling its way toward the park bench that we had planned to use in our scene. What would Hitch do? I ws here at my sistet's urging, after she told me that a colleague of hers was participating in the competition and looking for a crew. Immediately, I cranked up the excuse machine: I don’t time for this, I don’t know how to shoot a film—the usual crap. Now bear in mind, I’ve been promising to work on more film sets every single year for the last several decades, so I could get the knowledge and confidence I need to shoot a film of my own. Of course, I was totally ignoring the

Now it’s my turn to stand on the geezer line. So, there I was Union Station in Washington D.C. waiting to board the train to New York. I had shown up ridiculously early, as usual, and I was starting to get sick of the place. Finally, people started lining up outside one of the gates. Not wanting to board the wrong choo-choo and end up in Chattanooga—or Tierra del Fuego—I asked an Amtrak employee if this was indeed the train to the Big Apple. “Yes,” she said. “Are you over 65 years old?” I didn’t see the connection and I really didn’t appreciate the question. I have grown quite comfortable (delusional?) with people telling me (lying?) that I look much younger than I am. A guy told me this at the gym just the other day, damn it. Yet this woman had me pegged as an old timer in under five seconds and my ego was now a train wreck. “Uh, yes,” I muttered. “Well, then you can get on the express line.” She pointed beyond the curving cobra of humanity that was ready to bum rush

I sure hope I got that salute right. I’m home now after a 5-day trip to Washington D.C. where I attended a meeting of the the 104th National Timberwolf Pups Associatin . The group is made up the sons, daughters, families, and friends of my father’s army unit, The Timberwolves, who fought in Europe during World War II. Let me say right up front that I had a blast. I met such wonderful people, heard fantastic stories, did some sightseeing around our nation’s capital—including a nighttime ride around town--and spoke with a 98-year-old veteran who had attended the conference. As usual, I hemmed and hawed about making the trip. It’s too much money, I have other projects to work on, I need to clean up my apartment—you know, the usual crap I put myself through. Well, I’m happy to report that I ignored all those irrational fears, booked a hotel room and Amtraked my butt down to Washington. And I’m so happy that I did. My dad’s unit, whose motto was “Nothing in Hell can stop The

I always listen to the reading of the names. Today is September 11, some 22 years after the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center. I was there on that day, part of a crowd that was standing across the street watching the North Tower burn, when the second plane slammed into the South Tower. My father turned 80 years old on 9/11 and the plan was for me and my sister to him to dinner after I got home from work. That was the plan. Instead, I spent that long, horrible day trying to get home after the subways were shut down and I joined a endless stream of people walking over the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn while the towers burned behind us and fighter jets screamed overhead. If possible, I like to go there on each anniversary, stand on that same spot across the street, say a prayer for the victims and remind myself how lucky I was to have survived that day when thousands of others didn’t. I was there on the 20th anniversary, but that didn’t work out this year,

How could he do such a thing? There’s this episode of The Fugitive that just cropped up in my mind a few days ago and it doesn’t seem to want to leave. It’s kind of an earworm variant. I don’t recall the title, and I’m not sure of the plot—I only saw it once—but I do remember the opening scene. Those of you in my age bracket will know The Fugitive , which ran from 1963 to 1967, and starred David Janssen as Richard Kimball, a doctor who is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to death. However, “fate moves its huge hand,” as narrator William Conrad tell us in the opening credits, when Kimball’s train to the death house derails and he escapes. Each episode sees Kimball working at menial jobs under fake names, trying to avoid the relentless Lt. Gerard, while searching for the one-armed man he saw fleeing his house on the night of the murder. I enjoy the show, particularly the earlier black and white episodes, and it’s great to the early work of actors, writ

The text pinged into my phone early one evening. “Did we know each other before? ” Before? Before what? Are we talking about a particular time and place, or do you mean reincarnation? Maybe we fought side-by-side in the Punic Wars, or I was a carpenter and you were my lady. Or was it the other way around? It’s hard to say seeing as I don’t know who you are. “ I found the number in the phone book ,” the text continued, “ but there was no name, and I wasn’t sure we knew each other, so I messaged you. ” The phone book? Does this person really have an old-time hard copy phone book? I had one for years that I carried around in my wallet. It was a small, brown, and I was constantly crossing out outdated numbers. And I had far too many numbers without names. If I was interested in a woman, I held off on putting her number in my book as I figured this would be bad luck. I finally tossed the thing after the pages started falling out and cell phones came along and made the

Mrs. Thomas J. White was one angry lady. A resident of Indianapolis and a member of the Indiana Textbook Commission, Mrs. White demanded that the story of “Robin Hood” be removed from schoolbooks. Robin Hood is one of the most beloved characters of all time. Who can forget Errol Flynn's turn as Robin Hood in the classic 1938 film? There have over 70 versions of Robin Hood in TV and movies, and while this one is my personal favorite, you’ve got plenty of others to choose from. How can anyone have a beef with Robin Hood? However, Robin Hood rankled Mrs. White because, she claimed, the story pushed Communist doctrine. “They want to stress it because he robbed the rich and gave it to the poor,” she said. “That's the communist line. It's just a smearing of law and order and anything that disrupts law and order is their meat.” I should mention here that the story of Mrs. White was in a New York Times article from Nov. 14, 1953, which I came across while doing res

“Virtue lies in our power, and similarly so does vice; because where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act...” ― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics Back in the Eighties, when I was working at a weekly newspaper in Bay Ridge, I covered a speech given by a prominent law enforcement official. This was during a period when many Wall Street executives were being arrested and during a question-and-answer period, this official was asked for his thoughts on why the supposedly brightest and best were being locked up. He suggested that we should go back to teaching ethics, like the ancient Greeks, explaining to young people why it's wrong to steal, why it's wrong to lie. "That's a very interesting point," my editor said upon reading my story and I agreed. That speaker was Rudy Giuliani, who was then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and a crimefighting media star, who had made a name for himself prosecuting mobsters