The Luna Park Gazette

There I was, sitting in the dentist’s chair, waiting for the show to start. I was getting for a temporary crown on my tooth and I was looking around when a sign on the wall caught my eye. “Please do not use cellphones in the torment room,” I read. Wait, what? The torment room? I was here to get a crown, not reenact the horror scene from Marathon Man . But then I looked harder and realized the word was “treatment”, not “torment” and realized that my overeager eyeballs had gone negative once again . I can’t say I’ve ever looked forward to visiting the dentist—and I really dread when the bills come due—but my doctor and his assistant are great people, and I wound up doing a fair bit of socializing amid the drilling and spitting. In addition to the good company, my dentist—it’s a father and son team—has a good office sound system and I often hear some nice old tunes over the racket. One song--“ Couldn't Get It Right ” by the Climax Blues Band—had been on my mind just a da...

“The only thing about America that interests me is Coney Island.” – Sigmund Freud Even the Native Americans thought the place was special. Back in the 1980s, I took a walking toward of Coney Island, the unique amusement area and neighborhood in the southwestern section of Brooklyn. Our guide told us that the place has always had its own kind of magic, long before the Cyclone, and the boardwalk, and Nathan’s July 4 annual hotdog eating contest. The Lenape, the original inhabitants, dubbed the place “Land Without Shadows,” which made an impression on me when I first heard it. The name had this eerie, otherworldly sound to it that conjured up images of spirits and sorcery. I thought it was pretty funky, but upon reflection, I realized that it is the beach, after all, and maybe the Lenape just meant that shade was hard to come by. But I still like it. Dutch settlers arriving in the 17th Century called the place “Rabbit Island”, although that’s about the only creature I ...

And now a word about Dr. Vanderspeigle... I just finished watching the final episode of Resident Alien , and it feels like I’m losing a dear friend. There I was, all set to write about a completely different topic, when I learned that one of my favorite TV shows was coming to an end. I should mention that this post may contain spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the series finale yet, you may want to stop right here. About a month ago I wrote that an episode of this sci-fi dramedy had brought me to tears. Little did I know what was in store for me this week. I’ve been a fan since Resident Alien’s debut in 2021 and looking back, I can’t believe how I hemmed and hawed about whether I should record it or not. Frankly, it didn’t look particularly good in the commercials, and I didn’t want to get hooked on yet another TV show. And then I watched the first episode and I was hooked. I still laugh at the scene where Harry, drunk after his first experience with alcohol, dances arou...

There was whole lotta shakin’ going on in Brooklyn on Saturday night and it had nothing to do with Jerry Lee Lewis. Officially the Magnitude 3 earthquake happened at 10:18 PM in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. It is being described as a “small earthquake” though my feeling is that only small earthquake are the kind that happen somewhere else. All I know that I was minding my own business when my living room started vibrating. I was tired, having seen the Irish Repertory Theatre’s fabulous production of Conor McPherson’s The Weir , with my sister and auntie, which we followed up with a massive Chinese dinner. So, I wasn’t in the mood for any more drama, especially the kind that rocks my house. I kept telling myself that it was a low-flying jet rattling my windows, but it seemed like it was going to plow into my kitchen. Finally, the house stopped moving. I forgot all about it until Sunday morning when I was on the Stairmaster at my gym and saw the news on TV. My landlady, by th...

“Hold on a minute,” the voice on the other end of the line said, “I’ll put her on.” “Okay…” The “her” was in question was a former co-worker of mine whom I had not spoken with—nor even thought about, really—in quite a while. Yet, there she was on the other end of the line telling me that she had just delivered a baby—which I could hear crying in the background. This was intriguing, especially since we had worked together at a newspaper and midwifery hadn’t been on her resume. Of course, she wasn’t a midwife, she hadn’t delivered a baby, and she wasn’t on the phone. And there wasn’t even a phone. No, the whole scenario was streaming out of my subconscious to create yet another one of my oddball dreams. This one occurred late last week and while normally I can do a decent job of deconstructing my dreams, this one has me a bit stumped. I’ve been trying to identify the person who told me to hold on. I knew who the person was during the dream, and I suspect that she was ...

One of earliest blog posts I ever wrote was a little item entitled “Violent Swiss Almond.” At the time, I had noticed this habit I have where I would read a word or phrase, and my mind would take the first few letters and rush to a bizarre and completely incorrect solution. The title refers to my misreading of an ice cream flavor called Vanilla Swiss Almond. There have been countless other such screwups over the years. Once, while walking through my local supermarket, I noticed a food spread in the refrigerated section called “Don’t Eat.” Don’t Eat? What a strange name for a product, I thought. Why would I buy something with a name like that? But I looked again and saw that it was actually called Down East, which seem a little more sensible. (I later joked that they were going to call the stuff Tastes Like Shit, but it didn’t test well. Rimshot! ) It has finally dawned on me that nearly of my misreads are negative. I don’t think I ever came up with an encouraging screw-...

I reached for my notebook the moment the tears started to flow. “You’re crying over Resident Alien ?” I scribbled in my journal. I have made no secret of being a shameless weeper. I cry over anything, old movies, new movies, TV shows, songs and don’t even get me started on that Kohl’s Christmas commercial from a few years ago. Seriously, don't get me started or I'll fall apart all over again. You know things are bad when the women in my family—my sister and auntie—are fed up with all my waterworks. “Don’t start bawling!” is one my sister’s common commands. On Saturday morning, I was watching the latest episode of Resident Alien the Syfy channel’s comedy series based on a comic book that I’ve never read. The show debuted on January 27, 2021, and I was hooked immediately. Alan Tudyk plays the titular hero who is known on this planet as Harry Vanderspeigle, the town doctor in Patience, Colorado. The program is in its fourth season now and while it may have...

This one's for Old San Juan. Every time my sister goes on vacation or a business trip, she always brings back a T-shirt for me. Canada, Atlantic City, California, I’ve got a whole wardrobe of gift T-shirts. I really appreciate my sister's thoughtfulness and it’s pretty cool to walk around advertising all these funky locations. On Saturday morning, I was heading to my supermarket when I passed a couple on Bay Ridge Place. “We were in Old San Juan,” the man said to me. “It’s beautiful.” For a second there, I wasn’t sure what he was talking about until I realized I was wearing an Old San Juan T-shirt that my sister had gotten for me during a trip to Puerto Rico. “My sister was there,” I said. “Maybe it’s time for me to pay a visit.” We chatted a little longer and went our separate ways. It’s one of these casual encounters that I am learning to appreciate more. I used to take these occurrences for granted, but I see now in this harsh world in which we live, a pleasa...

I was in my gym Saturday morning when I saw the chyron running across one of the TV screens. The words “Woman injured in apparent shark attack” floated over my head, and immediately I heard John Williams’ famous movie theme playing in my head. “Here we go again,” I thought. Of course, I had recently seen Jaws , Steven Spielberg’s epic shark attack movie for the first time in 50 years, so that might explain my frame of mind. Yes, let’s pause for a minute and acknowledge the mind-numbing passage of time. Fifty years, a half-century, since the film credited with creating the summer blockbuster came bursting into movie theaters. I was 18 freaking years when I first saw this water-logged monster movie, back when Gerald Ford was president, eggs were going for 61 cents a dozen, a gallon of gas cost 57 cents and the median home price was $39,300. Jesus, I gotta lay down… My sister and I had gone to see a VHS screening of Jaws at Hi-fi Provisions, a funky record store located...

Sometime back in the Seventies, I had a whole lotta love that suddenly turned into a mountain of heartache. I was a student at Hunter College, and I had a serious crush on a woman that I had met through an after-school job. We’ll call her Kate. I was always hoping Kate and I could move beyond friends and start dating, but I felt awkward, and I was worried I’d lose her friendship if I tried to take things further. So, I did nothing, except sit back and hope that my dreams would magically come true all on their own, something I still do far too often. Kate had recently returned to Brooklyn from Los Angeles where she had been visiting her sister. We got together shortly after she got back, and I immediately sensed something was going on. “I’m in a bummed-out mood,” she said, using a popular expression of the day. After a little more prodding she told me that she was moving to L.A.—and now I was in a bummed-out mood. I finally blurted out my feelings for her, and, what a surp...

One night back in the 1980s, I came home to find my brother Peter and his wife had stopped by our house for a visit. They were sitting in the living room with my parents and when I walked in, my brother loudly called out, “hey, it’s Uncle Wimp!” Peter and I had a long history of relentless ball-busting, so I shrugged off his latest sophomoric insult and tried to move along. But he wasn’t letting it go. “Hey, Uncle Wimp,” he said. I was about to tell to shut his trap when I realized that the key word in his two-word insult was “Uncle”—meaning my sister-in-law was pregnant, and that I was indeed going to be an uncle. Well, I forgot all about the “wimp” business and gave my sister-in-law a hug, I was just so damn happy. The time flew by and the next thing I remember I was sitting at my desk at the Bay Ridge Home Reporter when my phone rang. “Robert,” my mother said urgently. “You’re an uncle!” “Boy or girl?” I shouted. “Girl!” “All right!” I hung up the phone, ran r...

"What stands in the way becomes the way.”--Marcus Aurelius There, I said it again. The words popped into my head on Sunday, and I immediately asked myself, “hey, isn’t that the name of a song?” Yes, in fact, it’s a 1941 tune written and published by Redd Evans and David Mann. Vaughn Monroe and his Orchestra recorded a version in 1945 that reached No. 1 on Billboard's chart of “Records Most-Played on the Air”. Bobby Vinton’s version, the one I know and don’t particularly care for, spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard Chart in 1964, before being ousted by The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” But I wasn’t thinking of the song when the phrase came to me. I was thinking about how many times I’ve said some version of “I wish Peter were here” since my brother left this world three weeks ago. I said it on Saturday when I was helping my auntie defrost her refrigerator, a job we’ve both been putting off for weeks. It’s an older model and probably should be s...

I wonder what I was doing on December 23, 2023. It was two days from Christmas, so I probably cranking out those last few holiday cards and looking forward to dinner with my family. It was a Saturday and the most popular song in the U.S. at that time was Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”—I still like that song, damn it--while “Last Christmas” by Wham!—which I wrote about in my blog the following day- was top dog in the U.K. In the post entitled " Moments of Wonder " I talked about how I had regained my Christmas spirit, after my listless response to the most wonderful time of the year 12 months earlier. The reason I’m so fixated on 12/23/22 is because that’s the date of the only voice mail message from my brother Peter, who’s been gone for about two weeks now. It’s just 17 seconds long and rather mundane, to be honest. “ Hey dude what's going on? ” he says, sounding a little disoriented. “ Got confused for a second…I just called to say Me...

“You may leave this life at any moment: have this possibility in your mind in all that you do or say or think.” — Marcus Aurelius One night, many years ago, when I young and foolish, I got seriously drunk and became violently ill. As I hovered unsteadily over the toilet puking my guts out, my brother, Peter, stood right behind me and coached me through this intestinal nightmare. “Breathe through your nose,” he said quietly. “Breathe through your nose.” It was good advice, and I find myself employing it now, eight days after Peter’s death, when the grief becomes too much for me to handle. I turned 68 years old on Saturday, and I had gotten used to getting his phone call each year wishing me a happy birthday. Such a strange time, when I get both a birthday card and a sympathy card in the same day’s mail from my Aunt Sara, who became a widow in January when my Uncle Joe died. Talking about Peter is the past tense is eerie. I pray each morning that my parents will rest in...

“A brother is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit.” -- Unknown I keep waiting for my brother to call me for one our nearly daily chats, but the phone isn’t ringing. Peter, two years my senior, would call from his job or on his evening commute, or on his way to Tai Chi class. He’d always start off with his greeting: “Hey, dude, how’s it going?” and then we’d talk about movies, TV shows and politics—especially politics. I hadn’t spoken to him in a few days and so I fully expected to hear from him on Saturday morning. When the phone did ring, it was his daughter, my niece, Kristin, calling to tell me that my brother had died. He was about a month away from his 70th birthday. The details are slim. He had been complaining about his blood pressure earlier in the week, but it seemed to be getting better. Then on Saturday morning my sister-in-law found him in bed unresponsive and called an ambulance, but there was nothing they could do. I still can’t believe he’s gone, ...

My father was the master of the backhanded compliment. He had a hard time saying something nice and often got a little dig in there just to keep you on your toes. One of my dad’s favorite wisecracks was “you made a mistake and did the right think.” The implication is that you since screw up most of the time, when you finally do something right, it’s a fluke. I thought of that phrase today to describe something that happened at my gym, only in a slightly different context. Okay, so three days a week I hike up to Harbor Fitness Go on 87th Street for my morning torture sessions. I start off with the strength training, which includes a couple of turns on a long stretch of astroturf with the weight sled. It’s just what it sounds like—a sled where you stack barbell plates and push or pull it (ideally both) along a flat surface. And, of course, if you look on YouTube you’ll find tons of variations. Weight sleds were initially designed for specific sports, like football, an...

Go all the way with it. Do not back off. For once, go all the way with the goddamn way with what matters. ” – Ernest Hemmingway . The 1918 Broadway Oh, Look! featured a song “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows." The music is credited to Harry Carroll, but the melody is adapted from Fantaisie-Impromptu by Frédéric Chopin. The lyrics were written by Joseph McCarthy, and the song was published in 1917. The first version I heard was by Tony Bennett, but it’s been recorded by Judy Garland, Petula Clark, Frank Sinatra and so many others. Bennett starts things off by asking the musical question, “why have I always been a failure?” “I’m always chasing rainbows,” the song goes, “watching clouds drifting by. My schemes are like my dreams, always ending up in the sky.” The song ends with the singer talking about “waiting to find a little bluebird in vain.” I’ve been spending far too time lately rewriting history lately—even more so than usual—and this tune is starting to feel like the...

In 2016, a survey of 2,000 Britons named "The Dead Parrot" as the U.K.’s favorite Monty Python sketch. I live in Brooklyn, so naturally I wasn’t included in this survey, but The Dead Parrot is certainly one of my favorite routines by the iconic comedy troupe. The bit, which debuted on Dec. 7, 1969, tells the uproariously deranged story of a disgruntled customer (John Cleese) attempting to return a parrot that turned out to be deceased. The sketch has a ton of funny lines as Cleese haggles with the shifty pet shop owner (Michael Palin), including a lengthy list of euphemisms for death ending with “this is an EX-PARROT!”--but I’ve been focusing on the routine’s opening lines as Cleese enters the store. “Excuse me, Miss,” he says to obviously male shop owner. “What do you mean ‘Miss’?” Palin indignantly responds. “I’m sorry,” Cleese says after taking a second look. “I have a cold.” I know the feeling. I'm finally showing some signs of health after nearly tw...