The Luna Park Gazette

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.” Robert Louis Stevenson “Relax,” Jerry said softly. “Take deep breaths.” He was right, of course. Inhaling a healthy hunk of air slowly and deeply into the lungs is a great way to stave off anxiety. We were sitting in the third-floor lobby of The Chain Theatre on Sunday evening, where the second performance of my one-act play "Mercy Road" was about to begin. Jerry is the play’s director and the guiding force of this production who kept everything on track while keeping me out of the loony bin. Opening night had been an absolute blast, but that was two weeks ago—plenty of time for all the anxiety and terror I went through the first time to make a return engagement. My wonderful sister was coming again and bringing three of her friends, and my writing coach Rosemary was also attending with two of my buddies from our class. I di...

“ The Mets have shown me more ways to lose than I even knew existed .” — Casey Stengel, New York Mets manager, 1962 to 1965. On June 21, 1968, Earl Warren submitted his resignation to President Lyndon Johnson after 15 years as Chief Justice of the United States. On this first day of summer, Secretary of the Army Stanley Resor announced that the Army had sharply reduced its support of civilian marksmanship programs and would no longer sell pistols, only excess rifles. The move came in response to demands for tighter gun controls following the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, who had been murdered in Los Angeles earlier that month. Mort Sahl was playing at the Village Gate. The Party , starring Peter Sellers, was showing at the Alpine Theater, just a few blocks from my family’s home. And way up in Flushing Meadows, the New York Mets clobbered the L.A. Dodgers. “If some benevolent dream merchant decided to compose a script for the satisfaction of New York Mets fans among ...

I’ll get right to the point—thank you, St. Genesius! We had our first performance of my one-act play Mercy Road at the Chain Theatre on Sunday and it was a blast. I was absolutely out of my mind leading up to the show, conjuring all kinds of hellacious scenarios, none of which—surprise!—actually happened. My new best friend, St. Genesius of Rome, came through with interest. The two cast members acted up a storm, and the audience appreciated every second of it. Of course, I was short-tempered and completely irrational leading up to showtime. I freaked at every single disruption no matter how small. The big blowout occurred when I entered the building and mistakenly thought both of the elevators were out of commission and we’d all have to walk up three flights of stairs to the theater. “My aunt can’t climb all those stairs!” I wailed, as a young woman pressed the button for the front elevator…which was working. “I’m sorry about the outburst,” I muttered as t...

Okay, St. Genesius, it’s up to you now. For the last week, I’ve been furiously praying to the one-time thespian who became a Christian martyr and the patron saint of actors, clowns, comedians, dancers, and musicians—along with lawyers, barristers, people with epilepsy, printers, stenographers, and victims of torture. That’s quite a roster, come to think of it, but right now I just need St. Genesius of Rome to please, please, pretty please with two tons of sugar on top, look down upon and bless my one-act play Mercy Road , which kicks off tomorrow for a three-show run at The Chain Theatre in Manhattan. As we got closer to the premiere, I became so twisted that I pounced onto Google, hammered out “patron saint of theater” in search of divine intervention, and learned about the Roman comedian who used to perform in plays that mocked Christianity. According to legend, Genesius had a rapid change of heart while performing before Emperor Diocletian. He had planned to thu...

"We learn the rope of life by untying its knots." — Jean Toomer The name Evan traces its roots to an ancient Hebrew moniker meaning “God is gracious.” As a standalone Hebrew word, it translates to “rock” or “stone,” while it’s sometimes used as a shortened form of Greek names like Evander (“good man”) or Evangelos (“good messenger”). All those terms work for me, and they apply to a neighbor who came to my aid last week when I was seriously tangled up in blue. Evan walked into my life during my weekly visit to the laundromat. I was about halfway down my block when the drawstring on my laundry bag got caught in the wheels of my shopping cart, and everything came to a grinding halt. I looked down at the snarled mess gripping the axle of my cart. The cords of the laundry bag had a lo mein–level stranglehold on my ride, and I couldn’t move an inch. I have since learned that knots are among humanity’s oldest technologies, predating even the Stone Age. ...

We interrupt this week’s blog post with some monstrous news: if you’re going to be in New York next month, please stop by the Chain Theatre. Back in May, I submitted my one-act play Mercy Road to Chain’s summer festival and promptly forgot all about it. I was certain it would go nowhere and I’d get another cordial rejection letter thanking me for participating while pointing me to the exit. But then this theater company on West 36th Street pulled a fast one on me. They said yes. Wait — what? That’s exactly what they did. Suddenly I was responsible for assembling a director and a cast, and I didn’t begin to know what to do next. I was sorely tempted to withdraw from the running, but my buddy Jerry — an actor who’s appeared in several Chain productions—talked me out of it. He offered to find the actors and direct the play as well, thus saving my keester. I’ve been promising for the longest time to get out of the comfort zone, and I certainly think this qualifies. We’...

One of the things I miss most about my brother Peter is his laugh. He would call me just about every day, and I loved getting him laughing with a joke or funny story. When it came to laughter, Peter did not hold back. I was thinking recently of one of my favorite Rodney Dangerfield jokes — one I know would’ve had him roaring. “My doctor told me I was crazy,” Rodney lamented. “I told him I wanted a second opinion. He says, ‘You’re ugly, too!’” We also traded war stories about our father, who could get mighty ornery with very little provocation. Today is Father’s Day, and tomorrow is Peter’s birthday, so it feels like a one‑two to the heart. Peter loved his daughter Kristin so much, and I know he was incredibly proud of her. He also loved animals, particularly dogs, and I recall how he once started crying when he told me about a movie where someone’s canine died. And Peter wanted absolutely nothing to do with A Dog’s Purpose, a 2017 film where a dog dies and is reincarnated...

I was wheezing my way through a Stairmaster workout last week when I took a half‑century backward. Like most fitness clubs, my gym has music pouring out of the sound system nonstop. They keep it at a decent volume so you can enjoy the songs, but you can also tune out the tunes you don’t like. For years I worked out in the early morning, when the club played a solid hour of Frank Sinatra — probably to please me and my fellow dawn‑patrol geezers. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of mentioning how much I liked it to the staff, and it seemed like a short time later Old Blue Eyes went silent. The last time I heard Frank at my gym, the sound system abruptly cut him off midway through “You Make Me Feel So Young.” That made me feel so old. But my Stairmaster flashback concerns another Sinatra — his daughter Nancy — whose voice suddenly filled the gym in the midst of my stationary ascent. I strained to hear the lyrics over the clang of barbells, the gym chatter, the pounding ...

“ Hell is truth seen too late.”—Thomas Hobbes And then the dog showed up. I joined my sister and her friend on Saturday to see The Fear of 13, a play based on the life of Nick Yarris, who spent 22 years on Pennsylvania’s death row before becoming the state’s first death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence. The play, written by Lindsey Ferrentino, is based on a 2015 British documentary film and stars Adrien Brody as Yarris and Tessa Thompson as a death row volunteer, both in their Broadway debuts. It was also one of the most exhilarating theatrical experiences I’ve had in years. I knew next to nothing about the play when we walked into the theater, and I’d never seen the film. But I was in tears by the time the lights came up. Brody is simply extraordinary as he takes us on the brutal journey of Yarris’ life — how this stupid young kid with a knack for stealing cars ended up convicted and sentenced to death for a 1981 kidnapping, rape, and murder. Director David Crome...

Skip the sneakers. That’s just one nugget of advice that comes up when you google “how to dress for a job interview.” Men are advised to wear polished leather dress shoes or oxfords to go with a navy, charcoal, or black suit with a light-colored button-down shirt, “along with a conservative, high-quality tie.” But you can’t wear kicks. Of course, I already knew that. I always put on my dress shoes when I meet with a prospective employer, no matter how laid back the company appears to be. And yet I did that very thing when I went to inquire about a reporting position at the Washington Post. Well, it wasn’t a real interview. This was a moment in yet another very weird dream of mine where I had gone to the 149-year-old publication in the nation’s capital and made a string of rookie interview mistakes that looked like a career suicide note. This wasn’t a full-blown nightmare where I wake up trembling and thanking God none of the horrifying events actually happened. No, this w...

They never saw it coming. That was the tagline from a movie called Derailed, but it pretty much describes my feeling about aging. By the grace of God, I turned 69 today, and I was reviewing my birthday blog post from 2006, which I described as “a quiet affair—just me, my dad, and my sister.” I titled the post What Hath God Wrought? , which was the first official message transmitted over a commercial telegraph line in the U.S. on May 24, 1844. Patti LaBelle, Bob Dylan, the Brooklyn Bridge, and my grandmother also celebrate their birthdays today. “Mary, my dad's aide, made a delicious pasta dinner, my sister got the cake and sang ‘Happy Birthday’—my dad didn't seem able to join in—and then we watched Derailed on DVD,” I wrote on that day. Back then I was shocked that I would be turning 50 the next year. Now, I’m just kind of numb to the numbers. “I couldn't help but think of my mom when I looked at the cake's candles flickering in front of me, I could almost...

A year ago today, the phone stopped ringing. This is the one year anniversary of my brother Peter’s death, and like so many other events in my life, I can’t believe how fast the time has flown by. It seems like it was just last week that I was sitting on my couch when I got a phone call from my niece that began with the words, “I have terrible news.” I couldn’t begin to imagine what the problem was, and then she said, “My father passed.” “Peter?” I shouted, jumping off the couch, as if I were hoping it would be somebody else. But it wasn’t. My brother was gone. My God, what a terrible day that was. I started making phone calls, and then my sister and I went to Manhattan to tell our aunt what had happened, because there was no way we were going to tell her that terrible news over the phone. I still miss his daily calls. I keep hoping I’ll see his name flash across my iPhone, even though I know that’s never going to happen. I later learned that Peter had b...

Okay, I’m going to watch this video just one more time — I promise. Last month, Saturday Night Live ran a sketch called “ Fashion District Robbery ,” and I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at an SNL bit. I’ve been watching the late night comedy show since those early days in 1975 with the likes of John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, and Chevy Chase — although I never thought that guy was funny. There were great sketches like the Killer Bees, the Coneheads, and the Jaws parody about the landshark. There have been ten presidential administrations since SNL debuted on Oct. 11, 1975, and that first episode is now the subject of a Netflix film I’m planning to watch. The show has also spawned a British adaptation, SNL UK, which premiered on March 21. Interestingly enough, Curtin said in a 2023 interview with People that she had watched an early show and “not one thing was funny.” “I think it was just one of those, you had to be there ...

At some point this morning, I decided to give myself a break. “You know,” I told myself, “it doesn’t have to be so awful.” Yes, how about that? I really could stop tearing into myself. After all those hours of abuse, it would be so nice to ease up on the misery, wouldn’t it? Now all I had to do was believe it. The cause behind this latest emotional assault began Saturday night when I attended BKOne’s production of John Patrick Shanley’s 1984 play Savage in Limbo at Industry City, a massive warehousing and manufacturing complex in Sunset Park that dates back to 1918. The property was pretty much deserted for the longest time, but now it’s home to restaurants, bars, and all kinds of businesses — including the theater. The play focuses on a group of former parochial-school classmates who get together at a rundown neighborhood bar in the Bronx. They’re all 32 years old, they have empty lives, they rip into themselves and each other, and they talk about changing fo...

I thought my dreams were weird. Over the weekend, I watched Dream Scenario , Nicolas Cage’s 2023 movie about an ordinary schlub whose life becomes a nightmare after strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. The hero, Paul Matthews, is a college professor who initially enjoys his strange celebrity and sees an opportunity to publish his long‑delayed book. But things go horribly wrong when people start dreaming that Paul is attacking — and even murdering — them. He quickly becomes a pariah to his neighbors, students, and even his family. It’s a strange and, at times, disturbing film, but I enjoyed it. It reminded me of Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Adaptation , Being John Malkovich , and Synecdoche, New York. The plot resembles a supposedly real event compiled on the website “Ever Dream This Man?”, created by Italian advertiser Andrea Natella. He claimed that more than 3,000 people had dreamed of the same man repeatedly for years, with the first case registered in Ne...

I wish I could remember that young man’s name. I was just thinking of this fellow I met at the end of my vacation to Denver and Nebraska last October. It was quite a trip. I had finally kept a promise to myself by going out to the Cornhusker State, and I got to meet up with my family in the Mile High City. Not bad, I thought, reaching around to give myself an imaginary pat on the back. And now it was time to go home, which meant getting on an airplane, of course, which, in turn, meant I was a nervous wreck. Things had gotten off to a rickety start when the airport’s automated train system got stuck in the tunnel as I was heading to the JetBlue terminal. Being a New Yorker, I immediately had a flashback to far too many subway shutdowns I’d experienced over the years. Now that I work from home, those incidents are much less frequent, but the anger remains in the wings just waiting to take center stage. So, the one time I come to Denver, the goddamn train system goes down, ...

On June 21, 1968, Chief Justice Earl Warren submitted his resignation to President Lyndon Johnson after 15 years as the nation’s highest‑ranking judicial officer. On the same day, the St. Lawrence Seaway was closed after operating and maintenance workers went on strike. Hugo Vihlen, an airline pilot from Florida, ended his 4,100‑mile solo trans‑Atlantic voyage 25 miles from shore on this day and came home aboard a fishing yacht to a hero's reception. He had been within 6 miles of Miami the night before, when his six‑foot sailboat, April Fool , was pushed back to sea by offshore winds and the currents of the Gulf Stream. The single‑handed sailor had started his 84‑day voyage from Casablanca, Morocco, on March 29 of that year. Mort Sahl was appearing nightly—except Mondays—at the Village Gate through June 30, and My Fair Lady , starring Fritz Weaver and Inga Swenson, was showing at N.Y. City Center. In the world of fashion, Satori’s in Mamaroneck, NY, was selling Nehru ...

“Hey, do you remember Intercrime Island?” I ran the question by my brother Peter to see if he could recall a key element from 8th Man , one of our favorite cartoons when we were growing up. It was just another one of these strange memory flashes I have when something from my past pops into my head for no apparent reason and I can’t shake it out. Of course, I didn’t get an answer since Peter died nearly a year ago, but I was feeling pretty low and a bit isolated, so I addressed my question to an empty chair on the other side of my kitchen table. This is the first Easter without him, as the Curse of the First rolls along. I’ve written before about chair work, a method of processing trauma, grief or personal tensions where you speak to an empty chair and imagine it’s someone from your life who is no longer here. I’ve done this with my mother, and though I did a lot of sobbing, I found it to be quite helpful. Usually, I make my chair work practice a solemn occasion and do...

I like to think of myself as a man of many hats, but as of right now, I’m wearing one less. The chapeau in question is my father’s cap, which commemorates the 104th Infrantry Division in World War II. I think he had ordered two of them many years ago and given one to me, but in any case, I like wearing it to honor his service. Every so often people will ask me about it, and I’ll tell them about my dad’s time with "the Timberwolves," which was the division’s nickname. Usually though, people don’t even notice. But that all changed recently when my sister and I flew out to San Francisco for our family reunion. It started at JFK as we boarded the plane and the gate agent scanned my ticket. “Thank you for your service.” I was so twisted about flying that at first, his words didn’t register with me. That’s an expression of gratitude reserved for military veterans, but I’ve never been in the service. Why would he say that to me? And then I realized he was referrin...

My sister called that one right. I’m referring to a disagreement we had during our visit to San Francisco last week after we wrapped up our family reunion. Right wing media has working overtime to depict the Fog City as some kind of dystopian hellhole, but we saw very little evidence of that during our outings. It’s a big city with big city problems, okay? Give it a rest, dickwads. But one spooky thing that stood out to us was the overwhelming presence of Waymo robotaxis zipping up and down the streets seemingly every other second. Seriously, you’d get to an intersection and they’d buzz by--white driverless vehicles with LIDAR units mounted on the roof, often two or three at a time. I’m fascinated by the science behind these robots, but I am a bit creeped out by the lack of humanity. Still, I kept bugging my sister to take a ride in one of the things just to say we did it. However, she steadfastly refused, pointing to safety concerns and the human toll as people are l...