The Luna Park Gazette

My favorite Twilight Zone episode is all about a game of pool. In fact, that’s the title of the episode—“A Game of a Pool”—and it tells the story of a small time hustler who literally plays the game of his life against the ghost of the legendary Fats Brown. The episode achieves so much with just the bare essentials: two fabulous actors in the form Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters, a great script, and a pool table. No CGI effects, no explosions, no screeching critters bursting out of people’s guts and spraying ketchup in all directions. No space ships. Just quality. I’ve been thinking more about that episode recently because I played pool the other night for the first time in nearly a year. Pool is like a lot of things in my life: I tell myself this is fun, I should do this more often and then…I don’t. On its own, pool is such a great game. It has been associated with all sorts of vile behavior, thanks, in part, to the movies-- The Hustler, The Color of Money ; I love those flicks--w...

"Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed." ---Michael Pritchard Franklin Roosevelt said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but he never rode the R train. However, I do, and I got a lesson in fear and paranoia on Thursday while taking that very train into Manhattan. There I was reading my paper when I happened to look up just as we were pulling out of DeKalb Avenue and saw a Muslim man sitting directly across from me. He had a full-beard, a skullcap, and was clutching a backpack in his arms the way a mother cradles a baby. So what? The man has much right to ride on the subway as I do. Yeah, he looks different than most people I know, but not really. My neighborhood of Bay Ridge is well on its way to becoming a Muslim community. I see bearded men with skullcaps nearly every day when I go shopping. I usually walk by the mosque on 68th Street, where these guys are praying all the time. Why freak out when I ...

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." -- Mahatma Gandhi I once saw a Dennis the Menace cartoon where our young hero is clobbering some kid right in front of a shocked minister. "I know vengeance is the Lord's," Dennis is telling the astounded parson, "I'm just helping Him out." I know how Dennis feels. I want to do the right thing, walk the straight and narrow, but I'd also like to lay down the smack on many of mine enemies. God's work is my own, right? I keep talking about putting the past behind, forgetting the dirtbags who screwed me over, and getting on with my life. But that forgetting part hasn't been working so well and I suspect that this is because I'm not really forgiving any of these mutts. (The word "mutts" is a big tip-off, isn't it?) I was in church recently-- really --when the subject of forgiveness came up during the sermon. The gospel for that day was from Matthew, ...

It seems we stood and talked like this before. We looked at each other in the same way then... But I can't remember where or when... Some things that happened for the first time seem to be happening again... And so it seems that we have met before, and laughed before, and loved before... but who knows where or when...? Had enough? Click here...

I might have forgotten that today was Valentine's Day if I hadn't gotten on the subway this afternoon. I had sent out the cards to the women in my life, like my aunt, my sister, my nieces--and I heard all the love songs and love-themed programs on WNYC. Now that I'm out of work, I listen to the radio all day long. But the day really didn't register with me until around 4 pm when I got on the train to go to Manhattan. I saw a young couple on the Bay Ridge R station and the girl was holding on to a huge bouquet of roses. Oh, yeah , I thought. I've got to put up with this crap today. Notice how I take random incidents personally. I don't want to sound bitter or anything, but how come I have to lose my job while that little winged putz Cupid gets to fly around shooting love-sick idiots in the keester and pissing off people like me? Why doesn't somebody give that arrow-slinging monkey his walking papers? I'd love to run into his scrawny ass on the unemploymen...

Roy Scheider Nov. 10, 1932 to Feb. 10, 2008 I was so sad when I heard that Roy Scheider died. He was such a tremendous actor, a guy who came off as real, even if the particular film he was appearing in wasn't that good. I remember seeing him in The French Connection , where he had the unenviable task of playing Gene Hackman's partner. I think a lot of other actors would have been overwhelmed by Hackman's blowout performance as Popeye Doyle, but Scheider held his own. He went on to star in several films, including Jaws , of course, All That Jazz , and Blue Thunder . He also did a flick called The Seven-Ups , which I didn't like too much when I first saw it in the theater. However, I saw the movie again a few years after that on television and I enjoyed it a lot more. It's been a while, but as I recall it was a very gritty cop movie that took place in all these grungy locations in the outer boroughs--the kinds of places where you really believe that bad people would g...

" Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. "--Humphrey Bogart Bogey sure knew what he was talking about. I was sitting in the office of a Wall Street-area company today waiting to go into a job interview. I felt tired, still cold from the brutally frigid temperatures that have descended upon this city, and a little edgy. It's been a while since I've on an interview and I felt nervous. I was filling out the application form--something I truly hate, as I have to cram my entire work history into tiny little boxes. Isn't that what resumes are for? I had to wait for another applicant to finish her interview, which rubbed me the wrong way. I know I'm not the only person who answered the ad, but when I walk into a company, I like to pretend they're not seeing anyone but me, that I'm the only person they'd even consider hiring. What can I say? I want to be loved. When I know someone else is ahead of me, I feel like I...