The Luna Park Gazette

I switched the TV on to the Christmas carol channel to get the holiday spirit going last night and came away with some valuable information. The cable people like to run little Yuletide factoids along the bottom of the screen while the music plays. So I learned that in Hungary, food cannot be eaten on Christmas Eve until a twinkling star is seen in the sky. No food, I thought, that’s ridiculous. What happens if it’s overcast and you don’t see any stars? You go Hungary! (Ouch! I'll be getting a lump of coal for that one...) But as I thought about it, I started to like this tradition. A star is a sign of hope and given the current state of the world we could all use a little hope right this very minute. It seemed like a good idea to hold up the party until you get that sign from above. I just got done watching “ Scrooge ,” the best film version of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” and it got pretty emotional. I grew up watching this movie with my family and now here I was sitting by ...

In the movie “ The Next Voice You Hear ,” God skips the burning bush and uses the radio to speak to humanity. I recently saw this 1950 film, starring James Whitmore and future First Lady Nancy Davis, and found it to be a bit clunky and contrived. But it made an impression on me because it showed how good, decent people can forget that they’re good and decent as they rush around trying to find a place in the world. Upon hearing the voice of the Almighty, everyone starts taking life slower and being more respectful to one another. I thought that was important and it seemed to tie in so nicely with my Day One project, where I vowed I would improve my outlook on life. And then I decided to go the movies on Friday night and everything went to hell. I rarely go to the movies, preferring to watch films at home. Most movies are overrated and overpriced and most theater audiences are comprised of inconsiderate morons who talk, act stupid with their smart phones, and do just about anything els...

Every night when I come home the first thing I see is Ben’s heart. It’s just a heart-shaped piece of green glittery paper that I have taped to my front door, but it means so much to me. Up until recently, Ben was my four-year-old next-door neighbor. I knew I’d miss him after I moved, but I didn’t realize how much. He gave me that green heart back in the summer as my sister and I were cleaning out our family’s house. Every weekend we’d look forward to seeing Ben poke his head in from outside and shout “Wob-ert!” He would talk with us, look around the empty house, and then suddenly say, “I have to go now.” And off he’d go. Ben is such a sweet kid, always willing to share things, which I find amazing for a child that age. I don’t think I was anywhere as near as generous when I was four years old, so Ben has taught me an important lesson. We told him not to give us anything, but nevertheless Ben stopped by the house one time and gave my sister and me some balloons he had. Then he promptly ...

Over the summer, DC Comics took the incredible step of resetting all 52 of its continuing series and starting them all over again with issue No. 1. Superman and Batman may have been around since the 1930s, but DC is scrubbing everything that’s happened in their comic universe over the decades and beginning anew. I don’t know how comic book fans are reacting to this plan, but it sounds like a great idea to me. I have gone through so much upheaval over the last few months that I’ve decided it’s time for me to start my life all over again at Day One. And I’m doing this right now. I can’t afford to wait until New Year’s Day to make any resolutions—my life needs a radical reboot ASA-freaking-P. I’m in a new place, we finally sold the family home, and I’m back at the gym five torturous months after my back went out and took my right leg with it. There was a time when I thought I would never heal, that the incredible pain in my shin would be with me forever. The agony started one Friday night...

There was a time many years ago when I was struggling to find my way. I had trouble holding on to a job, my physical health was bad and my mental condition was even worse. I was so upset that I went to my mother looking for some kind of guidance. “What’s going to happen to me?” I asked her in desperation. She paused for a moment, clearly upset at my state of mind. “Well, you know,” she said, “when I die, you’ll get money for this house.” My mother meant well, of course—she always did--and I know she was trying to comfort me. But those words really shook me up. Did my mother have to die before I could make something out of myself? If I were making a list of the lowest points in my life that conversation would certainly be in the top five. My mother and father are both gone now, I’ve found something like a career, and today we finally sold our parents’ house. After all the work, all the cleaning, all the worry and aggravation, everything came down to a few hours at a local bank. We si...

I feel like I’m living in an American Express commercial. The massive financial services outfit used to run ads featuring various celebrities who asked the musical question “do you know me?” I was more partial to the Traveler’s Cheques spots where Karl Malden sternly declared, “don’t leave home without them.” He said it with such intensity that I was afraid to leave my house--and I wasn't traveling anywhere. I could’ve used Karl Malden’s help last week when I ran into a series of people whom I vaguely recognized but couldn’t initially identify. You look at them for a few seconds, they look at you, and you search your mind to find a name to go with the kisser—like Karl and Michael Douglas chasing down a perp in “The Streets of San Francisco." It started one night when I was coming from work and I followed this older gentleman into my local grocery store. I know that guy, I thought, I’ve seen him someplace before… It wasn’t until I was paying off the cashier—and this old timer...

I finally got around to visiting the Great Wall Supermarket on Fort Hamilton Parkway this week. The place opened up about six years ago, but I haven't had any reason to come down this way in ages. I had actually been here many times in the past; I practically lived in the building when I was a teenager—only back then it wasn’t a supermarket; it was the Fortway Theater. God alone knows how many movies I saw there, but the titles include Batman, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Excalibur, Deliverance, The Omega Man, The Lone Ranger , and, of course, The Exorcist , when I had to pretty much carry my poor traumatized mother up the aisle after the movie ended. The Fortway was one of four theaters in my neighborhood when I was growing up. There was the Harbor (now a health club); the Dyker (now a Modell’s) and the Alpine, the sole survivor--if you call being subdivided into eight broom closets with paper-thin walls “surviving.” The Fortway was the cheap place, charging $1 to see second run movie...