The Luna Park Gazette

Victoria had it all planned. My 18-year-old niece called me from Colorado recently to tell me what I would be wearing for Halloween this year. As usual with Victoria, I have no say in the matter. “You’re going to be a garden gnome,” she said. Yes, that’s right, my brother Jim’s daughter didn’t see me as a pirate or one of those sexy vampire types I keep hearing about. No, she had decided that I should go out in public dressed like some mythic subterranean creature with severe wardrobe issues. “A gnome?” I demanded. “Are you serious?” “Yes,” Victoria said. “All the women will love it.” “With my luck the only thing I’ll attract will be female gnomes,” I shouted. I should probably pause here to mention that this would be a distinct improvement over my current dating status--but I still ain’t doing it. “No,” my niece insisted. “They’ll look at you and say, ‘wow, this guy dresses up like a gnome. There must be something to this guy.’” Yeah, he’s a mental case! “Why don...

I really thought I was going to need that toothbrush. I had to dump the contents of my pockets into a tray on Saturday, but I didn’t do it for Homeland Security. I did it for art. I had joined other members of the Meetup group “Everything Brooklyn” to attend the annual Gowanus Open Studios event in Park Slope. We hiked in and around old warehouses in Park Slope that have been converted into art studios. One of the artists, Joana Ricou , was working on a fantastic project where she asked people to take whatever they had out of their pockets, put it all in a tray, and allow her to photograph it. Joana explained that the contents of our pockets tell us who we are at a given moment in time. The photos are a freeze frame of our lives, particularly in this age of the smart phone, where we carry personal computers packed with all our vital information. I usually leave my house with my front pockets brimming with all manner of stuff—bloated wallet, I-phone, house keys, and a bus...

Maybe I should’ve stuck with the hamsters. I left my office in lower Manhattan on Friday night and walked right into the middle of an animal act. A man was setting up a series of boxes at the corner of Broadway and Cortland Street and unpacking a portable petting zoo. There was a line of hamsters crammed on top of one box and a cat on leash crouching before a bucket of dollar bills. I don’t know what this man was planning to do, but I don’t care for animal shows. If you need to make other creatures perform so you can feel superior, well, then we all know who the truly inferior animal is, don’t we? Besides, I was due uptown at Playwrights Horizons, where I was taking in a new show called Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play. I had recently bought a subscription for the company’s 2013-2014 season and I was looking forward to seeing the first show. So I left the hamster man and jumped on the E train for 42nd Street. There’s no place on earth like Times Square on a Friday night. ...

Every Sunday I like to sit down and read the New York Daily News “Justice Story” column. As a former police reporter and perspiring writer, I enjoy these old time stories of crime and punishment. After five years of chasing police cars and fire engines, being cursed at by lowlifes, and harassing victims’ families at the worst hour of their lives, it’s nice to sit on my rear end and enjoy all manner of mayhem without having to report on it. I’m cover accounting now, and while it’s nothing like police reporting, I get to work a normal schedule and I don’t have to fly out the door in the pursuit of havoc every time the police scanner squawks. Last week I was reading a Justice Story about Carl Gugasian , aka “The Friday Night Bank Robber,” a one-man crime wave who, over the course of nearly 30 years, had knocked over a series of banks from New England to Virginia. This guy hit his intended targets like a commando taking down a terrorist cell. He meticulously planned his robberies,...

Oh, come on now. Look, I know I’ll never be mistaken for Brad Pitt, but I can’t possibly be as ugly as this temporary office ID photo makes me out to be. I left my ID badge at home the other day and was forced to go through the ritual of posing for a temporary badge like a purse-snatcher being booked at a police station. This was the second time in six months that I've done this and I’m not sure if it’s a subconscious statement about my job, a sign of creeping dementia, or both. Whatever the reason, I can assure you that it’s a swift pain in the caboose. I think I handled things better this time around, or at least I was handling them better until I looked down at the ID photo and came face-to-face with an absolute freak of nature. Are you kidding me? I looked like an extra from The Walking Dead, for God’s sake. My head sits on my shoulders like a rotting pumpkin and for some reason I’m looking up to the ceiling as if the roof is about to come crashing down on me. ...

Most mornings I like to listen to a recording of a Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness called “ho'oponopono” that focuses on clearing the spirit of anger and other toxic emotions. The 10-minute session that I listen to merely repeats four simple phrases: “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. And I thank you.” It may not sound like much, but this mantra can have great cleansing power. The apology can be directed at anyone or anything--the universe, deceased loved ones, even ourselves, because God knows so much of our pain is self-inflicted. I had an opportunity to apply that practice to a real world situation last week. I got into an email beef with a co-worker on Thursday that turned quite ugly in a matter of minutes. I was having a bad day, to put it mildly, but that doesn’t excuse my obnoxious behavior. It started off with some snippy remarks and got more atrocious with each reply. That’s one of the reasons I hate email—that and the Nigerian ban...

I made some smart investments in the last few weeks and I must say they’ve really paid off. This had nothing to do with the stock market. I was working in the area of human capital and all I did was send a simple message: Thank you. That’s it. I just expressed gratitude to people who had helped me out and in return I was rewarded with a chronic attack of the warm and fuzzies. My first acknowledgement went to Ronit Keith, general manager of the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Toronto where I stayed earlier this month. I simply told her the truth, which was that I was impressed by the courtesy and professionalism of her staff. I know that’s their job—it is the hospitality industry, after all—but I felt that these people were particularly hospitable. I’ve been in too many situations where the “help” is anything but helpful. And I find I’m quick to complain but not nearly as fast to compliment. I wanted to change that, so I took five minutes to shoot Ms. Keith an email and got ...