The Luna Park Gazette

Well, shucks, maybe I am a robot. I’ve spent most my life under the apparently misguided apprehension that I was a flesh and blood human being, but a recent online encounter with a CAPTCHA prompt has me questioning the very nature of my existence. CAPTCHA, I very recently learned, means “Completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart,” but that knowledge hasn’t made my life any easier. I was attempting to comment on a blog post and after typing in my incredibly insightful thoughts, I hit the submit button and waited to unleash my wonderous words on an unsuspecting world. Then I got the CAPTCHA prompt, which asked me to click on photos of all the store fronts I could find in a series of images to prove that I wasn’t a robot. No problem , I said, marking off the appropriate pictures, now post my comment . But I must have missed one of the storefronts because instead of seeing my words go public, I was given another prompt where I had to pick off all...

I was looking through my journal this morning when an entry from December 21 caught my eye. This was a Friday and I suspect it was a wonton soup night—one of those evenings when I just don’t want to face the world--as I had quoted a line from a fortune cookie. “ There’s no boosting a man up the ladder unless he’s willing to climb, ” it read. It’s a good thought to keep in mind, especially now, since it complements a dream I had last night. In this dream I had just booked a flight to Los Angeles when it occurred to me that I had used up most of my vacation days and would not be able to get the time off from work. I started to panic, not believing that I had made such a bonehead mistake and wondering what the hell to do. Should I cancel my trip? Would the airline let me reschedule? And it wasn’t clear if this was a vacation or if I was finally making good on my decades-old promise to move to LA. I needed advice and my subconscious responding by summoning up my parents, who ...

I came down to earth on Thursday in the best way possible. I was attending my boxing class and when Abby, our instructor, told us to start jumping up into the air. This is part of the warmup and it builds up your legs and endurance while giving you a preview of the absolute hell that is to follow. I was hopping up and down when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that one of my classmates, a very nice guy I’ve known for years, didn’t appear to be jumping all that high. Gee , I thought, he’s not trying too hard, is he? This is something I do much too often: judging or criticizing others when I should be minding my own business. And even though I keep my mouth shut, I don’t like making these snarky judgments of other people—especially people I like. And then something strange happened: a voice that seemed to be coming from outside of my mind said, “why don’t you focus on your own jumping and forget about your buddy?” It sounded like great advice, so that’s what I did, gett...

I was sitting in a bar in Windsor Terrace Saturday night when Marvin Gaye told me I had to give it up. As I sipped my wine, I had a flashback to the first time I heard Gaye’s hit. I was a sophomore at Hunter College and on that particular day I was in a record store on Lexington Avenue, which I’m sure is long gone. This funky song that I’d never heard came on the sound system. A guy near me walked up to the cashier and asked her what were we listening to. “Got to Give it Up,” she said. That was over 40 years ago and there I was hearing it again—along with a wonder list of such slick tunes as “Always Something There to Remind Me” and “Go Back, Jack, Do it Again.” Usually when I walk into a bar I don’t begin to recognize any of the songs I’m hearing, but this seemed like my kind of place. I was in the neighborhood to attend a reading by one of my writing class buddies and I had arrived a full hour early due to the rather embarrassing fact that I had not properly read the inv...

Now that was one serious game of kick the can. In the climactic gun battle of Johnnie To’s 2006 gangster flick Exiled , a can of Red Bull is kicked high up into the air while about a dozen characters pull out guns and start shooting each other. That bit of product placement hasn’t inspired me to buy this particular energy drink, but the film, which I rented from Netflix, has changed my attitude toward movie gun fights. I’m fed up with them. This may sound strange coming from me, since I’ve always enjoyed good action movies. Put on an exciting, intelligent crime film, western, or adventure movie and I’ll gladly pull up a seat. Obviously, I’m concerned about the epidemic of mass shootings that’s drowning this country in blood. But, to mangle a phrase from my dear friends at the NRA, movies don’t kill people, guns kill people. I’ve had a particular fondness for spaghetti westerns and Hong Kong actions films like John Woo’s The Killer . The gun battles are brilliantly choreograp...

How did I ever survive the rotary phone? Was there really time when I put my index finger in a hole, dragged the wheel around seven times before I reached the party to whom I was speaking? And did I actually use typewriters for many years—along with Liquid Paper and White Out? And how did I ever get by without a DVR and only a handful of TV channels? I also remember when people smoked on airplanes—actually they smoked just about anywhere they wanted. These and other pressing issues rolled through my head the other night after I attended a Meetup event in Manhattan. I’m trying to keep that New Year’s resolution about getting out more so I signed up for a group that sounded pretty cool and had a nice time. I figured I’d be the oldest in the room, which is something I’m getting used to, but I did run into one other guy who seemed to be in my age bracket. We were sitting at a table with a young man and this geezer kept up bringing up all the ancient equipment from my childhood. ...

I don’t like this. The thought came to me this morning while I was washing the dishes. My mind had been slogging through some negative territory—I honestly forget now what the hell was bugging me—and I suddenly realized just how uncomfortable I was feeling. I didn’t like this state of mind and I told myself exactly that: I don’t like this. It sounds like something a two-year-old says when you try to feed him vegetables. Four simple words, but they were enough to get me into the present moment and away from the hostile path I had chosen. I believe this awareness is largely due to my meditation practice. I had a particularly relaxing experience this morning and I’m slowly seeing that peace of mind is more enjoyable than the internal turmoil I typically inflict upon myself. The holidays are officially over and now the work on those New Year’s resolutions gets real. I want to be more positive, so I’m monitoring my thoughts more carefully because the bad intentions have a way of ...