The Luna Park Gazette

It was a hell of a way to start a weekend. I got out of work one Friday night a few weeks ago and walked down to Battery Park City. Was I heading for happy hour at some uber-chic saloon? Hell, no. A romantic rendez-vous with a lucious Eastern European supermodel? Jesus, it hurts to even dream about that. No, I was on my to the New York Sports Club to take a boxing class. Now why the hell I do this, I don't know. Of course there are the surface reasons: it's great exercise, you get to work out in a group, it saves me from the murderous monotony of the treadmill and the barbells, and it lets me get out my aggressions. The gym wasn't crowded that night, a sign possibly that people were out having a life rather in here wheezing and perspiring. I found out that boxing class was even more mob-free--I was the only person there. Sal, a young African-American boxer and martial artist was teaching the class and when others failed to show up, my first thought was, oh, no, he's go...

I had to give my father a shower the other day. It was Sunday morning and he and my sister had just come home after having breakfast at a local diner. She and I were talking in the kitchen when my father walked in between us and went into the bathroom. A few seconds later the smell reached us and we knew what happened. My father had "an accident", as my mother would have said. In other words, he shit in his pants. Poor bastard. He's 84 years old, suffering from Alzheimer's and he's got to deal with this. We got his shoes off and I threw his underwear into the wash. My sister left and I went out to do some shopping, but when I got back the smell was still coming off him. I told him to get undressed and saw the stains on the back of his legs. I got him into the shower and turned on the water; he was like an old circus elephant, once so powerful and terrifying, now docile and quiet as I hosed him down. His doctor warned us that, as the disease progresses, my father w...

You can see a lot by just looking. ~Yogi Berra Two men left the same building at the same time and they could not have been more different. I was taking the elevator going last night when a man in a wheelchair got on board at the 12th floor. His body was shrunken, misshapen, and from what I could see, he only had the use of one arm. I had my usual feelings of sympathy and guilt--whining about my health issues seemed pretty pathetic in light of this man's terrible condition. His whole life is a health issue. When we got out into the lobby, I watched him roll toward the door, ready to be the good citizen and help him out. As he rolled toward the door, a man who was pretty much his polar opposite stepped out from another bank of elevators. This man was tall, with broad, weightlifter shoulders. He wore an immaculate, expensive suit and, of course, he had a cell phone plastered to his head. In my instant analysis, I decided this guy had it all. Great job, beautiful woman, maybe a few o...

It feels like it's never going to stop. It's been raining all week here and now on Friday night, it's raining even more. I got soaked coming home from work and I feel lousy, like I've got some cold or virus or voodoo curse and I'd like to hop on the next plane to Bermuda and never come back. Not that I'm bitter, of course. I'm just feeling kind of low and torrential downpours do little to cheer me up. I've been fighting this cold all week, and I'm even angrier because I was feeling pretty lousy just two weeks ago. I've had problems with my health for years now, ever since I came down with mono back in...Jesus...what year was it? '84? '85? Oh, hell, no, don't tell me that. Well, whenever the hell it was, it was a real turning point in my life. Prior to that I'd get sick like anyone else, get better, and that would be the end of it. But then one day I woke up and felt like I had been run over by a freight train. At that time I was w...

Later Man, Later Man, Puts things off as long as he can Trouble's near, danger's great, he'll just ask, Can't it wait? I was leaving work the other night when one of my co-workers bid me goodbye with the words, "Later, man." The phrase stuck in my head and by the time I got to the elevator I had come up a bogus superhero--Later Man. I played the old "Spiderman" cartoon theme in my head with new lyrics, describing my hero's amazing power of procrastination. I pictured my satirical superhero putting off saving the world to do something--anything--else. He possessed a unique combination sloth, fear and ADD that made him impervious to completion. I saw him in my mind's eye, masked, the big "L" on his chest sitting in front of a TV while his wife tried to pull him off the couch. It could be a funny bit, I thought. But it took me a few days to realize that Later Man already exists. I see him every morning in the mirror when I shave. Later...

Who the hell are you people? I started this blog to showcase my writing and the hope was that people would read my work, be overwhelmed by my powerful prose, and leave adoring messages under the "Comments" section. That hasn't quite happened. Instead I'm getting message like these, from my devoted fan, Joern Lillehagen, who took the time to write: It's time for the best of the Weblogs, Inc. Network. The Weblogs, Inc. network features over 100 independent, unfiltered bloggers producing over 1,000 blog posts a week across over 75 industry-leading blogs. Hi there! I just visited your blog and it`s really cool! I have a coastal vacationns site/blog. It pretty much covers coastal vacationns related stuff. Come and check it out if you get time :-) So first old Joern plugs something called Weblogs, then he greets me and praises my blog and finsihes off by pushing his "coastal vacationns site/blog" and related stuff. Gee, thanks, Joern, I'm so glad you like...