The Luna Park Gazette

All I wanted was a tube of toothpaste. A simple shopping trip went full-on fiasco this Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, as a I dragged my bloated self through the day in a tryptophan stupor. I did actually accomplish a few things one day after a fabulous turkey dinner with my sister and auntie. I got my printer back online after getting my computer’s operating system replaced, a relatively easy task that I had inflated to crisis-level proportions through the power of my nervous disposition. And I made some (very) minor progress in cleaning up my computer room, though that job is a long way from done. I finally got out of the house in the late afternoon to do some shopping and treat myself to a much-needed massage, but first I stopped off at a neighborhood thrift store for the aforementioned toothpaste. And that's when the owners’ kids decided to rub me the wrong way. The lady who owns the place has two lovely daughters and a really cute little boy. The two girls were ...

We were doing fine until we found that shoebox. For the last few Saturdays, I’ve been going over to my auntie’s house in Manhattan to help her clean her apartment. Last week we made some progress reducing the clutter in her walk-in closet and yesterday we renewed our attack, directing our efforts to the various boxes that sat on the shelves. We discovered two boxes of shoes that she apparently hadn’t worn in a while and then I reached up for a third box expecting to find yet another pair of kicks. But this time we struck gold. This box was filled with dozens of old family photographs, a ton of jumbled memories, many without names or dates, all thrown together in a haphazard history. The moment we pulled back the lid, my auntie and I both knew it was quitting time. I switched off the closet light, we pulled up some chairs, and went back in time. Clicking through digital images doesn’t begin to compare with looking at these old pictures, where you can almost feel the years p...

You see them in all corners of this great city of ours, just itching to spring into your life. New York has a seemingly vast population of unique individuals that some crass folks might refer to as nuts, kooks, weirdos, or freaks. But, hey, come on, without these characters this town would be nothing more than a plus-size Topeka. These people are very helpful in the event you forget what city you’re in. One look at their bizarre antics and you’ll shake your head and say, “Oh, yeah, that's right; I’m in New York .” Take, for example, the gentleman I spied last week walking down Fourth Avenue here in beautiful Bay Ridge shortly before the start of the New York Marathon. He was in his forties, wearing shorts and a straw hat and carrying a massive plastic fish slung over his neck like a Gibson guitar. I’m not sure where he acquired this particular item, but I suspect one of the local seafood restaurants might be missing a sign. And just to make sure we were all looking a...

And I was actually starting to feel hopeful... The New York City Marathon went off without a hitch today, just days after eight innocent people were slaughtered in Manhattan in the name of a psychotic delusion. Once again, my home was the target of a fundamentalist murderer, 16 years after the September 11 attacks. This latest scumbag told the police that he had planned his attack for Halloween because there were would be more people on the street. His victims included five friends from Argentina celebrating their high school reunion and a young mother from Belgium. Yeah, I’ll better Allah is just tickled pink by all these dead infidels, you asshole. I didn’t think things could get any worse, but then that Putin-loving fuckwad in the White House proved me wrong by tweeting a vile load of politically-motivated bullshit before the victims’ bodies were even cold. What the hell is wrong with this scumbag Trump? And what the hell is wrong with his idiot supporters who still stand...