The Luna Park Gazette

Oh, yeah, I really needed this. It’s been 9 days since I somehow managed to injure my right leg and while it has improved a little bit, I’m still limping around like Long John Silver and dealing with a lot of pain. And the worst thing is that I don’t know what the hell happened. All I can say is that I went to my gym last Friday, did my usual workout and went home feeling just fine. A few hours later, though, I could barely walk and it hurt like hell when I tried to sit down. I haven’t been this seriously laid up since I broke a bone in my arm while I was taking a jiu-jitsu back in the Seventies. And even then I heard the damn bone crack. This time around I felt nothing and I’m starting to wonder if someone is sticking pins in a voodoo doll version of me. I’m already living with the twin miseries of looking for an apartment and working with my sister to clean out our family home, so this little bit of grief is not appreciated. What’s worse is that I’ll be feeling better ...

I cranked up the DVR last week and took a ride through a sea of memories on the back of man-eating dinosaur. I had recorded The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms , an old time monster flick from 1953 that I watched scores of times when I was a kid. I remember sitting with my family in the glow of the old Motorola and enjoying this classic that starts with an A-bomb blast in the North Pole and comes to a fiery climax at the Cyclone in Coney Island. (It was actually shot an amusement park in Long Beach, CA, but it's still pretty cool.) There were no DVRs or DVDs back then, just plain old TV with commercials and everything. But we seemed to enjoy ourselves. The plot? Well, let’s see. A nuclear test in the frozen north accidentally defrosts a prehistoric predator who does the backstroke down to the Big Apple, climbs out of the water and promptly does more damage to my hometown than Donald Trump. The Seventh Seal it ain’t, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Named as the first movie to sta...

There’s an episode of the old Outer Limits TV show where David McCallum plays a Welsh coal miner who gets roped into a bizarre experiment that speeds up his own private evolution. The man who played Ilya Kuryakin is transformed into the Freak of the Future with an extra finger, a Jiffy Pop cranium and some wicked psychic powers. This is progress? In an attempt to reverse the situation, his girlfriend dials down the mutant machine a little too much and our hero gets Neanderthal for a few moments before he’s brought back to normal. I always figured this was just science fiction, but a recent workout at my gym has me wondering more about de-evolution. I take boxing classes at the New York Sports Club, which provide a great workout and allow you to imagine that you’re a tough guy for 55 minutes. Last week I stopped by the club near Lincoln Center for some early morning abuse. The instructor ran a great class, breaking us up into pairs and having us hit a series of stat...

Children have this fabulous gift for shaking you up with just a few words. I had this fact reinforced for me the other night when I was talking with Ben, my neighbor’s four-year-old. Ben is a really sweet kid. He always greets me with this excited “hi!” whenever he sees me and then he’ll tell me what he’s up to and ask me all sorts of questions. “He always looks for you,” his mother told me. Well, in the interests of full disclosure, I always look for him. Last week while relaxing in Central Park, I got a Frisbee advertising the Museum of Modern Art and since I have no use for the thing, I gave it to Ben. He responded by giving me a hug that made me one very happy guy. It really is better to give than receive. While I was speaking with Ben on his front stoop, he went and got the Frisbee and started reading all the information printed across the front of it. He did a pretty good job, too, except for pronouncing “MOMA” as “Momma.” Hey, close enough. “Well, Ben,” I said fi...

Strange dreams have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, but I’ve had a few gems lately that were so twisted it’s a shame I couldn’t sell tickets. First there was the dream of the sliding horses , which got weirder and weirder as it went on. A short time later, I dreamed I was walking down Main Street in Northampton, MA on a rainy afternoon when I saw my late father sitting on a rope swing that was tied to the branch of a large tree. This was particularly upsetting because my father was in a state of serious mental and physical decline. He looked lost, with one shoe off and rocking back and forth on that swing. It was painful. My aunt has a farmhouse in this area, so that explains the locale. And I had been traveling with my uncle—my dad’s brother—so maybe that’s why I saw my father. I just wish I had seen him at a better time in his life, but then the most recent memories are usually the freshest. Still, as unusual as this dream was, it was mere fairy dust when compar...

I was working at a newspaper in Waterbury, CT when Whitey Bulger went on the lam. It was December 1994 and I hadn’t been in New England for very long, so I didn’t know much about the infamous gangster, who, according to at least one law enforcement official, was more feared in Boston than John Gotti was in New York. And I certainly didn’t know about his bizarre relationship with the FBI that allowed him to work as a government informant and a ruthless hoodlum simultaneously. Bulger was in his 60’s at the time and the FBI description of him warned that the career criminal was known to carry a knife strapped to his ankle. I couldn't believe that. A knife strapped to his ankle? The guy was old enough to be someone’s grandfather and he’s running around with a shiv down his sock? But like I said, I didn’t know much about Whitey Bulger. Bulger’s run from the law finally came to an end a long way from South Boston. The FBI said a search of his Santa Monica, CA apartment turned up more tha...

When I was studying film in high school, I remember reading a quote by Peter Ustinov about his 1962 production of “ Billy Budd .” Ustinov , who directed, acted in, and co-wrote the screen adaptation of Herman Melville’s novella, said he had decided to shoot in black and white because “color prettifies everything” and would undermine the serious story he was trying to tell. The line came back to me last week after all these years (I think it had something to do with the word “prettifies”) when I finally saw “Billy Budd.” And I was quite satisfied. Even though this was his second film, Terrence Stamp is introduced in this movie—“ A new face! A new talent! A great new star discovery! ”—as Billy, a painfully naive merchant sailor who is impressed by the British Navy in 1797. He quickly falls afoul of Claggart, the ship's sadistic master-at-arms, and tragedy ensues. Now I have to confess that I, an English major, never read the novella. I know, I know, shame on me. But, seriou...