The Luna Park Gazette

Just got in from L.A. after spending 10 fabulous days with my Uncle Joe and Aunt Sara. I'm exhausted, hungry, and ready for another vacation, but I guess I'd better show up for work tomorrow morning. I had such a blast this time out. We spend three days in San Diego, which I had never seen before, and I managed to see not one, but two dolphins swimming in the water as I did my morning walk. That may be no big deal for the locals, but for a guy from Brooklyn it was something to see. I surely did love those morning walks in San Diego. I could hear sea lions off in the distance and watch the pelicans swoop in low over the water for the breakfast. And I enjoyed walking straight toward the beautiful morning sun--I could feel the rays of light shining right through me. On they way down to San Diego, we stopped at the Mission at San Juan Capistrano , which I was so-so about--until I actually saw the place. It's such a beautiful location and I got a chance to meet the rec...

At some point while screening my scenes at the final film directing class on Wednesday night, I heard a tremendous boom coming from the outside world. Oh, great, I thought as I sat in the dark with my classmates, that’s God telling me how much He hates my movie! Naturally, it was thunder making all that racket, but I have tendency to overreact. After 8 weeks we finally got to show our work at the School of Visual Arts. I can’t believe how fast the time went by. I met a bunch of great, talented people, had a lot of fun, and I learned so much about filmmaking. I’d say I got a great return on my investment. Wednesday was rather hectic and to top it off, it was my mother’s birthday, which happens to be Assumption Day, when the Virgin Mary was taken up to Heaven. My mother’s middle name was “Assumpta.” I thought of my mom a lot during the day and, as I wrote on my Facebook page, my mother gave us her heart and soul, but the toughest thing she ever asked us to do was to go on l...

One of the best lessons my father ever taught me was to take care of tough jobs as soon as possible. “Better behind you than in front of you,” he used to say. Just eight simple words but they can often mean the difference between joy and all sorts of procrastinated misery. I haven’t always followed my Dad’s advice, but I recently applied this golden rule and I was very glad I did. I gave up my Friday night to edit the two scenes I shot in my film director’s class. It was quite challenging, since editing—like directing—is new to me. But the editing is an important part of the class. Todd, our instructor, told us that when you look at the raw footage, you’ll see what you have, and, more importantly, what you don’t have. Now I have to say that the finished work will never be mistaken for a Hollywood production, but at least I got the job done and I have something to show in class. And I was able to enjoy the rest of my weekend. We had all downloaded our scenes on to flash dr...

On Friday afternoon I joined the congregation at Trinity Church to sing about realms beyond the clouds and a few hours later I was climbing into one. The hymn, “Lamp of Our Feet Whereby We Trace,” was a fitting preface for my trip in and around Cloud City, a structure by Argentine artist Tomas Saraceno currently on view at--or on--the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s rooftop garden . The garden is one of my favorite New York locations, even though I haven’t been there in a few years. There are great views of Central Park and the New York City skyline. You feel like you’re far away from the city, even though you’re right in the middle of it. The Met describes Cloud City as “a constellation of large, interconnected modules constructed with transparent and reflective materials” and I’m certainly not going to argue, though the phrase “giant Plexiglass tarantula” did run through my mind upon first viewing. This… thing is cool, especially since you can actually climb inside of it. Th...

I got down on my knees to receive communion at Trinity Church on Friday and saw that I was kneeling on St. James. Okay, I wasn’t actually kneeling on the Apostle James , son of Zebedee. Poor guy had enough problems without me getting on his case. No, this was a cushion bearing his name—one of 12 that line one side of the altar--and of all the saints I could have picked to rest my rickety knees upon, it seemed appropriate that I came down on St. James, who, together with his brother, John, were known as the “Sons of Thunder.” St. James figured prominently in my life last week. In addition to communion, I had my second crack at film directing at the School of Visual Arts on Wednesday, which was the Feast of St. James. I’ll be honest—it was a rough night. I didn’t feel terribly confident, but admittedly I was trying something a little different. I was doing a “walk and talk” where one actor walked toward the camera delivering his lines. My previous scene had been shot on a tripod...

And now another massacre… Once again we’re watching footage of sobbing victims, listening to recordings of frantic 911 calls and viewing news coverage of candlelight vigils. It’s getting harder and harder to tell these incidents apart. After the mass shooting at the “The Dark Knight Rises” premier, you can be sure of two things: nothing will be done to change the gun laws in this country and there will be more massacres like this, more images of murderous loners, and more eulogies for innocent victims. According to news reports, the gun murder rate in the U.S. is at 19.5%, almost 20 times higher than the next 22 richest nations combined. But at least we still have our freedom. The NRA has won this battle. Virtually no one on the national level is even talking about gun control despite a string of these hideous attacks. The Republicans are on the gun lobby pay roll and the Democrats are scared of their own shadows. God damn the whole pack of them. You already know the arguments...

I always have this urge to bless myself whenever I walk through the old Lincoln Savings Bank on Fifth Avenue and pass the spot where my mother's desk used to be. Other people see the bank only as a place of business, but for me this is hallowed ground. Of course it’s no longer the Lincoln, having been sold off years ago as the big banking fish kept on eating the smaller ones until it’s now a Chase branch. Images of Honest Abe still adorn this fortress-like structure, however, and, as one local blogger told me, “it will always be the Lincoln.” It certainly will be for me. My mother sold life insurance at the Lincoln and now, with Monday marking the tenth anniversary of her death, the bank has taken on a special meaning for me. I don’t want to think about that awful day a decade ago when I raced to the hospital in Staten Island after learning my mother had gone into cardiac arrest. I don’t want to remember how I wept and wailed in my sister’s arms after I learned we were ...