The Luna Park Gazette

And so it all ends with the click of a mouse. I’ve unfriended people on Facebook many times in the past. It usually happens when some twit I’ve never met in the real world says something monumentally stupid or incredibly rude and I ask myself “why in the four-alarm freaking hell am I keeping this asshole in my life?” Then I press the button and make them disappear. It can be a very satisfying experience. There are few things more fruitless than a Facebook pissing contest and, having weathered more than a few of these online fiascos, I am looking to find better things to do with my time. But my most recent unfriending was quite different from the usual routine. And much more painful. This person was a former best friend of mine who cut himself out of my life for reasons I still haven’t quite figured out. We met about 20 years ago at a job in Manhattan and we just hit it off. My friend--I’ll call him Phil--was a great guy with a fabulous sense of humor. We started hanging ou...

Mary Klinge didn’t waste any time. “I know your password,” she told me in recent email. “More to the point, I know your secret and I have evidence of this.” Ms.Klinge, which I suspect is a fake name, caught me flatfooted by mentioning one of my old passwords. I’ve been the victim of identity theft so this opening line was a bit disturbing. Things got even creepier as Mary went on to explain that she had setup “a malware on the adult video clips (porno) and you visited this web site to experience fun (you know what I mean).” No, I don’t know what you mean. I don’t go look at adult video clips (porno) so maybe Mary means somebody else. Then she said she had set a webcam in my computer and gathered all my contacts. Now that’s just mean. She wrote that she put in much more time than she should have investigating “into your life and created a two-screen video.” “The 1st part shows the video you had been viewing and 2nd part displays the recording from your cam (it’s you doin...

“A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.”—Groucho Marx Okay, so what the hell is happening on 93rd Street? Ever since I was liberated from my post-surgery leg braces, I’ve been walking about two miles nearly every day. In the last few weeks I’ve been slowly getting back to the gym with 30-minute cardio workouts and some basic weight training exercises, but the long walks around my neighborhood in Bay Ridge are still a major part of my recovery. On Saturdays I sometimes deviate from my usual route to cut over a few blocks to a local fruit and vegetable store to pick up my weekly supply of healthy stuff. Now for the last two weeks I’ve been walking up Oliver Street off Shore Road and heading up 93rd Street. And that’s where everything goes to hell—literally—because when I get to the block between Marine Avenue and Ridge Boulevard I keep running into black cats. I know the old bit about black cat’s crossing your path is a ridiculous supers...

It all comes down to teamwork. I’ve been working with this fabulous writing class for the last of couple of years now and today I joined my classmates for a reading of our various works in progress. The class is coordinated by our teacher, the fabulous Rosemary Moore, and the reading was held at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The place has a history that dates back to the Dutch settlers and was a major site during the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776. Rosemary had asked us all for a short bio to read when she introduced us and I emailed her one of my favorites: “ Rob Lenihan is a writer and journalist who was born in Brooklyn the same year the Dodgers left. He hopes the two events were not related ." I usually get some laughs on that one and today was no exception. And I needed all the humor I could muster because I was scared to Hell and back as my mind cranked out a whole host of disaster scenarios. What if my piece was too long? What if it was too short? W...

Now we can add five more names to the list. Last week’s mass shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis continues the apparently endless stream of gun violence that has gripped this terribly misguided nation. I’ve worked at small newspapers, so this latest attack is particularly disturbing. I think of the newsrooms in Pennsylvania and Connecticut where I used to ply my trade and see how easily it would’ve been for some gun-toting lunatic to walk in and start shooting. Yes, the shooter had a personal beef with the newspaper, but we can’t ignore the fact that Trump—I refuse to call him president—has declared the press “the enemy of the people,” that he has repeatedly labeled any unflattering story as “fake news” and encouraged the crowds at his vanity hoedowns to jeer at reporters. I’ve covered many seminars about corruption in the business world and one phrase that I’ve heard repeatedly was “tone at the top”—meaning how the behavior of a company's leaders can have a majo...

I’ve seen a few dogs in the theater over the years, but the one I spotted recently really stands out. This was the real thing--as in the four-legged kind--a little lap dog I had the pleasure of meeting on my birthday last month while attending a performance of Long Day’s Journey into Night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. This little fellow—I think he was a fellow—was perched on the lap of a woman sitting in the audience and I spotted them as I was returning to my seat during intermission. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I always feel comfortable talking to total strangers in the theater. Perhaps it’s because of the live actors on the stage or the fact that we all share a love for this singular art form, but, whatever the reason, I can chat up people I’ve never met before in a way that I wouldn’t even think of doing in a multiplex. So, when I saw this lady and her dog, I just had to stop and talk. “Is that a comfort dog?” I asked. “No,” the lady said in a distinct...

Like all kids, I hated going to the doctor. I feared being poked with needles, dreaded having that tongue depressor thing jammed down my throat, and absolutely hated wasting so much time in the waiting room when I could be outside raising all kinds of hell. Now there was this one day fine spring day when I had to go the doctor to get a booster shot. Today of course I know full well the importance of checkups, but back then I felt like I was walking the last mile. My dad had been doing some home repairs that morning and he sent me around the corner to Windsor Lock, the neighborhood hardware store—back when we had neighborhood hardware stores—to get several items including lightbulbs and two short pieces of wire. Off I went, relying on nothing but my memory of what my father had told me to complete the order. When I returned a short time later, I handed the bag over to my father—and he promptly went nuts. He was so happy and so proud of me for getting every single thing he wan...