Author Archives: Al Martinez

The sight of New Yorkers sunning themselves on lawn chairs in the middle of Broadway almost made me swallow my cigar. I could not believe that hundreds of pedestrians, swarming among each other like killer bees, were lounging in the middle of a street famous not for recreation but for survival among the cars, buses ... Read more

It rained in Manhattan on our 60th wedding anniversary. Lightning, thunder, a relentless downpour, the whole flashing, roaring, drenching package of a storm that pounded over West 44th Street like the drums of eternity.  I took it as God’s recognition of Cinelli’s endurance. In the vast stretch of cosmic time, six decades is not very ... Read more

It’s hard to believe that almost 40 years after the humiliating end of the Vietnam War Jane Fonda is still held responsible. Not for our defeat but for committing what a small group of veterans regard as a treasonous act in her visit to Hanoi during the height of the losing battle. Despite the passage ... Read more

I was a nice guy until I became a landlord. I smiled a lot and said “Good morning” and “How you doing?” and patted the dog occasionally and my wife more frequently. Then I became responsible for the lives of tenants and it all changed. Overnight I became a monster. It began with our purchase ... Read more

When I grow up I want to be a political commentator like Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann and shout in everyone’s face. I will holler at the masses from television and radio stations and from street corners. I will yell at passing buses and taxis and go down into the subway tunnels and bellow at ... Read more

Once more the guns of America have roared across the land, leaving a trail of bodies, blood, tears and the terrible acknowledgment of our national heritage. We’re a gun-totin’ culture, partner, and it ain’t just the cowboys who are drawing on each other. Parents are killing kids. Kids are killing parents. Husbands are killing wives. ... Read more