Massage Parlors

Joe the Cop walked into the Tech Room and, grumpy as usual said, “We’ve got two massage parlors to start the day.”

That brought groans and curses from the rest of the team […]

A Cheetah Named Lily
She was sitting on an antique wing chair wearing a blue and red silk robe. Her hair was down. And I’ll be dammed, if there wasn’t a cheetah in a black suede collar sitting next to her lik […]

A First Taste of Grappa
I was at an outdoor family event on a sunny afternoon. There were lots of people there I didn’t know, but they all seemed to know me. Everyone was a close relative on my mother’s side. […]

Dragon Boat Dinners

“Harder.”

Boom.

“Deeper.”

Boom.

“Gimme more.”

Boom…boom…boom.

Kay Yee is the best drummer any dragon boat team has ever had. Her job is to keep the paddlers working at […]

Sparrows and Baguettes

“Breadcrumbs. They told us what they like to eat and its breadcrumbs, especially the ones from day-old baguettes. We used to give them thistle seed and they weren’t too enth […]

It’s Still Art
Dan is an artist. He works in different media types, but I think of him primarily as a sculptor. His pieces vary in size, and he needs help with their on-site assembly when they’re very large. I […]

The Village of Terranova
We hired a car and driver to take us to the village where my grandmother Nicolina’s family had lived and where she was born. Simone, our driver, showed up at our hotel in a new black M […]

 
New York City Diners
 
There are some places that want to be perceived as diners and others that are intrinsically and naturally diners. The latter, which are usually family run, can be recognized by […]

Play
 
Excerpts from my recently published personal essay, “The Pit,” in the Outrider Press PLAY anthology. 
. . . Carlo slipped about halfway across and fell off the beam. He landed face down on a pile of […]

Last Night at the Plaza
I’m a native Manhattanite and sorry that I’d only been to the old Oak Bar in the Plaza Hotel a handful of times. I’m pretty sure that I first heard of it in Hitchcock’s North by […]

RUDY GIULIANI wanted to clean up Times Square. Some thought this was because it needed cleaning, others because Disney said,
“If you clean it, we will come.”
 
” . . . During a break in one of the first […]

Wordsmithing

According to the Global Language Monitor, the English language has over a million words. The million mark was hit in June 2009. With so many words and so many choices, why do some people use the […]

The Ham Sandwich

Rushing home to get on my computer for a one pm meeting, I still had time to stop at the deli and get something to go. I’d mute my mic while I ate and no one would ever know the difference. G […]

AN ITALIAN-AMERICAN’S THANKSGIVING
I grew up wanting a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving. I wanted friends and relatives to come and visit our house with its pumpkins on the porch and autumn leaves on the lawn a […]

Autumn on the Lower East Side

My essay, Autumn on the Lower East Side, published in Artascent.
 

There are many street trees on the Lower East Side of Manhattan today, but when I was growing up there in […]

The Neighborhood

 
My personal essay The Neighborhood was recently published in BEING HOME, an anthology of essays about the “spirt of place.”
” . . .  As I walked to my car, I passed a store selling ele […]

A Sunday Afternoon
As usual on a Sunday, my mother sent me to mass. Instead of going to Saint Patrick’s I found my best friend Joe in Dom’s candy store having an egg cream and pretzel for a late bre […]