I have always loved Both sides of my heritages. Growing up in America half Puerto Rican (Boriqua) and half Haitian was very interesting. My family on both sides are great so I always had confidence and pride of who I was. That made me who I am today. As I advanced in consciousness I took a look around and saw that my people as a whole on both sides weren't shaking any buildings. You know making enough noise. Yes we are known for wonderful music, delicious food, and good looks but where are the Puerto Ricans and Haitian success stories that came up for using there minds? The ones that were open to the truth and expressed it in their teachings, and left footprints in the sand? The ones that spoke about prosperity and abundance and lived in that state of MIND?
Well here is a great man Miguel Piñero. I was just introduced to his work by my mentor and Godfather. I want to share some knowledge with you. May He Rest in Positive Energy with the ancestors.
The life of Miguel Piñero was portrayed in the Hollywood production Piñero, directed by Leon Ichaso and starring Benjamin Bratt as Piñero. In the film, Piñero's love life is displayed, ranging from his interactions with men and women, including his protégé Reinaldo Povod. The relationships are secondary to the life of the writer as an individual, as the movie shows a non-chronological portrayal of Piñero's development as both a poet and a person. The movie blends visual and audio segments shot in short, music/slam poet videos with typical movie narratives to show Piñero's poetics in action.
A brief summery of Piñero's life. He was born on December 19, 1946 in Gurabo, Puerto Rico to Miguel Angel Gómez Ramos and Adelina Piñero. In 1950, when Miguel was four, he moved with his parents and sister Elizabeth to Loisaida (or Lower East Side) in New York. His father abandoned the family in 1954 when his mother was pregnant with their fifth child. His mother then moved into a basement and began receiving welfare. He attended four different schools, three public and one parochial. He would steal food for his family to eat. His first of what would be many criminal convictions was at the age of eleven for theft. He was sent to the Juvenile Detention Center in the Bronx and also to Otisville State Training School for Boys. He joined a street gang called "The Dragons" when he was 13, and when he was 14 he was hustling in the streets.
He would move to Brooklyn, where he and three other friends would commit robberies (according to Piñero, they did over 100), until they were caught at a jewelry store. He would be sent to Rikers Island in 1964. After this, he joined the Job Corps and was sent to Camp Kilmer for training. It turned out the opportunity was, as Piñero put it, "Dope City, Skag Town." He returned to New York City and became affiliated with the Young Lords, similar to the Black Panthers. He was back in Rikers for drug possession not long after, and even went to Phoenix House. After his second stint at Rikers, his mother sent him to Manhattan State Hospital where he would receive his high-school equivalency diploma.
In 1972, when Piñero was 25 years old, he was incarcerated in Sing Sing prison for second-degree armed robbery. His first literary work was Black Woman with a Blonde Wig On. Marvin Felix Camillo, the director of The Family, an acting troupe made up of ex-cons, submitted the poem to a contest, which it won. The warden of Sing Sing then became concerned that "contraband" was being taken from the prison and nearly put Camillo in jail after seeing an article in the newspaper. While serving time in prison, he wrote the play Short Eyes as part of the inmates playwriting workshop. Mel Gussow came to see it, and due to his review in the New York Times, the director of the Theater at Riverside Church wanted Piñero to put it up at his place.
When he left Sing Sing due to parole in 1973, he was able to put Short Eyes with The Family. The title comes from the slang for pornography "short heist." Puerto Ricans could not pronounce the 'h' so it became "short eyes." The play is a drama based on his experiences in prison and portrays life, love and death among prison inmates. In 1974, the play was presented at Riverside Church in Manhattan. Theater impresario Joseph Papp saw the play and was so impressed that he moved the production to Broadway. It went from Riverside Church, then to The Public Theater, eventually to Vivian Beaumont Theatre. The play was nominated for six Tony Awards. It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and an Obie Award for the "best play of the year". The play was also a success in Europe. It catapulted Piñero to literary fame. Short Eyes was published in book form by the editorial house Hill & Wang. It became the first play written by a Puerto Rican to be put on Broadway.
In the 1970s, Piñero co-founded the Nuyorican Poets Café with a group of artists, one of which, Miguel Algarín, would become one of his best friends. The Café is a place for performance of poetry about the experience of being a Nuyorican or Puerto Rican in New York.
In 1977, Piñero's play Short Eyes was turned into a film directed by Robert M. Young. In the film Piñero played the part of "Go-Go", a prisoner. While on set, he and Tito Goya were arrested for armed robbery and were arraigned in the same building where they were filming. The charges were dropped, but some people thought Piñero had a "need" to go back to prison. He would land some supporting roles The Jericho Mile (1978), Times Square (1980), Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981), Breathless (1983), Deal of the Century (1983), and Alphabet City (1984). Piñero was considered a talented writer who described the evils of society, even though he continued to be a drug addict. Piñero wrote the Baretta TV episode The Gadjo in 1978 and acted in the episode Por Nada in 1977. He played the part of drug lord Esteban Calderone in several episodes of TV series Miami Vice in 1984, as well as writing the episode "Smuggler's Blues" in the same year. He also wrote the screenplay for Short Eyes (the movie).
His next play, Sideshow (1974), which would be a shorter version of Playland Blues (1980), and follows street kids as they decide to put on their own play about a social worker placing difficult teenagers in various living situations and their attempts to adapt.
His next play, a one act titled The Guntower, premiered at the 1976 New York Shakespeare Festival. Instead of following prisoners, like in Short Eyes, this one is about two guards in the watchtower. In that same year was The Sun Always Shines for the Cool (1976) which follows the lives of players, operators, drug dealers, and thieves as they come together in a bar owned by a man named Justice.
In 1975, he moved to Philadelphia to star in Bruce Jay Friedman's Steambath as God. Eulogy for a Small-Time Thief (1977) was set in his new hometown. It regards a small time thief who does not really know his place in the world and thinks he can manipulate it to his liking.
He wrote two one-act plays, Paper Toilet and Cold Beer, around 1979. The former is set in a subway men's room and involves a series of events framed by the voice of a man asking for toilet paper from inside a stall. The latter examines the role of the dramatist and writer through an alter-ego protagonist.
Piñero played an important role in acquainting his partner and at times lover, the Chinese-American gay artist Martin Wong, with the Lower East Side, becoming a benefactor at a time when Wong found it difficult to meet his rent. Several of Wong's paintings are illustrations of poems given to him by Piñero. "The Annunciation According to Mikey Piñero (Cupcake and Paco)" (1984) pictures a scene from Short Eyes.
Miguel Piñero died on June 16, 1988 in New York City from cirrhosis. Piñero's ashes were scattered across the Lower East Side of Manhattan, as he asked in his 1985 "Lower East Side Poem." The homage to his beloved neighborhood concluded:
Just once before I die tenement sky to dream my lungs out till I cry then scatter my ashes thru the Lower East Side.... |
Typescripts for Miguel Piñero's The Guntower and All Junkies are in the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Wow now this is an amazing story...Here we have man who back in those days was considered as a hood or a thug in and out of jail, a drug addict, and a thief with a beautiful MIND. Yes he was out there in the streets broke, busted and couldn't be trusted but he was a creator full of inspiration regardless of his position and short comings that HE chose. And Yes We all as individuals choose our realities weather we Realize it or not.
We all have a chance to Be who we are here to be It's your job and duty to ask your self what are my visions and goals. Your vision is the images of what your going to do and your goals are your materials or resources that you are going to use to Achieve your visions. Miguel Pinero had beautiful visions you can see it in his work but he obviously was not fully focused on his Goals to make his visions come true he allowed the distractions of hood life to distort his visions.
Even though he was creating these wonderful pieces he was on drugs and in and out of prison. Today our consciousness and creativity has elevated beyond belief and we are becoming more and more extraordinary. We can shake off those things that held down our elders and ancestors. We now know what they knew and more making us Limitless, In-tuned and open to the New Way of thinking Being and Doing things.
Miguel Piñero's story show's us not to live risk adverse and do not live below your opportunities. Dream Big and do it up. Yes people might think your crazy or look at you like you have lost it but in reality you are finally getting your Mind Right and if the hatters hate, then let them hate and watch the money pile up (to quote 50 Cent). Time to live Happy Healthy and Wealthy lives and to do that you just have to Shake shake shake them OFF.
Change Grow and Expand family! Peace and Blessings
Sakkara Ali
Peace and blessings to you! Excellent and informative post about Piñero.
ReplyDelete