Piñero

[first lines]

Miguel Piñero: Hey, what's happenin', what's happenin'?

[chuckling]

Miguel Piñero: We'll just start from the top.

Miguel Piñero: Well, I guess I started stealing when I was eight. Stealing bread for my baby sister and brother. And other times you walk into the supermarket and just eat the food right out of the aisles, and not even pay. We'd walk right outside, you know? Now when you think about Latin writers, you probably think about Senior Márquez, Neruda, Cortazar - the magic realism. Not here, not this. There are no floating butterflys around my head when I walk down Avenue B., you know.

[looking into the camera]

Miguel Piñero: This is street reality. This is where we shout it out. Shout it out.

[winks]

Title Card: In 1974, a Puerto Rican ex-con named Miguel Pinero took the city of New York by storm with a controversial play about life in prison. Short Eyes won the Obie and New York Drama Critics Award and later became a movie.

Title Card: Pinero was one of the founders of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Over the years he went on to write poetry and more plays, wrote for and acted in movies and television. Kojak, Fort Apache - The Bronx, Baretta, Miami Vice, and more...