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In 1951, the Saturday Evening Post published a short story entitled THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, written by the brilliant Ray Bradbury. Sometime earlier, observing the ruins of an LA-area roller-coaster, the writer was impressed by its resemblance to a dinosaur and was inspired to write a dinosaur story. It centers around a sea serpent which emerges from the ocean around a lighthouse, attracted by the eerily vibrating sound of its fog horn. Meanwhile, a film with the working title MONSTER FROM ...

One long ago and forgotten morning in 1894 or so, a man by the name of Samuel Benedict walked or ( more accurately) crawled into the Old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (where the Empire State Building now stands). He was suffering through the regretful aftermath of happy intoxication and his head was presumably clocked at T-minus 0 to blast-off. However, being a New York socialite he felt compelled to make his obligatory and dignified appearance at the breakfast table, rather than lay down and die like a ...

Pizza is undoubtedly one of America’s most popular foods; some would argue that it’s “the” most popular American food. At any rate, pizza is one of America’s greatest inventions since the hot dog; again, some would argue that it’s “human civilization’s greatest invention since the wheel.” Let the experts and know-it-alls say what they will: Pizza is a Health Food!!!

If not for pizza, at least 25% of my teenage history, idled away in my neighborhood pizzeria (the jukebox playing my ...

I might have visited Radio Row for the first time in the spring of 1961. My father took me along with him on one of his frequent excursions there to find yet another replacement tube for our RCA television set. This set was (to me, a 7-year old) a colossus of electronic bewilderment, encased within mahogany, standing tall and imposingly in our living room like the Monolith of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The picture would take an aggravating eternity (maybe longer) to come on, if it came on at all, ...

I’m absolutely sick and tired of New York City’s war on terror's security obstacles and spectacles. Since 9/11, the sight of barricaded streets, restricted building areas, security checkpoints, and similar curtailments of liberties, have taken their toll on most people’s ability to suspend disbelief and anxiety attacks. If anything, as I remember that amazing day (even putting aside its mythical elements), the attacks were from the sky; and the supposed terrorists didn’t force but bought their way ...