A Cosmic Coincidence
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Artist:
In a past life (ie: three whole years ago) I used to frequent this bar in the city (Manhattan) called Milanos on Houston street. One of the last vestiges of New Yorks "Bowery Bars", an old man bar as I call them and my absolute favourite place to be. It's been around since the 1800's and is famous for being as wide as your average hallway. I had been a regular at this bar for almost 17 years and during that time grew to know a group of people not unlike here on MOG. It's because of this bar I met local artists (it's on the edge of SoHo and NoLIta), musicians, carpenters, firemen, writers, a few girlfriends and quite a lot of "characters". One of which was a gentlemen named Dick Shea. Dick ran a dance studio on 14th street, himself not much of a dancer but more of a party thrower. Dick threw some pretty major parties at his studio for almost any occasion and all of them were always a complete blast.
Every year after Thanksgiving Dick would become Santa Clause and was actually hired by the Manhattan Mall as their official Santa for kids to line up for and have their pictures taken with as they told him their Christmas wishes. A local NY listings magazine (Time Out NY) one year profiled him and a few other NYC Santas and sent him through a couple of photo sessions, the photo above is one that appeared in the magazine as well as another one with his sleeve rolled up flexing his muscles. Last year I spent a good portion of 2 weeks searching the web for one of these two photos and I turned up zilch. No leads. So I gave up looking. Two days after I thought I exhausted all means of finding him online in his Santa suit I got a Merry Christmas note from Andrea (Bloodtea here on Mog) dropped in my Multiply.com Guestbook and in it was this very picture and a short and sweet holiday wish.
I freaked out.
I had told no one of my search for this photo and she had no idea that the Santa in this photo had any meaning to me. It might have been one of the better gifts I got last year.
One of my best memories of my friend, Mr. Shea, was of his love of this song. That and his love of good tequila.
Cheers to you Andrea and cheers to the magic of Santa himself.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (12)
Dach... did I mention that I have a flight booked LA to NY 16 March 09 will be there for 4 nights... whats gunna be on?????
cool hole in the wall bar, love it.. there is a place in Arizona that I knew of like that, it was called "The Shack in the Back".. and a lot of locals were long time customers.. "Cheers" type of bar... Thanks for sharing!
CBGB's wasn't much wider. I remember being a bit amazed at what a hole-in-the-wall it was - that is, until the Ramones started playing..cool story, ya, I've had some mog-moments that left me breathless like that. What's reality, I ask??
Wow...that's a truly eerie coincidence....
David, here's something you didn't know about me....I LOVE THIS SONG!
Wow, that's freaky awesome. Andréa is just that good.
BTW, I love that song since the old Levi's ads that featured it.
Dale, wow, thanks for the reminder!
And ppl think the twin thing is just wishful thinking. ;)
Cheers D! :)
Dale, it's a plain fact! :*
That's a sweet, blood(tea) story. Yikes though, being a regular at a place where you have to see real people is scary.
great story and of course cheers!
wow......Milano's. used to go there in the early 1800's and i think i bought you a drink or two--you were the old guy, right?
kidding aside, this is a great NY moment. thanks for the post! CB's may have been as narrow, but we all loved those holes in the wall!