Aside from non-customary visits to places like... - The Bennett Madison Extravaganza

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Aside from non-customary visits to places like Pioneer, or The Creek, the bars I visited several times were Botanica and Milano’s, Puck Fair and Pravda, and Sweet & Vicious and Shebeen. Botanica was a charming basement dive with often manageable crowds. The music ran to the loud side, but so be it. We danced wonderfully one Saint Patrick’s Day. Milano’s was a Manhattan-sized narrow slice of working man’s drinking. They generally just pulled down blinds at 4AM and allowed regulars to drink as long as they liked. When I walked past it on my way to work at 9 AM, there were sometimes construction workers drinking steadily before beginning their days, sometimes with small children watching. I went to Puck Fair and Pravda for work functions and, God save me, no personal business. Sweet & Vicious was a pleasant enough hipsterish dive, but it was remote from my home and separated from it by dozens of other offerings, so I only seemed to go when doing other things in the vicinity. Shebeen was a personal favorite because you could smoke in the back room, which was a converted walk-in freezer. What a degenerate I was!

As I walked up alongside the East Village, I thought to myself, “Surely, there are even more bars in this happy land that I gave my custom several times.”

Please read this essay by my old friend Sean Boyland, who passed away this summer. I met him when we were writing partners on an exceedingly bad kids’ cartoon, and he was easily one of the most brilliant people I have ever known. The essay is sad and hilarious, and of special interest to anyone who has ever been a degenerate.

11/7/11