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The Return of Monsieur Penguin
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Through the years of being involved in Penguin Place I've been able to meet all sorts of interesting and quirky penguin people. Although taking Penguin Place exclusively on-line has limited my personal contact with the penguin loving public, for 15 years I had a shop at South St. Seaport in NYC, and was able to meet and greet just about all my customers and fellow penguin people. One of my favorite meetings was with none other than Monsieur Pingouin way back in 1996. He was a famous Paris disc jockey who had gone by the moniker "Pingouin" since disco was all the rage. It happened one day in the spring of 96, when I received a phone call from Pingouin's assistant informing me that Monsieur Pingouin, the famous French DJ (according to the assistant) would be visiting Next Stop South Pole the next day. Great, I thought. Can't wait. But, I was more than a little perplexed. People don't usually call in advance to announce they were going to shop at a store in the mall at South St. Seaport. Then I wondered, who is this Monsieur Pingouin and why did he feel compelled to announce his visit? I explained all this to my trusty manager Heather and of course she insisted on being there as well. So, we waited. All day we waited and waited. Our anticipation soon turned to doubt, which then turned to more doubt. Was this a prank or a practical joke? Then around 3:00 pm, in waddled a cherubic, grinning, stocky man bellowing a resounding "bonjour, je mapel Monsier Pingouin." His assistant, a taller, younger man interpreted, but by that point Heather and I were already getting the
double cheek kisses and embraces all around. He spoke less English than I did French, but thanks to his assistant we were able to spend over an hour together, talking penguins and music. Apparently, the penguin goodies (and music) in the U.S. were totally different than in France and Pingouin could not contain himself at the site of all the never before seen penguin treats. He literally wanted everything and he ended up purchasing everything he and his aide could hardly carry. Later that year I wrote a brief article about him in the Penguin Post and it read: Believe it or not, a new Monsieur Pingouin has been found, this time in France, and he is legally known as Alain Regis. For the past twenty years he has only answered to the name "Pingouin." As a legendary Paris-based DJ, manager and photographer, Pingouin is a fixture in the French entertainment scene, complete with his own penguin logo, t-shirts, bumper stickers and more.
I heard from him a couple of more times in the next year or so, but that was it and I thought like with many "celebrities" in the music scene his time must have come and gone. Perhaps he was out of the business all together, or due to the fickle nature of his profession he had changed his nickname. After all if the likes of Puff Daddy had to become P-Diddy, what chance did Pingouin have?
Then the other day to my surprise I get an e-mail from none other than, Monsieur Pingouin himself. It read:
Eric,
I would like to use the following
pictures for an article about myself
concerning my collection of penguins
( about 7000 to 8000 piéces )
are you ok ?
thanks for answering
sincerely
see you, Pingouin
Along with the short e-mail was 3 photographs from when he came to visit in 1996 of himself, me and Heather. Not only was it great to hear that Pingouin was still going strong after all these years, but it was quite flattering that in a French magazine article about Pingouin and his thirty years of DJ-ing and collecting penguins that he choose to use a picture of us in my old Seaport penguin store for the article.
Monsieur Pingouin, I salute you.
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