Interview with Mike Santos (aka "Mike The Dome")

[NALs]

Mike Santos (aka "Mike The Dome") started to give several interviews regarding his youthful days in New York City. He was born in Santiago de los Caballeros and has been living in Santiago for a very long time.

Now in his 50's with kids, a religious man and with several businesses in Santiago, plus he also has his own podcast. When he was a kid his family took him to NYC. There he fell into the underworld and became a well known successful Dominican drug dealer. Deported once, not long after that he was in NYC again. He also explains how things were as he went back with a false ID and even managed to renovated it which allowed him to stay in the USA.

Interesting story. He is out of that world, though now telling his story to let other younsters know nothing good come out of that.

An interview in English from about a month ago.

An interview in Spanish from a few days ago.

Both done in the DR.

 

[Big]

what a complete loser!

 

[william webster]

I didn’t bother to read it

 

[Lucifer]

Oh, but he's a born-again business owner now.

And since he's got plenty of moolah, most Dominicans will overlook the fact the dude has a criminal past, and some will refer to him as Don Mike, Señor Mike, or even Mister Mike. In fact, he's celebrated by the so-called influencers.

 

[keepcoming]

Just by posting anything from him (video,etc...) gives him publicity which he does not deserve.

 

[NALs]

People do change.

 

[NALs]

To further add to the previous comment, lets compare Mike to Barbecue. I don't see how the two can be in the same group..

For starters, Mike was introduced into the drug world when he was a 15 years old boy by an older person. The legal drinking age is 18 (21 in the USA). Anyone younger than 18 can't sign a contract by themselves. The earliest age to get a driver's license is 16. The point is that 15 is not an age when someone has reach a level of maturity to make any life impacting decision without the guidance of an older and know what they are doing. Yet, by someone older he was introduced at 15, still a kid. One thing leads to the next, but by the time he had his first born he started the process to get out of that world, of being on the wrong side of the law, etc.

Barbecue is something else, a true loser. By the time Mike was as old as Barbecue is right now, he was out of that world. Yet, Barbecue is still in the world of criminality, thinks a picture of him holding a machine gun is a good idea and shows no sign of getting out any time soon. When Mike entered this world, he was still a kid with not even a decade of knowing how to tie his shoes. Barbecue knows very well what he is doing, more than Mike knew at 15. Both are not the same or even comparable. A kid that is not even out of puberty can't be placed in the same category as a grown man.

By all accounts, Mike is a much better person than Barbecue. He is also using his past as an example for the current youth not to get involved in the wrong side of the law. An adult warning the youngers of the perils of that life. That is exactly what he needed at 15 to avoid falling into that, but he didn't. What can Barbecue teach the youth? To become a gangster, to carry machine guns, to commit crimes. What else is he a symbol of? A law abidding citizen? Mike is of someone that turn around this life for the better while Barbecue is the complete opposite of that.

Mike can write a book using his own experience of how to get out of the wrong side and become a productive positive person, while Barbecue can't do that. One was a lost kid when he entered the dark tunnel, but the tunnel bifurcated with one shining with light at the end and another that was as dark as the first one he went in, but he went to the one with the light at the end. Barbecue went into the tunnel of darkness and stay there up to today.

It's better someone that never went into the dark tunnel, but of those that did that mistake there is no question the ones that get out while they can are a better people than the ones that stay there. Getting out or staying is a decision they might while they are mature. Entering the dark tunnel in the first place is due to a decision they make, some as mature fully grown men and others who are kids not mature enough to do anything and know the true extent of what they have done.

People's past is important to know where they come from, but the past is also just that. It never is the present or the future.

 

[qphotonyc]

To further add to the previous comment, lets compare Mike to Barbecue. I don't see how the two can be in the same group..

For starters, Mike was introduced into the drug world when he was a 15 years old boy by an older person. The legal drinking age is 18 (21 in the USA). Anyone younger than 18 can't sign a contract by themselves. The earliest age to get a driver's license is 16. The point is that 15 is not an age when someone has reach a level of maturity to make any life impacting decision without the guidance of an older and know what they are doing. Yet, by someone older he was introduced at 15, still a kid. One thing leads to the next, but by the time he had his first born he started the process to get out of that world, of being on the wrong side of the law, etc.

Barbecue is something else, a true loser. By the time Mike was as old as Barbecue is right now, he was out of that world. Yet, Barbecue is still in the world of criminality, thinks a picture of him holding a machine gun is a good idea and shows no sign of getting out any time soon. When Mike entered this world, he was still a kid with not even a decade of knowing how to tie his shoes. Barbecue knows very well what he is doing, more than Mike knew at 15. Both are not the same or even comparable. A kid that is not even out of puberty can't be placed in the same category as a grown man.

By all accounts, Mike is a much better person than Barbecue. He is also using his past as an example for the current youth not to get involved in the wrong side of the law. An adult warning the youngers of the perils of that life. That is exactly what he needed at 15 to avoid falling into that, but he didn't. What can Barbecue teach the youth? To become a gangster, to carry machine guns, to commit crimes. What else is he a symbol of? A law abidding citizen? Mike is of someone that turn around this life for the better while Barbecue is the complete opposite of that.

Mike can write a book using his own experience of how to get out of the wrong side and become a productive positive person, while Barbecue can't do that. One was a lost kid when he entered the dark tunnel, but the tunnel bifurcated with one shining with light at the end and another that was as dark as the first one he went in, but he went to the one with the light at the end. Barbecue went into the tunnel of darkness and stay there up to today.

It's better someone that never went into the dark tunnel, but of those that did that mistake there is no question the ones that get out while they can are a better people than the ones that stay there. Getting out or staying is a decision they might while they are mature. Entering the dark tunnel in the first place is due to a decision they make, some as mature fully grown men and others who are kids not mature enough to do anything and know the true extent of what they have done.

People's past is important to know where they come from, but the past is also just that. It never is the present or the future.

To me it's not surprising that Mike got into that life. That's what life was like Uptown in the 80s. Cross streets in the 160s and 50s were taken over by drug gangs and they only let in ppl who were looking. Kilos were being sold *on the street corner* to ppl who just drove in from wherever with a stack of money. Lots of times bullets flew to get those keys or dollars.
I lived and worked (EMS) up there those years and Mike the Dome can tell you it's the truth: it's not surprising he got into that life. It's surprising he got out of it alive. That pct (34) led the City, year after year, in homicides. Shootings were an everyday thing.
The area is nothing like that today. People just moving to the Heights have no idea what it used to be like.

 

[El Hijo de Manolo]

To me it's not surprising that Mike got into that life. That's what life was like Uptown in the 80s. Cross streets in the 160s and 50s were taken over by drug gangs and they only let in ppl who were looking. Kilos were being sold *on the street corner* to ppl who just drove in from wherever with a stack of money. Lots of times bullets flew to get those keys or dollars.
I lived and worked (EMS) up there those years and Mike the Dome can tell you it's the truth: it's not surprising he got into that life. It's surprising he got out of it alive. That pct (34) led the City, year after year, in homicides. Shootings were an everyday thing.
The area is nothing like that today. People just moving to the Heights have no idea what it used to be like.

This is a very good account. I would even go so far that drugs were still sold on corners through the 80s and into 90s until Giuliani cleaned it all up, along with the Times Square shite hole

Upper Manhattan and Bronx many nights residents had throw a mattress over the kids to protect from stray bullets

 

[Big]

He is an example of a loser. He talks like a low life hoodlum. Looks like he can't let go of his teenage years, wearing a baseball hat and sweat pants. He has zero to offer. He should just say "don't be like me" and then obtain some language skills.

 

[El Hijo de Manolo]

He is an example of a loser. He talks like a low life hoodlum. Looks like he can't let go of his teenage years, wearing a baseball hat and sweat pants. He has zero to offer. He should just say "don't be like me" and then obtain some language skills.

My BIL is my age, 52, white, wears a fitty backwards, sweats, the whole 9 yards. He is otherwise a working professional, but this is some defect of character that surfaces when he is not working. I've never been able to understand this disease.

May go along with the compulsive gambling "sports fan" profile

 

[qphotonyc]

"There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."

 

[RDKNIGHT]

another lowlife shyster