I've needed some Outfield help in my fantasy league and as luck (or divine intervention) would have it, I came across David Dejesus of the Kansas City Royals, who this week alone has assured me of victory. And for that I feel that I owed him a tribute, in song.
A Testament from Rob to God (With a Little Help from Genesis)
I was lost, but now I’m found. See I’ve been wandering the deserts of fantasyland for 40 days and 40 nights, searching for a piece of paradise. I lacked faith, but this Passover, God found me. And I believe. And I want you all to believe.
See I’ve been touched by the hand of God. And as my logo will show you, when you’ve been touched by the hand of God, miracles happen.
See DeJesus, he knows me. And he’s been telling me everything’s gonna be alright. We’ve been talking and this is what he’s said…
---
You see the face on the tv screen.
Coming at you every Sunday night
See that face on the billboard
That man is Chris Berman.
On the cover of the magazines
There’s no question why I’m smiling
You want a piece of paradise
But you need a piece of Pujols
I’ll get you everything you wanted
I’ll get you everything you need
You don’t need to believe in Hermida
Just believe in me
Cos (David) DeJesus he knows me
And he knows I’m right
I’ve been talking to DeJesus all my life
Oh yes he knows me
And he knows I’m right
And he’s been telling me
Everything is alright
I believe in the family
With my ever loving wife beside me
But she don’t know about Helton
Or the injury he had last night
Do you believe in Bonds?
Cos that’s what Greg’s selling
And if you wanna get to the playoffs
I’ll see you right
You won’t even have to leave your house
Or get outta your chair
You don’t even have to reload the scoreboard
Cos he’s everywhere
And DeJesus he knows me
And he knows I’m right
I’ve been talking to DeJesus all my life
Oh yes he knows me
And he knows I’m right
Well he’s been telling me
Everything’s gonna be alright
Won’t find me preaching the long ball
Won’t find me making no sacrifices
But I can get you a pocketful of Mariners
If you promise to be good, try to be nice
God will take good care of you
Just do as I say, don’t do as I do
I’m counting my bases on balls,
I’ve found Abreu’s happiness
And I’m getting richer by dropping Zach Day
You can find me in the phone book,
Just call my toll free number
You can do it anyway you want
Just do it right away
There’ll be no doubt in your mind
You’ll believe everything I’m saying
If you wanna get closer to him
Get on your knees and start paying
Cos DeJesus he knows me
And he knows I’m right
I’ve been talking to DeJesus all my life
Oh yes he knows me
And he knows I’m right
Well he’s been telling me
Everything’s gonna be alright, alright
DeJesus he knows me
DeJesus he knows me, you know...
---
David Dejesus
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
The Best Steakhouse Ever
A far as Montreal goes, I feel obligated to mention the greatest steakhouse ever.
Queue de Cheval
1221 Blvd. René-Lévesque Ouest
Montréal, QC H3G 1T1
Tel: 514.390-0090
Fax: 514.390.1390
Not only was the food incredible, but the service was without a doubt the best I've ever seen. If you are in town and looking to eat, drink, smoke, and generally take merry to a whole new level, here's where you have to go. It might cost a bot, but damn if it wasn't totally worth it.
---
Here's a direct link:
Queue de Cheval
---
Turns out this place is pretty expensive in worldwide scheme of things (Again, totally worth it):
Foreign Policy
Queue de Cheval
1221 Blvd. René-Lévesque Ouest
Montréal, QC H3G 1T1
Tel: 514.390-0090
Fax: 514.390.1390
Not only was the food incredible, but the service was without a doubt the best I've ever seen. If you are in town and looking to eat, drink, smoke, and generally take merry to a whole new level, here's where you have to go. It might cost a bot, but damn if it wasn't totally worth it.
---
Here's a direct link:
Queue de Cheval
---
Turns out this place is pretty expensive in worldwide scheme of things (Again, totally worth it):
Foreign Policy
The Naked Diner
Les Princesses
4970 rue Hochelaga
It's called Les Princesses and it's located at 4970 rue Hochelaga (255-0003) a few blocks from a bland edifice known as the Big O (Olympic Stadium). To get there, take the Metro to Rue Viau (11 stops from downtown Peel Street station), proceed to Viau away from the Big O and turn right. It's two blocks down. This is a small, smoky place filled largely with middle-aged men and horny guys in town for bachelor party.
We were the latter.
In town a bud's 'going away' party this off the beaten path Paradise fed us an $8 breakfast and a eye full of breasts. In one case, one of the guys even got a nipple poke as he turned to order. I mean, you just can't get that kind of service at Denny's, you know?
---
Seems we aren't the only one's to have enjoyed this wonderful breakfast utopia.
The Pub Club
4970 rue Hochelaga
It's called Les Princesses and it's located at 4970 rue Hochelaga (255-0003) a few blocks from a bland edifice known as the Big O (Olympic Stadium). To get there, take the Metro to Rue Viau (11 stops from downtown Peel Street station), proceed to Viau away from the Big O and turn right. It's two blocks down. This is a small, smoky place filled largely with middle-aged men and horny guys in town for bachelor party.
We were the latter.
In town a bud's 'going away' party this off the beaten path Paradise fed us an $8 breakfast and a eye full of breasts. In one case, one of the guys even got a nipple poke as he turned to order. I mean, you just can't get that kind of service at Denny's, you know?
---
Seems we aren't the only one's to have enjoyed this wonderful breakfast utopia.
The Pub Club
Tuesday, August 1, 2006
Dreams & Paychecks
This is where a blog begins...
Coloring in my latest Star Wars coloring book, intent on staying within the lines, but failing miserably, my grandfather asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Brash and unaware of the genetic and emotional limitations born of Jewish heritage, I announced that I would be First Base for the Mets. The next day, coloring in that same book, my grandfather asked me to tell my grandmother what I wanted to be when I grew up. Brash and unaware of the impending asthmatic conditions I would eventually succumb to, I proudly stated that I would become a firefighter. The following day, clearing seeing a pattern here, my grandfather asked me again what I wanted to be when I grew up. Brash and unaware of how little they were paid, but fascinated by the bright color yellow that I had been using to color Chewbacca, I announced that one day I would be a taxi driver.
Twenty odd years later and I’m about as decisive about what I want to when I grow up as that brash little boy with the big box of Crayolas and the dreams to match.
I could say that I've come to a career crossroads, but it's not quite possible to reach a crossroads when your career is more like a grid on a map. So, in lieu of that, I'm going to say that my career direction is much more similar to something that also is direction related.
It's happened more times to me than I can count, and no doubt more times to you than you can either. You are driving someplace with your navigator riding alongside shotgun. They say to turn left. You ask for confirmation, "Did you say left?" The navigator replies, "Right." So you turn right.
That pretty much sums up how well I've handled my career path thus far. I leave the directions to someone else, I misunderstand where I need to go, and I make impulsive and incorrect decisions. It's really a wonder I haven't hit someone. And you can take that literally and figuratively.
It's taken quite some time, but I'm learning to deal with the roller coaster nature of the jobs we choose. Post-collegiate reality dictates that we must learn to deal with the real 'Great American Scream Machine,' and yet I've managed to hold pretty fast to the belief that I can eliminate the ups, downs, and sideways that life deals us. Unfortunately, life is a roller coaster, not a subway, so I'm not going to win that fight anytime soon.
So with another job frustration, another disappointment, and the prospect of yet another soul searching staring me in the face, I've begun to try and find myself. Turns out that the argument that you aren't really lost if you don't ask for directions doesn't really hold any philosophical weight.
I find that I've become too easily defined by what I do, and less by who I am. In some cultures it is actually quite rude to ask one what they do for a living, for it implies that their worth is dicated by their job. As I live in America where rudeness is a freedom granted to us by the Bill of Rights, I am often forced to confront the awkwardness of answering that question. After much practice, I've managed to keep my answers to either:
a) I work in non-profit (Makes me seem altruistic and admirable)
b) I work in non-profit, but I do freelance writing on the side (Makes me seem altruistic, as well as energetic and creative)
c) Ooh, are those mini hot dogs? (Might make me seem hungry, but better yet, deflects attention)
It seems so obvious that we are worth more than what we do to pay the bills, but I think I get caught up in the game of comparative jobs and salaries with my friends too much. I think we all do. Having come to realize that I will now answer that question with one of the following:
a) I work in non-profit and am happily married to the love of my life. Why don't you have a girlfriend?
b) I work in non-profit, freelance write, and am currently writing my first novel. I also work out 5 times a week. Why are you so fat and lazy?
c) Ooh, are those mini hot dogs? (Come on, if you see them, you always say it)
But going on the offensive still won't help me address the problem that I can't seem to put my finger on, And getting beyond my own insecurities about how people view me is not enough. I need to come to terms with my own inability to view the trapping of my life. Like most, I've viewed the idea that dollars make sense, in that the more I make, the more successful I must be. In addition, I've come to view praise for my work as the ultimate validation of my choice of careers. This is a very slippery slope to encounter because the fact that one is talented has absolutely no baring on whether they enjoy what they do. When you combine the two it is a volatile mix, as while failure at what you desire to achieve is bad, success at what you don't desire is downright dangerous.
So this dilemma, like most in my life, brought me to Barnes & Nobles. B&N is where I go to get a handle on all of my life's greatest questions, everything what should I get Kate for her birthday to how should I plan my friend's bachelor party, all the while sipping the piping hot Starbucks Gingerbread latte I bought from the cafe. I do this because nothing establishes a more creative zen-like peace for me than losing myself within an over-commercialized beast of a chain store that is slowly destroying middle America. My life is fraught with contradiction. I've come to grips with it, so should you.
So here I was, thinking to myself, what should I do with my life, when the answer stared me right in the face. The book was called, What Should I Do With My Life? I walked on by thinking, I wish I could get a sign from God, when all of a sudden I had an amazing impulse to turn around.
I had left my coffee behind.
That is when it all clicked and I realized that I should take heed of this obvious heavenly hint, so I purchased the book, and thanked my stars that I was not standing in the horror section. I also began thinking about how awesome it would be to win the lottery. 28 10 1 7 9 88. I'm expected big things tonight.
Now, as for the book, Po Bronson's What Should I Do with My Life? records several people's epiphanic experiences of uprooting themselves from unsatisfactory careers and starting over. It is so pitch perfect that it made my skin crawl at times, but I think that Bronson hit home hardest when he described what he called, "The Brilliant Masses."
"The Brilliant Masses are composed of nothing less than the many great people of our generation, the bright, the talented, the intelligent, the resourceful, and the creative - far too many of whom are operating at quarter speed, unsure of their place in the World, contributing far too little to the productive engine of modern civilization, still feeling like observers, all feeling like they haven't come close to living up to their potential."
"The Brilliant Masses are mostly intellectually motivated, so if they cross over and get involved, their commitment is conditioned on being respected, and on a minimum of unnecessary idiocy, and on winning/succeeding. They like being cerebral. In their tribes it's cool."
Of everything he wrote, this not only touched, but severed the greatest nerve with me. I'm willing to bet it does with you as well. Only once before had my own feelings been laid out so clearly by another, and I don't think my old buddy Beisgen telling me that I must really want to bang the girl I was dating carries as much clout.
Reading this I began to wonder why, if I thought of myself as such a cerebral person, I tended to be led more often by my heart than by my head. I tend to believe that in the absence of passion, logic dictates all. That is why I find it more logical to make money doing something I hate than to take a chance on an unknown urge of some romanticized dream. This is also why I am much better at helping my friend's with their love lives than I ever was with my own.
So now I come to grips with the fact, again, my working life is apparently so devoid of passion as to lock me into it. For a few years now this has been true, yet I am only now open to admit it.
I am a writer who does not write. I am a wild, untamed river that has been dammed. I am a bird with wings clipped. I am Colin Farrell in a gay bar.
In his book, Bronson continues to say:
"Being guided by the heart is almost never something an intellectually motivated person chooses to do. It's something that its thrust upon them, usually something painful."
Patiently, I've awaited the pain that would open up my heart. Mercifully, I was greeted with it today.
---
Of course you don't have take my word on this book...especially when it made Oprah's list...and I mean, she's Oprah right? There is no higher power than her...
Oprah's Books
Coloring in my latest Star Wars coloring book, intent on staying within the lines, but failing miserably, my grandfather asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Brash and unaware of the genetic and emotional limitations born of Jewish heritage, I announced that I would be First Base for the Mets. The next day, coloring in that same book, my grandfather asked me to tell my grandmother what I wanted to be when I grew up. Brash and unaware of the impending asthmatic conditions I would eventually succumb to, I proudly stated that I would become a firefighter. The following day, clearing seeing a pattern here, my grandfather asked me again what I wanted to be when I grew up. Brash and unaware of how little they were paid, but fascinated by the bright color yellow that I had been using to color Chewbacca, I announced that one day I would be a taxi driver.
Twenty odd years later and I’m about as decisive about what I want to when I grow up as that brash little boy with the big box of Crayolas and the dreams to match.
I could say that I've come to a career crossroads, but it's not quite possible to reach a crossroads when your career is more like a grid on a map. So, in lieu of that, I'm going to say that my career direction is much more similar to something that also is direction related.
It's happened more times to me than I can count, and no doubt more times to you than you can either. You are driving someplace with your navigator riding alongside shotgun. They say to turn left. You ask for confirmation, "Did you say left?" The navigator replies, "Right." So you turn right.
That pretty much sums up how well I've handled my career path thus far. I leave the directions to someone else, I misunderstand where I need to go, and I make impulsive and incorrect decisions. It's really a wonder I haven't hit someone. And you can take that literally and figuratively.
It's taken quite some time, but I'm learning to deal with the roller coaster nature of the jobs we choose. Post-collegiate reality dictates that we must learn to deal with the real 'Great American Scream Machine,' and yet I've managed to hold pretty fast to the belief that I can eliminate the ups, downs, and sideways that life deals us. Unfortunately, life is a roller coaster, not a subway, so I'm not going to win that fight anytime soon.
So with another job frustration, another disappointment, and the prospect of yet another soul searching staring me in the face, I've begun to try and find myself. Turns out that the argument that you aren't really lost if you don't ask for directions doesn't really hold any philosophical weight.
I find that I've become too easily defined by what I do, and less by who I am. In some cultures it is actually quite rude to ask one what they do for a living, for it implies that their worth is dicated by their job. As I live in America where rudeness is a freedom granted to us by the Bill of Rights, I am often forced to confront the awkwardness of answering that question. After much practice, I've managed to keep my answers to either:
a) I work in non-profit (Makes me seem altruistic and admirable)
b) I work in non-profit, but I do freelance writing on the side (Makes me seem altruistic, as well as energetic and creative)
c) Ooh, are those mini hot dogs? (Might make me seem hungry, but better yet, deflects attention)
It seems so obvious that we are worth more than what we do to pay the bills, but I think I get caught up in the game of comparative jobs and salaries with my friends too much. I think we all do. Having come to realize that I will now answer that question with one of the following:
a) I work in non-profit and am happily married to the love of my life. Why don't you have a girlfriend?
b) I work in non-profit, freelance write, and am currently writing my first novel. I also work out 5 times a week. Why are you so fat and lazy?
c) Ooh, are those mini hot dogs? (Come on, if you see them, you always say it)
But going on the offensive still won't help me address the problem that I can't seem to put my finger on, And getting beyond my own insecurities about how people view me is not enough. I need to come to terms with my own inability to view the trapping of my life. Like most, I've viewed the idea that dollars make sense, in that the more I make, the more successful I must be. In addition, I've come to view praise for my work as the ultimate validation of my choice of careers. This is a very slippery slope to encounter because the fact that one is talented has absolutely no baring on whether they enjoy what they do. When you combine the two it is a volatile mix, as while failure at what you desire to achieve is bad, success at what you don't desire is downright dangerous.
So this dilemma, like most in my life, brought me to Barnes & Nobles. B&N is where I go to get a handle on all of my life's greatest questions, everything what should I get Kate for her birthday to how should I plan my friend's bachelor party, all the while sipping the piping hot Starbucks Gingerbread latte I bought from the cafe. I do this because nothing establishes a more creative zen-like peace for me than losing myself within an over-commercialized beast of a chain store that is slowly destroying middle America. My life is fraught with contradiction. I've come to grips with it, so should you.
So here I was, thinking to myself, what should I do with my life, when the answer stared me right in the face. The book was called, What Should I Do With My Life? I walked on by thinking, I wish I could get a sign from God, when all of a sudden I had an amazing impulse to turn around.
I had left my coffee behind.
That is when it all clicked and I realized that I should take heed of this obvious heavenly hint, so I purchased the book, and thanked my stars that I was not standing in the horror section. I also began thinking about how awesome it would be to win the lottery. 28 10 1 7 9 88. I'm expected big things tonight.
Now, as for the book, Po Bronson's What Should I Do with My Life? records several people's epiphanic experiences of uprooting themselves from unsatisfactory careers and starting over. It is so pitch perfect that it made my skin crawl at times, but I think that Bronson hit home hardest when he described what he called, "The Brilliant Masses."
"The Brilliant Masses are composed of nothing less than the many great people of our generation, the bright, the talented, the intelligent, the resourceful, and the creative - far too many of whom are operating at quarter speed, unsure of their place in the World, contributing far too little to the productive engine of modern civilization, still feeling like observers, all feeling like they haven't come close to living up to their potential."
"The Brilliant Masses are mostly intellectually motivated, so if they cross over and get involved, their commitment is conditioned on being respected, and on a minimum of unnecessary idiocy, and on winning/succeeding. They like being cerebral. In their tribes it's cool."
Of everything he wrote, this not only touched, but severed the greatest nerve with me. I'm willing to bet it does with you as well. Only once before had my own feelings been laid out so clearly by another, and I don't think my old buddy Beisgen telling me that I must really want to bang the girl I was dating carries as much clout.
Reading this I began to wonder why, if I thought of myself as such a cerebral person, I tended to be led more often by my heart than by my head. I tend to believe that in the absence of passion, logic dictates all. That is why I find it more logical to make money doing something I hate than to take a chance on an unknown urge of some romanticized dream. This is also why I am much better at helping my friend's with their love lives than I ever was with my own.
So now I come to grips with the fact, again, my working life is apparently so devoid of passion as to lock me into it. For a few years now this has been true, yet I am only now open to admit it.
I am a writer who does not write. I am a wild, untamed river that has been dammed. I am a bird with wings clipped. I am Colin Farrell in a gay bar.
In his book, Bronson continues to say:
"Being guided by the heart is almost never something an intellectually motivated person chooses to do. It's something that its thrust upon them, usually something painful."
Patiently, I've awaited the pain that would open up my heart. Mercifully, I was greeted with it today.
---
Of course you don't have take my word on this book...especially when it made Oprah's list...and I mean, she's Oprah right? There is no higher power than her...
Oprah's Books
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