09.03.09
Posted in Bronx, Famous Fat Dave's Five Borough Eating Tours, South Bronx at 2:13 am by Administrator
Soul food in the South South Boogie Down Bronx with Tony Bourdain and Sweetness? I’m in. Watch the “Outer Boroughs” episode Monday night, September 7, Labor Day, at 10pm on the Travel Channel.
And if you can’t catch it on tv, check out a “Missing Scene” of Tony and me heading up to Yankee land and Feeding Tree for jerk shrimp and homemade ginger beer right here on this series of tubes called the internet:
Feeding Tree
Also, click here to read Gettin’ Down In The Boogie Down about Sam’s, the soul food restaurant Bourdain and I will be eating at on Travel Channel Monday night.
www.FamousFatDave.com to book your own eating tour
Permalink
06.01.07
Posted in Bronx, Caribbean, Famous Fat Dave's Five Borough Eating Tours, Fried Chicken, Harlem, Manhattan, Seafood, South Bronx at 4:51 am by Administrator
Weekend Edition ran a story on the Famous Fat Dave experience.
To listen, click here.
To book a tour, click here.
And don’t worry. I am back from Zihuatanejo, ready to chow down.
Permalink
03.09.07
Posted in Bronx, Dave's Faves, La Pizza, Queens, Rockaway Beach, South Bronx at 8:46 am by Administrator
I believe in luck. I believe in karma. I believe in the yin and the yang. And I believe in curses. But a string of bizarre and inexplicable events that dominated my life during a week in mid October of 2003 made me believe in God.
“Baseball is the only real sport, I think, in the world.” Babe Ruth said that. As a Yankee fan who hasn’t missed a box score since I was eight years old, laid on collapsed cardboard in the South Bronx for twenty two hours to get a ticket to the 1998 World Series, and chants “Boston SUCKS” at Yankee Stadium even when the visiting team is the Orioles, I believed in the Curse of the Bambino. In the American League Championship Series that October of 2003, the Yankees were playing the Red Sox, who had been languishing under the curse since Babe Ruth was sold by Boston to the Yankees for the low, low price of $100,000 in 1920. The Red Sox, who had won the 1915, 1916, and 1918 World Series behind the brilliant pitching of a young Babe Ruth, had seemed to be on a roll when the teens ended. But the Great Bambino led the Yankees to their first World Series title ever in 1923, the Yankees went on to win 25 more championships, and the Red Sox were damned.
My second team was the Chicago Cubs, who I’d always loved with a warm place in my heart as a result of a large, deep-dish eating extended family hailing from the North Side. The Cubs have suffered through an equally powerful curse. The story goes that when a man arrived at Wrigley Field with a billygoat in tow, he was denied entrance. So he hexed the Cubs, saying they would never win another World Series. It was a ludicrous concept at the time. The Cubs, in fact, had been the century’s first great dynasty, going to four of the first seven World Series ever played, and winning twice. But the curse of the billygoat stuck, and the last time the Cubs brought home the ring was in 1908. The last time they even made it to the World Series there were only forty eight states. The Cubs too were poised to win a pennant that October of 2003, playing in the National League Championship Series.
I was living on the sandy peninsula of Rockaway Beach, an old Irish enclave barely existing on three blocks of Queens between Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The locals, mostly cops and firefighters, were surprised to find a chubby, moderately-tanned Jewish kid living on the Irish Riviera. I was there, however, not to befriend the natives, but for the fishing, sun, and fresh air. Mostly, I have to say, I was there for the abundant parking. I’d already been a yellow cabbie for a couple of years. But I was having trouble finding time to work because I was watching one or two baseball games an evening, and rarely did both the Cubs and the Yankees have a simultaneous travel day.
Early in the Championship Series, the Cubs had the day off so I elected to work and listen to the Yankees on the radio. Unknowingly, as I pulled my cab out from the garage in Greenpoint Brooklyn, I was beginning my religious education. Before the sun would come up over the Atlantic, I would be on my way to edification.
It was a night of ups and downs, strikes and gutters. My first fare of the evening, at 5:15 when traffic is at its worst, was my first trip in two years on the job to Newark Airport. This is the worst possible fare because, not only does it take forever to get to the airport and back, it is illegal to pick up another fare in New Jersey so I had to return empty. To make matters worse, I was out of my element and ended up getting off Highway 9 by accident and getting lost in downtown Newark. But when I finally returned to the city, I picked up a Chinese woman in the garment district who wanted a ride to Chinatown. We hit it off and by the time we stopped at the base of the Manhattan Bridge, she offered me a job selling jewelry at her shop on Canal Street. I can’t say I’ve always wanted to sell cheap jewelry to tourists at a massive mark up, but, since my full time career had blossomed into watching baseball in the afternoon and night, I was in the market for a day job. Here was one handed to me on a silver platter. A case of the yin and the yang? It crossed my mind at the time.
A couple hours later on Avenue B and 7th Street, a man hailed me frantically. Usually I’d pass by people like that for fear of dealing with an insane person, but I stopped because I saw he was propping up what looked to be his elderly father with his other arm. The old man got in first, wheezing, coughing, and clearly frightened. His son got in second and told me to go to the nearest emergency room in a hurried voice. I asked if he wanted to get there very quickly, and the younger man said, “Be reasonable.” Little did he know that I had always wanted to be an ambulance driver. I put my flashing emergency lights on and blew through a fresh red light on Avenue A leaning on my horn. I turned right onto First Avenue and before four minutes were up, I stopped in front of NYU Medical Center ER on Thirty Third and First. I got this man twenty five blocked and I think I set a land speed record for New York City. I was on such a natural high that I pumped my fist, hooted, and hollered after I let them out. I can’t say for sure that I saved his life, but I felt I had done a serious mitzvah. Now, wasn’t I due for some good karma?
The rest of the night passed without incident until, at about 3:15 am, I stopped for pizza at Rosario’s on Orchard Street. As I was waiting for my slice, three neighborhood guys started a friendly conversation with me about the Yankees. I was feeling a bit too comfortable. I was in my element, the neighborhood in which I had lived, worked, hung out, and volunteered with youths just like these. At that moment, waiting for Sal to heat me up a slice and talking of life and baseball with the locals, all was right with New York City. As I hopped back in my cab and waved goodbye to my new friends, I thought to myself, “Those neighborhood kids are great; you just gotta give ‘em a chance.” I realized twenty minutes later that the chance I had given them was the chance to rob me. While my three friends distracted me, a fourth had stolen my cigar box of money out of the cab. I was not pleased. How was I to believe in karma?
I arrived home in Rockaway despondent and disillusioned. Leaning against my door was a FedEx package. I plopped down in a chair and looked at it. It had my address but the name Susan Garbarino. I knew she was not the former resident, so, without giving it much thought, I opened the envelope. Inside I found the single most beautiful thing I have ever laid my eyes upon. It was one ticket – JUST ONE – to game six of the American League Championship Series at Yankee Stadium.
This is where Dave goes crazy. Of all the people in all New York to be on the winning end of this kind of mix up, the kind of mix up I have never known FedEx to make, it probably gave me the purest, most unadulterated bliss. After I finished freaking out, screaming, running in circles around my tiny house, pumping my fist like Derek Jeter, doing the Bernie dance, and laughing hysterically, I took a look at the flip side of the ticket where the receipt was attached. On it, Ticket Master had printed Susan Garbarino’s real address. Not even close. She did live in Rockaway, but it was eighty one blocks east of me on Beach 19th Street. Tough luck Susan.
But as I tried to go to sleep it dawned on me that I had a moral dilemma on my hands. I could use the ticket for myself, go to the game, and enjoy it immensely. When I first saw the ticket, this option was the only one that even entered my mind. But I had this woman’s address. I could easily go to her door and present her with her rightful ticket. Beach 19th Street, however, is at the edge of one of the worst neighborhoods in all the five boroughs. On the list of bad ideas, showing up in the middle of the ghetto and buzzing a stranger’s door ranks just ahead of leaving a box full of money in an unlocked yellow cab on the Lower East Side. From the day’s events, it was clear to me that I was not having the best luck with the city’s rougher neighborhoods.
I awoke the next afternoon honestly thinking the ticket was a dream. I cannot stress enough how amazing it was to me to have a ticket to game six of the ALCS against the Red Sox magically show up at my door. Over the next couple of days, I ran my moral dilemma by as many friends, family members, and strangers as possible. I’d say I talked to about thirty people and only four of them told me what I wanted to hear. And all four were morally bankrupt people and/or equally huge Yankee fans who were astonished at my dumb luck. The good people kept telling me that it was bad karma to keep the ticket. My defense, I maintained, was airtight. It wasn’t bad karma to hold onto the ticket because the ticket falling into my hands was the second half of a karmic equation that had been set into motion for me when I rushed a dying man to the hospital just hours before finding the FedEx package. Or maybe it was my yang to the yin of being robbed only one hour earlier.
The day before the game I took yet another night off of work and went to my brother’s apartment to watch game six of the National League Championship Series. I was now sick of everyone telling me to return the ticket and defiantly announced, “Screw it, I’m going to the game tomorrow.” I then watched in horror as the Cubs, just five outs away from winning the pennant for the first time in three generations, fell victim to their curse. A Cub fan in a seat in foul territory reached up and grabbed a fly ball away from a leaping Cub outfielder. An eerie darkness washed over the fans at Wrigley Field. The rowdy mob gathering on Waveland Avenue fell silent. Even the television cameras, which seconds before were shaking in the pandemonium and excitement of the moment, were still. Millions of people all over Chicagoland were thinking about a billygoat. The Cubs had been ahead three to nothing. A passed ball, an error, a few weak pitches, and the Cubs gave up EIGHT runs that inning. My brother told me to leave his house and not come back for a while, citing bad karma.
I did not take this lightly. It was pouring rain that night, and I wandered the streets of Brooklyn in a daze. Was I to blame for the Cubs’ tragic loss? Or was this just a warning to make things right by Susan Garbarino? Could I bring this bad karma into the House That Ruth Built and be responsible for giving the Yankees a curse of their own? Was this mystery ticket not just a stroke of luck, but a test from God Himself? What would Sandy Koufax do? All of this was coming hard on the heels of Yom Kippur, a Yom Kippur during which I had broken the fast a good hour early with an unkosher Nathan’s hot dog at a break-the-fast-bbq I had thrown for a bunch of goys. It was impossible to deny the religious implications.
And this could all go beyond baseball. Even if I were to snub Susan Garbarino, use the ticket, and the Yankees were to go on to win twenty five more World Series, this karmicly charged ticket would be hovering over my head for the rest of my life. I would spend my days with a numb fear in the back of my head and the pit of my stomach, just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I had to find Susan. That night I looked up Susan Garbarino in the Rockaway yellow pages but she wasn’t listed. I called FedEx with the tracking number – 1220ZI0155104 – and they told me they don’t even use letters. I was now thoroughly freaked out. I was feeling an emotion akin to what the dying man in the back of my cab must have felt. I was preparing to stare God in the face.
I awoke early the next morning to go to Susan’s house. Since she lived straight down the beach from me, and I had the feeling that I was experiencing something larger than the things of man, I left my car and walked along the boardwalk. The storm the night before had brought in dangerously windy weather. It was difficult to walk. Blowing sands stung my ears, sea spray impeded my bespectacled vision, and the wind nearly knocked me off my feet on a number of occasions. As I drew closer to Beach 19th Street I saw that I was approaching a cluster of high rises. This woman lived in a complex of buildings which I had always noticed as the most distant visible edifices on the eastern horizon. It was as if the Eyes of TJ Eckleburg were upon me.
When I arrived, I realized with a sinking feeling, that these building comprised a retirement community/ nursing home. I very well could have been denying this woman her dying wish. I made up my mind right then and there that not only would I return Susan Garbarino her ticket, I would drive her to The Stadium myself.
I found her building, went to an elevator, and tried to go to the 14th floor to find Susan Garbarino’s apartment: 14C according to the Ticket Master receipt. To my dismay, this elevator only went to the 12th floor. I found a different elevator bank, but again the highest floor was the 12th. Now perplexed, I sought help from a janitor. He was an old, white-haired black man with a mop and a glass eye. He would, naturally, play the part of the blind oracle in my story which is about to sound made up, but I swear upon the lives of my ancestors it is true.
I asked him, innocently, “How do I get to the 14th floor?” He gave me a kindly smile, and in country accent quite foreign to the borough, he said softly, “You goin’ ta tha 14th floor, you goin’ ta heaven.” I swear that is what he said. Now I felt like I was dreaming with my eyes open. Refusing to believe what I just heard, I breathlessly explained the entire situation to him and showed him the ticket and the receipt with the address. He told me he had been working in the building for nearly twenty years and that he was positive that there was no 14th floor. After we checked at the front office to be sure no Susan Garbarino resided there, my blind oracle told me, “You blessed! You blessed! Go ta tha game.”
That was the moment I began believing in God. Not only did I begin believing in God, I began believing I knew God’s name, and it was Susan Garbarino. With the wind still blowing violently, I walked back to my house. But this time the gales were at my back, hurrying me along. The game now just hours away, I drove to the Bronx in a hurry, and, in perhaps the greatest miracle of all, I found a free and legal parking spot less than five blocks from The Stadium.
But the Lord works in mysterious ways, and as a newly converted religious zealot, I believe that with all of my heart. The Yankees lost game six. I stood there frozen as the drunken and angry denizens of Yankee Stadium filed out onto 161st Street. I was shocked. I had been as positive that the Yankees would win that game as I was that Red Sox would never win another World Series. In the end, both occurred. But no, the Red Sox would not win in 2003.
The important thing is that the Yankees went on to win game seven, and they did so in dramatic fashion. Aaron Boone’s home run in the bottom of the 13th inning broke untold millions of hearts across New England. But I witnessed something earlier in game seven, something largely forgotten by history, something for which I take total responsibility. In the eight inning, the Yankees came from behind off a weakened Pedro Martinez to tie the score. But they could have taken the lead. A fan reached out of the stands to put a hand on the batted ball, forcing the umpires to call a grounds rule double and call back the go-ahead run. When a fan touched a ball in Wrigley Field, the God of baseball, who I think is same God of everything else, descended upon the Cubs. The Yankees, on the other hand, didn’t miss a beat. The fans continued screaming, the cameras continued shaking in the excitement, and the Yankees went on to win.
I contend that, had I not exorcised the demons locked within that FedExed ticket, the Yankees could very well have fallen under the spell of a wicked curse. I cannot speak for whatever damned, faceless fan cursed the Yankees in 2004. But when it was up to me during that October of 2003, I wouldn’t let the dynasty be replaced by anguish, as occurred in Boston and Chicago so many years before. I wouldn’t let luck turn against the Yankees. I wouldn’t let karma at The Stadium go bad. I took it upon myself to go see the blind oracle of Beach 19th Street, I looked into Susan Garbarino’s eyes in those high winds, and I refused to bring a curse upon the Yankees.
Permalink
07.29.06
Posted in Bronx, Caribbean, Posts For Gothamist, Seafood, South Bronx at 10:43 pm by Administrator
The Bronx is usually a great place to watch a ballgame. But when Randy Johnson pitches, it can be extremely unpleasant. Thankfully, The Bronx is always a great place to eat jerk, no matter who is pitching.
www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/07/29/the_hungry_cabb_17.php
Explore the rest of The Bronx too on a five borough eating tour
Permalink
06.27.06
Posted in Bronx, Seafood, Soul Food, South Bronx at 5:07 pm by Administrator
I’m about to broach a sticky subject. It might be a little uncomfortable for you to confront. Think you can handle it? Okay, here goes. Why do black people have so much trouble catching cabs?
I can’t answer that question for every city in America, but I know what New York City yellow cab drivers are thinking when they speed by black people who are clearly trying to hail them. Judging from my non-scientific study of cabbies with whom I work, the reason is not so simple as bald racism. Yellow cab drivers are not necessarily scared that black people will rob them, though I’m sure there are some weak-minded ones who do harbor that prejudice.
After spending many hours conversing with other cabbies waiting at the garage or lined up at the airport, I’ve come to a fairly simple conclusion. Because cabbies make their money by dropping off and picking up fares in rapid succession, they would always rather take a fare to a part of the city where another fare can be found quickly. This is the same reason they never want to go to Brooklyn no matter what race you are.
The racial profiling occurs when cabbies pass black people by because they assume black people are heading to a neighborhood far from the busy core of Manhattan. You might be heading to Brownsville, Brooklyn where the cabbie won’t get another fare for an hour, but the cabbie will stop for you if you are white because he assumes you are not going to Brownsville. If you are black however, even if you are heading to the West Village, many cabbies assume you are heading to Brownsville, and so they pass you by. It is a less vicious type of racism than people might imagine is responsible for this phenomenon.
Another more unpleasant stereotype that cab drivers attach to black people in New York is that they are bad tippers. The black people who live in rough neighborhoods far from the moneyed sections of Manhattan might ask for the 60 cents of change on a $12.40 fare. I have no problem coughing up the change in that situation since they obviously need that money more than I do (my problem is with Upper East Siders who tip 50 cents on a $5.20 fare by giving $6 and asking for a quarter “for the phone” which hasn’t been a quarter in a couple of years now). So the issue is more that cab drivers are intent on making as much money as possible than that cab drivers live in fear of black people.
I take pride in the fact that, like Travis Bickle, I run all over town. I’ve never once passed a person by because of the color of his skin. I was raised that way. I’m no hero though. If I had a family of 5 to support in Jackson Heights, and another family of 25 to send money home to in Karachi, I might not be so egalitarian. But I don’t drive for the money as much as I drive for the adventure of it all. So it wouldn’t make any sense at all for me to pass anyone by, because I might get a good story or a restaurant tip out of it.
A while back, I watched as 4 or 5 cabs passed a black couple on Broadway and 125th Street in front of me. Once they climbed into my cab, the man immediately put a $10 bill through the divider and said with a strong hint of exasperation in his voice, “THAT’S just for stopping.” So much for the tipping stereotype.
He was, however, heading to a neighborhood far from any place where I might find another fare: The South Bronx. It was late on a Thursday night and they were going dancing at a soul food restaurant slash lounge called Sam’s. He actually invited me in, but I regretfully declined because I needed to go back to work. I’d been there multiple times before to partake of their delicious bbq chicken on my way to Yankee Stadium just blocks away. But the night club concept fascinated me.
Yesterday I convinced my friends Jack and Lance to come with Melissa and me for a late night soul food session at Sam’s. We made it up there by about 2 a.m., so when we walked in the joint was in full swing. I like to think of myself as a man of the people, all the people, who isn’t constrained by social barriers. But I must admit that being the only white guys in a very crowded, sweaty South Bronx lounge made me a bit self-conscious.
We stood at the top of the stairs overlooking the dance floor feeling pretty much everyone’s eyes on us. But the tension was broken when the waitress introduced herself with a giant smile and led us to our table in the back. As we waded through the dance floor my own giant smile spread across my face because I witnessed some of the boldest dance moves I’ve ever seen. My favorite move involved a man slapping his dance partner on the butt so firmly that the smacks were clearly audible over the throbbing bass that was loud enough to shake the stools.
Late at night, Sam’s only serves finger foods so, being the gluttons we are, we ordered one of everything on the menu. That consisted of fried shrimp, fried fish strips, chicken wings, french fries, chicken fingers and plenty of tartar sauce.
The food was not as great as it is during regular dining hours, but we all agreed that our mini late night feast was downright phenomenal as far as meals served at 2:30 a.m. at dance clubs go. Even though we were just sitting in the back quietly enjoying our soul finger food, we had attracted a great deal of attention. Jack, a pale young man with wild golden locks falling about his shoulders, said that he has been to a number of foreign countries, but he had never gotten anything like the priceless and perplexed looks he got from so many of Sam’s patrons.
(Jack shows off his mop top as he attempts to dry his lap of a budweiser that was spilt at the edge of the rowdy dance floor)
But aside from our friendly waitress, our interactions with the locals consisted mostly of shy or confused stares rather than verbal communication.
Finally, an incredibly friendly (and incredibly drunk) woman stumbled over to our table after a trip to the bathroom. She introduced herself as Tracy, and she phrased everything as though it were a secret from everyone else at the table. Tracy took an instant liking to Lance and shot him a seductive smile.
(You can see what Tracy saw in Lance, pictured here looking at the napkin that came stuffed into his beer)
She confided in Jack that her children were being “pains in my BE hind, and they should know better because they are 22 and 24.” To Melissa she whispered, “Everyone in here is asking ‘Who dat? Who dat? She is beautiful.” And for me, she took about a full minute to get herself into this pose:
And then she shouted, “Don’t label that picture ‘Crazy Black Bitch’” as she scooted off onto the dance floor.
Melissa was clearly in the mood to dance too:
But I wasn’t man enough to take her out onto the dance floor, because I didn’t think I would be able to keep up with those Boogie Down moves. So we took our leave. We ended up dancing our way back across the dance floor anyway, because Tracy had broken the glass wall between our cultures. Everyone on the floor did at least a couple of steps with each of us as we danced through. Tracy got DOWN with Lance, and she freaked him until he was caught between her and the speaker. Then she took on Jack and me at the same time, and we ended up doing the bump with Tracy bouncing gleefully between us.
We handed our waitress the check with a 20 percent tip, and she acted like we’d made a mistake. “You gave me $7 too much,” she said. “No, that’s for you,” I told her. She raised her eye brows in surprise, and her eyes lit up. Apparently, that tipping stereotype holds true at Sam’s.
Sam’s Restaurant, 596 Grand Concourse, The Bronx
Visit www.famousfatdave.com for a belly laugh or to book an eating tour
Permalink
06.16.06
Posted in Bronx, Hot Dogs, South Bronx, Sweets at 5:41 am by Administrator
I swear I was planning to go to work yesterday. But when I woke up and saw the sun pouring through my window, I thought better of it. It was one of those glorious spring days with just a few puffy white clouds scattered amidst a sky of unbelievable blue. I felt like Ferris Bueller except I didn’t have to fake a stomach cramp and lick my palms. I just had to call the garage and tell them not to expect me. No one would be hailing a cab on such a nice day anyhow.
At that point, Melissa, my sweet Thai girlfriend (how did she get so sweet? years of practice), was actually playing the Cameron role in the story. She had woken up before dawn, and by the time I came out from under the covers, she’d already put in a full day’s work. She was back home in bed already, dead set on napping away the afternoon. “I’m dying,” she said, referring to the fact that she’d not had a full night’s sleep in weeks. “You’re not dying, you just can’t think of anything good to do,” I said, hoping she’d (and you’d) catch the reference. She didn’t budge.
But she bowed to my logic when I pleaded with her, “How many times are we both going to be free in the afternoon when the Yankees are playing a day game at The Stadium?” As she looked out the window at that beautiful sky, I watched Cameron slowly melt away. Before I had my teeth brushed and my mohawk tamed, there was my Sloane, cowboy boots and all, ready to go. She rubbed her bleary eyes, and we were Bronx bound.
A weekday game with a 1:05 start, and it was sold out. God bless this city. And God bless scalpers who get desperate within minutes of the National Anthem. I handled the shady negotiating, bought the tickets, and then scouted out the best empty seats in the house that we could sneak into without an usher bothering us. Melissa, once she got over her fear of being booted from our stolen seats, bought us our breakfast:
A Yankee Stadium hot dog used to taste like someone took a Dodger dog, dropped it on the floor, stepped on it, and then put it on a bun. Then they got worse. There was a very trying period sometime during the height of the steroid era (we’ve entered the HGH era) when hot dog vendors at The Stadium didn’t even have buns. They served dogs in small wedges of bread sliced three quarters of the way through as though we were too stupid to know the difference between a hot dog bun and a piece of Wonder Bread.
Even so, it had always been my dream to vend hot dogs at Yankee Stadium. One year I waited in line for hours in the bitter March winds off the Harlem River only to be turned away for not having a social security card on hand. The next year, after spending hours in line at the Social Security Office, I spent hours in line at The Stadium waiting for my second shot at the big leagues.
But some of the desperate, unemployed denizens of the South Bronx tried to cut in line, and some other desperate, unemployed denizens of the South Bronx with overdeveloped senses of propriety didn’t let it go. The shouting match turned into a fist fight, the fist fight turned into a brawl, and I high tailed it all the way to Coney Island where I languished selling hot dogs in Single A ball for a summer.
Melissa, knowing how hard it is out here for a vendor, tipped ours handsomely. They started using real buns again a couple of years ago, and they switched from Sabrett’s to Nathan’s. Although these bulk variety Nathan’s dogs have zero snap, they are wonderfully meaty. Maybe it had something to do with my stellar mood, but I thought that hot dog was so choice:
So was the cotton candy:
If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.
Unlike Ferris, I didn’t catch a foul ball. And the Yankees lost miserably. Yet, I believe the game was blessed. No one shouted for me to take my hat off during God Bless America during the 7th inning stretch, so I gotta say it was a good day. Sparky Anderson sat right near us:
We watched as a man proposed to his pink ARod jersey-wearing girlfriend who said “YES” and then cheered wildly while simultaneously staring at her new ring when ARod hit a monster home run just minutes later:
ARod was clutch!!!. . . for this happy couple
Then my idol, Bernie Williams, jacked one out of the park just for me:
Bernie Williams, you’re my hero.
Plus we were witness to 21-year-old Melky Cabrera’s first career home run. We can always boast we saw the first of many, if Joe Torre is right about him.
Had I driven the cab yesterday, I probably would not have made a dime. I think I needed the day off. Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
(This shot goes out to all my straight female readers, my gay readers, and my male readers who are confident in their heterosexuality. . . To the Upper East Side nubiles)
Visit www.famousfatdave.com to book an eating tour. The question is what aren’t we going to eat.
(You’re still here? It’s over. . . Go back to work.)
Permalink
