June 30, 2006

The Plateau area is one of the trendiest areas of Montreal, so I decided to explore it a little further after my discoveries of Old Montreal. From my hotel I hopped into the subway at Place d’Armes and took the blue train north to Sherbrooke. I enjoyed a wonderful stroll through the St-Denis neighbourhood, considered by many to be the most typical of Montreal’s neighbourhoods. Hundreds of street cafés, restaurants and funky boutiques line the street.

The streets in the area are characterized by duplexes or triplexes that have the typical Montreal exterior staircases in the front, many of which are used as comfortable places of rest and relaxation by the local residents. Many of the houses also feature small balconies on the upper floors, most of which are accompanied by small bistro tables and chairs for the outdoor enjoyment of the apartment residents.

The rooflines of in this neighbourhood are also very unusual: dormers and fake mansards add interest to the architectural mix.
The atmosphere is very relaxed, artsy and bohemian. I continued my walk west on a small street call rue Roy and came across a Mexican restaurant called “La Iguana” that also has a small outdoor sitting area. Every since my earlier trip to Mexico this year I have developed a taste for authentic Mexican food and La Iguana with its Mexican flair pulled me in.

I sat down at a comfortable table in the corner with a perfect view of the restaurant and the street outside. Unfortunately, the sky was clouding over and shortly after another tropical thunderstorm was unleashed on the city, the third one today.

To find out more about this restaurant I asked the owner, Fred Saunders, who jointly owns the restaurant with his wife Julie Chiasson, to join me for a bit. Over a mojito he started to tell me about La Iguana and how it all came about. Fred and Julie have travelled numerous times to Mexico together and fallen in love with the country and its flavours. Fred mentioned that they have visited many places on the coast, including Acapulco, Ixtapa, Playa del Carmen as well as Cozumel. Fred and Julie both enjoy scuba diving and have been enjoying underwater adventures in Mexico for the last four years.

They started dreaming of creating their own Mexican restaurant and finally three years ago, they opened “La Iguana”. Fred mentioned that it is open seven days a week for dinner and also opens Friday for lunch. Every Thursday to Saturday they feature live Cuban music that entertains the crowd with hot Latin rhythms. Fred mentioned that La Iguana also provides a catering service and a musician rental service for two to 21 musicians, a new service which they started a couple of months ago.

Fred further explained that the restaurant receives many guests from various hotels and tourism establishments. Just a week earlier, La Iguana hosted the British racing team which was in town for the Montreal Grand Prix. Fred mentioned that they referred to their experience at La Iguana as the “best Mexican food they have ever had”.

La Iguana is actually quite a small restaurant. It seats 64 people in total, including the tables on the sidewalk and the enclosed terrace which is also heated in the winter. Fred indicated that there are many nights when he has to turn away 50 to 60 people since he simply does not have the capacity to accommodate all the guests. For this reason he and Julie came up with the idea of opening another “La Iguana”. The second location will be downtown, and even beyond that Fred and Julie’s dreams extend to opening more locations, later on even in Ontario and different parts of Canada. Their dreams are to open a chain of “La Iguana” restaurants that will bring their concept of Mexican food to Canadians from coast to coast.

Big plans are in store for the new edition of La Iguana which is scheduled to open next spring in downtown Montreal. The new restaurant will be more spacious and feature a grill, allowing guests to order a whole fish hot off the grill. In addition it will also house a museum with authentic artifacts that will be provided by the Mexican Embassy. In addition, the new location will showcase live iguanas and live parrots to create an authentic Mexican atmosphere.

Talking about the history of La Iguana, Fred shared with me that right from the start the restaurant got good reviews. Their interesting dishes and plentiful portions might have something to do with it. Fred indicated that their fajitas and burritos are extremely popular. Ceviche, an authentic Mexican dish with seafood marinated in lime juice and coriander has also become a favourite. La Iguana’s Camarones Acapulco consist of a half a pound of giant shrimps in garlic butter with orange zest and flambéed with Grand Marnier. This signature dish is a crowd pleaser and looks like a sun with yellow rays.

Fred describes the cuisine at La Iguana as upscale Mexican and adds that the wine list is extensive with bottles ranging in price anywhere from $28 to $800. In addition, he and Julie have gone on research trips to Mexico and come back with 35 different types of Tequila that are all privately imported, another unique feature of La Iguana.

Well, with all this talk of tasty delicacies I was getting hungry and I wanted a chance to sample some of La Iguana’s food first-hand. I decided to order the La Iguana Special: a large platter featuring stuffed jalapeños, guacamole, potato skins, cheese quesadilla, chicken wings, nopales (cactus) and flautas (egg rolls), served with sour cream and a spicy sauce. This dish gave me a great overview of La Iguana’s cuisine and I savoured the tastes of Mexico. Then Fred surprised me with Shrimps Acapulco, one of La Iguana’s signature dishes featuring huge shrimp in a Grand Marnier sauce. My appetite was more than satiated but I just had to try La Iguana’s fried icecream for dessert which was a sinful and delicious way to cap off a very satisfying meal.

After some relaxing and listening to the live Cuban music I thanked Fred and headed out into the warm summer night. I walked down Boulevard St. Laurent, or “The Main”, Montreal’s principal north-south connection that divides the city into an eastern (mostly francophone) and western (mostly Anglophone) part. The many restaurants were filled with people and street life was animated. I walked through the pedestrian area on Prince Arthur Street, another popular restaurant area, to head south to Sherbrooke Street, one of Montreal’s main east-west thoroughfares. From there I made it to St. Catharines Street, the headquarters of Montreal’s famous Jazz Festival.

Montreal’s Jazz Festival is in its 27th year and over the course of two weeks from June 28 to July 9, 2006 more than 400 concerts will have been held, the vast majority of them free. B.B. King’s 80th Birthday Event was held on June 28. It is the largest jazz festival in the world and a true signature event for the city, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors. The festival is centered around Place des Arts and the Complexe Desjardins and with my packed schedule over these next few days tonight was my only chance to get a sneak peak at Montreal’s Jazz Festival. The crowds in front of the main stage and on St. Catharines were filling the streets as far as the eye could see and the audience were swaying to the rhythms of Afrodizz, Montreal’s best Afrobeat group, in front of a huge audience at the Scène General Motors .

What started 27 years ago as the dream of jazz aficionado Alain Simard has become the world’s biggest jazz festival that has featured stars like Ray Charles, Chick Corea, John Lee Hooker, Dave Brubeck, Muddy Waters, Dizzy Gillespie, B.B. King, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Chuck Mangione, Tony Bennett, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, George Benson, Holly Cole, Al Jareau and hundreds more. This years lineup included a tribute to Paul Simon, appearances by Dave Brubeck, Brad Mehldau, Etta James and The Neville Brothers. More than 2000 musicians will be coming to town to excite the crowds.

With African rhythms swirling through my head I strolled back slowly to my hotel, reflecting on Montreal’s superb qualifications as one of the world’s major festival cities. I needed to catch enough rest for my early morning bicycle tour of Montreal.

For the entire article including photos please visit
http://www.travelandtransitions.com/stories_photos/montreal_laiguana_jazzfestival.htm

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How To Make Money From Funny Videos

Maverick Money Makers © 1997 – 2008

MoneyTers.blogspot.com
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You can easily make funny video websites, and then profit from them nicely. Many people have done it and are actually making their living off it. Here’s how to make funny video websites and make money at it:

1. Getting a site.

The first thing to making a funny video website is choosing a good name. Have some fun trying to think up catchy names for your website. A catchy, unique and memorable name is key to not only getting traffic but maintaining traffic.

2. Getting the videos.

You can easily lift videos from other popular video sites. But there are also sites that allow you access to many of the popular funny videos which you can use. Many sites share with one another videos as well. So getting the videos to supply for your funny video website is relative easy.

3. Making the Money.

Making money off your site is going to consist of different forms income streams. From click on ad’s, banner advertising, and actual products which you can sell on your site and receive heavy commissions from.

Start up accounts at Google and yahoo for click on ad’s, and find internet products which will coincide with the type of videos you’ll be showing. Many internet products will have programs for webmasters which you can sign up for and immediately start promoting products on your site. Once your site develops traffic, you can start to hit up larger business’s for banner ad’s which can pay very well. The combination of different income streams will bring in a steady income flow as long as your traffic is ramped up.

4. Putting your site together.

There are specific programs you can get for building sites. They will take the headache of “coding” away, and have you setting up your site quickly and fairly easily. A good “make video website” book or manual will show you exactly what needs to be done and provide inside access to sources which can make things thousands of times easier.

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Maverick Money Makers is a private 
society that will teach you how to
build a six-figure a month business
on the internet. 

If you want to make money online, 
join the society before it’s too late.

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How To Make Money From Niche Ebooks

Maverick Money Makers © 1997 – 2008

MoneyTers.blogspot.com
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If you have the flair for writing and if you have specialized knowledge that can potentially interest online users, you will stand great chances of making huge money online by writing and publishing your own niche ebooks. Here’s how:

1. Sell ad spaces. You can augment your earnings from this endeavor if you can sell ad spaces to marketers who are selling products that compliment your book topic. 

Depending on the size of the ad and the projected sales of your ebook, you can charge up to $500 per ad. You can also use some of your book space to promote your own products and services. 

By doing so, you can increase your sales and revenue without hurting your pockets for your advertising cost. You just have to make sure that your creations will not look like yellow pages so you can avoid annoying your readers.

2. Sell your niche ebooks. This is the fastest way to generate income from your creations. 

You may write about topics that are extremely interesting to your potential clients and promote your niche ebooks online using the most effective advertising tools that are available in the internet today. 

You need to make sure properly build-up your offerings by highlighting their features and benefits so you can make them more valuable to the eyes of your potential clients.

3. Use them as your traffic-generating tool. If you are a marketer, you must understand the importance of driving quality traffic to your website. 

You can attract interested people to give you a visit by using your niche ebooks. How? You can send your niche ebooks for free to your potential clients. Load them up with valuable information that these people will find interesting. 

When you are able to impress your readers and make them see that you are really good on what you do, you can be assured that they will flock your website in no time. Make sure that you post your site’s URL on every page of your creations to make it much easier for these people to give you a visit.

4. Use them on your list building campaigns. You’ll stand great chances of growing your ebusiness if you can effectively capture the email addresses of your potential clients. 

You can boost your sign-up rate if you can reward these people with free niche ebooks that contain information that are relevant to their needs and demands.
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Maverick Money Makers is a private 
society that will teach you how to
build a six-figure a month business
on the internet. 

If you want to make money online, 
join the society before it’s too late.

MoneyTers.blogspot.com

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A born child prodigy, Marian Portland started playing the piano at the age of three. She is formally trained in both the violin and the piano. Her real name is Margaret Marian Turner. A student of classical music, she got her music education at the Guildhall School of Music in London but her heart was not in studying classical music. She fell in love with the jazz masters including Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, Mary Lou Williams and the likes. Her family opposed her tendency towards jazz music and tried to keep her grounded at Guildhall.

She went against her family’s wishes and joined a group – Billy Mayerl’s Claviers- a four piano vaudeville ensemble. A majority of the gigs that the group had were performances for the Allied Troops who were fighting in World War II in Europe. On tour while playing in Belgium, she met her future husband and cornetist from Chicago Jimmy McPartland in 1944. They got married a while later at a military base in Germany. They played at their own wedding.

The couple moved to Jimmy’s native country and settled down in Chicago after the war was over. They later shifted residence to Manhattan where they stayed in the same building that the Nordstorn Sisters were staying. She formed a trio there. Marian got a gig at the New York jazz club The Hickory House. For eight years from 1952 to 1960, they were resident group there. During her stint there, she caught the eye of the celebrity audience and all the stars of the time from Broadway and Hollywood would drop in to see her perform. Her regular audience consisted of Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Steve Allen and Oscar Peterson.

Her stint at The Hickory House though was not creatively satisfying for her as she would have liked. In between and after sets, she would quickly move to the nearby clubs where jazz would be played and studied Duke, Basie, Monk, Bud Powell and Dave Brubeck’s music. She said to a query regarding this habit of hers saying “My goal was to hear everything, and play a lot of musicians’ tunes.”

The following years saw Marian records for various record labels. She started her own record label in 1969. The future years also saw her associated with the Concord Jazz label. She launched a radio show in 1964 on WBAI-FM which consisted of guest interviews and recordings. This led to another radio show of hers – Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz on National Public Radio which is still running. It holds the record for being the longest running cultural show on National Public Radio. Some of the programs were released on CD which had her and other guest pianists playing released by Concord Records.

A few artist’s who she has had on her show include Ray Charles, Bill Evans, violinist Stephane Grapelli, Warren Vache and Joe Wilder. Marian is still active despite turning 91. She had a grand birthday bash with a whole of jazz musicians at the Dixxy’s Club-Cola Club. She was joined by guest artists in addition to her own band members – trumpet player Jeremy Pelt, Gary Mazzaroppi and Glenn Davis.

She was known to be excellent at adapting to the stylings of her guests on the show. That apart, she did also record a lot of her own compositions. Her well known songs include Twilight World, There Will Be Other Times, Ambiance and In The days Of Our Love. She claims that she cannot read music though she received formal training in music when she was young. She is proficient at transposing a tune to any key and playing it well. Her last known composition is Portrait of Rachel Carson in honor of environmentalist Rachel Carson on her centennial birth anniversary.

She had knack for remembering a plethora of jazz tunes and play them on the spot. She could also handle almost any other concoction of jazz that she heard or that the person playing with her would be playing. Marian won her first Grammy ever in 2004. She was honored with the Trustees Lifetime Achievement citing her legacy as an educator, writer and radio host. Despite the onslaught of the years, she is as alive as ever performing, playing radio host and composing. She along with Dave Brubeck and Billy Taylor were the first recipients of the annual Jazz Achievement Awards courtesy the no. 1 jazz radio station in the United States. Berklee School of Music inferred upon her an Honorary Doctorate in 2005.

Singapore, 29th January 2008 – Recognising the entrepreneurs’ needs to unravel the ambiguities of franchising in the local market, Astreem Corporation unwraps this year’s edition of Discovery Day. Discovery Day helps to bring out the entrepreneur in you and matches you with the perfect franchise business.

Discovery Day is organised by Astreem Corporation that has a team of experts in building the business of entrepreneurs. Discovery Day is designed to meet the needs of those who aspire to own a successful businesses “for themselves but not by themselves”, as well as those who want to expand their brand by sharing their successful business model.

About Discovery Day

Discovery Day features a wide selection of successful franchises in the F&B, lifestyle and service industry every quarter of the year. The successful franchisors present proven business formulas and help attendees navigate intricacies in starting up their business and successfully realise their entrepreneurship dream. The franchisors’ experiences and successes will provide guidelines and prepare aspirants in reaching the opportunities ahead. Discovery Day is also a day to get personal with entrepreneurs who want to share their respective paths to success.

Who should attend Discovery Day

Individuals who want to own a successful and established business at lower set up cost

Entrepreneurs who want to start a business at lesser risk

Directors/Managers responsible in diversifying their company’s investment portfolio

Attendees of Discovery Day will learn more about franchising concepts and its advantages and disadvantages. They will have an understanding of the acquisition process of franchise and, know the ‘how’s and ‘why’s of choosing the right franchise. Attendees will also discover the unique business concept of featured franchises and their keys to success.

Astreem held the first Discovery Day of 2008 last Saturday, 26th January at Casa Mediterranea Restaurant & Bar with a feature on the top three franchises below S$100K.

TT Quick Massage, Chippy, and iAremyhair were presented during the event. These three franchisors have successfully established their franchise programs with the support of Astreem. “Through Astreem Discovery Day, we are able to reach out to potential franchisees effectively in a one-on-one approach with the help from Astreem’s team of experts,” says Dennis Yeo, Director of TT Quick Massage.

For more information, visit http://www.astreem.com.

Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck is one of the stalwarts of jazz piano. His music is characterized by unusual time signatures and can be either extreme – totally dynamic or or completely relaxed. His most famous piece – Take Five – is so popular it has taken on almost cult status, and rightfully so.

David Warren Brubeck (aka Dave Brubeck)was born on the 6th of December, 1920. His thing for music came from his mother – an aspiring concert pianist who was formally taught. She used to take piano classes to supplement her income. Despite having such organized music at home, Dave Brubeck took to his own way of learning and playing the piano opting to create his own melodies. He purposely avoided a situation where he had to read music and play using his bad eyesight as an excuse.

When in college, it was discovered that he could not read written music. This caused for the professor in charge to take action and expel him but his other professors stood by the fact that despite his inability to read music, he had a good abilities when it came to counterpointing and harmony. Taking his case as an exception, it was decided that he be allowed to graduate from the institute promising to never teach piano.

Armed with a degree from the University Of The Pacific, he was drafted to join the army in 1942. During his service in the army, he met his future partner in music, saxaphonist Paul Desmond. While serving in the US Defence Forces, he played in a band which brought both fame and dislike to his musical stylings.

After almost four years serving in the Army, he went back to college and got himself enrolled in Mills College in Oakland, California. There he studied with the French composer Darius Milhaud who recognized his unusual talent for improvisation and uncommon rhythms.

Immediately after finishing his course in Mills College, he was signed to Fantasy Records in Berkeley California. He started singing with an octet and a trio which eventually became a quartet when Army pal Paul Desmond joined the group which originally included Cal Tjader and Ron Crotty.

Taking after his inclination to play music that was more unusual than not at the time, they recorded some music which didn’t have enough mass appeal to be a success which hence gave them very few gigs. After failing to draw in crowds, Dave Brubeck spent many years playing nothing but the opposite of what he had intended to when he started out playing jazz standards with the other members of the trio except Paul Desmond.

In 1951 after an almost fatal swimming accident, Dave formed his next group The Dave Brubeck Quartet – this time with Desmond in it. They were the house band for awhile at the Black hawk nightclub in San Francisco. The new quartet was very successful. They started touring college campuses and made a series of recordings including Jazz At Oberlin, Jazz Goes To College and Jazz Goes To Junior College.

The fame and success got Dave Brubeck space on the cover of Time Magazine – the only jazz musician to have the honor since Louis Armstrong. Sometime around the mid 1950’s one half of the group – two members Bob Bates and Joe Dodge – quit the group. They were replaced by Eugene Wright and Joe Morello. Eugene Wright’s presence in the band put the band on a black list for some venues since he he was a African American. Many concerts were called off because club owners were averse to having an African-American play in their premises.

Upon realizing that there were plans to not film Wright during a particular television show on which they were performing ,Dave canceled the appearance, winning praise from other musicians and many jazz critics. 1959 saw the release of Time Out which had the one quality of Dave Brubeck that he is known by today – unusual time signatures. Despite them not being in common time but instead in 5/4 time, the album was a hit and the album was soon certified platinum. When Dave plays Take Five at concerts, the audience almost always goes wild with applause.

Dave’s next act was a musical that he and his wife Iola wrote – a jazz musical based on the experiences that they had during an international tour on behalf of the US State Department. It had all the big names of the time – Louis Armstrong, Hendricks & Ross, Lambert and Carmen McRae. Later albums of the quartet include Time Further Out: Miro Reflections (1961), Countdown: Time in Outer Space,Time Changes and Time In. All these albums had iconic album covers by contemporary artists. They held a concert titled At Carnegie Hall in 1963 which was described as Dave Brubeck’s greatest concert, but 40 years later he is still playing great concert after great concert.

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