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If you’re not a fantasy football fan, I’m guessing this post isn’t for you. But if you are, feel free to give us your critiques, suggestions, and general opinions of the team Hoffa and I put together last night in our draft.

We’re playing in a 9 team league, and last year Hoffa and I were on separate teams. My team took a nose dive in week one when Tom Brady went down and I never recovered. This year we’re planning on winning the whole thing.

With that out of the way, here’s our team:

WR- Larry Fitzgerald- We had the number 5 pick this year, which stinks. Right in the middle. Because of our shitty spot, we missed the top running backs and instead of just picking up some jobber out of the backfield, we went with the #1 stud receiver in the game, and I was very excited about this pick.

RB- Chris Johnson- We were kind of surprised he was still around for the second round, but after the top 3 or so running backs, Tom Brady was picked, so a bunch of teams went for the top tier QBs. I thought this was a damn good pickup in round two, as he’ll get a lot of carries for the Titans.

QB- Kurt Warner- Sure, he’s up there in age, but he led the Cardinals to the big one. Plus, with Larry Fitzgerald on our team, having Warner gives us double points whenever the two connect. I like that a lot.

RB- Michael Westbrook- I wasn’t sure about this pick and I’m still not. But in the 4th round, with not many top running backs around, it was a decent pick.

WR- Roy Williams- Well, he’s another gamble, but both Hoffa and I seemed to think he’s going to be decent this year.

DST Pittsburgh- While everyone else was scraping the bottom of the barrel for RBs, we decided to make a bold move and get the top D in the league. A lot of people were surprised we went D that early, but for us it made a lot of sense.

WR- Vincent Jackson- Another guy that seemingly fell through the cracks in the early rounds, we thought it was a steal this late in the game.

RB- Beanie Wells- I had to have him just because he’s out of THE Ohio State University. And he completes our Arizona trifecta.

QB- Matt Schaub- All the fantasy football magazines were high on this guy and we needed a backup. No further explanation necessary.

K- Rob Bironas- Since we missed the top tier of tight ends, I thought we’d go for a top kicker and wanted Steven Gotskowski from the Pats. Alas, he was taken right before our pick, so we nabbed the #2 kicker.

TE- Owen Daniels- The best TE available on the board at the time.

DST- Philly- Why not.

The rest of the draft:

In no particular order we picked up the following as shots in the dark:

QB- Matt Sanchez

RB- Fred Taylor

WR- Michael Crabtree

WR- Brian Robiskie

DST- Colts

TE- Zach Miller

So, that’s our team for this year. See any glaring weaknesses? Any potential problems? Any injured guys that we weren’t aware of coming in to the draft?

I’ve done it, Fredders. As both an apology and an excuse for the long absence from writing, I’m proud to inform you that I’m now a married man.  All the months of planning, plotting, scheming, building, telephoning, wheedling, cajoling, rending of garments, etc. came to a head on August 15th, 2009 at a sweet, unique spot on the North Shore of Boston, in a much-anticipated interfaith ceremony between me and (now) Mrs. Hoffa. (No, that’s not us. Do you think I’d put pictures of us on the interwebs like that? Please. Not till I see a picture of Magglio.)

My side of the wedding party consisted of the reprobates I hang out with on a regular basis, (Loki, Opposite, Cutty and Barry) with my new brother-in-law to keep us all in line, and despite such a lineup, one which could well have resulted in multiple felonies, we all got through it just great.

Of course, that morning at Loki’s house, I was having some “breathing in and out” problems, as I understand folks getting married are wont to do, but with some help from my friend, and our new acquaintance, Svedka, I was calmed down enough to put on my tuxedo in time.

Speaking of heavy polyester suits, did I mention the weather that day? After days of stressing about rain, the day was sunny and clear. A little TOO sunny…90+ degrees for a high that day, and between my corpulence and the layers of polyester…well, lets just say there was some sweating. Damn you, coumadin.  But let’s not complain – after all, an outdoor wedding can only be as good as the weather it takes place in, and at least I didn’t get married this weekend, as my poor friend Caroline did…

Did I mention that me and the Mrs. (along with generous help from both our families) know how to throw a party? Oh yes. A good old-fashioned, New England clambake, from the best caterers in New England, an open bar, a pro club spinner, DJ Beat Train, plus the best band in the land, Red Square, don’t you know…

Seriously. A throw-down to end all throw-downs. At least as far as weddings go. Anyway, after a beautiful ceremony, a great reception, a mellow after-party, and a great hangover brunch the next day, it was time to pack and get ready for the honeymoon – Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico. 

More on that later Fredders.  Thanks for sticking around, and we’ll see you soon!

In my last post, I explained that the search is on for a new local establishment where I can have a few beers, play a little keno, and watch a game or two. Well, last night Hoffa and I decided to check out a place that seemed to fit my stringent requirements, The Wave.

If you read the last post, you may have noticed the following bullet point in my requirements:

• Some degree of danger and uncertainty

Well, let’s talk about that for a second.

First, the Wave is located in a nondescript industrial-type park, fairly off the beaten path. This type of location usually lends itself to a diverse range of sketchy people, which is exactly what I want. And I was not disappointed.

When Hoffa and I arrived, the bar was a bit crowded, so we opted for a table near the dedicated Keno TV. He sat down and checked out the Karaoke book, as he wanted to impress the crowd with his self-described “unfair” vocal stylings. This is where things take a turn.

I ordered us a pitcher of Stella for $13 and handed the gentleman a 20. I then took out another 20 and placed it directly ontop of my keno card, as I was going to play 10 games at $1 each. It was DIRECTLY in front of me. The bartender handed me my change and the pitcher along with 2 glasses.

In the time it took me to turn around to hand the glasses to Hoffa, the 20 dollar bill on top of the keno ticket mysteriously disappeared.

In a situation like this, I always want to make sure I didn’t do anything with the missing item before making allegations. I am known to be a dipshit, and often pick things up and place them elsewhere almost subconsciously, so I checked my pockets quickly.

The bartender then asked “Do you want me to play that ticket for you?”

“Just a second,” I answered, hoping I’d just dropped the 20.

The gentleman directly to my left and his “wife” looked sketchy as hell, and I noticed him placing something in his jeans pocket. It was abundantly clear that this scumbag swiped my 20. There was no one to my right, no one behind me, no one else in the immediate vicinity that could possibly have stolen the 20 in the few seconds it took to make the handoff to Hoffa. It would have been physically impossible.

I was angry.

I told Hoffa about what had just happened, and he planned on stabbing the guy in the neck with a pen. I thought he was just joking. That’s foreshadowing.

Now, this is the point in the story where you ask yourself: “Why didn’t you walk up and punch the guy in the throat?”

I’m glad you asked.

See, this was the second time I’ve been in the bar, the first on a weekend night. As a veteran of sketchy and sometimes dangerous establishments, I have some experience in matters like this. And the first thing you want to find out is whether the person you wish to confront is a regular. If this had occured in Bill Ash’s Lounge and I confronted a regular, I would be writing the post from my grave.

So I formulated a plan. But not before Hoffa decided to take action.

The scumbag thief got up and walked to the men’s room, and Hoffa followed. I yelled to him “Hoffa, get back here.” He forged ahead. I yelled a few more times, but he just kept walking.

He would later tell me that he was about to put a pen to the neck of the guy while he was standing at the urninal, demanding the 20 back. But when he heard me yelling to him, he decided this wasn’t the best idea.

I made eye contact with the bartender and pointed off to the side. He followed my lead and came around to talk to me.

“Hey. Is that guy in the blue shirt a regular?” I asked.
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen the guy, and I’m about to cut him off.” He answered.
“Well, I just wanted to know, because he stole my 20 that I’d put ontop of the keno ticket when I ordered our pitcher.”
“You know, I thought you’d put money on top of that, but then I didn’t see it. I’m sorry about that, man. He’s been here for hours and the lady he’s with was just slapping him in the face and screaming at him before you guys got here. I’m going to kick him out now. Your next round is on the house.”

He then informed the guy that he had to leave, and that he saw him stealing my money. The guy didn’t say a thing, got up and left. Hoffa and I followed him out, but with the bouncers with us, there wasn’t much point in saying or doing anything.

There are two points to this story:

1) I would have loved to have said or done something to that piece of shit for stealing my cash, but prior experience tells me that I need to get a feel for a place before doing something like that.

2) Big ups to the guys at the wave. I like the way they handled the situation.

The wave is now high in the running for my new local. And I can’t wait to see that guy again.

HOFFA’S NOTE:

I really did want to stick a pen in this guy’s neck, but I totally wasn’t going to stab him, just press the point of it up against his jugular while he whizzed on his pants, and tell him that he better go buy sick orphans some teddy bears with the 20 he just palmed off the bar, because if I found out he bought meth for his skank, I was going to ventilate his spleen.

I’ve always wanted to say that to someone. But Barry sounded pretty serious about me not doing that, so I let it go. I think we scared him pretty bad anyway.

One of my best excuses for not posting in, well, a month is the fact that I just moved to a new place. And it’s great. No more bashed-in windshields, no kids throwing basketballs at our walls, no more awful Revere Beach traffic. Everything is excellent, and I have no complaints.

But one thing is missing: I don’t have a local yet.

Though I had my life threatened more than once at Bill Ash’s Lounge, it still remains my favorite bar of all time. It was my local. I have a lot of great memories from that den of sin, and I will always remember it fondly. But this isn’t a looking-back-and-gagging-while-being-all-nostalgic post. Nope. This is a looking-forward-and-trying-to-find-the-next-place post.

So let’s get into that, shall we?

Like any job, a new local bar search has both qualifications and nice-to-haves. So, in that style, here is my "Bar Wanted Ad":

Title: Local Bar
Location: Waltham, MA
Category: Bar
Position Type: Part-Time
Experience: 5+ Years

Barry Freed is looking for a new local bar in the greater Waltham, MA area.

Qualifications:

• An established base of sarcastic regulars
• Some degree of danger and uncertainty
• Keno is non-negotiable
• Dart boards with at least an in-house league
• A chip system whereby a gentleman can buy another patron a drink without waiting for them to finish their current beverage
• Jameson
• TVs showing sports

Pluses:

• Draft bud light (bottles are fine, but draft is preferred)
• Foofy beers for my out-of-town fancy friends
• Terrible cover bands
• Terrible original bands
• Shots that are not measured
• An outdoor area out back where drinks can be taken

All qualified candidates should leave a comment in this post. Know a bar that fits this position? We do offer a referral bonus of a beer and a shot for anyone that refers the right candidate. If several qualified candidates are found, they will be reviewed here on TellHimFred.com.

Weelll…I had hoped to be finished with our masterpiece, and have a complete and total package to show you this week.  But paint takes time to dry, and the nice days where you can play a game of golf are limited! (Mom had a 4 pm tee time) Nevertheless, we completed the final steps, and short of assembly, the masterpiece is complete.

You’ll remember last time, our ingredients were:

4 planters, each with 2” PVC poles cemented inside

4 1 ¼” pine dowels, stained with Red Barn (yuk yuk) stain

Well, in the meantime, Mom had gotten busy with the gardening. And by “busy” I mean “busy making these pots sing with floral decadence”. To wit:

So we had but one mission: Make those silly orange planters look less like $7.99 from Home Despot, and more like a million bucks.  ON WITH THE SHOW.

Step 1: a muted metallic glaze

Step 2: Sea sponges

Step 3: Dapple the planters with the metallic glaze, giving them both a toned-down appearance and a bit of glitter.

One by one, they’re all done!

Now to the canopy.  My late grandmother, Peg Rossi, the most kickass lady I ever knew, gave this antique lace banquet cloth to my mother, which will be the canopy under which Steph and I will be married.   It’s a fitting aspect of our wedding, since the chuppah symbolizes the home we will build together…and nothing was more important to my grandmother than the home.

We have to find a way to make the canopy hang properly without being pierced or cut; again, mom wins the invention prize with her foam ball idea:

Wad a volume of foam into a ball around the top of the pole, securing it with a ziptie.  That becomes the anchor around which the canopy will be secured, using a cloth ribbon.

We made sure that the ends would hang properly, and they do. (Don’t worry – that’s not how the drape will end up!)

Once the paint on the planters dry, and the flowers have finished taking root, our journey will be complete…my quest to build our wedding chuppah will have been realized…and Mom becomes the indispensible gardener who makes it all blossom.

Steph’s grandfather’s Tallit will be the crowning piece of our multi-generational, multi-traditional chuppah.  Everyone who we love, everyone who we wish could be there…will be there. 

See you under the canopy, Fredders!

I’ll admit it.  When I was a lad, I fancied myself something of a handyman.  After all, once you’ve helped your dad re-shingle the house, re-wire a few lamps and replace plumbing fixtures, you feel like you can do anything.

Guess how long it takes living in your own home before you realize that you don’t know squat?  Yeah, about the time it took you to read that sentence.  Fortunately though, Al Gore invented the internet, and once you shove past all the porn, there’s actually quite a bit of useful information out there. 

The point of all this? I and my fiancée are getting married in a few weeks, and  there’s a lot of work that goes into making that happen.  And by “a lot” I mean a ridiculous amount.  Actually “ridiculous amount” doesn’t begin to describe it.  But you aren’t paying to hear me bitch about wedding plans.  On with the show.

I’ll make the painful part of this little expose short:  A few years ago I was really into the show “The Gilmore Girls.”  No, seriously. I was. And it was a good show, for a little while.  It was! Oh forget it, fine. I’m a loser. The reason I bring it up is because on the show, one of the characters made a chuppah for the main character’s wedding, and I remember thinking “That would be cool, to make something like that for a wedding.”

Fast forward a few years to me not watching that show anymore, but I still wanted to make a chuppah, so imagine my delight when I got the chance to marry a beautiful Jewish woman!  After Googling “DIY chuppah”, this is the design I cobbled together.

Materials:

STAGE ONE

4      large planters

2       bags QuikCrete fast-dry cement

4       2-foot lengths 2” diameter PVC pipe

4 1 ½ inches x 8 foot pine dowels

1 can wood stain

So let’s get started with stage one, shall we?

Sand those dowels, get all the splinters and rough patches out.  I learned through some doing that you should spend some time on this one with a medium-grain sandpaper.  Brush the sawdust off the poles with a soft rag. 

Take one of the PVC pipes and stand it up in one of the pots.  Drop one of the poles into the sheath.  Measure where the top of the pipe is on the pole with a pencil mark.  Do this for all four poles.  This is the length below which you don’t need to worry about applying stain. 

Now stain those poles.  Use two wooden sawhorses and a Styrofoam pad applicator, and work that stain into the pine.

This will take you a while. It will sort of suck, because the stain will want to bead up in places – if this dries, it will look like someone drooled on the pole.  You really have to go over and over the wood with your applicator, but you’ll get there.  I advise having some music playing, and perhaps an organ grinder and monkey nearby to entertain you while you carry out this task.

OK, find a safe spot for your poles to dry out. 

Now it’s time to focus on the pots.  Get your first pot and PVC pipe, and the first bag of cement.  This stuff is pretty forgiving, up to a point.  You don’t have to worry too much about precision with your measurements, but don’t take too long doing anything, or you’re going to have a chunk of rock on your hands before you’re ready: the stuff dries in about 20 minutes.

Pour about half the bag into the planter.  When you’ve finished choking on the dust, take a quart bottle full of water (again, this does not have to be precise: see the measurement device I used)

Pour that water on top of the dry cement, and using a hand trowel, mix vigorously.  I mean work it. Dig the stuff up, find all the dry powder that hasn’t gotten hit with the water.  It’s like a nightmarish version of instant oatmeal.  You’ll probably want to go back for another two cups or so of water – just make sure you get all the powder. Don’t go too nuts – you don’t want runny mud, but you don’t want clay either. Right in between.  Once you’ve got it all mixed, shove that PVC pipe right in the middle.  Make sure it’s straight – use a level if you want.  But get your hands in the mud and make sure that pipe is going to dry straight up and down.

Do this all four times, then go clean up.  Watch an episode of “No Reservations” or “Dexter”.  Have a drink.  Relax.

When you go back, put your four stained poles into your PVC sheaths, and stand back.  Nice job, you’ve finished Stage One!

Next weekend: Stage Two. Start thinking flowers, ivy and cloth.  You heard me!

DIY, Fredders.

As many of you don’t care about, I grew up some years ago, and have at least a few clear memories of the 1970s.  My sister is a few years younger than me, and I’ll warrant she has at least a few herself.  Both of us, however, have long treasured the memory of listening, on 13″ vinyl, of course, to the story of Oblio and his faithful dog, Arrow, on Harry Nilsson’s seminal album, The Point. Now, our parents specifically chose this album to play for us, both because of its cool ’70s music interwoven with a storylike narrative, and for its positive message of anti-discrimination.

The album affected both of so deeply that when, in our adult years, we recovered a copy of it, we both instantly fell back in love with it.  I keep it on my Mp3 player, and pull it out on rainy days, long car trips, republican presidencies, pretty much any time I feel gloomy or down.  Just the first few bars of “Everything’s Got ‘Em (This Is The Town And These Are The People)” can instantly buoy my mood.

I had long decided that if I ever had kids, I was going to play this for them too.  After stumbling upon this gem from Schmilsson himself, I definitely am.

“I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, ‘Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn’t, then there’s a point to it.” (Harry Nilsson, on the inspiration behind “The Point)

If you haven’t ever heard the album, go download it now from your chosen portal.  I don’t need to post a link to it, because you’re all grownups who choose their own music portals. Find a nice quiet spot to spend about 45 minutes, and just listen, beginning to end.  I guarantee you’ll be entertained.

Best album of our childhood…totally based on fat trips.  Awesome.

I have a PC that runs Vista, and I like it.

Possibly the first instance of those words being combined this way and printed, yet in my case it’s true.  I sandbagged my four-year old Dell and replaced it with a new one (I paid about 300 bucks for the last one, new, so I feel as though I got my money’s worth) but was unable to do anything about them installing Vista as the OS.  Once I got over the initial repulsion toward the Mac-like “launch bar” and the fact that Outlook Express will no longer hook up to my pop-3 mail, I’m kind of OK with it. Hopefully that lasts for a while. Probably it won’t.  Ah well, I can’t bring myself to care because…

I got to be on NPR.

This was some pretty cool shit right here. I emailed NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” about three months ago, and told them that I wanted to be on, so I could give Carl Kasel’s voice to my fiancee as a wedding present.  Apparently, humans actually read these emails, because I got a call last Wednesday from a charming woman named Emily, who asked me if I still wanted to be on. I told her I did, and after we chatted for a few minutes, she said “OK, well you’re on. We tape tomorrow night.” I was like “whaaaaashit…okay.” I hadn’t been paying attention to the news that week! Would I crash and burn? So I pulled about three hours of “study every news website and the npr.org weekly archive” and when the time came, I did okay. And holy shit was my fiancee surprised. I wish I coulda downloaded the look on her face and burned it to the CD with the show.  (And yeah, you can still download it in case you care to…till the new episode comes out this Saturday.) And yeah, that weekend on the Cape was a blast, even though…

Spending all day drinking on a Sunday puts you in the shitsack till Tuesday, at least.

Seriously.  We had one of those epic Sundays, the ones that started with getting up and watching cartoons with coffee, then wandering around the Cape looking for someplace to eat, finding one, eating lunch, having beers, remembering the Sox game was on at 1, then drinking through the Sox, then drinking outside because the sun came out finally. Epic. Bowling later? Of course! With some beers. Then, at home, a last screwdriver while I checked my email from over the weekend. And at last, bed.

And when I woke up, it felt like a raccoon took a shit in my brain. For two days. Surprised? Well, screw you. I was. But you know what DOESN’T surprise me?

Trucks that taunt you.

Well, folks, I’ve got a new place. We’ll be moving to Waltham next month, leaving scenic, historic Revere Beach behind. We’d been talking about finding a new place to live, but really hadn’t looked seriously. It’s hard to leave such a cheap apartment with everything included, but the family next door provided us with the motivation to get the hell out of there.

See, we live next door to the worst human beings on the planet. Just horrible, horrible people. I could spend all day describing their savage ways, but instead I’ll just give you the highlights:

1. 7:30 am Basketball camp- We share a driveway with these knuckle-dragging mouth breathers, and they decided it was a good idea to put a basketball hoop there. They also thought it would be nice to invite all their childrens’ friends to come over and play basketball at 7:30 in the morning. If you’ve ever been around children, you probably know that they tend to be noisy. They tend to scream. And one of them tends to both scream and cry when he’s not given the ball enough.
2. Wall-shaking, picture-breaking madness- As a byproduct of the Under 10 Year-Old Revere Beach Morning Basketball Camp, there’s the constant slamming of basketballs against our wall. It’s now gotten to the point where they do it so hard that they knock pictures off our wall. Now, let me be clear: it’s not just the children, it’s also the father. He goes out with the children to teach them how to play, but he’s really teaching them how to live life in a way that completely ignores the fact that other people are around. He’s teaching them a healthy disrespect for anyone, and he’s doing a great job at it. Though I’ve asked both the children and the father “Can you please stop bouncing the ball against my wall?” multiple times, they just continue doing it. Usually they either apologize first or say “it wasn’t on purpose”. They then just keep on doing it.
3. Let the neighbors clean up the dog shit- Not long ago, this family of apes bought a dog. It’s a puggle that barks constantly. Rather than trying to train the dog, the family of the year instead took the path of least resistance. That involves chaining the dog to their balcony and just letting it bark for hours while they go off to do whatever it is they do. When the dog is not on their balcony, they bring it to our front yard, chain it up there and leave him to shit everywhere. It’s always a pleasant experience when I go out to get our mail.
4. The final straw- Last week the subhumans finally did it. We saw it coming, and there was nothing we could do about it. After Randi got her car back from the shop (someone mysteriously broke her tail light), she heard the doorbell ring. It was the mother and three children. She said “the boys have something they have to tell you.” Then one of them somehow mustered the cognitive ability to say “we were playing ball and we broke your window”.

   Yep, that was their story.

   Later on, the father came to the door and changed the story to say that they were instead throwing rocks in the air and hitting them with a baseball bat. Mind you, this is in our driveway. He then informed Randi that it wasn’t his kid that did it. It was one of their friends, and he doesn’t know which one. When the insurance company called them to find out what happened, the story became “Our kids were outside and saw some of their friends hitting rocks with a bat, and her window got smashed.”

Here’s what the window looked like:

This all took place last week. Just two days ago I went out to my car and guess what? Their children were back outside playing baseball, aiming directly at the row of cars behind our building.

If I believed I could actually convince the father that his parenting style was sub-par, and that his children were making life absolutely miserable for us….well, I’d talk to him. But I just don’t think there’s any way that would work. I honestly believe that if you moved his dinner plate an inch in any direction, he would starve to death.

So, goodbye, Revere. We had some good times, now didn’t we? Off to historic Waltham where I’ll have a less than 5 minute commute and some semblance of sanity.

Many of us hate our jobs.

But I have managed to raise it to an art form.  I’ve been working at the same nonsense now for about twelve years (thought not all at the same company) and no, I’m not going to tell you what it is, since I’m shitting all over them.  Ah, who am I kidding, they’re probably reading it right now.  Anyway, I’ve discovered that I’ve raised “hating my job” to a new level.  The level of intellectual and creative rape to which you are required to submit in order to “properly carry out your job” here is staggering.  Imagine someone hands you a bucket of sand and tells you “You must account for and index the properties of every grain of sand in this bucket. And you must be able to answer questions about each grain and its properties on command.” And behind that bucket you see five hundred more and the person says “when you’re done with that bucket, start on the next.”

That’s my job. Depressing, no? It does pay reasonably well, though, and somehow I’ve managed to become good at it.  But last night I realized that I have completely sublimated the hatred for my job, pressed it down to the point that it actually manifests itself externally, in things like “alcohol abuse” and whatnot. Seriously, if I take an emotional inventory at any given moment, “I hate my job” is not actually on the active roster. It’s been forced onto some unseen level, repressed by my practical and survival-oriented forebrain, which realizes that if I were allowed to continuously experience the full horror of how much I actually loathe what I do for 8-12 hours a day, five days a week (sometimes six and seven) I would almost immediately succumb to some wasting illness and die. A wasting illness other than cirrhosis of the liver, that is.

I need Regime Change.