Getting Caught in the Draft

Today is a day that will live in infamy, as we rev up for our inaugural Champlain fantasy football draft.  At the last minute we had to switch from one fantasy football website to another because the first one would only allow us to have a live computer draft - which sounded too chaotic/stressful for a bunch of newbies.  The one we chose is going to allow us to carry out our draft offline (and then, much as with my fantasy baseball team) I'll add the players in later.  It should make for a more relaxed and fun-filled evening.  With the exception of a couple (quiet) ringers none of us know what we're doing so there should be much foolishness.  My hope is that my team, the Springfield Buffalo, avoids complete humiliation - especially in their Week 1 death match with Cyndi Brandenburg's Mojo Nixons.

The selection of draft order was carried out in the most official and solemn way I can imagine - drawing slips of paper out of an Omani hat.

Our excellent team log, designed by Bob Mayer's excellent wife Cindy.  It's an homage to one of my favorite Buffalo Springfield songs, "Down to the Wire."  If you look closely in the buffalo's fur you can see images of the original band members.  Brilliant.

Vermont League of Excellence

After threatening for several years I've finally dragooned several of my excellent friends into forming a fantasy football league, the Vermont League of Excellence.  While I've been a member of a fantasy baseball league, the Cincinnati-based Irrational league, for almost two decades, this will be our first foray into fantasy football.  While it is easy to mock fantasy league - and certainly many people take them way too seriously - I'm excited because it provides another opportunity to spend time with my extraordinary friends.  As one grows older it is natural that we appreciate the tremendous gift that our friends give us every day simply by being in our lives.  The Irrational League has forced me to keep in contact with friends from Cincinnati who might have faded away without this inspiration.  As you can see from the following logo from my friend Bob Mayer, obviously some of my friends share my enthusiasm.  I think my friends are mainly excited my decision to stay in Vermont because I'm the one who initiates this type of tomfoolery.

Fear the Poodles!

I'm including a great essay about fantasy football, written by Tony Gervino, that appeared in the New York Times, that nicely sums up the allure of the activity.  Thanks to the excellent Cinse Bonino for sending it along.

"Since 1991 I've competed in a fantasy football league with my college buddies, most of whom hail from the great state of New Jersey.  Fantasy football leagues typically draft online, but we still conduct our business face to face, convening once a year, in late August, at a faded South Jersey hotel, thick with cigarette smoke.  It's a weekend filled with steaks, beer, Bruce Springsteen bootlegs and affectionately toothless insults; a weird alternate universe where I wash down Cool Ranch Doritos with Mountain Dew and occasionally sleep in my clothes.

For the uninitiated, fantasy football is a statistical competition in which participants draft real-life N.F.L. players to fill imaginary teams.  And when the real play scores, so does the imaginary team.  The payoff at the end of the playoffs as a combination of money, bragging rights and, sometimes, a trophy.

It's not as exciting as it sounds.

Yet every Sunday in the fall, millions of participants like my friends and me surreptitiously track the performance of the Redskins quarterback - or some other player we'd normally have no interest in - while brunching with our wives' friends; we scrutinize weather forecasts and scour injury reports. You can begin to lose your marbles.  There was an occasion, in a London hotel years ago, when I actually asked my late father for guidance on my lineup.  To his credit, he was unforthcoming.

Over the years, my friends and I have all married; some guys have divorced, married again, divorced again.  Many have kids, and most have lost their jobs at some point.  A majority of us have gained weight, and some of us have become both hairier and balder.  Only our enthusiasm for these imaginary teams and for the draft has remained constant.

A few years ago, I offered to host the draft on my Greenwich Village terrace, but apparently I failed the most important criterion.  "Do you have a pool?" a league member asked.  "Because the hotel has a pool." I confessed that while I could have almost anything their hearts desired delivered to my apartment, day or night, I did not, in fact, have a pool.

It has been widely assumed for some time now that I would eventually quit our league. No one has said as much, but I'm not an idiot.  I'm the only one who lives in New York City.  I don't play golf or smoke cigarettes.  I'm childless and devour The Paris Review.  And my team moniker, The Fifty-Pound Head, is derived from he dark British comedy "Withnail & I." I'm closer in species to a unicorn than I am to some of my friends.  Yet I am also resolutely unwilling to surrender one of the few uncomplicated pleasures in what has become an increasingly complicated life - and the tether it provides to friends I might otherwise fall out of touch with.

I arrived at last year's draft an hour early and sat on a park bench in downtown Red Bank, N.J. with my friend Sean Roane, a managing editor at The Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown, Pa.  We updated each other on our lives and our emotional commitment to the league, which has increased in depth as years have gone by, as it turned from a mere hobby to the very adhesive holding our social circle together.

I reminded him of the season when I covertly drafted my team over the telephone during my 10th wedding anniversary and how the team I drafted performed abysmally.  We shared a laugh.

That Saturday night, while we waited for our friends to finish playing golf, we talked about how we considered the league a lifetime commitment.  For him it certainly was.

Sean died in May from cancer that had spread to his bones and lungs.  It was eating away at him the very night we were chatting.  His newspaper ran an obituary, which contained the line "One of his other passions was fantasy football, winning the championship trophy multiple times."

His wife, Bonnie, asked to have our championship trophy, a replica (in the loosest sense of the word) of the Lombardi Trophy, as his memorial service while people paid their respects to Sean, who, as far as bragging rights go, was exceptionally talented at managing a fantasy football team.

Sean's title win in 2011 was the most recent engraving we had made on the trophy, so we gave it to Bonnie.  We've ordered a new trophy.  It should be ready in time for the draft."

Fellow Traveler

Recently I was headed to Abu Dhabi and I knew my friend Rob Williams had a connector at the same time.  Naturally, I didn't think we'd run into each other - and, so, of course we did.  A great traveler and an even better friend.

African proverb: "All strangers are to one another kin."

Blues in the Green Mountains

For a professor who maintains a "culture of intimidation" (infamous administrative description) with his students, I do end up forming close and often long-term friendships with them.  I still swap emails with students, such as the excellent Kate and Lara from my Franklin College days, who I taught longer ago than any of us want to admit to.  I'm heading over to Andrew Smith's apartment this weekend for his first attempt at cooking chili (be afraid, be very afraid).  Last night I had the great pleasure of meeting my former student and good friend Ericka Bundy for the monthly blues night at On the Rise Bakery in Richmond.  Ericka has been in Austin, Texas for a year and is back in town for a few days visiting friends.  She's doing marvelously well in Austin, which makes me very happy.  Who knew she'd turn out so well?  I can remember drawing clocks on the chalkboard to explain to her the difference between Bundy-Time and regular time.  I had visited the On the Rise Bakery once before when my great friend Trish Siplon and I climbed Camel's Hump Mountain a few years ago, but had no idea that they hosted a monthly blues night.  Anyone can show up and play or sing, and there was some first rate talent on display.  While I knew that Ericka sang, I had no idea she had such a big voice and she wowed the crowd.  It was a great time, and I highly recommend that you make your way out to Richmond to check out the bakery.  Oh, and they have great coffee and food, in addition to the occasional killer blues night.

The On the Rise Bakery.  Who knew that it contained great blues music?  You head into Richmond and turn at the one stoplight and follow the signs for the famous Round Church.

A tight fit, but an enthusiastic crowd.

The excellent Ericka, who is obviously flourishing in Austin.

Unlike her performance in class, she was focused and right on time.

Shadows of Madrid

I took a break from grading to actually start working on one of my syllabi for Fall semester, and somehow ended up blogging (which I guess reaffirms the fact that few things are more dreadful than grading or syllabus constructions).  Here are some great shots that I took from on top of a cathedral of some appropriately somber Spanish statues on a gloriously overcast day.  Madrid is undeniably one of my all-time favorite cities. Over the last year I've finally begun printing off larger copies of some of my best overseas pictures, and I suspect that one of these - probably the top one - will be next.

Tughra

How can one man be so bloody incompetent?  Amazing, really.  Here are some very long-delayed shots from Istanbul.  They are various versions of a tughra, which is the distinctive signatures of Ottoman sultans.  They all have the same calligraphic standards.  The two circles on the left represent the two seas, the Mediterranean and the Black, that were dominated by the Ottomans sitting in Istanbul.  The three"flagpoles" at the top are supposed to represent independence, with the "flags" blowing from east to west - symbolic of Turkish expansion from the early centuries.  Not surprisingly the lines to the right represent swords and power.  The signatures are an art form in their own right, reaching their peak, as with most things Ottoman, during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent.

Caravanserai

I should be getting caught up on grading right now, but, as Fitzgerald warned us, I am being drawn back ceaselessly into the past.  Here are some pictures from trip to Yemen, which I still can't believe I made (and I would love to go back again).  I was fortunate enough to get a tour of a caravanserai, which is a sort of inn that was popular for centuries for travelling merchants.  They were especially important in areas such as the Indian Ocean where merchants were dealing with the changing monsoon wind patterns and thus might be stuck in one location for weeks if not months.  The caravanserai in Sana'a is in pretty bad shape, and is not even really open to the public.  My guide, provided by the nice Australian gentleman who rescued me when I managed to lock myself in my room (earlier post), talked our way inside.  In the end he wouldn't even accept any payment because he said he had too good of a time, and proposed that I could simply pay him next time.  I desperately hope I get the opportunity.  We're in the middle of another worldwide travel alert, and much of the buzz is related to events in Yemen, which is sad because it colors the perception of people around the world about the people of Yemen, who, as I've stated before, are the kindest I've ever met anywhere.

The formidable doors to the caravanserai.  Obviously a lot of valuable trade goods were protected behind these doors.

I think it was at this point where my guide (whose name I will look up in my notes and add to the posting) told me that the structures was still pretty sound, and that the only real problem was the occasional poisonous snake.

Apparently there are attempts to raise funds to fix up the caravanserai and turn it into a tourist location, but, sadly, they always fall through.

Pretty elaborate architecture, which reflects the former wealth and importance of Sana'a in the broader global trade network.

Some classic Arabic calligraphy.

Medieval plumbing.

My guide on the left and my Australian rescuer on the right.  Just two of the wonderfully friendly folks I met on the streets of Sana'a.

Hero Worship

And a great picture of my excellent friend, and cross-country travelling companion, Sanford Zale and his hero, Richard Nixon.  My theory is this relates to a very young Sanford, upon discovering the enormity of infinity, determining that the only person who could possibly count to infinity was the president of the United States, who was at that time Nixon (true story).  Or maybe it relates to their shared interest in recording everything.  Either way, it has inspired Sanford to name our chief Gentlemen of Excellence sporting event the Richard Nixon Four Sport Triathlon.  Allegedly, the winner of the competition can rename the trophy, although there is no word on Joe Manley's decision for a new name (he has won the last two, despite all of our efforts to handcuff him with blatantly anti-Manley rules).  Since I will obviously never win there is sadly no chance for anyone in the future to compete for the Vladimir Ilych Lenin Four Sport Triathlon trophy.

The similarities are striking.

Doors of Zanzibar

Doors close and doors open.  Maybe in the end life is only about what you do at that moment.

Doors of Lisbon

Just a few long-delayed pictures from my trip to Lisbon a year and a half ago.  It was a rainy reprieve from the sun and heat of Abu Dhabi.  The tiles are classically Portuguese.

Herding Cats

Just a couple pictures sent along from the excellent Heidi Burkhardt (nee Steiner) from their wedding.

A shot from the rehearsal.  Typically, Heidi is on task and Andy is causing mischief.  Their first mistake was looking to me for guidance.

And then, oddly, it was Heidi who produced the defining moment of the wedding by putting the ring on the wrong hand.  Doubtless, it was Andy's fault.  Probably no one would have noticed if I had not pointed it out by whispering sotto voce.  Still, these are always the best moments of weddings.  The honor of officiating at their wedding is easily one of the greatest honors of my life.