20TH ANNIVERSARY SANDLOT TOUR - 4.10.2013 - DAY 4

MEMPHIS, TN to CROSSVILLE, TN

Dear Reader,

As we left the hotel, backpacks on, Captain Maverick on his leash and preceding us out the door and into the hallway, we did not see what transpired in the next few seconds, but this is what we heard (and I'm spelling this dialogue out phonetically because otherwise it loses all its impact - remember, we're in the south):

"Oh no! OH NO!  DOG!  BLACK DOG!  BIG BLACK DOG!  OH NO HE D'ENT, OH NO YOU  D'ENT! AHHHHH!!!"

We step out into the hallway after Captain Maverick and find a shudderingly terrified Housekeeper Lady hiding behind her cart, wielding it like a rolling shield against what clearly she perceived as a rabid wolf.   We apologize, and I tell Captain Maverick, "tighten up" - his command to heel closer to my leg - and as we're walking by the Housekeeper - she slowly turning the cart to keep it between her and the beast - I say, "Sorry about that, he's a very good boy, and well trained."  She replies, never taking her eyes from Captain Maverick, "I don't care!"

Captain Maverick in his Mobile Command Center before we leave Memphis and right after he unintentionally terrified a Housekeeping Lady at the La Quinta Inn, Memphis 

Captain Maverick ready for the long slog to Nashville

 Fair enough.  Oops.  You see here's the deal with Captain Maverick, he's an intimidating looking S.O.B.  And before I start getting a bunch a chastising emails from overly-sensitive mom's about the term S.O.B. I'll say this; there are no bad words, only words used badly.  I'm a writer.  Trust me on this. And furthermore, I'm using the term in its animal-husbandry sense here, because, of course, Captain Maverick is a canine and his mother was, in fact, a bitch.  So there ya go.

In the parking lot Captain Maverick jumps into his rear Command Center and as we shut the hatchback, what can only be described as a metric ton of pollen falls off the rear window.  Clearly we need a Whizzy-Wash.  And $150 in quarters.

Captain Maverick (with Navigator Stacey) settling in for the day's interstate slog

So with all the t-shirts vac-packed and stowed neatly in the Tour Truckster (literally without an inch to spare) we got a bit of late start because the hotel was right next to a 24 Hour Fitness gym and I was not leaving the pollenated wilds of Memphis, TN without steaming myself into a poached oblivion.

So I did.  And then Navigator Stacey did the same, each of us taking turns with Maverick in the Tour Truckster because he doesn't have a membership to that particular fitness chain.

Sweet relief for the Tour truckster

Pores cleansed, we head to the Whizzy-Wash, which here in the south is called Sunshine Wash. 

Buttermilk cornbread pollen attack!

It even gets inside, ARGH!

 I attempt to pre-soak with the wimpy stream of water and absolutely nothing happens.  The pollen just laughs at me.  Because you see, it's not just pollen, it's as if someone baked an acre sized deep-dish buttermilk cornbread and set it out to dry for 6 months.  Then, once the hardness of concrete, used a jackhammer to bust the cornbread into chunks, after which they tossed it into a tree chipper which spit out marble sized pieces of 40 grit gravel which then was applied to the Tour Truckster through a pressure washer mixed with super-glue.  Switching to "Hi-Pressure" I manage to get the junk off, but the damage done to the wiper blades is horrifying.  Mere shreds of their former rubbery selves.  So after a quick stop at Wally-World for a new set we finally hit the road.

GPS Lady, that Navigator Stacey has nicknamed "Rhonda," as  in the great Beach Boys song, "Help Me Rhonda!"

With about 1,000 miles to go to get to Philadelphia the intention was to split that into two 500 mile days, this day making it to the east side of Nashville.  But after 250 odd miles, with it getting dark, and my nighttime depth perception essentially worthless, and Navigator Stacey cramped in the passenger seat because it had been moved all the way forward to accomodate the t-shirts in the back seat, we decided to stop early.  In Crossville, TN.  Never heard of it?  Yeah, me either.

Sidebar: Tennessee drivers.  People of Tennessee take a knee.  Now listen to me, you idiots, it's a categorical impossibility that you all have the same last names, Allison, Yarborough, Earnhardt, Gordon and/or Petty.  It's not a Nascar race, it's an interstate.  And running up the tailpipe of the guy in the Tour Truckster who's doing 75 in the slow lane and drafting there expecting him to change lanes into a non-existent "slower" lane to the right is so stupid that ya'll aren't doing yourselves any favors on that whole "Stereotypical Southern Redneck" flowchart.  So back the hell off.

Moving on.

Quick sidebar: you won't find much litter in Memphis, TN., it's a remarkably trash-free city... EXCEPT for this: and you will see this EVERYWHERE... discarded "wing-bones":

Discarded "chicken wing" bone

We check in, then run Captain Maverick in the grassy area outside the La Quinta Inn, stow him in the "Little House" (our code-words for when he stays in the hotel room bathroom for an hour while we do errands) and head for the end of day Tour Beer.

La Quinta, Crossville, TN

There's a whole lot of nothing around here

I have no idea what this is, an NFL bar?

Here's the place we found (I mean "Really?!"  Are you kidding me?! In the middle of TN??):

Yes, a little bit if Vegas in Crossville

The tidy Lounge sign

Entrance to The Vegas Lounge, Crossville, TN

 

Top quality mural on the entrance wall of the Vegas Lounge, Crossville, TN

Vegas Lounge, Crossville, TN.  Craig holding court.

We meet four new friends here, James the bartender, and patrons Marty, Craig and Jo-Jo.  Good guys.  And Jo-Jo's a member of a motorcycle gang.  Even better.

Now, I never, ever tell anyone what I do, who I am (not that it matters) unless I am asked, and even then it's always a sketchy proposition because believe me, everyone between LA and NYC is obsessed with movies, movie directors yada yada...  It can get real weird, real fast.

But... they seemed like okay guys.  And they were.  So after signing a bunch of Sandlot Tour t-shirts for them (which I am finding is actually legal tender in the United States of America, because I haven't paid for the a beer yet!)  Craig tells me that The Sandlot is his favorite movie of all time and that he and a coworker are continually trying to out-do each other with Sandlot knowledge, trivia and who can say "You're killin' me Smalls!" first to whom every morning at work.

Sandlot t-shirt signed to Jo-Jo and his motorcycle club... in remembrance of their passed leader

Ibid

Just to prove the point

I tell Craig, "Here's what you do... walk into work tomorrow, tell this guy (Paul I think his name was), Paul, please, you're going to want to sit down for this.  And you're going to need to please close your eyes.  Once he does, lay the t-shirt out in front of him on the table, with the autographed section facing him.  Let him stew like that until he's really uncomfortable.  Then tell him to open his eyes.  When he does, as egomaniacally as you can possibly say it, say this:  I WIN!" HA!  Wish I coulda been there to see that.

And now, the most awesome short video of the stay in Crossville (sorry jo-Jo, the world needs to see this):

After the end-of-day tour Beer...

End of day beer at Vegas Lounge, Crossville, TN

... it was back to the La Quinta (all of them pet-friendly BTW) to sleep because tomorrow was going to suck.  We were looking forward with no uncertain dread to an almost 800 mile day.

Check back soon and sign up to follow our adventures on The 20th Anniversary Sandlot Tour!

Best,

DME

20TH ANNIVERSARY SANDLOT TOUR - 4.09.2013 - DAY 3

DME's Sandlot Tour official road song

A DAY IN WHICH WE GET NOWHERE FAST, BUT GET A LOT DONE

Dear Reader,

So we ended up having to stay in Memphis over 2 nights, because it took that long to fold 1,000 t-shirts. 

How we were going to get them all in the Tour Truckster was a baffling allocation-of-space-conundrum the likes of which would've driven a Hoarder with OCD (is that redundant?) to jump off a cliff.

T-Shirts awaiting folding

Suddenly, in a moment which can only be described as Shop-Vac like inspiration, Navigator Stacey yells: "Space bags!"

Yeah.  Those things.  You shove a hundred blankets into one, hit it with a vacuum cleaner and Presto it stuff is now flat as a Flounder.

Tennessee State Line

We picked up a selection of Space-Bags at the local Bed Bath and Beyond, in, obviously, the "Beyond" section, because Space-bags have no place in either your bedroom or bathroom.

After a little trial and error, we dialed in on the most useable size Space-Bags, stopped at the local Home Depot for a pint-sized Shop-Vac and this is what happened:

Now, I'm a neat freak.  I don't have a problem with neatness, I have a problem with messes.  And these Space-Bags are like neat-freak crack.  I'm buying stock in the ZipLoc company.

We took a break from the folding slog and went for a beer.  When we came back, almost all the rest of the unfolded shirts had been tidily folded!  When we walked into the room, this is what we saw:

Captain Maverick in Cobbler's Elf mode

Captain Maverick helping by folding t-shirts

Captain Maverick in full-on Retail Mode

After we got all the t-shirts safely Space-Bagged, vac'd-out and stowed in the Tour Truckster, I hit the local Pac-N-Ship for a poster box.  The Lady there had one that was the exact size I needed.  800 posters in a cardboard box weighs about 200 pounds.  It was a chore lifting it into the back seat - but I did it, in a no uncertain profanity laced effort.

T-Shirts folded and ready for vac-ing

After that it was email time.  My inbox has gone bat-do-do because of all the press lately, especially the Sports Illustrated interview.

T-shirts tidily packed

Every stack marked with its size

Then it was end of day beer time.  We are back on the road tomorrow noon for a 500 mile day.  We will hit Philly on Thursday to wash of the road grime and get ready for a full day of press.

Floor to ceiling, kind of like 50 airbags, so, we're safe

Yeah, just waiting for a State Trooper to ticket me because I can't see out the back

Check back tomorrow for Tour day 4.

End of day beer, Fallon IPA

Best,

DME

20TH ANNIVERSARY SANDLOT TOUR - 4.08.2013 - DAY 2

Morrow, Georgia to Memphis, Tennessee 

Dear Reader,

Yesterday's trip from Morrow, GA to Memphis TN was, for the most part smooth and easy.

 For about 425 miles in 6 hours we had the GPS lady route us off the major freeways and headed through Alabama, a little bit of Mississippi and then into Tennessee over Route 72.

When you travel with a canine, you end up meeting everyone else on the road that travels with a canine.  As we were leaving the hotel this morning, we met an older couple, snowbirds, on the way back to Indiana from Florida.  they had a van, the entire back half of which was dedicated to their huge, black Newfoundland dog, Pearl.

Captain Maverick said hello, and we were on the road.

Newfy "Pearl"

Pearl, a living pillow of a dog

Spring just starting to make itself known and some of the scenery was just spectacular.   I kept saying to Navigator Stacey, "Get a picture of that beautiful field with yellow flowers!  Oh, and a picture of that awesome bridge!"  Of course, in the relatively hermetically sealed Tour Truckster, I was completely missing the meaning of all that beautiful "yellow" just bursting all around us.  What it meant was about to blow up in my face - like, literally.

Alabama, spring is in the air - literally!

Quick note: Alabama drivers?  Not bad.  Not bad at all.  A bit of a speedy lot, but on the whole okay.

Alabama drivers - not bad!

Light traffic - thank you God!

Clear ahead

Getting close to the hotel, I saw the most disturbing thing.  A giant, sworling cloud of yellow stuff, which can only be described as Mustard gas, erupting from a pine tree.  I mean a cloud of the stuff, a whole vast aerial acre of the junk.  Remember that pretty spring yellow color in the fields along I-72?

Well, I step out of the Truckster and instantly, and I mean like nano-second instantly, I get smacked in the face with a powdery plume of the yellow gak and my eyes swell shut like I'd just eaten an entire triple cheese, pepperoni pizza topped with a box of rock salt.  And I'm a vegetarian.   I scramble for my iphone, because clearly that fat little North Korean dictator has managed to launch a missile with a mustard gas warhead all the way to Memphis TN, and somehow the boys at NORAD missed it!

Captain Maverick's favortie!

Tennessee has the best Rest Stops!

I drop the phone because now I'm having trouble breathing.  This is getting bad, I think to myself, and start tearing my backpack apart feeling (because I sure as hell can't see anything right now!) for my Epi-Pen.  Just as I'm about to jack it into my thigh, I realize it isn't mustard gas - it's pollen.  Whole freaking oceans of pollen.  The Truckster is green.  Now it was yellow:

Mustard Gas

The Tour Truckster gone yellow

Pollenated running boards

You see, I have allergies.  And I'm in Tennessee.  At the beginning of spring.  And mother nature is just unloading, in all her fecund majesty, her plantspermia all over my delicate little hay-fevered self.

Panic.  "Stacey?!  Zyrtec!  STAT!"

So we go to a nearby Target and I grab a bottle of Zyrtec and swallow it.  Grab a bottle of super hi-octane "Allergy eye drops" and squirt the whole thing into my eyes.

Beat.  Beat. Ahhhhhhh.... Thank you Lord.

Quick sidebar: one thing you'll notice in Memphis is a lot of camouflage.  Camouflage trucks.  Camouflage table clothes.  Camouflage strollers.  Just about anything you'd think to want to hide-in-plain sight can be found in Memphis.  It's a southern thing.  I live in Florida, and that's fairly southern, but, like, sunny-southern.  Memphis is southern-southern.  And the thing you'll see most in a tidy camouflage package is cargo-shorts.  Now since I happen own a pair of these, I'll let it die right here.  The jokes are just too easy.  And if you don't have to work to make a good joke, well, then it's just not worth it.

Because we got an early start (which is really the only way to start when you're covering 400 plus miles a day) we got into Memphis about 3:30 PM CT.  We got to the hotel and completely unloaded the Tour Truckster.  I knew the load of posters and t-shirts was going to be huge, so we needed every available square inch of interior space.

the GPS Lady

An hour later we were at my friend, Jim Walker's, house loading posters and t-shirts into the Truckster. I had badly (okay, cataclysmically!) under estimated the stuff.  There were about 1,000 t-shirts and 800 posters!   The t-shirts were in big cardboard boxes.  The posters flat-packed, but they weighed, all together, I swear like 200 pounds!  How can paper weigh that much?!  Clearly the trees from which they were produced were all laughing their collective pulpy butts off - "Payback!"

Drury Inn's are ALL Pet Friendly, Captain Maverick' approved!

Somehow, we got all the stuff in the Truckster.  Bu then there wasn't a freaking square centimeter of space left.  How the hell were we gonna get all "our stuff" back in?!  This is a bad bad turn of circumstances.  Now, as panic kills, I didn't panic, but I sure as hell fretted.  Like, a lot.

So we get back to the hotel and unload everything from the Truckster into the room.

1,000 t-shirts.  800 posters.  How are we going to get all that and all our gear into a Honda Pilot?

460 miles end of day 2 beer at Sharkeys in Memphis

We had no idea.

Check back tomorrow for Day 3.

Best,

DME

20TH ANNIVERSARY SANDLOT TOUR - 4.07.2013 - DAY 1

Dear Reader,

I'm going to post at the end of each day, or following morning (such as this post), with perhaps some gaps in-between when the time between screening events is more than a week.

And just as a side-bar, I looked up the World Record for audience size at a single film screening.  It's something like 28,442 and it was set in 2012.

Well, I've heard rumors that we might exceed that number at one of the stadiums we're going to screen in.

Got a bit of a late start out of Florida heading for Memphis, TN to pick up some Sandlot merchandise from a good friend of mine who lives there.  He's been holding it for me since we did a test-run screening at Autozone Park last October.

Chief of Security, Captain Maverick Vom Evans, and Navigator Stacey were right on time and eager to go.  So we loaded the Tour Truckster, hit the gas station for petrol and tire air, stuck the new SunPass sensor to the windshield (Ha! No more stopping at toll booths!) and headed south on I-4 to 408 West to 75 North.

The destination for the day was Morrow, GA, about 20 miles south of Atlanta.  Thereby breaking the 800 odd miles to Memphis into two more palatable chucks of driving.

A quick primer: Florida drivers?  A-holes.  They've a particular penchant for cutting you off at 80 mph with no turn signal and 14 inch to spare.  I like to call this the Spontaneous Non-Indicative Lane Change.  I wish that added up to a cool acronym but it doesn't.

Georgie drivers?  Speedy A-holes.  Not so much with the potentially murderous lane changing, but dude, seriously, do you have to crawl up my tail pipe when I'm already doing 80 in a 70 zone?  I swear not one of them was going less than 90 mph.  The nice thing about it is, that apparently the State of Georgia knows all about this, and so, have deployed stealth State Trooper cars with some sort of new cloaking device.  May like ten times in 4 hours some frickin' Nascar wannabe would rip by me and out of sight, only to reappear moments later having been pulled over by the a GST.  Out of nowhere - the trooper just appeared.  Awesome.

Otherwise all was well, just a bit of slog 6 plus hours OTR dodging idiots.

But I'll tell you what, you meet the nicest people at state rest stops.  And most of them have dogs, like Maverick.  Well, okay, not at all like Maverick, but they are of the canid species.

Captain Maverick is a hit everywhere he makes an appearance.  First question out of every little kid's mouth: "Can I pet your German Shepherd?"  First words out of every adult's mouth: "Is he a police dog?"

It's currently 8:35 Am 4.08.2013 - so I gotta hit the road.  Here's a quick photo of the size of Maverick's paws.  I don't know why.  I just thought it was freakin' amazing.  And a series of pix from the first leg of the drive to Memphis.

Captina Maverick's Paw. X-Large

Captain Maverick in his command center

The Tour Truckster

At a rest stop in Georigia

Gerogia rest stop

Captain Maverick's favorite sign!!!

A little sign from the Man Upstairs - a good omen

Where the tour begins and ends for we 3 travellers

What the HELL did we do before GPS?!

Check back tomorrow.

Best  DME

MLB FANTASY BASEBALL DRAFT - ROUND #1, PICK #1...

Big League Stew’s Fantasy Fantasy Draft: Tapping fiction to create our own dream teams!

Dear Reader,

Of all the baseball playing characters in fiction, in all the world; every movie, TV show, book, video game, of all time, guess who was drafted #1 in the first round?

Yep.  Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez!!!

Check it out:

MLB Fantasy Baseball Draft of Fictitious Baseball Players

1.01: - Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez, "The Sandlot" (Scott Pianowski)

Unlike many of the picks in the early rounds, I'm not going to have signability issues with this pick. Rodriguez is also a high character guy (remember, he never gives Smalls a hard time), a five-tool athlete, and someone who plays a premium position. If I nail this selection, I've set up my franchise for 10-15 years. The marketing department already loves him. Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.

Also, interestingly enough, the character picked #6 in the 5th round is Sylverster Coddmyer III, from the Matt Christopher book, "The Kid who Only Hit Homers."  I've teamed up recently with producer Wayne Chesler to direct this movie.  Can't wait!

5.06: Sylvester Coddmeyer III, "The Kid Who Only Hit Homers" (Oz)Seeing as how we've established these players are being drafted at their peak, this one is a no-brainer. In the book, the kid sucks until some "Ghost of Babe Ruth" figure comes along and gives him home-run hitting powers. On my team, he'll hit a home run literally every time he's up. So that ought to make my offensive categories a lock every week.

Best,

DME

P.F. FLYERS 20TH ANNIVERSARY SANDLOT "THE SECRET WEAPON" MODEL!!!

Dear Reader,

This is possibly the coolest thing I have ever been associated with!  When I was a kid these were the shoes I wanted, really really badly.  Every kid did.   They were (and are) the single greatest sneaker in the history of mankind - and were and are reasonably priced as well - but we were very poor and I
could never actually attain a pair.

And now, I have (what I like to think of) as my own model, or at least a model named after a heroic line that I created.


20th Anniversary Sandlot Secret Weapon PF Flyers!

Thanks to my friends at PF Flyers, and especially Erin Norsen!   Dreams really do come true.

Hey, Michael Jordan?  I WIN! HA!

Thanks for reading and sign up to follow!

Best,

DME

20TH ANNIVERSARY SANDLOT TOUR DATES & PLACES UPDATE!

Dear Reader,

Here's the latest, up-to-date list of places & dates for my upcoming 20th Anniversary Sandlot tour!

Hope to see you at a screening.

Best,

DME

THE SANDLOT 20^TH ANNIVERSARY

*SCREENING LOCATIONS/DATES

ARM & HAMMER Park, home of the Trenton Thunder (Trenton, New Jersey) – 4/13/13

Fluor Field at the West End, home of the Greenville Drive (Greenville, South Carolina) – 4/19/13

Arvest Ballpark, home of the Northwest Arkansas Naturals (Springdale, Arkansas) – 4/21/13

Rangers Ballpark, home of the Texas Rangers (Arlington, Texas) – 5/11/13

Tucson Padres at Kino Stadium (Tucson, Arizona) – 5/18/13

Target Field, home of the Minnesota Twins (Minneapolis, Minnesota) – 5/19/13

Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals (St. Louis, Missouri) – Date to be announced

Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark, home of the Oklahoma City RedHawks (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) – 6/1/13

AutoZone Park, home of the Memphis Redbirds (Memphis, Tennessee) – 6/15/13

Steinbrenner Field, home of the Tampa Yankees (Tampa, Florida) – 6/22/13

Dell Diamond, home of the Round Rock Express (Round Rock, Texas) – 6/25/13

Whataburger Field, home of the Corpus Christi Hooks (Corpus Christi, Texas) – 6/29/13

Fifth Third Field, home of the Toledo Mud Hens (Toledo, Ohio) – 7/5/13

Classic Park, home of the Lake County Captains (Eastlake, Ohio) – 7/12/13

CommunityAmerica Ballpark, home of the Kansas City T-Bones (Kansas City, Kansas) – 7/26/13

Security Service Field, home of the Colorado Springs Sky Sox (Colorado Springs, Colorado) – 8/2/13

Fifth Third Field, home of the Dayton Dragons (Dayton, Ohio) – 8/10/13

Werner Park, home of the Omaha Storm Chasers (Omaha, Nebraska) – 8/17/13

The Epicenter, home of the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes (Rancho Cucamonga, California) – 8/30/13

Coolray Field, home of the Gwinnett Braves (Lawrenceville, Georgia) – 9/21/13

*Subject to Change