World's best leashes and gear for your dog!

 Dear Reader,

I am not in the habit of endorsing anyone or anything, but when I find a product that is top quality, does what the manufacturer claims it does, and just flat out "works" then I have to pass it along.

Maverick on watch at the beach

I just received the gear that I ordered for Maverick, my GSD, from Xtreme Pet Products and it is nothing less than outstanding.  The world's best leashes, harnesses and gear for your dog.  So visit their site and buy their gear -- I promise you will not be disappointed.

Xtreme Pet Products

Here's the testimonial I wrote for them:

"I just received my extreme security leash with the added stretch section.  I first saw these at the Los Angeles County Fair where Xtreme Pet Products had a booth.  I didn't have a dog at the time, but admired the top quality construction and top level materials used in making their leashes (and everything else for that matter), and wanted to buy one anyway!  I saved their card for four years.  I'm glad I did.  It's simply the best leash in

the world.  My 2 year old pure bred German Shepherd Dog loves it, and the slight recoil through the stretch section has eliminated his minor "pulling problem" (he's a well trained, but enthusiastic boy) -- he feels the back-pull, and instantly stops pulling.  I'll be buying from Xtreme Pet Products again.

Thanks,

David Mickey Evans
(Writer/Director/Narrator - The Sandlot)"

Thanks for reading and check back soon,

P.S. if you have one of those little plastic spool reel "leashes" that reels and un-reels as your dog comes and goes, take it over to your trash can and toss it in there -- that's not a leash it's a "Popeil Pocket Fisherman."  Just like in the late 70's when the skateboard crazy hit and Orthopedic Surgeons got rich setting broken bones, Veteranarians are sounding the alarm about those things -- seems there's been a ridiculous increase in dogs getting hit by cars and bikes because there's no control over the animal when it decides to bolt -- like a hooked fish on a reel with the drag set way too loose.  That is, of course if you haven't trained your dog, and if you haven't, why?  Don't Blame. Train.  Buy a real leash.  Buy it from Xtreme Pet Products. ;)

Best,

DME

2,523 miles cross country in 35 hours with only one speeding ticket, 40 Years Later, Inc., Sunrises vs. Sunsets and working with my son......

Treasure Island, e-books, The Carolwood Pacific Railroad & David Mickey's Sandlot Bar & Grill

Dear Reader,

What do my slip covered Folio Society edition of Treasure Island, complete with the wondrous original Andrew Wyeth illustrations, e-books, Walt Disney's original backyard railroad the Carolwood Pacific, and David Mickey's Sandlot Bar & Grill have in common?

Absolutely nothing.  And everything.  Sort of...

Let's talk about books first.  I love books.  The way they look, the way they feel and what they represent, but mostly because of what they actually are: the repository of the sum total of all human experience.  There are those that make the argument that books are dead, that the internet is not only quickly becoming, but already has become the sole repository for the sum total of human knowledge and experience -- the modern day library of Alexandria or indeed that of Atlantis -- but can you touch it?  Sure you can see it, interact with it, maybe even in 3D, but can you feel it?  Can you smell it?  Can you actually feel the author's dramatic intent?  In other words a book is much more than the sum of it's raw materials parts.  As you turn the pages, as the story unfolds in your hands, the author, the storyteller is actually there with you, speaking to you, telling you the story.  On the internet, e-books, in other words, it unfolds before your eyes certainly, but not in your hands.  No, not even with a Kindle or a Nook.  Books are paper, letters in ink on pages your can touch.  E-books are not books.  They're digital representations of books in two dimensions.  Virtual books, but certainly not virtually books.

Now, having said that, I recently downloaded Kindle for Mac and bought my first e-book.  It's very very cool.  And I like it fine.  Really cool functions like book marking, the ability to jump instantly to anywhere in the material, etc...  But it's all removed from you the human.  It's there alright, all the information and words and the material, but think of it like this, do this little experiment, google "Chauvet Caves Southern France."

The cave paintings in Chauvet are the oldest known pictorial, that is to say "story," creations of humankind.  Now look at those drawings on your computer screen.  Neat, huh?  Now, get on a plane and go to The Chauvet Caves in Southern France and stand there are stare at the real thing on the cave walls.  Neat, huh?  No, it's transcendent.  It's astonishing.  It puts you in direct communication with who you are and where you came from and even give you some sense of why.

That's what books do.  That's why books exist.  That's why I love books.

So the point of all that is this, story.  Story matters.  If there is a single word to which the sum of human existence and experience can be reduced it is "story."  Story is memory.  Story is imagination.  Story is history.  Story is the who, what, where, when, how and why of all of us.

I look at the Chauvet cave paintings and I ask myself, "Why did this person, or people, 30,000 years ago feel the need to put those pictures there?  Those stories?"  Know what I think?  I think he/she they created it for a reason that is perhaps the single connective piece of sinew binding all of us, every human that has ever lived, lives or will live... and it is this...

... they did not want to be forgotten.

Our stories -- and every one of us has a story both unique and the same all at once -- are all we are.  I do not want to be forgotten.  Do you?

Yes, story matters.

So what do this have to do with Walt Disney's Carolwood Pacific backyard railroad and David Mickey's Sandlot Bar & Grill?  Well, story.  Disney's small scale fascination with miniature steam locomotives lead directly to a large scale kingdom.  Disneyland is the single greatest piece of architecture in the history of humankind.  It's form and it's function are perfectly integrated.  Why?  How did he do that?  Story.  He said a million times during the planning and building phases of the Magic Kingdom, make sure the story comes through.  It was his underlying principle to the entire idea.  It had never been done before, or had it?  Certainly not within the context of an amusement park, but obviously in movies, in books.  Yes, books.  Disneyland and Walt Disney World are books architecturally.  They are, like books, story made actual.  Story made to exist in the dimensions beyond the spoken word.

That's what I want to do with a bar and grill.  I have every meaningful prop and memorabilia from every movie I have ever directed. My little dream is to display it all within a Bar and Grill and theme the entire place loosely around baseball - more specifically The Sandlot.  Maybe with batting cages out back.  A monitors playing my movies.  Sell t-shits, caps, books, autographed stuff... sound egomaniacal?  On the contrary,  there's two reasons I want to have a place of my own like this where everybody can come and enjoy.

Because it's fun.

And because I don't want to be forgotten.

Scribes in ancient Egypt knew they were as important as great men and pharaohs; their writings could triumph over death, as in this elegy from a 19th-dynasty papyrus of about 1300 B.C.:

Be a scribe! Put it in you heart,

that your name shall exist like theirs!

The roll is more excellent than the carved stela.

A man has perished: his corpse is dust,

and his people have passed from the land;

it is a book which makes him remembered

in the mouth of the speaker.

So every time I think the task is too daunting, I look at Disneyland and Walt Disney World and, realizing  that "one guy" did that, just one man out of his own mind, I say to myself, "Shut up, Dave.  Just shut up and tell your story."

Thanks for reading and check back soon.

And sign up to follow on the right side of the main page.

Best,

DME

Winner of The Sandlot fan for 2011!"

Dear Reader,

This is Jaron Paschke's new tattoo, featuring Ham "The Babe" Porter calling his shot, pointing to the centerfield fence, enveloped by a banner that reads, "Heroes get remembered, but Legends never die." Congrats Jaron, I hereby name you "The Sandlot's biggest fan of 2011."

Also, a quick shout out to my friend Christopher Sulzbach.  Christopher, your dad was telling there are some guys at school that claim you are making up the fact that I know both you and your dad.  Well, here's your proof.  To the guys that were giving you grief, I mean this in the nicest possible way, "Shut. Up." :)  Chris, there is a autographed poster and DVD coming your way.  So there ya go.

I have a new post coming in the next few days.  Subjects include: self publishing, my The Folio Society slip covered copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, and my internal coming to grips with my love of books, and my new romance with Kindle for Mac.

Thanks for reading, sign up to follow and check back soon.

Thanks,

DME

"Robert Radio Flyer, The King of Pacoima"

Dear Reader,

Here's the preliminary cover art of my new book, Robert Radio Flyer, The King of Pacoima.  If I can figure out how to post a pdf chapter in Blogspot I'll do so this week.

Thanks for reading and check back soon.

DME

Glastonbury Isle of Light...

Dear reader,

Here's a link to a web show mentioning a very big film I am attached to direct, Glastonbury, Isle of Light, which tells the story of Joseph of Aramithea.  It's about two minutes in.

http://www.youtube.com/user/hobbitin5

Thanks for reading and check back soon,

DME

What have you killed lately, or more about the old Bullfighter...

About one quarter of my libraryDear Reader,

Dear Reader,

I'm going to move soon.  So I have been boxing up my library while simultaneously entering all my volumes into a couple great database programs; Delicious Library for Mac and Collectorz Library.  Collectorz is a far deeper program while Delicious is easier - scan  the bar code through your MacBook camera and boom.  Done.  This helps when you have 4,000 odd volumes.  Collectorz does the same thing but you have to buy the extra barcode scanner.  No thanks.  The nice thing is you can enter everything into Delicious and then import it to Collectorz.  Simple.  Cheaper.  Better.

Inevitably I re-discovered and started reading stuff I had forgot I had, like "The Leather Bound Library of The Complete Works of Ernest Hemingway."  I love Easton Press books, leather bound, heavy, beautiful bindery, acid free nuke-proof paper and sometimes some really interesting forwards and introductions commissioned exclusively for the individual volumes themselves.  Easton Press books are wonderful, they feel solid, they look beautiful and you can actually use them as blocks with which you can build a hurricane proof shelter in the event you need one.

So, Papa.  The Old Man.  The Goddamn Old Bullfighter...

Easton Press Editions of Hemingway

The five volumes I recently tore through are In Our Time - 1925,  The Green Hills of Africa -1935,  To Have and Have Not - 1937,  The Dangerous Summer - 1960, and The Garden of Eden - posthumously 1986.

in our time: (it was originally published without capitals) is a complexly interwoven series of snapshot short stories the chapters of which (each of which is a short story in itself) are bridged with the most evocative and see-it-all by saying-next-to-nothing paragraphs you'll ever read.  It includes three of my favorite short stories of all time, Indian Camp, Big Two-Hearted River: Part I, Big Two-Hearted River: Part II.

Here's the bridge paragraph from CHAPTER VII: "They shot the six cabinet ministers at half-past six in the morning against the all of the hospital.  There were pools of water in the courtyard. There were wet dead leaves on the paving of the courtyard. It rained hard. All the shutters of the hospital were nailed shut. One of the ministers was sick with typhoid. Two soldiers carried him downstairs and out into the rain. They tried to hold him against the wall but he sat down in a puddle of water. The other five stood very quietly against the wall.  Finally the officer told the soldiers it was no good trying to make him stand up. When they fired the first volley he was sitting down in the water with his head on his knees."


That is writing cleanly where the density is all below the surface - a good example of what Hemingway referred to as the Iceberg Theory of writing (this from Wikipedia):

^{In his writing the facts float above water; the supporting structure and symbolism operate out-of-sight.  Writing in "The Art of the Short Story," he explains: "A few things I have found to be true. If you leave out important things or events that you know about, the story is strengthened. If you leave or skip something because you do not know it, the story will be worthless. The test of any story is how very good the stuff that you, not your editors, omit."}

The Green Hills of Africa:  Hemingway goes to Africa.  On safari.  With a big gun.  Hemingway shoots every living thing with four legs and two horns.  And likes it.  Okay so that's what it is on the surface, but beneath all the Kudu tracking, Rhino shooting, Lion hunting it's really about Hemingway examining writing and his life and what it all means.  The introduction in this volume is by Patrick Hemingway, one of Hemingway's sons.  I did not like it.  I do however very much like the forward Hemingway included:

"Unlike many novels, none of the characters or incidents in this book are imaginary. Any one not finding sufficient love interest is at liberty, while reading it, to insert whatever love interest he or she have at the time. The writer has attempted to write an absolutely true book to see whether the shape of a country and the pattern of a month's action can, if truly presented, compete with a work of imagination."

A couple of my favorite excerpts:

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.  If you read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys.  That is the real end.  The rest is just cheating.  But it's the best book we've had.  All American writing comes from that.  There was nothing before.  There has been nothing as good since."

"Because there are too many factors.  First, there must be talent, much talent.  Talent such as Kipling had.  Then there must be discipline.  The discipline of Flaubert.  Then there must be the conception of what it can be and an absolute conscience as unchanging as the standard meter in Paris, to prevent faking.  then the writer must be intelligent and disinterested and above all he must survive.  Try to get all these in one person and have him come through all the influences that press on a writer.  the hardest thing, because time is so short, is for him to survive and get his work done.  But I would like us to have such a writer and to read what he would write."

To Have and Have Not:  All about Cuba, Key West, human trafficking, booze, revolution, murder and struggling to make ends meet.  All the famous "Harry's Bars" in the world are named after Hemingway's main character Harry is this book.  Some of the most crisp and clean dialogue you will ever read.

The Dangerous Summer: Hemingway goes back to Spain after many years to spend the summer traveling with two of the greatest bull fighters that ever lived.  The introduction for the volume was written by James Michener, who states that Hemingway was so enraptured by returning to the subject, that he originally turned in a manuscript that was so long more than half of it was cut for the final book, which is hysterical because, get this, Michener's introduction to a book that runs 206 pages is 50 PAGES LONG!  HA!

Michener was originally contacted in a bunker in Korea during the Korean War by a secret Life Magazine correspondent carrying a single (and only, so he represented) copy of a manuscript by Hemingway that Life intended to publish, but because of the disastrous reviews of Hemingway's previous novel, wanted some sort of praise worthy review in order to hedge their big gamble.  Michener obliged.  That copy of Life magazine sold 5,318,650 copies. An absolute impossibility in those days.  What was the manuscript?  The Old Man and The Sea.  Pulitzer Prize. Nobel Prize.

After the success of all that, Life once more asked Hemingway to write them something and conceived the idea of sending him back to Spain (his favorite country) for a series of articles on bullfighting.  that's where the book comes from.  I liked it very much, but even although it's a bit of a "travel writing book" don't expect to find Paul Theroux in the pages anywhere - Hemingway is as much like Theroux as Theroux is like Stephen King. BTW, Theroux abhors Hemingway.

That's okay, Paul, I still love your books. ;)

The Garden of Eden

: Hemingway's examination of love, obsession, sexual loyalty or not, gender roles, and insanity.  There's a very good introduction by John Updike.  The book was begun in 1946 and left incomplete and published by Scribner's in 1986.  From the introduction:

"It is possibly a pity that Hemingway's own inhibitions, if not those of the changing postwar times, prevented him from telling us exactly what the "devil things" are that lead David to call his wife "Devil," and poison their Eden even before Catherine decides, in her rampage of wanting, to introduce another, bisexual woman, Marita, into their honeymoon household."

Updike misses the point, either that or he's hellbent sucked in by the "Iceberg Theory" here, and doesn't realize it.  The 7/8ths of the material that boils below the surface is exactly what makes the obsessive love scenes so explicitly powerful, if not downright lurid.  Trust me, read it, and you'll know every single thing Catherine leads David into, not always willingly, in squirming detail without the author ever having described a single act.  Masterful.

A few parting thoughts:

Hemingway on writing (purloined again from Wikipedia):

"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."

Henry Louis Gates believes Hemingway's style was fundamentally shaped "in reaction to [his] experience of world war". After World War I, he and other modernists "lost faith in the central institutions of Western civilization," by reacting against the "elaborate style" of 19th century writers; and by creating a style "in which meaning is established through dialogue, through action, and silences—a fiction in which nothing crucial—or at least very little—is stated explicitly."

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.

—Ernest Hemingway in Death in the Afternoon[162

And my favorite thought in counterpoint to anti-Hemingway-ers (again, from Wikipedia):


^{Hemingway's intent was not to eliminate emotion, but to portray it more scientifically. Hemingway thought it would be easy, and pointless, to describe emotions; he sculpted collages of images in order to grasp "the real thing, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as valid in a year or in ten years or, with luck and if you stated it purely enough, always."}
Although he wandered as he wrote, starting and then continuing and completing books in three, four or five five different locations, here's a picture Hemingway's writing desk from the Key West house.  One day I will steal this desk and then I'll be a real writer.

Hemingway's writing desk

Thanks for reading and check back soon.  If you haven't signed up to follow, please do.


<sup>Best,


DME</sup>