I’ve been staying at my friend Candy’s house for the past week. We all like to eat. Her husband Jesse suggested that we try the new independently owned wing place in their ghetto fabulous ‘hood called Ghot Wingz. It’s a tiny corner joint, almost behind an alley in the back of a building off of Gallatin Road in East Nashville.

The place just opened up one week before and I am quite impressed by the set-up. It’s simple and the smoked wings, offered in nine tantalizing flavors, are quite tasty! They have a community room with a couple of pool tables and an old Nintendo. The decor of giant muscle car posters, Chevy barstools and countertops constructed of old mechanic toolboxes, is, by my guess inspired by The Nashville Auto Diesel College, located directly across the street.

Sharonda Stone, the owner herself, was the one who handed me my order with a smile as she pulled back the lid of the steaming to-go box for my approval. I like it when the owners of a place are involved. I chose the buffalo style wings, which were well paired with Cajun fries and the twelve pack of beer we washed them down with at home during movie night. (Note - twelve pack of beer sold separately from Ghot Wingz’s combo.)

So . . . anyway, lots of beers later, Jesse said, “Oh, they don’t even have menus yet. I bet they need a website. I could offer to do their website and they could just pay me in wings. That’ll be $4000.00 in wings every month, please.”

“Jesse,” I shrieked. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve essentially just given yourself a $48,000.00 a year raise! This is brilliant!”

Then I got an idea.

“I’m a great big ole math dork,” I said. “How many hot wings would Ghot Wingz have to give you every single day in order to give you your raise?”

Jesse grabbed pencil and paper. I ran out of the room to get my 10-key. (Yes, I’m traveling with a 10-key . . . long story.) So there we are in Candy and Jesse’s living room doing math instead of watching films. I was laughing so hard that the tape from my 10-key unfurled all over the living room. Jesse by that time had switched to using his computer for calculations, and therefore came up with the answer in wings before I could punch nary a key on my adding machine.

The answer is - $48,000 in wings at .80 cents per wing breaks down to approximately 52 wings apiece per day for Candy and Jesse each.

That’s alotta hot wangz. You can check Jesse’s math if you want. I didn’t. I’m a math dork and all, but I try not to push it to the extreme.

I just won a contest sponsored by Beth at wanderlustandlipstick.com by submitting unique eco-travel tips . . . here are my winning suggestions. I won a really cool portable water filtration unit called a Steripen. Thanks Beth, for sponsoring this contest! I can’t wait to get out there and be someplace where I need to use my new toy.

Here are my Eco Travel Tips -

* Carry a flat plastic universal sink stopper to plug up sinks or shower drains and save water.

* Invest in a metal/vintage razor with removable blades. They are sleek, sexy and NOT plastic. You don’t need a moisturizing strip, contrary to what Gilette may have taught you to believe.

* Pick up beach glass in lieu of shells. The shells on the beaches in Puget Sound, for example, are being depleted by scavenging humans more quickly than they can be replaced. Beach glass is awesome for any kind of art project and all the pieces are unique, plus the act of collecting it helps the planet!

* My spoon has traveled 10,000 miles. It’s saved me from using countless plastic sporks.

Last Sunday in Murfreesboro I roller skated for hours in the hot mid-afternoon sun. After a bit of that, I was hungry - and thirsty. Being a holiday weekend, not much in the way of eateries was open in the historic downtown area of Murfreesboro, where I was happily tucked away with no car.

I rolled up to the square. Sadly, no coffee shops open. In fact, nothing open at all. I was headed back home when I noticed that B. McNeel’s was open for 20 more minutes. This restaurant is elegant; housed in a historic building just a block off the square. This establishment reminds me of something one might see adorned with magnolia blossoms and featured in Southern Living Magazine, it’s that beautiful on the inside.

I walked up the stairs to the front door on my skate stoppers and a smiling hostess opened the door for me.

“Can I eat in here?” I asked. The hostess kind of gave me a funny look. I pointed to my skates. “I don’t want to mess up your hardwoods.”

“I’ll go ask my manager,” she said.

I waited, sweating outside no more than thirty seconds before the front door was flung open yet again by another smiling face. It was Barbara herself, the owner of the restaurant.

“Get in here, girl!” she said, laughing. “Just don’t fall.”

I did have to catch my balance momentarily as I rolled across those slick, polished hardwood floors. The menu at B. McNeel’s is simple for Sunday brunch. There’s a buffet with everything you can imagine, but I didn’t want to get out of my seat or walk up to the buffet line in my socked feet amongst all the families who were sporting their Sunday finery.

My waitress came to get my drink order and informed me that Barbara was taking care of my tab! I wanted something special and made-to-order and insisted that I pay. “No,” the waitress repeated. “It’s on us.”

“Thank you! How nice!” I said. “I’m a guest in this town!”

I ordered the huevos rancheros and was very pleasantly surprised by this Southern restaurant’s rendition of my favorite Latin breakfast. The refried beans were whole beans, not refried bean paste. And the sauce! Oh the sauce! It was just spicy enough and very dark reddish brown, full of speckles of peppers and herbs and goodness and full of flavor too. I’m sure they make it in the kitchen from scratch.

The restaurant is full of dappled light from the long windows and has a great feel in general. I indeed felt as though I stepped into a magazine. And then, just when I thought the experience couldn’t get any better, Lyle Lovett’s voice pumped through the loudspeaker. My favorite song was playing.

My little getaway abode over the 4th of July weekend turned out to be in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. A friend of mine was out of town and graciously offered her apartment to me.

Murfreesboro was the first place I lived solo. I was 17 years old and rented part of an historic house in the antebellum, but kinda run-down part of town. The place my friend offered was three blocks away from my old house! It was so exciting to be in that part of the world again. I popped on my roller skates and skated through the streets, past all those crumbling and gorgeous pre Civil War homes.

The thing I love most about that part of town are all the carriage stones. Just about every front yard has an old rock or concrete slab in front. The carriages would drop the ladies off at the stone step. Ah! Such elegant days . . . The friend’s home I stayed at has three in the yard. I told her that the yard must’ve been some odd bus stop for carriages.

Not a lot has changed in that neighborhood. The Kwik Stop is still up the street and there’s still about 50 brands of cigarettes I’ve never heard of in my life being sold there from cardboard barrels - probably so kids can steal ‘em easier. They also have an impressive collection of knives and swords in prominent display over a new fancy ice cream cooler. Whoa. All this is clever marketing, but I’m not sure I approve.

Junior’s Foodland is still down the street, which thrills me to no end! In a world where corporations are trying to run every last little guy out of business, it was sheer joy to walk into that tiny little grocery store . . . you know the kind. The kind that smell like a tiny grocery store because they’ve got a butcher shop in the back. Junior’s Foodland also specializes in fresh fried chicken. I was happy to see chicken wings smashed into the black asphalt of the parking lot. Again, some things, thankfully, never change.

I skated past MTSU (Middle Tn State University). I took part of one class there once. The day I was supposed to pith a live frog for Biology class, I walked out the door, never to return. I rolled in figure 8’s in the parking lot of The Boro Bar and Grill, the only first bar I’ve ever been kicked out of. I skated up to Oakland’s Mansion, which sits at the end of my old street and read about Nathan Bedford Forrest’s attack on the Union army back in 1863. (Gosh, I don’t even think I knew about that when I lived there . . . !)

I rolled past my old place enough times that I eventually ran into the older dude who lives there now. He let me poke my head inside his part of the crumbling post Civil War mansion. The house itself is older and more dilapidated than when I lived there, but this guy takes much better care of the apartment than I did when I was a 17 year old kid living there alone. The peeled wallpaper has been patched and fixed. The horrific paint job I once gave to the grandiose 90 degree staircase has been amended. The old electric heater is the same.

The only thing that’s missing is the carriage stone that used to sit out front.

I always travel with a floppy, ribboned straw hat. It serves several functions including - shelter from the sun, cuteness as an accessory and occasionally, camouflage during flights.

I’m traveling gypsy style right now with a large rolling duffle, a box, a cat in a carrier and medium-sized bag/purse. I checked the duffle and the box, leaving me with room for one personal item and one carry on. Frank in his travel bag is my carry-on. My purse has all critical items in it when on the plane such as my laptop and camera.

My purse doesn’t close, though and since Frank gets shoved underneath the seat in front of me while on the plane, this leaves me with nowhere to put my purse. I don’t want to put it in the over head bins because my fear is that all my stuff including sensitive electronic equipment would fall out.

Enter big floppy straw hat.

I put Frank under the seat and slipped my purse behind my legs, which you are not allowed to do, according to some FAA regulation. So, I just put my big hat in my lap and let it dangle a bit across my legs and voila! The flight attendant doesn’t see the contraband stowed behind my legs.

When I jetted out of Columbia, South Carolina a few days ago, it was a mighty hasty departure indeed.

I had the best time working on that movie. I met the best people in the worst of circumstances. That happens sometimes. When they told us that we had 24 hours to pack up accounting, I just wanted to throw up. And I just wanted to leave town and disappear for a few days.

I was flying to Tennessee, but had only a loose idea where I (and the cat) would be staying in the next days, but I wasn’t sweating it. Sure enough, everything worked out. A friend called me and offered me her place for the Fourth of July weekend since she was going to be out of town.

It was LOVELY. I stayed in bed pretty much for three days solid, read a novel and just decompressed in general.

Today, I’m in Nashville. I’ll be here for a few more days, then I’m meandering northward to Illinois. I just kind of free-floating these days and right now am not sure where I will live/journey to in the next couple of months. I have definite plans, I’m just not sure yet where I will carry them out. It’s a-comin’.

Sorry for the excessive negativity there on that last post, folks.

I’ve just finished reading Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Hocus Pocus”. The main character, Eugene Hartke Debs, does not curse. He says that cursing is a way for judgemental people to choose not to listen to what you’ve got to say. This character prefers to say “when the excrement hit the air conditioning” and I like this thought process. But I think I enjoy f-bombs more . . .

Anyway, since in my last post, I publicly smeared my former employer, I feel an update is in order. Some good news. Capitol Films has come up with enough money to pay the crew for their final week of shooting. It’s still very wrong that they paid those crew members late. It’s still very wrong that they, (at least to my knowledge) have not paid their vendors - this includes huge outstanding hotel and rental car accounts. This is a classic display of excrement hitting the air conditioning. For sure, for sure.

But, paying the crew is a huge step forward.

Ok, now I’m on to the more positive aspects of life . . . and there are many.

And so it goes.

I can neither confirm nor deny that my superiors encouraged me to post this.

I wrote this a couple of days ago after working my 14th day in a row with no days off. I needed to let out some steam. Here’s an email I circulated within my department.

Dear David Bergstein and everyone at Capitol Films.

The short of it. Fuck you.

The long of it -
How can you people live with yourselves knowing the hardships that you have caused our crew and our vendors? I am a proud accountant. And having to dodge the bank and having to deal with stop payments from the studio on checks that we have cut for items that we owe is a complete outrage. You constantly ask for reports and itemized lists that we would never be able to create. The reason why we cannot deliver your necessary projections directly stems from Capitol Films’ absolute resistance to deliver funding that is absolutely required for things we absolutely need in order to get this film going.

Surprise . . . all of the necessary expenditures to get your film going have to come by way of credit and promises to pay. Promises that your company consistently denies us. Then you have the audacity to suggest that it is our accounting department’s fault and problem.

My typical day is filled with making promises that I cannot keep to little ma and pa vendors who have extended services to our company on good faith. These are real people with families to provide for and bills to pay. Your constant promises of “tomorrow the loan will go through” is ludicrous. And you’ve all made a liar out of me.

I suppose you justify your late and slow pays with the fact that you’ve so generously given the crew large pay bumps as bribes in order to stay on and work, but in the end, the hoops to jump through to deal with your company is just not worth it for any of us. You all have set accounting up to fail. I suppose it’s a good practice for you. Make the paper trail as messy as possible so that any attempts to clean up the aftermath will be nearly impossible. Later on down the line, I can just surmise what justifications you all will have for not delivering the final necessary funds of nearly two million dollars that I have processed through accounts payable. . . “Hmmm . . . journal entries? What journal entries? No, we never got those. Sorry, we cannot release any funds.”

Again. Fuck you.

I’ve told every single vendor this week to NEVER do business with any Capitol sanctioned show ever again. And good luck getting a crew to work for you. This crew was not a pool of hungry fresh-out-of-film-school crew members that you have collectively and repeatedly shat upon. We are an amalgamation of professionals, many of us have worked in this business for over a decade. None of us have ever seen nor experienced anything like this.

Obviously none of you have ever had to work hard for anything. Obviously none of you care about good, honest business practices. Obviously all of you are liars and cheats.

–
Anna Metcalf
Second Asst Acct
Nailed Productions LLC
1022 Senate Street
Columbia SC 29201
ph - 803/779-3847
fx - 803/779-3825

*And I wrote this letter three days ago . . . before they decided to close the bank account.

And then the adventure whisks you away.

One minute you’ve got plans and schedules and the next . . . well, the next . . . you walk into work and they tell you there’s no money.

That’s what happened yesterday. Yep, after three months of starts, stops, promises and excuses, Capitol Films finally conceded - they essentially gave us 24 hours to pack up the accounting office and get out of town. They’ve got a roughly 30 million dollar mess on their hands - a movie that’s 95% in the can and 100% in the toilet.

I’m pissed. We all are. Capitol Films is splitting town with no intention to pay the shooting crew’s last week of pay that they worked so hard for. And they have no intention to pay the vendors who extended support and services for the making of the famously troubled film I’ve been working on for two months called “Nailed.”

Flown in as an emergency assistant accountant, I knew what I was getting myself into when I took this job with Capitol Films. I knew that they are very slow to give up the money. It’s like the ’studio’ heads over there are in some fantasy world where they think that filmmaking doesn’t require funding. David Bergstein, the owner of Capitol Films has a ga-jillion bucks in his bank account. And doesn’t care that he’s fucking over hundreds of people.

If I’d have known that they were going to skip town owing millions of dollars, I would not have come here.

So, with 24 hours notice, I’m jetting town. Today. This afternoon, heading to Nashville, Tennessee for a little recuperation . . . one day I had Fourth of July plans with new local friends in Columbia, South Carolina . . . and the next thing I know . . . I’m hopping a plane without even time for a proper good-bye. I had my travel plans switched after they dropped the bomb on us because it’ll just be too depressing to stay, knowing the swath of monetary destruction that this horrible company is leaving in their wake.

Plus, if I don’t leave today . . . who knows if the ticket will be good later?

So, here I am in my hotel room this morning . . . tired, a bit hung-over and bleary-eyed. I’ve got about an hour to pack, but I’ve been on stand-by mode for weeks now, ready to jet literally at a moment’s notice. But I thought I’d have some sort of warning . . . nope . . . whoosh.

Here one minute, gone the next. On the road again. Ahh, the open road.

Keith’s house isn’t exactly a bar, but this was brilliant, it was banter and we were all huddled around the kitchen island, surrounded by whiskey bottles, gin and tonic in a can and a damn fine spread of gourmet food.

“They’re trying to figure out what’s causing the salmonella . . . ” I said.

The chef replied, “Rabid salmon.”