That’s what the road signs say when you cross the state line into Georgia (along with “Home of the 1996 Olympics” – really? nothing else since then?) but I had more on my mind than just Georgia, the state.

I also had Georgia, the nachos on my mind!

My destination, the sultry southern town of Savannah – home of trees dripping with moss, temperatures humid enough to give you the vapours and SCAD!

What’s SCAD? That’s the first thing you see everywhere when you get to town: SCAD on everything (it’s there on the sign to the right, even if it looks like “SCAP”). I’ll go ahead and hip you to what it means so you don’t have to suffer like I did: Savannah College of Art and Design.

Which I figured was a good sign, right? I mean, where’s there’s art students, good nachos are bound to follow!

I parked the smart car that I’d been driving up from Florida along the main drag in Savannah (right across from the SCAD theater!) and made my way over to the Riverfront district just a few blocks away. I spotted quite a few quaint squares in the city full of trees overflowing with moss and was pretty satisfied. Now if only someone would hand me a Mint Julep and a plate of nachos I’d be set!

In order to get to the Riverfront district, you have to negotiate some pretty narrow, cobblestone-y and impressively old time-y looking stairs. I saw a few….horizontally challenged of my fellow countrymen making their way down the stairs with a couple of close calls, but, thankfully, I didn’t see any incidents.

The Riverfront district is basically Savannah’s equivalent of 6th Street in Austin, complete with cheep beer places, overpriced restaurants and lots of people in shorts that should never show any part of their flesh above the knee.

This part of the town was also where they happened to unload the slave ships and put slaves up for auction. Not too much fun, that. What I thought was interesting though was that, even thought the British made slavery illegal, the Savannah forefathers keep on bringin’ ‘em in anyway.

I stopped into a local dive and helped myself to a brew (no Mint Juleps in the cheap beer places, sorry) while reading the local indie paper.  Everyone was watching The Masters on TV, which was a little strange because it was going on right that moment in Augusta, which just just a little over a hundred miles away, so the weather was exactly the same in both places, which is to say, pretty crappy.

Which would have sucked if I came to Savannah for golf, which I didn’t. I think we all know what I stopped in Savannah for – and it wasn’t a mint julep !!

Hearing the name “Draft House” suggested (at least to me) that this establishment might be part of the venerable Mr. Tim Leauge’s chain of award winning eateries and cinema houses called the Alamo Draft House  headquartered in my former home town of Austin, Texas. Although the Alamo Draft House does have a location in Northern Virginia, the Arlington Draft House actually pre-dates the Austin Drafthouse by about ten years. As Aretha Frankin would say, “Who’s Suing Who?!!!”

As it was, my confusion about where I actually was or who’s Drafthouse came first was answered by the order of nachos that we received from the kitchen.

I’ll post another picture angle of the nachos here in case you didn’t remember it from the slider.

I think this picture really captures the nacho “cheese” in all it’s glory.

These nachos reminded me exactly of the kind of fare that would pass for movie theater nachos….(Scott taps watch)…IF IT WERE 1985!!!!

LOOK AT THE “CHEESE”!!!!

Hola, Arlington Draft House…..I believe that you’ve met my good friend RICO cheese in a can….

The other problem is that we got a bunch of tortilla chip crumbles…and I think THEYknew that, too. Take a look at the chip distribution in the picture above (rest your eyes from the glow of the “cheese” first, if needed).

Do you see how much smaller the chips get on the side of the bowl opposite the sour cream and salsa?

Yep. Crumbles. All carefully hidden by a layer of “cheese.”

So, naturally I do a lot of walking.

On one of my rambles one day, I discovered “crazy North Carolina guy redneck house”.

Here’s a view of it from the road in Google Maps….

View Larger Map

The house looks a lot older than most of the McMansions in this part of town, so I can imagine this guy and his family have probably been living here for a long time before the city of Cary, in all their wisdom, decided to widen a major road right next to his house.

I didn’t have my camera with me then, but I for sure brought it this time.

The first thing that you notice is, naturally, the confederate flag flying proudly over the front entrance gate.

This is next to a major street in Cary, mind you.

I’d only ever seen Crazy North Carolina Redneck Guy’s house from across the street, so today, with camera in hand, I ventured across High House Road to get a close-up glimpse.

The SECOND thing you see when you get up close is the “Red Neck Blvd” sign hanging right behind the Confederate Flag (which isn’t technically the first official flag of the Confederate States of America, but that’s a whole other post).

This film was purchased by Comedy Central for their short-lived short film channel on their website. Ahhh, the glory days of the Internets.

The channel is gone now, but it’s ok, we got a check.

Festivals

Atlanta Film Festival
Montreal Just for Laughs – Eat My Shorts
Austin Film Festival
Maryland Film Festival

I picked a place to live solely because of the proximity to work and settled in. It was a bit of a shock being back at first, but eventually things worked themselves out.

I’m out in the suburbs of Raleigh in a town called Morrisville (Civil War battle? Check!) . Our office, which is just down the street, is in Cary. Did I mention that I don’t have a car?

What’s it like? Hmmm….well, do you remember when you were 15….and the only place you could go was school? On the bus? That about hits the nail on the head. I was going to write more on that bit, but I think this experience deserves its own post.

THIS POST is about nachos. North Carolina nachos in particular.

Luckily, I happen to live across the street from just about everything I need, including Mexican food, in the form of Los Tres Maguyeyes. Before sojourning back to Tejas for Christmas break, I decided to stop by Los Tres to see what they could rustle up for me in the way of nachos. If you take a look at the picture in the header, you can see what I got.

If you take a look at their menu, it clearly states “nachos with cheese” and, if you’ll scan the picture above, you’ll see that’s exactly what I got. Now wait! Before you judge, I’m not the best food photographer in the world and I’m not doing the ‘chos justice, but they were actually pretty damn good. That’s not just any cheese (it’s not even “not yo’ cheese”) on those chips – that’s Queso Blanco!

I ordered a bit of pico de gallo to bring the nachos up to snuff, along with some guacamole, and, of course, free salsa. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t any lettuce. Although the nachos started out at $4.50, by the time I added the guac and pico, we were looking at about the same price for an entree.

But it was worth it. If you ever come down to see the sights of the Battle of Morrisville, be sure to stop by.

Synopsis A

Recently declassified White House tapes show President Johnson struggling with daily issues in the Oval Office, including troublesome overseas operators, a lack of attractive Negros in governmental positions and limited dessert options.

Synopsis B

Diplomacy, arm-twisting, and gastronomy as lifted from LBJ’s daily diaries and recorded phone conversations and animated by archival photographs.

Trailer

Credits

Written, Directed & Edited
by
Scott Calonico

Executive Producer
Jeff Radice

Director’s Bio

Here

Publicity Stills

Big
Small

IMDB Page

Here

Screening History

Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (October 2012)
True/False Film Festival (February 2013)
Frontline Club, Documentary Shorts Screening, London (March 2013)
Florida Film Festival (April 2013)
Full Frame Film Festival (April 2013)

Was on a bit of a psychotronic film kick when we made this one.

The sequel to “The Collegians Are Go!!”

Fun production facts:

• Opening scene was filmed in a server room of the ISP I was working for at the time (yeah, ISPs, remember them? Same owners still run the place, now it’s they’re a  hosting company.)
• Band scene filmed at the long defunct “Bad Dog Comedy Theater” on Riverside Drive in Austin, Texas. Here’s a commercial someone made for the Bad Dog, complete with dot-com era buzzwords.
• Filming stretched out between 2000-2003. We had a hard drive fail in the middle of editing, which sucked.
• Car is a 1964 AMC Rambler which used to be owned by Johnny Hardwick and appeared on a few episodes of the cancelled-after-one-season MTV show Austin Stories.
• Seiko is played by Toby Marsh from Austin 90s garage rockers, The Motards.
• Robot Number Two – That’s a beer keg for his head. And, yes, we drank the beer. His arms are dryer ducts. The claws are some kind of robot arm toy. They worked great.
• Frightened Japanese voices are by comedian JR Brow
• Austin poster artist Billy Bishop reprises his role as The Sandwich Guy. Except in this case he’s the hotdog guy.
• Cat food is on the table to keep Brad the Cat interested.
• The Gerald Ford poster now hangs in The Velveeta Room in Austin, Texas.
•  That’s the abandoned Austin Mueller airport at 08:35. It just sat there for a while. You used to be able to walk right up to the building. Control tower is still there, tho.
• I took a biology class in the room where Tad Collegian is sleeping.
• “Jungle” scenes were shot in our backyard.
• During the confrontation at the beach (actually Lake Travis), it was FREEEZING.
• And last, but, certainly not least, the Creepees showed at the Slamdance Film Festival in 2004 (Don’t ask me how it happened). That same year, I also had a film show at Sundance, making me the first person who had a film in both Sundance and Slamdance the same year. Seriously. Check it out – I’m in the Slamdance FAQ.

My friends were leaving the UK (on their own accord, they weren’t being forced) so I took them to the airport in the car. They also had a two week old baby, as well as a dog, Mandy. When they got to the airport they discovered that they were missing a vital piece of paperwork for Mandy. I volunteered to rush out and get the paperwork, and promptly got lost on the M25. Mandy eventually got her paperwork, but the airline had to put them on another flight. And they wound up having to transfer instead of a direct flight.

But they finally made it. And I retired to wake up for an early start. But, before that, on the way home, I managed to sideswipe one of the cars that were lining the street of this quaint little English village and knock one of the mirrors off a very expensive car. Whoops.

I finally got off the next day without incident. My plan was to try to make it to the Beatles museum in Liverpool, which closed at like 6 or so. I would barely just be able to make it from London to Liverpool with some museum time.

The drive was fairly uneventful. I stopped for lunch in Birmingham and then continued to make my way north. Liverpool was a pretty big city. Even bigger than I thought it was going to be, so I was a little lost when I first got there. I eventually gave up on the idea of the Beatles museum and decided to check into the hotel, which was smack dab in the middle of the city. Not too shabby.

My first stop was the Philharmonic Pub. Not only because John Lennon used to drink there, but also because it has a historically listed bathroom!

Check it out. Yep. Those are marble urinals. Pretty damn swanky.

The place was more like a church than a pub. Chandeliers and stained glass were everywhere and – something you’d never see in an American pub – books on the walls.

The beer was excellent and they had a bunch of local flavors. I just noticed that some people have rated this place horrible on Tripadvisor. Dude, are you kidding me? LOOK AT THE BATHROOM.

It was probably someone trying to order food or, even worse, someone who didn’t drink. I don’t mind if you don’t drink, just don’t go into a pub and start bitching about the experience.

Either that or they’ve got a really good marketing team working for them.

The pub is called the Sheeps Heid Inn because the area around Duddingston, right outside Edinburgh was known as the place to get something butchered if you needed it. “Sheep” being pretty self explanatory and “heid” being Scottish for – ready? – “head”. This continues with the annoying Scottish tradition of trading normal words for “Scottish” ones, even though they’re more or less the same thing. The most egregious case of this being the use of the term “auld” for “old.” Hmmm. Ok, you took a word that was pretty short to begin with and then made it longer.

Thanks, Scottish people!

Although the pub bills itself as the oldest in Scotland, I think they might be fudging a bit. The history of the Inn is written on the inside of the walls of the pub. I don’t remember the exact wording, but the story was that Duddingston was known for selling parts of chopped up animals and they THINK – not for sure, now – that there was a  pub around then called the Sheeps Heid.

So then found the present building and, since it was so old (or “auld” as they’d say), they decided that this must have have been it.

But they can’t prove it.

What they CAN prove however, is that they do have the oldest skittles alley in Scotland!

No, I’m not talking about the candy. I’m talking about bowling!

As in drinking a bucket of suds, throwing a ball down an alleyway and writing on an overhead projector!

Skittles is pretty much the same concept as good old fashioned bowl-a-rama American bowling, as you can see from the picture of the “auld” skittles alley in the back of the Sheeps Heid.

Except that nothing is automated. There’s even a little wooden platform, way in the back of the alley, for the “auld” pin monkeys to stand on and stay out of the way of drunken Scotsmen hurling twenty pound round stones down the alleyway towards them.

But you’ll notice no space for overhead projectors. The Scots may have invented the steam engine and built the longest railway bridge in the world (that collapsed) but they were still lacking in skittle score keeping technology.