Hungry for More. Give Me More.

I finally gave in and jumped on The Hunger Games bandwagon. I finished the first book in less than 24 hours. It was obviously an ok book, or I wouldn't have kept reading past the first chapter. But, I was extremely disappointed when the book ended.

I hadn't seen the movie so I really didn't have a clue what the series was even about. Basically, it's a action packed/love story written for teens about this girl who is torn between these two guys, fights for her life, and lives in a world of fiction. Sound familiar? Yea, thought so. Twi-fucking-light. It's like the same damn book. Oh let me count the ways. A teenager book series that adults are hooked on. Ok, so the characters names are different, it's set in a different time period, the obstacles faced to survive are different, but...all in all, it's way too similar to Twilight. Katniss = Bella, Katniss' mother = Bella's dad, it's a toss up between Gale/Peeta = Jacob/Edward. The Capitol is the Volturi...and so on and so forth. Bella kept fucking shit up with her relationships and life in general...so did Katniss.

Sorry Hunger Games fans, it just doesn't live up to Twilight though. The quality of writing is mediocre at best. There aren't as many details to bring you in and make you really feel like you're a participating tribute in The Hunger Games. Shit, when I was reading Twilight, I was so sucked in that I put myself in Bella's shoes and felt turmoil when trying to pick between Jacob and Edward. I cried. I laughed. I gasped. Not the case with The Hunger Games. It wasn't as emotionally trying or exciting. I know that it was written for teens and can't get too R-rated or gruesome, but come on. Give me more.

This is not to say that I won't be reading the other two books. I can't wait to get my hands on the next one in the series. BUT, it in no way lives up to Twilight. That's all I'm saying people. And another thing, I and many others have been made fun of so many times for being Twilight fans...but why not The Hunger Games? Think about it.

XOXO,

Merekat

What Women Really Want by Tusk

What women really want – “50 Shades of STFU”…  and Hangovers…

So, y'all have heard about my nurse girlfriend, Pamalama.  She’s a really cool chick, smart and generally a good person.  Oh, and she’s a freak.  All nurses are freaks… along with nail technicians, hair stylists, bartendresses and most airline attendants… In that order...  But I digress, Pam is cool. 

Anyway, she’s fallen into the “Fifty Shades of Grey” trap.  You snacks (that’s TUSK talk for “babes”) are familiar with the book/trilogy.  It gives y’all the escape to “freak land” you think you crave.  You “want” to be tied up and smacked around… (right).  You “want” to be dominated and told what to do… (yeah).    

You want this combination of Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt and Mathew McConaughey all rolled up into Ted Bundy.  Oh, and you want him both as sensitive as a 3^rd degree burn on your Brazilian but as tough as a well done sirloin at your local Chili’s.  Good fuckin’ luck.

What you really want is… no matter what… no matter where… is to be told “everything is gonna be ok”… when you already know it is…

For example:  You (the snack) come home and you’re place is afire.  The whole joint is being consumed in a conflagration and all your worldly possessions are being destroyed.  Time is of the essence and it’s running very, very short.  What do you “want”?  A water hose?  No…  A cell phone to call 911?  Wrong, again...  A bucket of water?  Nope.

What you “want” is to be held tight, hugged, and told “everything’s going to be alright”…  all the while, your shit is burning up.  That’s how y’all roll… and that’s ok…

I bought Pamalama the “Three Shades” trilogy, because it’s “what she wanted”…

And Pam gets what she wants… I love her. 

Excuse me while I pound out her brains.

TUSK

This is a side note that Tusk included...he swears by it. And after the night I had last night on Beale Street, I do too. -Merekat

TUSK’s Hangover Remedy

·         32 oz Cup full of ice

·         Gatorade (powder mix at double concentration per volume)

·         (1 – 2) BC Headache Powder(s)

·         Alka Seltzer (optional)

Introducing the Converse Queen

Where to begin? The beginning I suppose.

Picture it. Second semester senior year of Who Ya Wit C-Town high school. The plan? Mississippi State with all of my friends...live together in Sessums, rush KD, do the damn thing. Well, leave it to me to go fuck shit up. Last minute in May I decided that I would venture off to Appalachian State for my schooling.

Fast forward 3 months to move in day. After the 9 1/2 hour trek from good ole Corinth, MS to Boone, NC, we finally arrived at my new home, Bowie. Bowie is a shit-tastic dorm right by the App State stadium. I'm talking no AC and dorm rooms the size of closets. I was still too excited to care about my shitty living arrangements. I arrived before my pot luck roommate that I had only talked to once via Facebook. Momma Hen and I unpacked all of my monogrammed towels, custom made duvet cover and bedding, and the rest of my preppy, Southern girl decor. All matching perfectly, of course. Momma Hen was also sneaking in wine and tequila for me. She couldn't quite grasp the concept that 18 year olds weren't allowed to have booze in their rooms.

I nervously awaited the arrival of my soon-to-be new best friend. Isn't that what roommates are supposed to be? In walks this super tall, lanky, stoner talking, dirty blonde sporting some fucked up, hipster outfit and used-to-be black converse shoes that were falling apart....aka my roommate for the next semester...aka the Converse Queen. I immediately regretted my decision. Why did I have to be different? Why did I leave all of my normal friends?

Over the next few months the Converse Queen and I bonded over PBR (which I had never heard of), weed (which we smoked in our dorm rooms), random music festivals with hippie, senior boys (Off the Grid Music Fest...worst weekend of my life other than witnessing people trip on acid for the first time), and homemade nose piercings. We also had our MAJOR disagreements. I couldn't understand why she hated sororities and didn't know what a Greek letter meant and she couldn't understand why I wanted to pay for friends and wear dresses and heels to football games. We hated each other's music. I plotted her cell phone's death every time her Smashing Pumpkin's ringtone played. Her friends were weird. She didn't have to study and made straight fucking A's in a double major as I made a C in Western Civ because I never went to class when it rained or snowed.

Needless to say, I had planned on switching roommates the next semester. Don't get me wrong. I loved her. That's why I made the decision to part ways. I was afraid that one night I would murder her in her sleep. Unfortunately, I didn't attend App State for another semester. I got a drinking ticket the night before exams, missed SEC football, called my best friend from home and had her rent an apartment in the Cotton District in Starkville for me, transferred to Miss State, and my Southern ass was headed home.

Now don't you fret little readers. I am still besties with all of my App friends. We chat weekly...sometimes daily, and I go visit them yearly. I talk to the Converse Queen on the reg thanks to Facebook chat and my non-eventful work life. I wrote all of this nonsense just to preface these Wednesday morning Facebook chats to the world.

Freshman Roommates at an App Football Game

Converse Queen:
i am
still
so drunk
and i am at work
i literally should not have driven to work
dui territory
i cant walk straight
this is not good

Merekat:
Bahahahahahah
YESSSSSSSSSSS
You're gonna get in troubssss

She sure is a looker

Converse Queen:
shush
im going to
go to wendys
and get a cheeseburger

Merekat:
It's only 9:40 your time
But no shame in that
I back it

Converse Queen:
and thats why I LOVE YOU
im literally not even responding to emails because im so shitfaced

Merekat:
Send them to me. I'll help you out.

Converse Queen:
YES! reply to mere.
im gonna get like 30 chicken nuggets
and just eat them at a 5 nugget per hour rate
nuggethon!
sounds racist
k, gotta go to wendys before i die.

Merekat:
Send some nugs my way.

And so on and so forth. She's my heart. I love her. We're both shit shows. Everyone pray that she doesn't get fired today.

PROMISE THIS IS MY LAST BLOG POST TODAY!

XOXO,

Merekat

An Open Letter to Dave Chappelle By Maggie Garcia

This is a guest blogger...my friend, Maggie Garcia. Before you start reading, I want to let you all in on a little secret. Maggie Garcia is white. You'll see what I mean. Enjoy. XOXO, Merekat.

An Open Letter to Dave Chappelle

Dear Dave,

You don't know me, but I fucking hate you.

Wait, let me back up.

When I found out you were going to be in Memphis, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to see you.  I have been a pothead for the past 10 years and I am thus a huge fan of your work.  In fact, some of my best memories in high school are riding around my hometown in an overstuffed vehicle, listening to burned CDs of your stand up.  My favorite bits are the ones about Sesame Street, Purple Drank, and the Baby selling weed on the corner in the ghetto. 
The tickets could have been $200 and I still would have paid it.  This isn't to say that the almost $60 I paid wasn't something of a hardship.  But in addition to my money, you wasted something much more valuable - my motherfucking time.

Your show started at 7pm.  I work in healthcare policy and social justice, which is a 24/7 job in Memphis, but I average about 60 hours a week.  I rarely take a break, but I was going to make an exception for you.  Yesterday I got to work super early, parallel parked my ass, Super Woman'ed the shit out of three meetings and was desperately trying to finish up a teen pregnancy report when I realized it was 5:45pm and I needed to un-park my ass and head to Wheelz's apt. 

Wheelz is my life partner (I would marry him, but I hate him) and he uses a wheelchair.  He has a van with a ramp that we use to bebop around Memphis.  Last week, the van's ramp broke.  This means that in order to get to the Orpheum, we had to spend 20 minutes manually operating the lift (which, as Merekat pointed out, sounds sexual), then another 20 in the parking lot to get Wheelz out of the van.  As soon as we approached Downtown, my agita kicked in.  I was surrounded by white people, most of them in polo shirts.  You've probably never navigated a hoard of entitled white people in a wheelchair, but let me tell you, it sucks.  It especially sucks when you're stoned out of your mind. 

We were excited about hanging out with our friends, word on the street was front row tickets.  Imagine our disappointment when we realized we were in the last row of the Orchestra - in the ADA section.  But, whatever, we were still excited.  I then stood in line for 20 minutes so I could pay almost $40 for two drinks.  When I made it back to my seat, your opening act had already started.  He was funny as shit.  When he left the stage, Wheelz and I were a little drunk and super excited.  We locked fingers, and passed bits of your act back and forth like notes in elementary school. 
I was still a little irritated by all the white people in the room, especially the douchebag frat boys who kept walking up and down the aisles and yelling to one another.  But I thought to myself, "Oh, just wait, Dave is going to put you in your motherfucking place, white dudes."  I was positively salivating at the idea of Dave Chappelle using "Chip" to shame these assholes. 

At 9pm, you came onstage.  By this time, nobody was stoned anymore, but Memphis went crazy anyway.  A few minutes in, something became very apparent to both me and Wheelz (we are connoisseurs of stand up; we frequent live shows) - you didn't seem to have any material prepared.  Rather, you seemed content to respond to the inane shout outs from the annoying audience.  You might not have had any interest in policing white assholes, but Memphis doesn't take kindly to those types and there were more than a few instances of audience members yelling "Shut the fuck up!" at each other.  You couldn't see this far back, but the three rows in front of us were cleared out by security because people were literally brawling over someone "shushing" someone else (that's why Memphis can't have anything nice). 

Wheelz and I were right - you didn't have anything prepared.  And not only were you not shaming the random white guys who kept yelling shit at you, you were responding to it!  After about an hour of saying random shit to people in the audience, you started to awkwardly try to get off stage.  You kept saying "Ok guys, I gotta wrap this up."  Wheelz and I thought this was a joke, of course, that a few hours in and DC would hit his groove, that you would go for one of those marathon sessions you're so admired for.  You, in fact, hinted to this - saying things like "Y'all can keep leaving, I can outlast all of y'all.  Haven't you heard?  Dave Chappelle takes a while to get warmed up."  Needless to say, this didn't happen.   You didn't just not bring your A-game ... you didn't bring any game! 

You said during your brief time in front of my face that you really appreciate all the working people of Memphis filling up the Orpheum on a Tuesday night.  But I don't believe that.  The Bath Assaults learned a valuable lesson, that our time is better spent answering questions about today's date than listening to washed up comics who've forgotten where they came from. 

xoxo,
Maggie Garcia

Let Down of the Year

Dave Chappelle, what the hell happened to you over in Africa, bro?

I can't speak for everyone, but the general consensus last night was that Dave Chappelle just isn't funny anymore. C-Baby and I ended up leaving and heading to the bar after about 45 minutes. Even people in the lobby were saying, "Look. Everyone's just getting up and leaving. He isn't funny." It was almost unbearable to sit through even after 4 glasses of wine and a few beers. PLUS, he didn't even come on until 9:00 when the show started at 7:00.

Everyone laughed at his jokes...which really weren't jokes...had to be out of respect. I could have hopped up on stage, just talked about my weekend, smoked a few cigarettes, and I probably would have gotten more crowd stimulation. I could have even sat at that bar and had a $58 (cost of the ticket) tab and listened to my coworker Tusk talk about random shit for a couple hours and been more entertained. I mean, the guy who went on before Dave was hilar. He was an older, black man that runs a local radio show who laughed and wheezed in between his jokes about making bitches asses clap and former lovers' sex toys (big, blue dildo with spikes on it to be exact). Supposedly this cat has a comedy club in Bartlet. I swore to never go back to Bartlett/Dirty Dova area after I moved away from that wretched place, but I'm most definitely braving that place again to see his stand up.

But, Dave's act went a little something like this (my version summary):

"Hey. I've been in Africa. (Audience member throws a bottle of fireball liquor on stage) What's this? Fireball...cinnamon whiskey? Sorry, I haven't drank liquor in 10 years...since 1992. (Random annoying, white bitch hollars something at Dave) Hey girl. Do you live in Memphis? Are you in school? Oh, cool. What's your degree in? Oh, Public Relations? So you relate to the public. (Dave! Do some Rick James!) Really? You're asking me to do something that I did 6 years ago? That's like a boss asking you to write a memo about something you did at work 6 years ago. No. Hey, what do you do for a living? (Directed to audience member) Oh, you're a lawyer. That's cool. What about you, sir? (Directed to another audience member) You own some hotels. OK. So we have a lawyer and a guy that owns hotels."

That was not a joke. How fucking lame was he? And WTF? Why WOULDNT you do some Chappelle Show shit? That's what made you famous. That's what everyone came to see. The funny, ridiculous, vulgar Dave Chappelle/Rick James/Lil John shit. Major letdown. Like, letdown of the fucking year. Maybe he'll be better tonight in Little Rock. Nah. Probably not. OK, enough bitching.


XOXO

Disappointed Merekat

Dave Chappelle by C-Baby

The Merekat and I have had plans coming up for about a week now, and she is finally getting to stay in Memphis this weekend. The Merekat is exhausted from driving back and forth and forth and back from one wedding event to another. Merekats love to get down at any kind of wedding function so it’s especially hard for her to say “No,” but this time she didn’t really have a chance since her boss is forcing her to work this Friday.

(I really hope you are narrating that like the voice of Meerkat Manor, which is how I intended it, British and everything.)

Last Tuesday our trivia team, The Bath Assaults, met again for a battle of who knows more bullshit. Maggie Garcia - our fearless leader (but not creator – she’s just really fucking smart), accompanied by her better half – Wheelz, brought up Dave Chappelle and how the was coming to The Orpheum. Anyone who knows me knows that The Chappelle Show was my jam in high school. I hated Lil Jon but I loved Dave Chappelle as Lil Jon. Rick James. I don’t care – I loved him and I needed to see him in real life. Luckily I share this pleasure with Merekat, Maggie Garcia, and Wheelz. We invited Felix for good measure. Just kidding, Felix.

As we laughed at the idea of seeing Dave Chappelle live the next Tuesday, pro-ing and con-ing missing trivia the next week, it slowly drifted from my little noggin. Eight PBR’s later, the night had ended. The Bath Assaults still hadn’t won trivia and I thought we had all forgotten about Dave; I was headed home to pass out and be late for work the next day. I had surely forgotten, but The Merekat and Wheelz had not. The Merekat was sending out mass emails at 10:30 am the next morning.

The email went a little something like this:

Just got our tickets after fighting with a lady on the phone for 27 minutes!!

Dave Chappelle

Tuesday, June 12th

Each of you owes me $57.97.

Thanks!

What came after was a tweet that went a little something like this:

Front row tickets to Dave Chappelle. Who loves me?

I guess we’re going to Dave Chappelle tonight, and we’re sitting in the front row. I rounded it up to $58. Three cents for her troubles.

Chic as fuck,

C-Baby

Americaaaaaa Fuck YEAH!

And now for what you've all been waiting for....drum roll please......$40 each, a trip to Goodwill, a couple rolls of sushi, and a few glasses of Mezzacorona Pinot Grigio later, we give you....AMERICAN FLAG JORTS!

Final Products

Final Product

Since yesterday, I have had several texts and Facebook posts regarding these jorts...SO, here is a list of what we bought from Michael's and gathered from Thrift Stores/our closets.

Spray Fabric Paint (Red, White, and Blue)
Mini American Flags
Star Stencils
Duct tape
Mom jeans from Goodwill (light and dark jeans...one pair was J Crew...I don't think I was born when those jeans were sold at J Crew)
Random denim from my closet (Navy polka dot shorts from Old Navy, a favorite pair of American Eagle, jr. high, used-to-be-jeans-but-have-been-jorts-for-years, and a long sleeved, stained, denim shirt turned sweet ass vest)

1. If you are starting out with a pair of jeans, get a marker and draw a line about two inches below your crotch region...maybe 4 inches for guys.
2. Using scissors or a straight razor, cut jeans off at line. Don't worry if you fucked up and it isn't cut straight. You'll want to wash these after the paint dries so the ends will be frayed.
3. Place stripes on the front, right side of your new jorts using strips of duct tape cut about 1 1/2 inches thick.
4. Spray red or white paint (depending on how true you want to be to old faithful) on the duct tape. 
5. Using the star stencil, spray white or blue paint on the front, left side of your jorts.
6. Let dry and rip off tape for perfect stripes.
7. If you want to add detail to the back pockets, trace and cut out a pocket-sized piece of flag fabric to sew on.
8. Rock your new American Flag Jorts and make everyone jealous.

C-Baby is a bit of an OCD, perfectionist, so naturally her pair of jorts look a whole hell of a lot better than mine. But, all in all, I think we did a damn good job. I ended up with two pairs of jorts and my stars and stripes vest to sport not only on the 4th, but all fucking summer long. C-Baby only has one pair. She takes too damn long to craft.

C-Babys Goodwill, Mom Jeans pre-cutoff

Here, I cut out and sewed on a
piece of a mini flag on the back pocket

You're welcome.

Honey