Bingeaux!

Louisiana is it’s own country.


Well, at least it feels like it. Driving down I-10, I was bombarded by a language of words I’d never seen… or heard. In fact, I’m pretty sure without a Louisiana native reading the road signs, I’d have no idea what these words even sounded like.

For example: Atchafalaya. Or Calcasieu. Or try this one: Tchoupitoulas.

The only true Louisiana word I had come in contact with prior to this experience was "Lagniappe" (at TV Land we would make promos called “Lagniappes” because they served no functional purpose other than being entertaining). Coincidentally, about 8 years ago, Jeremey worked at Lagniappe Magazine in Lake Charles, LA.

Anyhoo, in the past few weeks, I’ve acquired a whole new vocabulary. And let me tell you, Louisianans sure know how to make speaking entertaining. Seriously, say these words out loud. I promise, they’re fun to say. Kinda like the word “Mahogany” (it just rolls off your tongue, right?).

And now I present:

Abby’s List of Fun Louisiana Words! (click on the words to learn what they are)

Boudin: [boo-DAN]
Étouffée: [ey-too-fey]
Jambalaya: juhm-buh-lahy-uh]
Gumbo: [guhm-boh]
Bayou: [bahy-oo]
Creole: [kree-ohl]
Doubloons: [dŭ-blōōn]
Gris Gris: [gree-gree]
Muffuletta: [muhf-uh-laht-uh]
Picayune: [pik-ee-yoon]
Pirogue: [pee-row] Not to be confused with the Polish "Pierogi"
Iowa: [eye-uh-way]
Bingeaux: [Bingo]

They don't have Counties here either... they have Parishes. And apparently state law is based on Napoleonic Code. Now you know why Louisiana is basically another country.

Also, on a final note, say this word out loud (for real): "Oyster"
Did you say "Oi-stchur" or "Oi-ster"?
Just wondering.

Soulja Boy (MIH 19)

We’re back in the Boot.
We got here last Thursday for double wedding action… as some of you might have noticed if you check our calendar. The two weddings don’t have much to do with Make It Happen, but everything to do with being there for your homies (Jeremey’s homies that is).

The first wedding was for the newly minted Dan and Jordan Robertson, which happened Saturday night in Lake Chuck. The next Lake Charles wedding is coming up this Saturday on the Collin’s Compound for Austin residents, the future Adam and Rachael Young. Bryant Collins is marrying them, and if you know Bryant, you know just how awesome that is. We’re looking forward to that wedding for sho, and for all those Austin heads coming down to the Chuck. So congrats Dan and Jordan. And congrats ahead of time to Adam and Rachael.

We suck and we didn’t really take any pictures at Dan’s wedding except for this picture of D-Mitch's sockless ankle.

But let us tell you that the reception was off the chain with a 3-year-old dancing full b-boy steez to that Soulja Boy song, some pink painted boobies on Jordan’s windshield, and the newly weds headed for “Floda or Bust!” Y’all are just gonna have to take our word for it.



Since we’ve been in the Chuck, Jeremey got to judge the Double Trouble skate contest at Ripperz Skatepark. Soon to be married Adam Young was also a judge, as well as a couple guys from the Skate Spot in Lafayette, LA.

(Oakley sponsored the event.)

We didn't have anybody on the course snapping photos cause Jeremey was judging and Abby was helping Brenda (owner/organizer) put together prize packages.

Clayton (the owner of Ripperz) gave Jeremey a little too much “soda” so he can’t really remember the names of the kids that won, but his homies Cody and Dez came in second. Brenda did a great job organizing, “Reverend” Bryant rocked the mic, D.J. Cazo was on the tables, and the contest pretty much went off. We’re proud of the skate scene in the Chuck, it’s going strong down in the dirty.

And speaking of skating, if you’re in the Bay on October 29th head on over to Beauty Bar for the ten years of Roughneck party, Jonny and that guy from Hightower are spinning…

…And speaking of stuff to do… In the D.I.Y. spirit a crew of kids right here in Lake Charles have put together a non-profit called Poor Pony with only one goal, to “make it happen” in the Lake Area. Poor Pony is throwing a big party in downtown Lake Charles this Friday the 26th, so if you’re anywhere near L.C. head down there for live music in all the bars, and bring a costume ‘cause the streets’ll be popping with a Thriller dance off.



Stay tuned for more of our adventures in Lake Charles, and we’re working on that first Austin Vlog at this exact moment, so that’ll be coming at y’all in the next couple of days.

Smiley Triangle (MIH 18)

We’re still in Texas!

(Shannon LeBoeuf Frontside Air at Kevin's Ramp: Photo by Dan Barnett)

We’ve been in Austin shooting the wonderful people at OK Mountain. On Monday night we met up with everyone (yet again) to shoot individual interviews about their personal artwork and their connection with OK Mtn.


It was awesome getting to meet so many talented and dedicated artists here in Austin. Thanks to Justin Goldwater, Nathan Green, Ryan Hennessee, Michael Sieben, Sterling Allen, and Corkey Sinks for hanging out and talking with us about OK Mountain.

Yesterday we met up with Sieben and followed him to Seguin, TX to put up an OK Mountain instillation on the campus of Texas Lutheran University.





Until early December, work from the artists involved in OK Mtn will be on display at TLU.

After Sieben set up the beginnings of the instillation, he took us to a local Mexican restaurant for a gut busting lunch.


The food was amazing. No rats were actually involved. However, Jeremey got violently ill that night. Afterward Sieben took off to finish hanging the art in the gallery.

Last night, we met up with Corkey for one last OK Mtn shoot.


She was kind enough to show us around the OK Mtn studios and give us a look into her work.



That’s about it for our Austin adventures. We might go shoot some footage around town before we head out.

We also want to give another shout out to Amy Mullins and Shannon LeBoeuf (and Dizzy!) for letting us crash at their place.


Another big donation came in last night! A ginormous thanks to Sara Henry for placing a chunk of $$ into our Chip In Pay Pal account! Sara said she’s really excited about our stories and can’t wait to see what we do. Hopefully we can make her proud. Thank you Sara!

And last but not least, this one goes out to our friend and web designer, Erik Jessen who is responsible for the look of our blog and of our portfolio site, Jaded Multimedia. Erik’s wife Kaela just gave birth to their first child, Graham Jessen.

Congrats E.J. you’re a dad now, crazy…

On to the next city…

Money Train (MIH 17)

Our homie Angelo Hjelm, who we thought was “riding the rails” through Europe is back in the Bay and donating to TeamJaded, thanks for the cash ‘Lo.


Paloma Ramirez also matched Angelo’s donation to the cent. Unintentionally of course… as the two have never met. We are oh so thankful for her donation as well- coming in all the way from NYC. Thanks Paloma, you’re awesome!


And one last, but not least, huge thanks goes to David DeLuca who donated some mad scrilla… or we could just call it a big chunk o’ dough. Also from NYC, Dave’s donation helped us reach 1% of our final goal!! We bow down and thank you Dave.


And in case you've ever wondered what happened with Maggie (Abby's cat), well... Angelo and his family graciously took her in for the duration of the trip. If you never met Maggie, here you go:




We are so grateful to each of you (Angelo, Paloma, & Dave). Thank you!

Shot Through the Heart (MIH 16)

We’re back in Texas!


We drove up to Austin on Friday and headed straight to Okay Mountain to start our shoot…


but nobody was there. So, we detoured to our favorite wifi hot spot, called Michael Sieben, and then drove back to Okay Mountain to start our shoot.

Okay Mountain is an Art Collective/ Gallery in Austin committed to creating a welcoming environment to nurture the growing Austin art scene.


One of the artists involved is Michael Sieben who Jeremey interviewed last year for a Current TV project. When we told Sieben about Make It Happen he was psyched and volunteered to help us hook up some Austin stories. He’s been really cool to us and has acted as our liaison with lots of Austin DIY folks, including the other Okay Mountain artists. He even arranged for us to shoot native Houstonian, now New York based artist, Jason Villegas finishing up the installation for his Saturday show.



After Jason was done, we drank Lone Star in the backyard with the Okay crew, set up interviews for Monday, and then headed to Polvo’s for fajitas & margaritas with some friends.

On Saturday we headed back to Okay Mountain, shot Jason Villegas’s opening, drank more beer… cause Okay Mountain supplies a keg and chips for patrons of the arts… and then we headed to Scoot Inn for the after party…


Scoot Inn was double booked with a wedding reception for Kevin and Rachael Trahan, who we happen to be acquainted with.


In fact, our gracious host’s Shannon and Amy we’re both in the wedding party, which was supposedly the “best wedding ever” complete with tuxedo t-shirts, gang of four, and lots of (you guessed it) booze and food during the ceremony… at least that’s what we heard. While we can’t confirm any of that, we can testify that the reception was pretty rocking.


And we mean a live band on stage, backing rock and roll karaoke with the bride and groom (and even the groom’s mom) doing Bon Jovi covers.


Congratulations Trahan's!

So yes, the Okay Mountain After Party/ Kevin and Rachael’s reception was a blast. A couple of other ex-Current TV employees (now Austin transplants) Sydney Katz and Ruth Rosenthal even met us up there and partook in the festivities.


Yesterday morning we went back up to the Mountain to interview Jason before he headed home to the NYC.


And tonight we’re going back to the Mountain to shoot interviews with the artists involved in the collective. Tomorrow we're going to try and check out the bats of Austin… word has it they leave in October, so hopefully there’s a few still hanging out (no pun intended).

Until next time…

Part Deux, Dos, Zwei, Twee, два (MIH 15)

Here it is, part two of our southwest adventure. We're headed back to Austin in a couple of hours and we're already drooling over the queso.

We're like totally making it happen.

We're Still Here (MIH 14)

We got another donation! Thanks to Jim Horsfield over at Myogenic.net for donating us some scrilla. Jim is over in London, which means that we are not just big, we are huge in the U.K. So, if any other brits want to donate some pounds feel free, cause your money is worth twice as much as ours. $20 bucks to you is $40 bucks to us… Think about it.

And check out Jim’s work, he’s an independent filmmaker in London and he produces some real quality material. Thanks so much Jim!

So last time we checked in we had just survived Jeremey’s high school reunion in Lake Charles, LA. After the reunion we chilled in L.C. for a couple days, ate po boy’s at all the fine Lake Chuck establishments...


... and then headed to New Orleans.

New Orleans was a blur. We stayed with Jeremey’s sister Miranda who lives uptown near Tulane.


The first night we headed to Bourbon for Abby’s mandatory New Orleans tourist debauchery experience. We had the most amazing jambalaya at Coop’s on Decatur, drank Hand Grenades on Bourbon St., and watched Big Al Carson get busy at the Funky Pirate. Big Al called Miranda to the stage and invited her to get acquainted with his armless, legless friend Phil...


...the tip jar and then he sent her around the bar collecting cash with the instructions, “we don’t make change.”



The next day we took in the sights, ate Muffaletta’s at Central Grocery, Beignets at Café DuMonde, and we’re pretty sure we drank some more; it’s New Orleans after all. We also checked out the local art scene at Art for Art's Sake, and then headed to the Republic for the Fleur de Tease Burlesque show.

On Sunday we caught up with New Orleans Poet Chuck Perkins for our second shoot on the road.


Chuck performs spoken word and jazz poetry with his group Voices of the Big Easy. His work spans from poems about growing up in New Orleans to the political fall-out of post Katrina, and it’s all totally enthralling.

We met Chuck through a mutual friend by the name of Andy Shocken. Andy worked with and befriended Chuck during the Katrina aftermath while he was in New Orleans working on a documentary project of his own. When we told Chuck about our project a couple of months ago he was totally down for the cause... and generous enough to set up a special Voices of the Big Easy performance at Café Rose Nicaud in the Marigny just for us.


So on Sunday, we forced Jeremey’s sister into intern servitude (she’s in film school at UNO) and headed for Chuck’s house to shoot his interview. Then it was off to Café Nicaud for the performance… which was completely amazing.

Voices of the Big Easy puts on a full jazz poetry experience complete with drums, trumpet, sax, bongo’s, tambourines, a stand up bass, a Mardi Gras Indian, and of course... Chuck and his brilliant poetry.


The cafe was an intimate venue, and the audience seemed to be both familiar with, and in love with Chuck’s work. His performance was so full of energy and the life of New Orleans that you couldn’t help but loose yourself in it. It felt like being in somebody’s living room.



People in the Café were talking to Chuck in between songs and poems, people from the neighborhood were stopping in and getting involved with the show, and towards the end Chuck was inviting friends to join in with the performance. There was a couple playing German drinking songs, a Ukrainian guitarist singing in Russian, and a young member of the Neville family doing the best Louis Armstrong impression we’ve ever heard. Oh, and Chuck took the cue from us and Big Al, and put Miranda to work at the door collecting donations.

Thanks for setting it up Chuck Perkins. Thanks for your generosity. And good luck on the road. Voices of the Big Easy is headed to Chicago soon for their first performances outside of Nola. When we find out the dates for those shows we’ll post them for everybody in the Chicago area.


In the meantime we’ll have a vlog about our shoot with Chuck, that should be coming down the line in a few weeks.

On Monday we planned to get pick up shots of the city but Mother Nature had other plans and rained us right out of New Orleans. We’ll have to get those shots on the way back through.

Next stop, Austin. Yep we’re head back to Texas. Our friend Michael Sieben came through and hooked us up with a few more Austin stories, we just hope we have enough time to get them all.

As a thanks to Michael and a mutual plug, here's the profile Jeremey, Allison Muir, and Aaron Hull did of Mr. Sieben last summer:



Until the next round...

Almost as good as the IMAX (MIH 13)

Here's another look into the travels of TeamJaded. This vlog is part one of the first leg of our trip through the southwest. We didn't have much luck in the ways of gambling or seeing the sights... but we tried to enjoy ourselves.

Coming soon: Part 2 (working title: "Sleeping Alien vs Predator Storm"). Abby thinks that title is funny for some reason.

And in the next couple weeks we'll be putting together a vlog that goes behind the scenes into our first shoot with the girls from the Austin Craft Mafia.

Thanks for watching!

LA is not L.A. (MIH 12)

Despite our efforts to eat Ramen and PB&J, we’ve experienced an influx of amazing food. Our gracious Austin host, Shannon, took us to Sam’s BBQ.


Our plates (and subsequently, bellies) were filled with delicious chicken, sausage and brisket, beans, potato salad, and pickles. We amazed ourselves as we realized we had eaten almost every bit of food.


Abby learned she liked potato salad, and everyone agreed the Sweat Tea was awesome.

On our way out of Austin, we stumbled upon this sign next to an Exxon Station.


We’re pretty psyched to see that Presbyterian Austinites aren’t feeling the Bush War.

After Austin we drove to Louisiana, making a pit stop in Hruska’s in Ellinger, TX. We ate yummy turkey sandwiches at a place that served Kolaches.


In case you don’t know what Kolaches are, they’re basically fried dough with stuff (cheese, meat, etc) in them. We voted ‘no’ on the fried and decided to stick with the healthier food.


We arrived in Louisiana late in the afternoon.


We made ourselves pretty and headed out to Lake Charles’ own Brick House. It was here Jeremey was reunited after ten years of separation with his high school graduating class. Buffet style food, a couple drink tickets, sentimental 90’s pop music, and awkward conversations filled the evening. Abby enjoyed herself while Jeremey pretended it wasn’t actually happening. After the expensive get-together, we headed to Jeremey’s friends house, while the class of ’97 went to a local bar.

Since then we’ve been working to get y'all another vlog. Be on the lookout for a video about our adventures across the Southwest.