By Joel Murphy

It’s hard to believe I’ve already been doing HoboTrashcan for a year. It seems like just yesterday I was trying to convince my brother to help me put together this site and he was shaking his head and telling me he was way too busy to get involved. Eventually he caved and HoboTrashcan was officially formed.

On August 23, 2005, HoboTrashcan was launched with very little fanfare. Originally, we only had four columns – Murphy’s Law, Note to Self, Perfectly Legal and Totally Wasted (Totally Wasted only ran for one week, which is a shame because I always thought it was a great concept. I actually keep hoping that someone else will take it over). The first installment also featured an interview with Michael K. Williams from The Wire. That interview continues to be one of the most read pages on the site, even one year later.

Over the past year, we have added some new columnists, conducted more celebrity interviews and watched as we’ve built up a steady readership. We’ve also had the lovely Tara sign on as our official site girl in January and in June we launched Hobo Radio. As Frank Sinatra sang, “it was a very good year.”

Usually, I like to use this column to bitch about petty things that are bothering me like the news that they cast a gay cowboy as The Joker in the next Batman film, but this week, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the past year and share some of the highlights. So strap into the Way Back Machine Mr. Peabody because it’s time to get all nostalgic on your ass …

One of my absolute favorite moments was getting to interview Mick Foley. He has been my favorite wrestler since I was a teenager, so it was very cool to get a chance to talk to him. I usually don’t get nervous before doing interviews, but for that one I definitely had some butterflies circling around my stomach. I set the interview up with his publicist and was told to call his hotel room in Chicago at 9:30 AM. However, Mick was under the impression that the interview was at 9:30 AM Chicago time, so he was sound asleep when I called his room. He definitely sounded groggy when he answered the phone and I felt bad, but he did the interview and was his normal, cheerful self by the end of it and it came out great. I still feel bad that I woke up my idol, though.

I think the coolest moment for me was when I interviewed Carbon Leaf. Most of the interviews I do for the site are done by telephone, but for Carbon Leaf I actually interviewed them backstage before their show at the Recher Theater. As I walked into their dressing room, I got to see them and Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers run through a medley of “Take Me Home, Country Road,” “Another Brick in the Wall” and “The Gambler.” That ended up being their encore for the night. It may sound corny, but I really felt like William Miller in Almost Famous just getting to interview the band and watching them rehearse.

One of my other favorite moments was when Phil Hellmuth got a little annoyed with me while I was interviewing him. He didn’t like it when I started asking him about losing to Annie Duke in the Tournament of Champions and he twisted my words around and said, “That’s the second thing you’ve kind of accused me of that I’ve never heard before.” The other thing I “accused” him of that he had never heard before was when I asked him if he ever felt like he was selling out by doing endorsements. I actually enjoyed getting chewed out by him a little and by the end of the interview, he was thanking me and telling me he hoped I interviewed him again soon.

And, of course, I love all of the interviews I did with people from The Office. Angela Kinsey is wonderful and she helped me get the interviews with Kate Flannery and Brian Baumgartner. I was really happy to see the show get Emmy nominations and I really think it’s on the verge of becoming a huge hit.
Most of the interviews have been great. I won’t name any names, but occasionally I’ve come across some people who have been difficult to deal with. Overall, I’ve been very fortunate.

I’ve also been really lucky in finding some really great writers for the site. I think we have a great team of columnists in place and they all have different styles and subject matter. It’s definitely an eclectic group and I really enjoy working with all of them (even if they occasionally slack off and don’t send me columns when they are supposed to).

I love getting emails from Ned Bitters. They are usually as funny as his columns (and somehow even more inappropriate). I also love talking to Tara. We knew each other before I started the site, but since I convinced her to be our site girl, we have definitely started talking more and I’m really pleased about that. Everyone else is great too and I was friends with most of them before I started the site. It’s a shame everyone is so spread out or we would definitely have office parties.
Of course, I’m also really happy that my brother caved in and decided to help me out with the site. Most people don’t realize it, but he does a ton of behind the scenes stuff. He’s helped with layout, with graphics and with just about everything else. And meanwhile, I get most of the credit (because I am an egomaniac, of course). I really love doing the podcasts with him too. Those give you an idea of how the two of us act all the time in real life.

So thank you all of you out there for checking out the site this past year. I really appreciate the support. Hopefully, we’ll be around for a long, long time and I’ll be forced to put together a sappy 10 year anniversary column or maybe even a 20 year one.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He also has some really hot friends. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

By Brian Murphy

We’re well into the preseason, so you know what that means – it’s time for the third annual “Why your team won’t win the Super Bowl” column. So kick off your shoes and relax your feet as you dig in to see why (insert name of your favorite football franchise) won’t win the big one this year.

Arizona Cardinals – Brenda Warner.

Atlanta Falcons – There is no cure to stop Michael Vick, but you can suppress him in hopes of preventing an outbreak. And actually, the same can be said on the field too. Meanwhile, the powers that be in Atlanta are trying to get Vick more protection … which also applies on the field.

Baltimore Ravens – Steve McNair is not like a bottle of fine wine that gets better with age. He’s old and injury prone. And that means the city of “Bawlmer, hun” is only one hit away from the return of Kyle “Pro” Boller. Remind a Ravens fan of that and watch them throw up in their mouth – it’s fun for all ages.

Buffalo Bills – In January the Bills brought back former head coach Marv Levy to be the general manager and vice president of football operations. It’s a sad state of affairs when you reach out to an 80-year-old who is best known for consistently losing big games. What, was Bill Buckner unavailable?

Carolina Panthers – Wouldn’t it be more cost effective if instead of using seven different running backs every year the team just took the healthy parts of everyone in the rotation and made one durable, every down running back? And by cost effective, I mean awesome.

Chicago Bears – Making fun of their slew of subpar quarterbacks is too easy, so instead we’ll point out that the Bears were the only team in 2005 to have two offensive linemen investigated by the FBI after battling each other in a drunken fistfight at a shooting range. But in honor of their QBs, none of the punches connected. (Sorry, couldn’t help it).

Cincinnati Bengals – This has to be the worst off-season of any team in recent memory. Half their roster has been arrested within the last year – not exactly the offseason Marvin Lewis envisioned. If that’s not enough, the QB (Carson Palmer) is coming off of a major knee injury, the top WR (Chad Johnson) tried to choke one of his coaches last season and their RB (Rudi Johnson) is named after a kid on the Cosby show.

Cleveland Browns – I don’t care how much of a “soldier” tight end Kellen Winslow thinks he is, the bottom line is the defensive player drafted one spot away from him, Redskins safety Sean Taylor, has more career touchdowns (two) than Winslow (zero). That’s gotta hurt. Well … not as bad as a motorcycle crash, but it still hurts.

Dallas Cowboys – What does it say about your team when you bring in wide receiver Terrell Owens and he’s not even the biggest asshole added to your roster? That honor goes to the liquored-up kicker, Mike Vanderjagt. My only hope is that the Tuna snaps after dealing with all of these malcontents and scraps the entire playbook in favor of more “Jap plays.” No offense.

Denver Broncos – Because Jake Plummer hasn’t been the same since he stopped being a caddy for Happy Gilmore, the Broncos drafted Jay Cutler. Fans shouldn’t get too excited though, during Cutler’s four-year career his Vanderbilt Commodores managing only an 11-35 record.

Detroit Lions – Detroit disappointed fans of the other 31 teams when, for the first time in two decades, the Lions didn’t use their first-round draft choice on a wide receiver. But the team ruined the noteworthy occasion by passing over the chance to draft a quarterback who may actually be capable of getting the ball to any of those receivers.

Green Bay Packers – Retired quarterback Brett Favre never would have let the Packers get this shitty. Wait … he’s still there? Wow. Talk about awkward …

Houston Texans – Losing builds character. So I guess that means quarterback David Carr is one helluva great guy … who still doesn’t have an offensive line.

Indianapolis Colts – The closest to clutch Peyton Manning will ever get with a game on the line is when a television network shows one of his hilarious MasterCard commercials during the fourth quarter. “Can you sign this loaf of bread for my brother?”

Jacksonville Jaguars – Sure, the Jags went 12-4 last year. But this year the league is actually making them play NFL teams instead of a college schedule. That thought alone made Fred Taylor’s groin give up.

Kansas City Chiefs – After having such success with converted basketballers TE Tony Gonzales and RB Larry “Grandmama” Johnson, the Chiefs are planning to sign Shaq, Tree Rollins, Gheorghe Muresan, Shawn Bradley and Manute Bol to shore up their defense.

Miami Dolphins – LB Zach Thomas and DE Jason Taylor may be the best of friends, but when your best buddy and your sister get a divorce it doesn’t really build camaraderie. Now, if only Ricky Williams could somehow become involved in the soap opera maybe everyone could mellow out. If this keeps up DT Manuel Wright may very well break down and cry at practice. Again.

Minnesota Vikings – Last year the Vikings got off to a terrible start (2-5), and then used a sex cruise to salvage their season at 8-8. While CB Fred “Cover 2″ Smoot would suggest otherwise, that’s not really an “every year” kind of option.

New England Patriots – Tom Brady has the looks and gets all the attention, but kicker Adam Vinatieri is the most clutch player at his position in the modern era. Who thought replacing him with one of the “Dancin’ Gramaticas” was a good idea?

New Orleans Saints – While they both blew, Hurricane Katrina shifted attention away from Aaron Brooks’ typical poor play last season. With both out of the picture, Saints fans will have to come up with a new excuse for their shitty team. Can you say tsunami?

New York Giants – Claiming precedence, the New York Giants filed suit against the NFL last week demanding that the league a) give them nine home games again this year and 2) put the New Orleans Saints back on their schedule. They know otherwise they need to rely on a poor man’s Peyton Manning to get them to the playoffs and choke.

New York Jets – With LaMont Jordan at running back and Santana Moss at wide receiver this offense is set for the next decade – regardless of who plays at quarterback. What’s that? Uh … my bad.

Oakland Raiders – Oh, come on. Even Raider fans know they’re not doing anything this year. Why waste a perfectly good punchline on this joke of a team?

Philadelphia Eagles – Sure T.O. was an asshole, but without him all Donovan McNabb has to work with is an injury-prone running back and a bunch of third-rate stiffs at receiver. At least his attention-whore mom will be there to make him feel better with a nice bowl of soup for him to spew in the huddle.

Pittsburgh Steelers – Vowing to keep up his off-season conditioning plan, part-time quarterback and full-time moron Ben Roethlisberger has petitioned the league to let him play this season without a helmet. It’s enough to make the team look back lovingly to simpler days when their biggest problem (literally) was an oversized Bus.

San Diego Chargers – I’ll never see the logic in trading away a proven Pro Bowl-caliber player (QB Drew Brees) in order to give his job to an unproven benchwarmer (QB Phillip Rivers) who the team hopes will some day be as good as the guy they just let go. How is that smart?

San Francisco 49ers – Who are we kidding? Even head coach Mike “Don’t call me vanilla” Nolan knows he’s in over his head and his team blows. But fortunately for Nolan, he’s in the one city in America that embraces dudes blowing. Bong!

Seattle Seahawks – Madden cover jinx. Nuff’ said.

St. Louis Rams – With RB Marshall Faulk having shot his load, the Rams are going to have to rely on RB Madison Hedgecock to get the big score. Well, they’ve also been grooming young stud RB Steven Jackson, but seriously, its way more fun to say their season rides on the back of a Hedgecock.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Last year Tampa Bay basically got into the playoffs because RB Mike Alstott was given a freebie on a two-point conversion by the horrible NFL officials. It was the worst blown call of the year … until they blew the same exactly call in the Super Bowl with QB Ben Roethlisberger. Karma already took care of Big Ben – next up, Chucky and friends.

Tennessee Titans – Titans not good. (You say anything more sophisticated than that and it’ll fly right over Vince Young’s head).

Washington Redskins – With head coach Joe Gibbs, as well as Joe Bugel, Don Breaux, Greg Blache and Mark Brunell the Redskins lead the league in senior citizens. The team should be in decent shape – as long no one falls and breaks a hip and the league doesn’t schedule too many night games.

Brian Murphy is the 2005 Defense Department’s sportswriter of the year. And he still doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Contact him at murf@the5holes.com.

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All it took was one small scene in The 40 Year Old Virgin to become a fan of Jonah Hill for life. What’s not to love about a guy who wants nothing more than to be able to buy a pair of hooker boots with goldfish in them? If it really is about the simpler things in life than Jonah’s got it made. Hill kicked off his boots and sat down with us to talk about life as a writer-turned-actor.

When did you know you wanted to be an actor?

I always wanted to be a writer since I was a kid for like Saturday Night Live or The Simpsons or Larry Sanders – I idolized those guys and I always wanted to write. But I was always a funny kid, I guess, I’m told by my parents. I was in school in New York for writing, but I couldn’t find actors that understood what my mind was writing to convey my thoughts properly, so I eventually was like, “Fuck it, I’ll do it myself.”

I started doing it and people were kind of into it and I fell in love with performing stuff. And doing these kind of movies is so great because I get to write and improvise most of my lines and stuff, so it’s kind of like you get to do both.

Where are you originally from? How did you break into the business?

I’m originally from Los Angeles. I actually grew up out here, which is odd for some people to deal with. I hopefully ended up a cool enough guy.

I moved to New York to go to college to New School University and I was writing in this bar called Black and White in the East Village, which is the coolest bar ever. If you are ever in New York, check it out. It fucking rules. It’s like my Cheers. They had this storytelling and poetry night and I would write these fake stories because I thought the sad stories were so funny. I would tell my friends and they all thought it was really funny. And then, one day Dustin Hoffman’s kids, Jake and Becky, came and saw it and we became fast friends and they were like, “You should meet my dad.”

I didn’t know their dad was an actor or anything, so I was like, “Cool, you should meet my dad. He’s an accountant. His name is Rich.”

So we all started hanging out and he thought I was really funny and he introduced me to a director, David O. Russell, and I auditioned for his movie. That was my first movie, I Heart Huckabees.

You were 19 when you got the part. Do you feel lucky to have landed that role at such a young age?

I was shitting my pants. I couldn’t believe it, man. David Russell is one of the coolest directors in my mind and it was just the coolest thing ever. It was funny, because I didn’t work for like two years after we shot it and I was like, “Well, am I really supposed to be doing this?” It came out a long time after we shot it. So, I did this cool movie and no one had seen it. I couldn’t get an agent or manager or anything. But at the time, I was like, “This is the coolest, craziest thing ever of my life.” And I still have that feeling. If I ever stop having that feeling then I’ll do something else.

In The 40 Year Old Virgin, you had a small, but memorable role. What was it like working on such a great movie with such an awesome cast?

I’d say the highlight of my life was just meeting those guys and getting to work with them – Steve Carell, Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow. They’ve been like family to me ever since. Judd and Seth, I work with them all the time now, which was my dream. They, to me, are the funniest guys around and it was like heaven.

I got there and it was like, “You have one scene. It’s a small scene with nothing written. Just improvise with Catherine Keener.”

I was like, “Awesome.” To me, it was funny because the scene in the eBay store, there was nothing written. But what I found funny was on the way there, I go, “I don’t really know what an eBay store is.” When I was driving to set that day, I really didn’t know what it was and what the concept was, so a lot of that shit I was saying to her was kind of true. The take that they used a lot of was the time when I actually conceptualized what it was. I’m like, “I really can’t buy these?” That was my thought process – are you serious? You can go to a store and see something you want to buy and can’t buy it to me was the funniest concept ever.

It was the best day of my life. I remember every second of it.

After that, you were in Adam Sandler’s movie Click. Between Steve Carell and Adam Sandler, how did any work ever get done? Those are two of the funniest guys out there.

What’s funny is that Adam and Steve both have such an incredible work ethic, you’d be surprised how much work does get done.

Is it a work hard, play hard kind of mentality?

Yeah. They are fun, funny guys – obviously two of the funniest guys on the planet in my mind – but when they’re at work, they’re just professional and cool. When you’re on a comedy set, it’s cool because you get to be funny for work, so it makes it so much more enjoyable.

With the movie Accepted, how did you land the role of Sherman and what did they tell you about your character when you went in for the audition?

The character was written in the script as like a young Woody Allen. So when I auditioned for it, all the dudes were wearing like those Woody Allen blazers and talking very neurotically and I was like, “I think it’d be funnier if he wasn’t so neurotic because he’s got to be cool enough to be friends with B, where he’s like funny and cool, but not in the cool ‘getting the girls’ kind of way, just a funny, cool guy, but obviously high strung.” And I just took a different take where everyone I saw read was just trying to do a Woody Allen impression. I had to fight. I went in like 10 times probably for that role. They were not digging it.

What is it like for you right before one of your movies comes out? Do you have any kind of special routines or superstitions? Do you end up going to the theater with us common folks on opening weekend? Tell me what you do.

No, I despise common people. They make me throw up.

This is my first movie where I’m one of the main dudes, so this is really the first time I felt a lot of stake in the movie. I’m nervous. The thing is, everyone who has seen it, including my friends, who are a bunch of cynical assholes, who are completely honest with me and usually don’t like these kind of movies, thought it was really funny. One thing I can say is that I am genuinely proud of it and I think if someone saw it, they would be like, “Oh my god, that is a funny movie.”

I guess I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m going on Conan on August 10, which I’m really excited about, which was the highlight of my life so far when I found that out. I screamed and ran around naked with all the dudes I was hanging out with.

Who in Hollywood would you like to work with down the road?

I’d say Wes Anderson, definitely. I like Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. All of his movies to me are so awesome. I saw Little Miss Sunshine the other day. It was awesome. I would love to be in a movie like that. Nathan Lane … no, just kidding. Nathan Lane, if you read HoboTrashcan, let’s do Wedding Crashers, you and me.

The funny thing is, if you had asked me that at the way beginning of my career, I would have said probably like Tom Shadyac and Judd Apatow. I’m just so lucky to have worked with them.

We were looking into your career and we see you’re doing a bunch of movies like Evan Almighty, Strange Wilderness and Knocked Up. Which of these future projects are you most excited about?

I’d have to say the most excited I’ve been just to see a movie I’m in is Knocked Up. Evan Almighty is going to be crazy and massive and it’s one of the coolest things to do in the entire world. I think Knocked Up, those are some of my best friends, those guys in the movie.

What’s the premise of Knocked Up?

I play one of Seth Rogen’s best friends and Seth Rogen is the main guy in the movie. We’re running a porn website and we’re really immature. We go out one night and get drunk in a bar and he meets Katherine Heigl, who is awesome and very attractive and a great actress. They get drunk and have a one-night stand and then three months later, she calls and they go to dinner and she is pregnant. So they start dating from when they realize she’s pregnant and I get to be kind of like Seth’s character in The 40 Year Old Virgin, where you don’t have the burden of being the main character and driving the story so much. I just get to go off and be funny. I am so excited.

You said originally wanted to be a writer, but now have established yourself as an actor. Is your goal shifting or will you someday shift back into what you originally envisioned yourself doing?

I’m writing a movie right now with Jason Schwartzman, who is a good buddy of mine. I think very soon we’ll get to see another movie I’m in that I get to write. And that’s the dream. That would be my ultimate dream come true, something I’ve written getting actually made into a movie.

We’ve got one last thing for you here. We are going to do a word association. We’ll just throw out a name and tell us the first thing that pops into your head.

Jonah Hill.

Awesome. Joke.

The 40 Year Old Virgin.

Fucking awesome.

Accepted.

Fucking totally awesome.

Hollywood.

Lame.

The future.

Hopeful.

Interview by Brian Murphy, August 2006. Accepted opens in movie theaters nationwide on August 18.

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