Brian Murphy

Here’s hoping Washington Redskins middle linebacker London Fletcher wasn’t wearing any valuables yesterday, because he got robbed.

Of course, if I know Fletcher as well as I think I do, there’s no way he was wearing anything flashy. That’s simply not his style, which is probably why the 11-year veteran has never received a Pro Bowl nod.

While it’s true that the NFL’s version of an all-star game is completely irrelevant, it still would have been nice to see Fletcher finally get the recognition he deserves. Since the first moment he arrived in D.C., Fletcher has been the heart and soul of this defense (which, by the way, is routinely ranked in the top 10 in the league).

Even though he’s been dealing with a foot injury for some time now, there’s zero chance of Fletcher actually missing a game … or even a play. Don’t take my word for it, listen to Fletcher’s boss.

“If you listen to my wife, she said I’d have to be in the hospital, strapped down to the bed,” Fletcher said. “Not just in the hospital, but actually strapped to the bed.”

In the violent world of the NFL, where everybody is banged up to some extent during the season, Fletcher is always there. In fact, Fletcher has played in 133 consecutive games and you better believe he takes that streak seriously.

”If I feel I can go out and help the team win, then I’m gonna do my all to be out there and play,” Fletcher said.

Not to take anything away from the four Redskins players – running back Clinton Portis, fullback Mike Sellers, tight end Chris Cooley and tackle Chris Samuels – who were voted to the Pro Bowl, but if only one person from the burgundy and gold was sent to Hawaii, it should be Fletcher.

He’s currently got 118 tackles, which is fifth best in the NFL. But more importantly, he’s the one player on the entire Redskins roster they can’t afford to play without. Even during this recent losing streak, when more than a few people are wondering which Redskins players have given up on the season, Fletcher refuses to mail it in. While still dealing with a lingering foot issue, he’s managed to rack up 32 tackles in the last three games. If that doesn’t show the true type of player he is, then nothing will.

And besides, one of the guys who got the nod ahead of Fletcher, San Francisco linebacker Patrick Willis is listed as an outside linebacker on NFL.com. How is he getting voted to one of the inside/middle linebacker slots over London? And do I need to mention that four players from the anemic Redskins offense made the Pro Bowl, but not one player from the team’s perennial top-10 defense was chosen?

I don’t want to make personal attacks on Willis or anyone else that made the Pro Bowl roster. The purpose of this post is simply to say that if ever there was someone who truly deserved to be honored for his talented and dedication, it’s London. The guy has more tackles this decade than any other linebacker in football. In fact, he’s got 200 more tackles than Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who is automatically voted to the Pro Bowl each and every year.

After sitting quietly for more than a decade, Fletcher finally had enough. When local media asked for his reaction to being left on the outside of the cool kid’s club yet again, Fletcher didn’t hold back.

“I don’t know if it was because I wasn’t a first-round draft pick, I don’t do some kind of dance when I make a 10-yard tackle, I don’t go out and get arrested. I believe in playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played,” Fletcher told a group of reporters Wednesday.

“You line up each and every week, each and every play and you go out and get the job done,” Fletcher continued. “You look at my body of work and I’ve done that for 11 years. But because I’m not going out causing a lot of controversy, holding a private meeting with the coordinator saying this, this and this, causing a lot of strife on my team, I don’t garner a lot of attention. But when you turn the film on each and every week, each and every play, I’m gonna show up. That’s what I do. My career has been Hall of Fame worthy. But some coaches and some players get caught up in the hype reading the newspapers or listening to some national TV game as opposed to watching the game with no sound. It’s some BS. I put myself up against anybody playing the position, anybody.”

Shots at drama queens like Terrell Owens are great, but Fletcher saved the best line for last.

“To have it happen, year after year after year after year, you can’t tell me … an eight-time alternate, c’mon man,” he said. “That’s a trivia question. I’m the Susan Lucci of the NFL.”

Brian Murphy is an award-winning sportswriter who also goes by the name Homer McFanboy. Contact him at murf@homermcfanboy.com.

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Joel Murphy

While many of you may hate the idea of having to shovel snow this December 25, I have a feeling that Heath and Debrah Campbell of Hunterdon County, New Jersey are dreaming of a white Christmas.

The Campbells recently made national headlines after a local supermarket refused to make a birthday cake with their son’s name on it. Why did the local ShopRite refuse a seemingly simple request – to write their son’s name in frosting? Because the Campbells’ three-year-old son is named Adolf Hitler.

This isn’t the first time that the ShopRite in Greenwich Township has refused to make a cake for the Campbells. Last February, the supermarket wouldn’t make a cake for the Campbells one-year-old daughter, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation. Their daughter Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, named after Heinrich Himmler, turns one in April, so we’ll have to wait until then to see if ShopRite will once again turn away the Campbell’s cake request, or if the tribute to Himmler will be subtle enough to slip by the ShopRite’s cake patrol.

You would think that the Campbells would give up and stop going back to the same store for each and every birthday cake. But perhaps they are holding out hope that the ShopRite will eventually get over this whole “intense hatred of Nazis” thing and will start making their cakes.

As odd as it is to say, I feel bad for little Adolf Hitler too. It must be hard for him to go into a supermarket hoping to get a delicious cake for his birthday, only to have the people behind the counter refuse to make it for him because they are offended by his family’s beliefs. What kind of lesson is the ShopRite sending to this little blonde-haired, blue-eyed child? It certainly seems like they are teaching young Adolf Hitler that it is okay to treat someone differently because their beliefs are different from yours.

Luckily, all was not lost. The Campbells were eventually able to buy a birthday cake for Adolf Hitler from a Wal-mart in Lower Nazareth Township. I’m surprised they didn’t just try Wal-mart in the first place. The company has become a powerhouse by crushing local businesses and cutting costs by having their merchandise made in third-world countries with lax worker’s rights laws, it’s not like they are suddenly going to grow a conscience and deny the Campbells a chance to buy a Hitler cake. In fact, the Campbells said that they bought Adolf’s first two birthday cakes from Wal-mart. Next year, they should head to Wal-mart first, instead of going back to those intolerant ShopRite Cake Nazis.

Heath Campbell doesn’t understand why people can’t get past his son’s name.

“They say, ‘He (Hitler) killed all those people.’ I say, ‘You’re living in the wrong decade. That Hitler’s gone,’” Campbell said.

He went on to say, “They’re just names, you know. Yeah, they (Nazis) were bad people back then. But my kids are little. They’re not going to grow up like that.”

The more I started to think about it, the more I thought Campbell might be on to something. Sure, the old Adolf Hitler was responsible for some of the worst atrocities ever committed, but perhaps this new Adolf Hitler is capable of great things.

We live in an era of remakes. I never thought I would see the day when the acclaimed, Oscar-winning film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, which tackled the racial tension felt in the 1960s, would be remade as a comedy starring Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher or the day when the cheesy, heavy-handed film The Day the Earth Stood Still about an alien and his robot friend Gort who threaten to destroy the earth if we didn’t stop the Cold War would be remade as a heavy-handed environmentally-themed film starring Keanu Reeves. At this point, we are three months away from someone remaking Citizen Kane as a slapstick comedy starring Jimmy Fallon, so the thought of “remaking” Adolf Hitler as a kinder, gentler humanitarian doesn’t seem that crazy to me anymore. Besides, if any franchise could use a reboot, it’s Nazi Germany. The Nazis have always appeared so one dimensional (just look at the upcoming “heartwarming” Christmas movie called Valkyrie, in which Tom Cruise attempts to assassinate Hitler), so maybe Adolf 2.0 (with the help of the young Aryan Nation) could come in with a fresh take on the role.

Perhaps Adolf Hitler Campbell could devote his life to charity work. He could volunteer at Jewish community centers and synagogues, making the name Adolf Hitler synonymous with hope and good deeds. With the help of his family, Aryan Nation and Himmler, Adolf Hitler could take over the world with kindness, reigning in a new order of charity and good deeds.

After all, what’s in a name? Johnny Cash’s “boy named Sue” was saddled with a sissy name, one that forced him to defy expectations and become grizzled and tough. Perhaps being saddled with a name that is synonymous with evil will cause the young Adolf Hitler to defy expectations and do something truly great with his life. If the “Kitlers” on Cats That Look Like Hitler have taught us anything, it’s that just because people associate you with an evil dictator, it doesn’t mean you can’t still be warm and cuddly (and adorable).

I believe that Adolf Hitler Campbell can do great things in this world. With a little hard work and selfless giving, I believe this young child can live to see a day where the ShopRite would be glad to make a cake with his name on it. Perhaps he can even inspire others to erase the hate and embrace all that is good in this world. I truly believe he can do it because from what I hear; Adolf Hitler is really good at motivating people.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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Ned Bitters

This week’s inductee into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” is … George Bailey’s lending practices (and the vilification of Ebenezer Scrooge).

At least one good thing might come out of the economy going straight down the shitter. Maybe the sappy lot of bleeding heart Americans who get gooey-eyed watching two classic Christmas movies every December will realize that they’ve been rooting for or against the wrong characters all these years.

I’m talking about Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. To the mindless viewer, Scrooge is a merciless moneylender, a sniveling rat hellbent on collecting debts from poor, put-upon peasants who can barely keep their cobbling and coopering businesses afloat. George Bailey is set up as a paragon of all that is right and true in the good ol’ U.S. of A., helping alcoholic cabbies and half-assed cops buy houses they can barely afford.

If you’ve read the paper at all in the past three months, you’ll note that a large part of this economic apocalypse is due to George Baileyish lending practices and un-Scrooge-like credit practices. Perhaps this financial shitstorm could have been avoided had we a few more Scrooges manning the books and a few less George Baileys financing McMansions for third string cooks at the local diner.

Let’s start with our favorite usurer, Ebenezer Scrooge. His sin, at least in viewers’ eyes, is collecting payment from people to whom he lent money under clearly defined, prearranged conditions. He even has the gall to expect these payments to be made on time. This, apparently, makes him the devil. I suppose he should just let people pay whatever they can whenever they can. You know, like the payment program afforded so many debt-saddled Americans in the past decade. Maybe he should just let them default on the loans with very little penalty. You know, just like so many living-on-18-percent-credit Americans have in the past decade. Maybe he should lend them even more money, burdening them with even greater debt that they’ll never be able to repay. You know, like so many …

Scrooge is in the lending business, which means he is also in the collecting business. People who are in the borrowing business automatically enter the repayment business. Scrooge might lack sympathy for the lowlife debtors he hassles for payments, but he is not in the wrong. Instead of sneering at Scrooge, maybe we turn throw some of our distaste upon the unwashed milliners and candlemakers who borrow beyond their means to repay.

And I’m tired of being forced to feel disgust for the way he treats his employee, the sadsack Bob Cratchit. Maybe Mr. Cratchit wouldn’t be so stressed about feeding his family if he didn’t see fit to produce a passel of dirty-faced urchins to feed. Note to Bob: Pull out and shoot a load on your wife’s back from time to time. Your food dollar will go a lot further. And quit feeling sorry for yourself because you get only one day off for Christmas. If you wanted an extended holiday break, you should have been a teacher or a Cleveland Brown. It’s not like you have a ballbuster of a job anyway. You copy figures all day. You’re a human ditto machine, and you get paid like one. You want more money? You should have worked harder in school. Like Scrooge did.

Then we have George Bailey, everyone’s most inept mortgage broker. Maybe if he weren’t up to his substantially long neck in self-pity, he’d have more sense than to trust his addled uncle with eight thousand dollars cash. Even sending one of the two other knuckleheads in his hire would have been a wiser move.

Many economists cite predatory mortgage lending as culprit number one in the Who’s Most Responsible for this Economic Clusterfuck blame game. Yet when George “Just sign here and the house is yours, Mr. Deadbeat!” Bailey is selling houses to the most high risk halfwits in Bedford Falls, why, he’s an Everyman Hero.

Sure, banking competitor Mr. Potter is a lowlife heel deserving of jail time when he keeps Uncle Billy’s misplaced cash, but otherwise, he’s a hero. While George Bailey is running the family savings and loan near into the ground by doling out loans willy-nilly, Mr. Potter instead runs a solid company that makes well-founded, low-risk loans. Would that Wall Street had more Mr. Potters in the past few years. I want Potter’s sharp, nosy eye on the other titans of business. Somehow, director Frank Capra has created a mess of populist claptrap that manages to manipulate us into rooting for the whiney, retarded businessman while vilifying the astute one who worships at the altar of the bottom line.

So here’s the plan. When you’re sitting in your cozy, tree-lit living room watching one of these holiday classics, try something a little different this year. Give actual “thinking” a shot. Sure, it might ruin two of the best movie-endings this side of The Lives of Others (What? You haven’t seen it? Of course not. It has subtitles, you illiterate rube), but at least you’ll no longer be just another movie-viewing sheep.

Don’t hate Scrooge. Scream for the excuse-making Londoners to pay up before the whole of England’s economy goes kaput. Tell George Bailey that the bill has come due for a lifetime of half-assing the family business.

And finally, stop applauding Scrooge for excusing all those loans in a fit of post-ghost euphoria, and stop applauding the cash-wielding Bedford Falls nimrods who save George Bailey’s about-to-be-indicted ass. Stop calling it the triumph of man’s innate goodness winning out over his more evil urges. Stop calling it a perfect-world fantasy where people care for their brothers and sisters who are in need.

Just this once, use your head and call them what they really are: The original bailouts.

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

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Courtney Enlow

One that doesn’t involve bunnies (or midgets).

In the past year, our world has been descended upon by two locusts. These disgusting creatures appeared as if out of thin air and took over, feeding off everything they landed on. I’m talking of course about Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt.

I would like to start with a confession: I watched the first two seasons of Laguna Beach. And I enjoyed them. I’ll man up and admit it. I somehow tolerated the trials and travels of LC and Stephen as he lead her on and filled her easily confused head with mixed signals as he simultaneously dated massive bitch/obvious famewhore Kristin, who had ridiculously white trash-y friends.

Please don’t judge me. I was in my first few years of college and just experimenting.

I by no means cared about these characters or their blandly melodramatic plotlines. Rather it was strangely cathartic. These were people more pathetic than I was in high school. Sometimes that’s just a nice thing to watch. LC was like an even sadder teen version of every letter in He’s Just Not That Into You and Stephen was like every really boring boy my friends for some reason had crushes on, which I still don’t understand, because how can you like really boring people?

And there’s a nice segue into my feelings regarding that show’s unnecessarily popular spinoff The Hills. Dear Christ that show is boring. Laguna followed the lives of many boring people, so at least there was always something happening (or at least as resembling of “something” or “happening” as that show got). But The Hills follows the lives of few even duller people. (Lead-in note: I’ve only seen one or two episodes of this program total. All my other information comes from watching The Soup and whatever clips make it onto Best Week Ever.) Our heroine, LC, wasn’t even interesting enough to be the main star of more than one season of what started as her own show, so I don’t quite follow the logic of giving her a new one. She has some friends, or something. One of them (Audrina) is considered by many to be attractive, but she has badly done fake breasts and is physically unable to look at things. Seriously, what the fuck is the deal with her eyeballs? Then there’s Lo, LC’s friend from back in the OC, who used to be the only somewhat interesting-on-her-own-without-overusing-Michelle-Branch-songs-during-her-storylines person on the original show and now seems to be some kind of bratty child-adult hybrid villain. I understand there is some kind of person called a Justin Bobby and other boys too probably. Everyone is so stupid, vapid and dull that I don’t know how they even manage to hear themselves speak without falling asleep.

And then there’s Heidi and Spencer.

Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt have become more … gosh, I want to say “famous” but that sullies the word. And well-known won’t cut it either, because there’s no way anyone over 25 who sees them on Us Weekly know who these strange equine-visaged people on the cover are. So we’ll go with “out-famewhores that Kristin person.” And their fame is terrifying.

They started out small. Spreading sex tape rumors about their former friend, the aforementioned LC (who I do realize is now just called Lauren, but I don’t care, I don’t play her games) and using the horriffic vaginal euphamism “beef curtains.” Ew. I like beef. I don’t like that image. Then they started traipsing around Robertson in LA like all the other really sad people desperate for paparazzi attention, then she got bad plastic surgery and somehow got her face reshaped so that it’s shaped like a toe, then spreading dumb and obvious engagement and breakup rumors about themselves that were more transparent then her new boob skin. And then … I just don’t know.

If you’ve seen the pictures, you understand. They … they do strange things. And I don’t get it. It’s best you just look at them for yourself. Here’s some of the latest.

The questions that go through my mind when I look at these photos are dark and terrifying. Do they really think these photos look candid and unstaged? Or are they in on the joke and cashing in? Do they care at all? What are we doing here and where is it all leading? There’s no god, is there? Why is her face shaped like that? Why is his beard so off?

And then, the wheels started turning. And folks, I might be on to something here.

Let your minds wander and flow. Give up your preconceived notions of Heidi and Spencer and comedy and existentiality of life. And let’s say that this is all an elaborate joke.

Picture if you will a young actress. She gets cast on this faux-reality TV show on MTV that she knows is totally dumb and beneath her, but she needs the money. After being bored to tears by the other leads, she gets a fellow actor friend to pose as her boyfriend. They come up with this storyline wherein he’s a blandly over-the-top douche (really not that different from the people supposedly playing themselves) and she portraying this even more pathetic girl than LC, almost as a spoof. But just subtle enough that it seems real.

Over time, the sink deeper and deeper into character, laughing all the way to the bank. She delves further than ever before and actually goes under the knife and gets really bad implants as a joke. And that’s when they realize there is no turning back. They’re going where Sasha Baron Cohen only dreamed, becoming the Andy Kaufmans of our generation.

They begin to set up obnoxiously obvious paparazzi photo ops, just to see if they’ll come. AND THEY ALWAYS DO. They make a deal with Us Weekly to be on the covers, just to see if people will buy. AND THEY ALWAYS DO. They stage the world’s most obviously fake wedding that they know no one will believe, but will totally talk about on every website. AND THEY ALWAYS DO. They get more and more obnoxious on the show, just to see if people will figure them out. BUT THEY NEVER DO.

Heidi and Spencer may just be the douchiest clownshoes on the planet. Or the greatest geniuses of our time. We may never know.

Regardless, I don’t want them to procreate.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.

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Hobo Stu

Hello everyone,

Those of you who were on the site earlier today no doubt already noticed our interview with John DiMaggio from Futurama, Gears of War 2 and Batman: The Brave and The Bold. However, if you read the interview this morning, then you probably missed the link to audio highlights from our chat with DiMaggio, which is now posted at the bottom of the interview. So, if you missed it before, please go back and give it a listen. I promise it’s worth it. You will even get to hear DiMaggio slip into his Bender voice.

The audio highlights from the interview are actually this week’s Hobo Radio podcast. We know that Hobo Radio has been M.I.A. from the site for the past few weeks, which is why Joel wanted to do something special this week. He also promised that next Friday he and Lars will be back with a brand new show.

Here’s what’s new on HoboTrashcan.com this week:

One on One with John DiMaggio
He’s brought life to a beer swilling, cigar chomping robot and twice saved the world from a horde of underground locusts, but now John DiMaggio faces what is perhaps his most difficult challenge – making Aquaman cool.

DiMaggio is known for his role as Bender the robot on Futurama and Marcus Fenix in the Gears of War video game franchise, but now he can be heard as the voice of Aquaman on Batman: The Brave and The Bold. We recently had an opportunity to talk to DiMaggio about portraying the king of Atlantis, the joys of playing a video game that you star in and the impending robot apocalypse.

DVD Review – The Dark Knight
With The Dark Knight dominating headlines over the summer, exceeding all expectations and breaking box office and IMAX records, writing a review of the movie for its DVD release seems somewhat frivolous, but that’s not stopping Joel Murphy from giving his take on the film.

Murphy’s Law – Is that a monkey in your blouse or are you happy to see me?
Joel Murphy has very few steadfast rules that he lives by, but one of them is to never pass up the opportunity to write about monkey smuggling. This week, he shares the story of 28-year-old Gypsy Lawson, who attempted to smuggle a sedated monkey onto an international flight.

Note to Self – Eight things
Perhaps feeling cocky after his sports blog was mention on Sports Illustrated, this week Brian Murphy shares eight things that he knows for certain about the world of sports. He probably could have provided us with 10 rules, but he was too busy calling up everyone he knows and asking them if they’ve checked out Sports Illustrated‘s website recently.

Outside of the In-Crowd – Things I Wasn’t Above in 2008
When you are Outside of the In-Crowd, it’s easy to snub pop culture events that you feel are beneath you. As the year comes to an end, Courtney Enlow takes a look back at the things she actually got swept up in this year by handing out the first annual “Things I Wasn’t Above” Awards.

Overrated – More Christmas songs
It’s beginning to look like Christmas, everywhere you look. But while trees across America may already be trimmed and stockings may be hung by the chimney with care, one thing is certain – inside the Bitters house, there is no Christmas music being played. This week, Ned Bitters shares a list of Christmas songs that he feels are overrated.

- Hobo Stu

Hobo Stu’s Weekly Recap is also available as an email newsletter. To sign up for the newsletter to ensure you never miss an update, send an email to newsletter-subscribe@hobotrashcan.com.