Brian Murphy

Hello everyone and welcome to our third-annual Note to Self awards. For those not familiar, this is our way of highlighting the newsworthy in the world of professional sports. So without further adieu, let’s hand out some Selfies.

The “What, Ed McMahon wasn’t available?” award goes to the Cleveland Cavaliers for repeatedly pairing forward LeBron James with over-the-hill veterans during his six-year career.

For those who haven’t heard, the Cavs have acquired Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal in exchange for the corps of Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, the 46th pick in tonight’s NBA draft and half a million dollars.

Pairing Shaq with King James is a great idea … if this is 2004. But bringing in a 37-year-old Shaq to try and help a good Cleveland team reach championship level is nothing more than a pipe dream. James is 24. If you want him to be happy and feel like Cleveland is the only city he ever wants to play for, then maybe – just maybe – the plan should have been to surround him with other young, talented players who can grow into a true team together.

After 17 seasons, the Shaq we see now is a shell of his former self. Sure, he was an all-star last season for the Phoenix Suns and the Eastern Conference isn’t as good as the West, but O’Neal isn’t a guy who can’t bring his “A game” every night anymore. He has to pick and choose which games he’s going to go all out for and on other nights … he’s a waste of a roster spot.

The Cavs are gambling that this desperation move pays off and that O’Neal is the missing piece to bring James his first NBA title. Sadly, the more likely scenario is that after this move fails miserably LeBron will fully realize that Cavs management is never going to figure out the right way to build a championship-caliber team and start house hunting in other cities.

While we’re on the subject of the NBA, let’s hand out the “Kramer from Seinfeld“ award to Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant.

Okay, let me see if I get this straight. Pretty much since day one Bryant has been a moody diva/terrible teammate. He won a few NBA titles with Shaq Fu early on, but once the big man was traded out of L.A., Kobe had been unable to recapture basketball’s holy grail.

Bryant reaches his low point after a 2003 trip to Eagle, Colorado, and words like “rape” and “sexual assault” are suddenly attached to the supposedly happily married superstar. Endorsements are terminated, public opinion is at an all-time low and there are even rumors that maybe everyone involved would be better off if Kobe was traded by the Lakers and given a fresh start elsewhere.

Fast forward to this year and the Lakers, led by Bryant and a solid supporting cast, are able to win another championship. Kobe finally wins a title without O’Neal and suddenly the world loses its damn mind. Stories about Bryant suddenly being a great person and even better teammate make the rounds in what can only be considered revisionist history and even more absurd – some folks begin comparing Bryant to the great Michael Jordan.

Look, Kobe was great when paired with Shaq. Just like Michael Richards was great playing “Kramer” on Seinfeld. Bryant faced adversity when he (allegedly) did things to a 19-year-old hotel employee that she wasn’t “comfortable” with. Richards’ life became more difficult when he decided racial slurs were the answer to combat hecklers. Bryant leading the Lakers past an in-over-their-head Orlando Magic team doesn’t suddenly make him the second coming of M.J. or even a good teammate. It simply means that during that series, he was on the hotter and better team.

Using this logic, am I to believe that if Terrell Owens led the Buffalo Bills to a Super Bowl victory this year he’s suddenly a changed man? Nevermind his extensive resume and history of ridiculousness, if T.O. gets a ring he’s suddenly a classy, and driven winner? Nonsense. Assholes can be winners too.

The “Hey Madonna, no one cares about you anymore. Please just go away” award goes to the soon-to-be Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre. She can adopt/steal 500 kids from third-world countries and no one will like her. Favre can toss the football around with every high school kid in America and no one will be happy to read another story about him. In a perfect world these two could run off together (with the paparazzi and Peter King) to anywhere far, far away from here.

The “Peer pressure isn’t always a bad thing” award goes to baseball commissioner Bud Selig in hopes that he follows Donald Fehr’s lead and heads off to enjoy retirement. Fehr, who for more than 20 years served as the executive director of baseball’s players association, represents a black eye for our national pastime – with steroids, skyrocketing salaries and a canceled World Series on his resume.

Well, the guy sitting on the other side of the table during all of those travesties was Selig. And if baseball is ever truly going to get past the Steroid Era, then Bud needs to move on to the next chapter of his life as well. Baseball needs their Roger Goodell, someone who can change the culture overnight and whip that league back into shape.

And finally, the “Stick to your day job” award goes to baseball/football announcer Joe Buck, for thinking it was a good idea to have his own talk show on HBO. It wasn’t.

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

It was no surprise to me that someone finally took a swing at Perez Hilton. Frankly, the only surprise to me is that no one punched the gossip blogger in the face sooner.

In case you missed it, Hilton got into a heated discussion with will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas on Sunday night after the Much Music Awards in Toronto. will.i.am confronted Hilton about disparaging comments Hilton wrote on his site and things escalated from there. Hilton admits that he got upset at the Black Eyed Peas member and called him a “fucking faggot.” Moments later, Hilton was reportedly punched in the face by the band’s manager, Liborio “Polo” Molina, who has been charged with assault.

Once Hilton left the music awards, he logged on to Twitter account and posted the following message: “I was assaulted by will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas and his security guards. I am bleeding. Please, I need to file a police report. No joke.”

Since then, both Hilton and will.i.am have posted video blogs telling their side of the story. Hilton clarified that will.i.am never assaulted him, but failed to explain why he went to Twitter after the altercation instead of calling the police himself. While will.i.am seems calm and collected in his video response, Hilton comes across as extremely agitated and angry. He repeatedly says that violence is never the answer, then continues to direct insults and expletives at the band.

While Hollywood is usually quick to jump on the bandwagon of any trendy new cause, it seems like there won’t be any actors jumping on the “Stop Violence Against Bitchy Bloggers” bandwagon. In fact, it seems like Hollywood has been getting quite a bit of joy out of Hilton’s pain.

Kelly Clarkson said, “I don’t think violence is the answer, but what did you expect? You can’t say that much crap about people without being able to take something, so … I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already … I’m thinking how much did will.i.am pay his manager to do that (laughs) because you know he wanted to.”

Jonathan Knight from New Kids on the Block said, “Haha, bitch! A bag of frozen peas always works wonders when you get sucka punched in the eye.” He added: “This is the best day ever.”

John Mayer wrote on Twitter account: “I’d like to train you in Krav Maga. Then you’ll have the situational awareness not to get in someone’s face. I also want to train you in an old martial art called ‘Never Call A Black Dude a Faggot Jitsu.’”

Hilton was a bit surprised by all of the people who took great joy in his misfortune.

“I am honestly SHOCKED at the amount of people saying I deserved to be hit. Shame on you! NO. Violence is never the answer. NEVER,” Hilton wrote.

But can he really be that surprised that people aren’t eager to jump to his defense? The man has made a career out of crudely drawing penises on the faces of celebrities and writing horrible insults about them. At the same time, he wants to be a celebrity himself, so he attends the same parties and events as the people he’s mocking. He seemed to be under the impression that he could say whatever he wanted and there would be no repercussions, but life doesn’t work that way. Eventually, something has to give. He’s just lucky he called will.i.am a faggot and not Kiefer Sutherland. Jack Bauer headbutts people for fun and he would have made short work of the doughy blogger (and unlike Molina, Sutherland would have left a few marks).

Perez Hilton is convinced that violence is never the answer, but frankly I’m not so sure. I think it’s good that he got punched in the face. He needs to know that he isn’t writing his blog posts in a bubble. If he wants to mock celebrities and wants to hang around in the same social circles as those celebrities, he needs to be ready to take his medicine. Just because he would never hit anyone doesn’t mean he can shout whatever insults he wants to other people’s faces and expect them to follow the same rules.

To me, this isn’t just about Hilton. The Internet is a wonderful thing and it makes it easy to share opinions and connect with people in real time. It’s a really amazing tool. Unfortunately, it also breeds really amazing tools who flock to websites and message boards to spew hate. Because people are in the safety of their own home and have a degree of anonymity, they feel like they can write whatever they want. Certain people don’t think twice about tearing down other people online because they think it will never catch up to them. This past weekend, Hilton simply found out that the real world doesn’t work like the Internet.

Anyone who has seen Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back remembers the scene at the end of the film where the two lead characters fly across the country and beat down everyone who ever posted a negative comment about them on an Internet message board. I would love to see this happen in real life so that people have to think twice about what they are writing online. If the question is “How do we stop morons from writing ignorant, hate-filled posts on the Internet?” perhaps violence is the answer.

And I realize that I am guilty at lashing out at celebrities in this column (although I like to think that my posts are a bit more clever than Hilton’s penis sketches and the average Internet troll’s misspelled, ignorant all-caps tirades), but I’m ready to accept the consequences. In fact, I keep hoping and praying that one day Jimmy Fallon shows up at my doorstep ready to fight.

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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Aaron R. Davis

According to a recent interview with MTV, Todd McFarlane wants Leonardo DiCaprio to play the lead in his new Spawn movie.

I’ll bet a bunch of you just asked: “They still make Spawn?”

I’ll bet some of you even asked: “What the hell is Spawn?”

Hell, I was a huge Spawn fan back in the early nineties, and I had no idea it was still around, either.

For those who may not know, Spawn was – or, apparently, is still – a comic book. It’s published by Image Comics, which made a splash back in 1992 when seven comic book pros walked out on Marvel Comics and founded their own company where creators would own their characters. The loudest of these pros was Todd McFarlane, who had become renowned as the very popular and overrated artist of The Amazing Spider-Man.

From the moment McFarlane started writing his own stories – he was given his own title, Spider-Man, when Marvel wouldn’t let him introduce his own creator-owned character in-continuity – he became a sort of polarizing figure. Some people immediately found his writing laughable. Others thought his take on Spidey was interesting even though it was so odd. Certainly the stories were much darker-toned than those his art had accompanied before. But there was also something about them that was silly. The dark tone was there, sure, but as a writer McFarlane wasn’t as interested in exploring the dark as he was in being cool.

So, when he went off to create Spawn – the character he’d wanted to do for Marvel – it was no surprise that the book reveled in the dark and the disgust and heaven and hell and angels and demons and magic and the undead. Spawn is some kind of special forces soldier who died on a mission and sold his soul to a devil called the Malebolgia (the name says it all, doesn’t it? Think about it) and is sent back to the world as some sort of costumed creature who’s basically the undead child of Moon Knight and Doctor Strange. The premise was always that whenever Spawn used his powers, they would drain him and, when his power meter ran down to zero, he would have to go back to hell. The Violator, a fat midget clown who is really a demon in disguise, would try and needle Spawn into using his powers.

And I frankly can’t remember anything else about the comic (except that a couple of cops were chasing after him). It was never really memorable, despite McFarlane’s yammering about how cool he was and how cool his comic was and how important it was an example of independent publishing and how everyone who didn’t like it should just shut up and leave him alone. McFarlane has been a blowhard ever since, even after he stopped writing Spawn to focus on his line of action figures and collecting baseballs.

The thing that became clear about Image Comics is that it was really much ado about nothing. I’ll always stand up for Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon, but most of the comics Image published weren’t very good. Most of the people involved had “Cool Syndrome,” something I just made up right now. Cool Syndrome is when a person has no aspirations – or ability – beyond being cool. And it’s always self-conscious. And Image sales started to flag when it became obvious that most of these “cool” books were simply ripping off what the creators had already done when they were with Marvel. And though Image Comics still survives and has become a successful publisher, those early years turned off a lot of people and sent them back to the major publishers.

Spawn, by the way, will never use up his powers and die. McFarlane used to point out that what made Spider-Man bullshit was that there is no suspense – no fear that he might die – because Marvel had so much invested in the property. Ironically, the same has been long true of Spawn; he’s not a creator-owned character, he’s McFarlane’s little industry.

The thing that really sent sales on Spawn plummeting was the terrible movie that New Line put out in 1997. HBO had already put out an animated series that was interesting, but the live action movie with John Leguizamo as the Violator was pretty terrible. It had pretty good special effects, but it played like something that should’ve gone straight to the SCIFI Channel. It was a financial failure and it seemed like we weren’t going to have to hear from Spawn ever again.

And now Todd McFarlane announced that he wants Leonardo DiCaprio to play the guy chasing down Spawn in a new movie. And the news just makes me smile. Not because I want to see another Spawn movie – dear gods, no – but because McFarlane is still out there spouting his silliness and believing that Spawn is the most awesome thing ever to come down the pike and bluffing and blowharding as if he’s even going to be able to get a studio to agree to make another one in the first place. It’s just somehow touching that he really thinks this can happen.

And he compares his movie idea to Jaws and The Departed and The Godfather, because he really does believe he’s in that league. He thinks he has a shot because DiCaprio’s father liked underground comics – which shows that McFarlane doesn’t understand the difference between independent and underground comics, and that Spawn is really neither. For years, he’s cheerfully and greedily been blocking the rerelease of the legendary Miracleman, a great comic written by great creators (Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman), because the world already has Spawn. And Spawn is, to hear him tell it, The Godfather of comic books.

That none of his stories have been memorable is beside the point. That no one cares about seeing another Spawn movie is beside the point. Todd McFarlane has no doubt of his own importance, and that’s all that really matters.

Todd McFarlane, don’t ever change. You still make me laugh.

Aaron R. Davis lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean with his eyes shut tight and his fingers in his ears. You can contact him at samuraifrog@yahoo.com.

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Courtney Enlow

In 1989, something happened that would change the world as we know it. Something that would influence generations of children into following their dreams. Something that taught young girls how to love. Something beautiful and delicate and wonderful. That something was Saved By The Bell.

Saved By The Bell was more than just FUPA jeans and hypercolors. It was integral to the formative years of everyone born between the years 1979 to 1986, with a plus/minus of a million extra years because it had something for everyone. It gave me a feminist icon in Jessie Spano. It gave me a picture to clip onto every treadmill I run on to this very day in Kelly Kapowski. It gave me a strong gaydar in A.C. Slater. It gave me a sweet board game and two Barbies I wish I still had. More importantly, it gave me my first love in environmental advocate and probable X-Men mutant with the ability to stop time, Zack Morris.

But there is one thing that SBTB gave me above all else which haunts me to this day, and that is countless questions. The whys and hows and general what the motherfucks. So in honor of the show’s 20 year anniversary, and the valiant effort of Mr. Jimmy Fallon to reunite the whole cast (watch this and weep and think vague and confused dirty thoughts involving tongue kissing even though you’re not sure what exactly that is yet), I decided that now is the time to ask these questions and search for answers.

Any fan of The Bell knows that it wasn’t exactly a bastion of continuity. Numbers of siblings changed by the episode. On-again/off-again relationships were mostly due to whatever the writer felt like having that day. Loves of lives came and went like ghosts. If you go to the “List of minor characters in Saved By The Bell” and do a shot every time you see the words “s/he was never seen again,” you will vomit the entire length of your intestines out of your body and die on the floor like a junkie hooker at the Mark Twain hotel. And then there’s the infamous “Tori Paradox” (copyright, object of minor hero worship, I’m not worthy, so I won’t even bother, 2003). But these are just the tip of the cherry stem atop the chocolate shake from The Maxx. There are so many more questions in the world of Bayside High. A seedy underbelly of darkness and confusion, and we must get through this together, people.

Can they sing or not?
The subject of our gang’s talents varied by episode. In the “Glee Club” episode, the Core 6 join the badass GC (along with Scott Wolf; Bailey Salinger forevs) despite the fact that none of them but Jessie can sing. Now, Lisa, Kelly and Jessie already had minor pop success with their amazing song “Put Your Mind To It, Go For It, Get Down And Break A Sweat” as performed by their girl group, The Hot Sundaes. They most likely disbanded due to Jessie’s serious drug problem, but it would be strange to assume that they’d lost their ability to sing in a season or two. And mere episodes later, we see the first appearance of The Zack Attack, featuring a tear-inducing Jessie/Slater duet to a Michael Bolton song, and Zack and Lisa holding their own on backup.

And speaking of their “singing,” our beloved six lip-synched to different singers literally every time they had to sing in an episode, but one of them ALWAYS sounded like Olivia Newton-John, without fail. Just an observation.

How big is Bayside?
In the episode with Rad Rod Belding (they never called him this, but they should have), O.G. Belding mentions that our group’s class contains thirty kids. THIRTY KIDS IN A CLASS? A public school with thirty kids to a class, even? That’s just a level of surreality I can’t handle.

But let’s say I relent and allow my suspension of disbelief to be weighted almost all the way down to the floor. If their class is so small, and it is, because the same extras are used nonstop, then how is Zack always meeting new lust interests? My high school was apparently thirty times bigger than Bayside, and I knew at least a working knowledge of everyone in my class. And I certainly would have known who the girl in the wheelchair was, as Zack didn’t when he started dating her (take it, Wiki: “she was never heard from again”).

Come to think of it, for the most popular kids in school, our group really only ever spends all that much time with the other non-Screech nerds. In fact, when Slater gets up to Bolton it up with Jessie during the Zack Attack’s gig (while Zack and Kelly are breaking up outside, sniff sob), the best nerd of them all, Ollie, the black one with the frog voice, takes his place at the drums.

Why wasn’t something done about Belding?
Seriously, Belding was inappropriate to the max (and at The Maxx, no doubt). For starters, if we’re going back to the Miss Bliss days, he apparently takes Screech, Zack and Lisa and moves from Indiana with them. That’s weird enough. In one episode, Kelly kisses him on the cheek. Even if my principal hadn’t been a somewhat intimidating and slightly mannish nun, it still never would have occurred to me to get anywhere near or around her bubble.

And that’s not even the worst of it. He shows up at Zack’s house to hang out, he follows them to The Maxx and lots of stuff like that. There’s just a lot of awkward. And, let’s face it, the other 24 students who weren’t in our Core 6 really should have revolted because the man didn’t even try to hide his favoritism. I wouldn’t be surprised if the nickname “Bad Touch Belding” wasn’t thrown around here and there.

He also sometimes taught classes. This is strange and weird, too.

And speaking of pedophiles …

Whatever happened to Jeff?
Jeff was, of course, Kelly’s manager boyfriend at The Maxx, which already brings up all kinds of HR issues I don’t have time to deal with. It is stated that he’s a sophomore at USC, most likely making him nineteen or twenty. Now this episode takes place immediately before Lisa’s Sweet Sixteen, meaning Kelly is at most sixteen, probably fifteen. Ew gross perv. What do twenty year olds and fifteen year olds have to talk about? In 1992, probably Saved By The Bell, but they couldn’t talk about that BECAUSE THEY WERE LIVING IT.

Making matters worse, the gang catches him macking on some generic blonde (downgrade) at 18+ dance club The Attic (and by the way, I was really saddened at eighteen to learn that those pretty much don’t exist). What I’m saying is that he was engaging in a non-monogamous relationship with an underage child. Poor Kelly probably had all manner of sores and itchy redness, and probably couldn’t afford topical creams because her family was poor. Jeff was a fucking douche.

When exactly did they find time to be in every single club in the school?
It is the key plot point of the entire series that Zack is lazy and cruises on charm and general blondness. So why then was he in every single extracurricular available? Radio DJ, basketball team, yearbook, glee club, student council, the school play, the goddamn ballet club for one episode. That’s the busiest child I’ve ever heard of. No wonder he didn’t have time for homework. Now, all that said, he most likely got kicked out of all of the above for a plethora of reasons. Insulting team members, managing to tear the cartilage in his leg by falling down in the locker room (is he made of rock candy?) and constant sexual harassment.

The most logical explanation? Each Bayside club had eight open spots, and Belding ensured that his precious favorites were given six of those positions. Fucking Belding. Pervert.

Why does Los Angeles only have one movie playing for five years straight?
The same audio was used nearly every time the gang went to the movies. Tire squeal, gun shot, gun shot, woman scream. It’s LA, I’m pretty sure other movies were out, guys.

Was Jessie not the most wavering feminist ever?
Okay, Jessie Spano was a Betty Friedan worshipping womyn who rejected all things patriarchal. And yet, she dated A.C. Slater, pinnacle of macho jock machismo (emphasis on the “cheese”). Now I’ll let that slide as it was an opposites attract kind of thing. But one thing I cannot forget is that Jessie, cheerleader hating Jessie, was a damn cheerleader for at least two or three episodes. JESSICA. You goddamn turncoat. Sometime-cheerleader, and swimteam member who obviously posed for her calendar photo even while being all outraged that the picture was taken … don’t even pretend, Jess. And where does all this get you in life?

Exactly. More like femin-fisting, amirite people?

Why did Zack have such abysmal taste in women?
With the exception of Kelly, Zack only ever showed interest in women that were a) functionally retarded, b) his best friends’ sister/cousin/love interest, c) a raving bitch (Staci Carosi) or d) a lesbian (Tori Scott).

While normally he was seen with his barrage of bimbos in skintight floral numbers, when he ventured out of that comfort zone, it was always for a really wrong match. He went for Slater’s sister, his ex-girlfriend AND JESSIE, lest we forget. He went for Screech’s cousin, and then he randomly decided he was madly in love with Lisa, destroyed poor Screech’s heart and then never spoke of it again. He dated Staci Carosi, who was fucking evil (I can only assume she was using him to gauge his thetan count) and then Tori, who, god bless her, was probably about a year or two away from realizing why she didn’t seem to like it when Zack touched her all that much.

On the other hand, the eternal romantic in me thinks this proves the point that there is one person for everyone, and for Zack, that person was Kelly. And thank god, because seriously, his other options were ridiculous.

Despite all the questions, the ceaseless questions that keep me awake in the night, the show is something I love deeply and care for like a family member. I watched all the way through The College Years AND The New Class. I support almost every cast member in their recent and present endeavors (I say almost because OH HELL NAW poo-based Dustin Diamond sex tape). And always, till the end of time, my heart belongs to Zack Morris.

Saved By The Bell. Icon. Time capsule. Thing of beauty and joy, forever.

Becky the Duck. Never forget.

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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While most actors dream of overnight success, Enrico Colantoni took 10 years to hone his craft before trying to become a star. The hard work paid off. Colantoni made a name for himself with starring roles in Just Shoot Me and Veronica Mars. Last year, the Canadian actor landed a lead role in a CBS cop drama called Flashpoint.

In 2008, we recently talked to Colantoni about callous network executives, impatient youth and the fact that Flashpoint may be society’s only hope for salvation.

If you missed the interview then, enjoy it now:
http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2008/06/26/one-on-one-with-enrico-colantoni/