• Introduction
• Contest winner announced
• The end of an awful year
• Fun with Escort Service shorthand
• Contractually-obligated Batman discussion
• “Auld Lang Syne” performed by Mario Ajero

Hobo Radio 112 - The Year of Shits Money [ 57:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Week 112 Spotlight: The Year of Shits Money

We can all agree that 2009 was an awful year. Countless beloved celebrities died, the economy continued to struggle and once scandal-free celebrities like David Letterman and Tiger Woods were revealed to be horny sleazebags. What was dubbed “The Year of Lars Periwinkle” by Joel Murphy and Lars back in January turned out to be a year we would all soon like to forget.

Luckily, we are just a few hours away from a brand new year. A clean slate. A fresh start filled with hope and optimism. In short, we are headed into The Year of Shits Money.

Who is Shits Money? Did Lars follow through on last year’s New Year’s Resolution? Would Al Pacino make a good Wonder Woman? The answers to these questions and more are in this week’s podcast.

Hobo Radio is the official podcast of HoboTrashcan, brought to you by The Podcast Network.

Similar Posts:

• Hobo Radio – New Year, same busted show
• Hobo Radio 71 – The Year of Lars Periwinkle
• Hobo Radio 68 – The triumphant return of Lars Periwinkle
• Hobo Radio 124 – Going highbrow
• Hobo Radio 63 – Dude, where’s my car?

We provide you with the first half of a fortune from a fortune cookie and it’s up to you to fill in the blank (and you can’t just write “in bed”).

Every week, we will pick the funniest response. You won’t actually win a prize, but you will get the satisfaction of knowing that you are better than everyone else. And your name will be printed here on the site, so that others may bask in your glory.

Without further ado, here is this week’s fortune:

Feeding a cow with roses does not get _____.

Leave a comment with your response. The winner will be announced next Thursday.

Last week’s winner: Scott, who wrote: “Carve your name on your heart and not on your cellmates butt-cheek.”

Theresa Madeline is the brainchild behind Finish That Fortune, a contest originally designed primarily to keep herself and those close to her amused. When she is not providing an arena for her friends to out wit each other, she is imparting her love of words and humor on the next generation.

Courtney Enlow

[Editor's Note: If you missed any of Courtney's excellent "Goodbye 2009" retrospective, please enjoy part one, part two and part three.]

The Best Music of the Aughts

In the past decade I’ve learned that I’m apparently not cool enough for Animal Collective or The Hold Steady or any number of album Pitchfork keeps telling me I should like but I find myself physically unable to do so.

And perhaps the nicest thing about this decade is that I didn’t have to, because I had plenty of other stuff to listen to. The proliferation of indie has made the cool kids the popular kids for once, and not after a lengthy sell-out process.

To me, this is the music that mattered …

Ten best albums of the decade

10. Travis, 12 Memories
Best track: Happy To Hang Around

9. Band of Horses, Cease to Begin
Best track: The General Specific

8. Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
Best track: Blue Ridge Mountains

7. Okkervil River, Black Sheep Boy
Best track: Latest Toughs

6. Wilco & Billy Bragg, Mermaid Hotel
Best track: California Stars

5. Patty Griffin, 1000 Kisses
Best track: Makin’ Pies

4. Arcade Fire, Funeral
Best track: Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)

3. Hem, Rabbit Songs
Best track: Leave Me Here

2. The National, Boxer
Best track: Ada

1. Duffy, Rockferry
Best track: Warwick Avenue

Five best tracks of the aughts not on the aforementioned albums

5. “Long Time Traveler” by The Wailin’ Jennys (Firecracker)
4. “Still Fighting It” by Ben Folds (Rockin’ the Suburbs)
3. “Beautiful Child” by Rufus Wainwright (Want One)
2. “Breathless” by Dan Wilson (Free Life)
1. “Killian’s Red” by Nada Surf (Let Go)

The Best Movies of the Aughts

This was a spectacular decade for film. The 90s started independent cinema for mainstream enjoyment; the aughts perfected it. In fact, there were so many ridiculously genius movies in the past ten years that I couldn’t cut it down to a top ten. And then I couldn’t cut it down to a top five. With that, the three best films of the past ten years.

Three best films of the decade

3. Shaun of the Dead

If you didn’t love Shaun of the Dead, you are a bad person. I hope I’m not putting too fine a point on that. This movie had it all. It was a Britcom, it was a sweet romantic story, it was arm-rest-gripping horror, it was the funniest comedy of the entire decade and its popularity introduced legions of non-Brits to Spaced, a fantastic show, as well as a gentleman named Simon Pegg. May our love affair be forever-lasting, assuming he refrains from flicks like Run, Fatboy, Run and anything co-starring Megan Fox ever again.

2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Possibly one of the most perfect films ever made. For everyone who’s seen his music videos, there was little to no surprise in how well Michel Gondry captures images that are at once surreal, nostalgic, inventive and familiar, but when paired with Charlie Kaufman, one whose writing can be described with those same terms, everything came together to form one phenomenal and beautiful film. It’s perfect. It is without a doubt the best film of the aughts. And yet …

1. Sweet Land

And yet I couldn’t in good conscience make it number one. You see, everyone reads end-of-year lists and checks out the number one pick. Well if you’re reading this, I’m assuming you’ve seen Eternal Sunshine, and thus I am providing you with no instruction. So my pick went to Sweet Land, because while Eternal Sunshine may be the best film of the decade, Sweet Land may be my favorite film of all time.

I didn’t have to describe the others to you, because you’ve either seen them, or you lie to your friends that you’ve seen them, but you at least know what they’re about. Most people don’t know about Sweet Land and that upsets me. I saw it alone in the tiny theater at the Music Box in Chicago, the one just off the concession area with maybe 50 seats and vines painted on the walls. The curtains parted and I sat in awe for just under two hours as I viewed a simply beautiful picture. It’s the story of Inge and Olaf (Elizabeth Reaser and Tim Guinee), a mail-order bride and a Norwegian immigrant farmer, respectively, during World War I. Visually it was lovely, the story was lovely, the acting was lovely, everything about it was just that: lovely. There’s no other way to describe this movie except as something I love. Rent it, buy it, see it however you can.

The Best Television of the Aughts

My brother and I had a conversation about TV of the 90s versus TV from this decade. And it may sound erudite and snobbish, but the 90s was really a simpler time. Not just because it was before 9/11 and bipartisan battling that followed, but because, literally, things were just simpler. Take Friends. A simple show set up around simple characters who make simple jokes that can be enjoyed by everyone. Then take Lost. It’s whatever the fuck Lost is.

It’s possible that I’ve been wrong all along. Perhaps we’re not getting dumber. We’re getting smarter and thus the networks are trusting us with smarter television, and the vapid bullshit reality stuff is for the dumb people so they don’t have to think and hurt themselves. Whatever the case, this decade has been outstanding for TV.

The ten best television shows of the decade

Note: I opted to only include programs that began after 2000, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my single favorite episode of television of this decade, and that’s the episode “Conversations With Dead People” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Everyone else goes with “The Body,” which is spectacular to be sure, but “CWDP” was just brilliant. Three un-woven stories, all fun, smart and terrifying in their own ways, and the start of The First (I stand alone, but The First was my favorite Big Bad) and Spike’s return to evil form – even though he didn’t know it, bookended by Angie Hart’s stunning “Blue.” A fantastic hour of television, AND it didn’t even feature Anya, my pick for best television character of the decade, which CERTAIN EDITORS AHEM didn’t seem to agree with. Now on with the rest.

10. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Best episode: “Sweet Dee is Dating a Retarded Person”

The title pretty much tells you what happens. Most importantly, this is the episode in which we meet the Night Man and the Day Man. Ah-ahhhh-ah.

9. Coupling
Best episode: “The Other End of the Line”

The misunderstandings in this episode reach heights Three’s Company never imagined. Steve and Susan struggle with their engagement, being off the market, a French bitch named Giselle and an Australian bar run by Dick Darlington. Confusion ensues leading to the funniest climax in television possibly ever.

8. The OC and Chuck – Yes this is a complete cop-out because I worship at the altar of Josh Schwartz.
Best episode: “The Escape” / “Chuck Versus Santa Claus”

The one where Marissa OD’s / the one where Chuck witnesses Sarah shooting a guy. Schwartzy, I love you.

7. Firefly
Best episode: “Out of Gas”

This was hard to pick, but I have a soft spot for origin stories and finding out about the Serenity crew’s past was fascinating. Also, it’s nice to see Kaley get some.

6. How I Met Your Mother
Best episode: “Slap Bet”

This started two phenomenons in the Mother-verse: the notion of the “slap bet” and a Canadian teen pop star by the name of Robin Sparkles. Enjoy here.

5. The Office
Best episode: “The Injury”

Michael grills his foot and Dwight gets a concussion. “You can’t fire me; I don’t work in this van!” becomes the greatest quote of the decade.

4. 30 Rock
Best episode: I literally can’t choose, but for lack of another one springing to mind, we’ll go with “Rosemary’s Baby.”

3. Doctor Who (the new series [yes, this is technically cheating])
Best episode: “The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit”

The New Who had already presented itself as a darker version of the old, with a dash of atheism and a heavy dose of “if you must have a god, it’s the Doctor.” This is the episode in which the Doctor actually defeats Satan, and it does it remarkably un-heavy handed. It’s a really amazing feat and a great pair of episodes.

2. Arrested Development
Best episode: “Good Grief”

This actually wasn’t hard. This is the episode I pop in most often, and whenever I walk away from any situation sadly, I hum “Christmastime is Here.” A classic.

1. Six Feet Under
Best episode: “Everyone’s Waiting,” the last ten minutes of which are the single best ten minutes of television this whole decade. If you have to say goodbye to the best television program of the decade – and I’d wager I’m not the only one to believe it’s one of the best ever – do it like this.

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.

Similar Posts:

• Outside of the In-Crowd – Goodbye 2009, Part 2: The worst of the decade
• Outside of the In-Crowd – Goodbye 2009, Part 3: The best of the year
• Outside of the In-Crowd – Goodbye 2009, Part 1: The dawning of future times

Aaron R. Davis

Over the Christmas vacation, I spent a few days finally catching up on the fifth season of Lost. Has there ever been a show that was as convoluted, as frustrating, as ridiculous, as involving, and as completely awesome as Lost? With the final season just a month away, I’ve been thinking again about how all of this could possibly end. What’s the best way to end it? Will it have a happy ending, where everyone’s okay? Or will it have one of those Twilight Zone style twist endings? The only thing I know for sure is that, with the geek factor so high, the finale can’t possibly please everyone in the audience.

So here are some endings I’d like the producers of Lost to consider:

1. Everything ends happily. Cut to a quill writing across a blank page. We see Christian Shepard in 1891; the entirety of Lost is a novel he’s been writing. As he finishes page 815, he writes two words and suddenly dies of a massive heart attack. Pan up to the page. The two words? THE END.

2. Cut to a bedroom. Kate closes a book as Aaron falls asleep. Turns out the whole thing was a children’s storybook. Kate goes into her bedroom where Sawyer is sound asleep. Mindfuck! THE END.

3. Charlie wakes up from a drug-induced hallucination. “Well, that was weird,” he says. THE END.

4. Jack makes it back to civilization. Someone puts on a Lady Gaga CD. “What the fuck is this shit?” he asks, standing in for the entire audience. THE END.

5. Hurley is back in the asylum. The whole thing was his paranoid fantasy. Jack is actually his doctor and everyone else is an inmate with differing levels of crazy. Desmond has been lobotomized, so Hurley suffocates him, ending his misery, then throws a sink through the window and runs off into the night while Charlie cheers him on. THE END.

6. Richard finally agrees to tell Sawyer, Jack, Kate, Ben and Hurley the truth about the island. He takes them to the beach and begins walking on water before he disappears. The four castaways follow and wind up inside of a spaceship hovering over the Earth. The whole thing has been an alien experiment. Richard, following in the grand Lost tradition of shaming people with self-righteousness, convinces Jack, Kate, Ben and Hurley that the other castaways must never know about the aliens because it would accomplish nothing but a loss of hope. Sawyer refuses to go along with the plan, because the truth is better than a comforting lie. There’s no place for him anymore, so Ben kills him while Hurley breaks down crying. THE END.

7. Richard is revealed to be an archangel. He absolves John Locke of all of his sins, and Locke breaks down crying. Cut to a woman in a hospital giving birth. She names her baby John. And we realize that the whole of the series has been an allegory for the birth process, and that all of the characters are simply sperm who have died fighting one another for a chance to become born. Gross and creepy, but at least it’s over. THE END.

8. The camera pulls back to reveal that the characters are microscopic and everything has taken place inside a Petri dish. We are in a lab. A scientist played by Robbie Coltrane accidentally drops a precariously placed sticky bun on the Petri dish, and everyone’s screams are heard as they are crushed under a cream and cinnamon hell. And if you get that reference, you are my kind of people. THE END.

9. After a final battle with every faction on the island, Kate is the only person left alive. She decides to climb to the top of the mountain and wait for death to take her. When she gets there, she finds a camera control center, several editing bays, a craft service table and a complete film crew. Jeff Probst walks out and tells her she’s won a million dollars. THE END.

10. Sawyer finds a boat and decides to go for help. When the engine cuts out, he drifts for several horrible days, singing to himself and hoping to find land. Finally, he washes up in the Sydney harbor at night. Thrilled to be back in civilization, he walks to the Sydney Opera House to the sounds of someone expertly singing a selection from Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. He walks in, only to see that the woman singing … is an ape! He looks around, panicked – everyone in the audience is an ape! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!!! THE END.

11. Hurley makes it all the way to the center Dharma station, where he meets some crazy characters who crown him king of the island after a tribunal featuring some lovely late sixties guitar music. He is sent into a chamber to meet Number One, a shrouded figure who is sitting at a control station and, well, controlling the island. Hurley tears off the shroud, only to see a man in a monkey mask. Hurley rips the man’s mask off, revealing his own father, Cheech Marin, who runs away. Hurley starts to follow, when the late Patrick McGoohan suddenly pulls him away. The find a semi truck and drive off, revealing that they were outside of Las Vegas the whole time, and Hurley is driven all the way home … only to walk into his own house and see the burned out remains of the hatch! He’s still on the island! The island is everything! We are all prisoners! We are all … LOST! THE END.

12. The army finally sends a helicopter to the island. Sawyer and Kate decide to stay behind and be together without their pasts catching up to them. There is a group hug and everyone sings “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” Then, as the helicopter pulls away, Kate spells out the word “GOODBYE” in rocks for everyone to see. As the helicopter flies off, a coconut falls out of a palm tree, hitting Sawyer in the head and knocking him unconscious. Suddenly, we cut to a bedroom, where Bob Newhart wakes up and tells Suzanne Pleshette he’s just had a strange dream about a group of castaways lost on an island somewhere in the South Pacific. She tells him to go back to sleep, but he goes to the bathroom to put some water on his face. When he looks in the mirror, he’s Patrick McGoohan! Then, we cut to an apartment building, where Patrick McGoohan walks in wearing overalls and a construction hard hat. “Any change today?” he asks, sitting down next to Kate, who is on the couch watching television. “No,” she says. “He just sits there and stares at it all day long. I wonder what he sees in there.” Camera pans down to the dog Vincent, who is laying there, staring at a snow globe with a tropical island inside. THE END.

13. Everything starts to go crazy. Fires break out, mountains start crumbling and the armies of hell begin to rise. Just as it looks like everyone’s about to die, we cut to five high school guys gathered around a card table in a basement. They’ve been playing that game where you tell a story for five minutes and then someone else continues it, and they’ve finally run out of ideas. Shrug. THE END.

And those are just off the top of my head.

However Lost ends, I’m sure it’ll be as convoluted, frustrating, ridiculous, involving and completely awesome as the show’s been over the years. I’m looking forward to the endless debating of the unsatisfied hordes that will never be able to let it go, of which there will be many. There always are, aren’t there?

I guess that’s just the mark of a show that really connected with its audience: the ability to frustrate them completely and still be beloved.

Now if only I could figure out how to do that myself …

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.

Similar Posts:

• Murphy’s Law – What happened to the remaining Lost survivors after the finale?
• Lost: Down the Hatch – There’s No Place Like Home
• Lost: Down the Hatch – What to expect when you’re not really expecting
• Lost: Down the Hatch – Jules Verne would have been proud
• Murphy’s Law – Jack Shephard’s redemption

Extract Release Date: December 22, 2009 Own it on Blu-ray and DVD Director: Mike Judge Writer: Mike Judge Stars: Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, Ben Affleck, J.K. Simmons MPAA Rating: R HoboTrashcan’s Rating:

In Office Space, writer/director Mike Judge showed he is capable of capturing the humor in mundane, everyday life. Unfortunately, in Extract, all Mike Judge is able to capture is the mundaneness.

The movie centers around Joel (Jason Bateman), the proprietor of Reynold’s Extract, a company that makes … you guessed it … extracts. The plot is somewhat convoluted, but essentially, Joel is looking to sell his company to General Mills, but first he must settle a pending workers’ compensation lawsuit and deal with the rest of his unhappy employees, who have heard rumors of the sale. On the home front, Joel’s sweatpants-clad wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig) continually deprives him of sex, so he decides to hire a gigolo to seduce her so that he can feel less guilty about his desire to sleep with Cindy (Mila Kunis), the beautiful new temp at work. Neither plot is particularly captivating or well-executed, but the b-plot has the added problem of making Suzie completely unlikeable and Joel unsympathetic.

However, the real shame is in the fact that Judge completely misuses Cindy, who had the potential to be a really intriguing character. The film opens on her in a music store, using her looks and charm to distract the two employees so that she can steal an electric guitar. Kunis, who is both beautiful and delightful on screen, finds a way to make you like her grifter character, but her role quickly runs out of steam when she heads to Reynold’s Extract in order to con Joel and his employees. Worst of all, her story arc completely fizzles out in the end, causing her to just sort of disappear as the movie stumbles to its unfulfilling climax.

The supporting cast is filled with talented comedic actors who are also given little to work with. The usually hilarious J.K. Simmons plays the underdeveloped and utterly-forgettable Brian, who is helping Joel run the company, though his exact title and relationship to Joel are never really explained. Beth Grant, who was fantastic as the Sparkle Motion stage mother in Donnie Darko, plays the dull, annoying, xenophobic factory worker Mary. Even Ben Affleck, who has proven in Kevin Smith’s films that he is capable of playing comedic roles, isn’t given any good material to work with as Dean, the longhaired, drug-addicted bartender at Sidelines Sports Bar, where Joel spends his evenings.

The most promising supporting character is Nathan, played by David Koechner of Anchorman fame. Nathan is the quintessential annoying and pushy neighbor, a role which seems funny initially, but quickly gets old when it becomes clear that Nathan is really just a one-trick pony. Making matters worse, the way Judge chose to wrap up things with Nathan was completely baffling and disappointing.

To put it simply, the movie just isn’t funny. There isn’t a single laugh-out-loud moment in the whole film and most of the scenes that make you chuckle were already shown in the trailer. Visually, the film is just as boring – even on Blu-ray, the sets themselves just look dull and colorless.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why things went so wrong. Mike Judge has shown with Office Space and with his animated shows, King of the Hill and Beavis and Butthead, that he is capable of writing good comedy. He even assembled a great cast filled with proven comedic actors. If he had just turned the cameras on and allowed the actors to improvise every scene, chances are he would have ended up with something far more compelling than what ended up on screen. Instead, the movie is something akin to an extract; it offers a slight taste of comedy with no real substance.

The special features included on the Blu-ray and DVD release are also forgettable. There is only one featurette, an 11-minute behind-the-scenes documentary entitled “Mike Judge’s Secret Recipe.” The featurette offers one interesting tidbit – the fact that the factory scenes were filmed inside a real working factory – but the rest of it is spent telling you why the movie is so funny and well-written, which it isn’t. The only other bonus content included is one deleted scene and several extended scenes, none of which are worth watching.

Obviously, I’m not recommending renting this film, let alone buying it. While I remain a fan of Mike Judge and think he is capable of writing and directing great comedies, this movie is simply a rare misfire, one best forgotten. Watching it will inevitably do something that the makers of Reynold’s Extract fear the most – leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Written by Joel Murphy. Extract is available now on Blu-ray and DVD.