Next Monday, many Americans will get their first glimpse of Broadway star Megan Hilty on NBC’s new show Smash. NBC has been heavily promoting the show (and will continue to do so throughout Sunday’s Super Bowl telecast), so this very well could be the moment Hilty blows up and becomes a huge TV star.

HoboTrashcan recognized Hilty’s talent back in 2008 as she was starring in the Broadway show Wicked and spotlighted her in one of our Getting to Know features. So if you want to impress your friends on Monday by giving them her complete life story when they inevitably ask “Who is that?” make sure to read the article now.

You can find it here:
http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2008/04/03/getting-to-know-megan-hilty/

(The photo of Megan Hilty and Al Roker was taken during the 79th Annual Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting Ceremony. You can find our coverage of that event here.)

Ned Bitters

[Editor's Note - Ned Bitters is still in a drunken haze, so today we bring you this New Year's column from the vault, which originally ran on the site January 3, 2008.]

This week’s inductee into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” is … New Year’s celebrations.

It is noon on Dec. 31 and I just returned from the grocery store, where for the umpteenth year in a row I witnessed the number one New Year’s Eve tradition in America: The buying of the shrimp.

What is it about this overrated holiday that makes people want to celebrate it with shrimp? Or, if you are black, with shrimpS. (Oh, settle down, folks. There’s nothing at all racist in that.) I counted 17 people in line at the seafood counter this morning. Normally I might see one person at the fish station. However, it’s New Year’s Eve, which means that by law we must bloat ourselves with peel-and-eat cold spiced shrimp.

While the need to see in the new year with shrimp is puzzling enough, it’s not as puzzling as our need to celebrate the turning over of a new year. Is there any other holiday that seems more pointless? I have never understood the need to finagle an invitation to a party, dress up, dance, mingle, drink copious amounts of alcohol (including some mouth-parching champagne), watch the descent of a gaudy crystal ball, listen to a black-haired octogenarian appropriately named Dick demonstrate that his recent stroke has not affected his Einsteinian ability to count backwards from 10, sing that heartbreakingly maudlin “Auld Lang Syne” and … eat shrimp. All because of a change in the calendar.

I think every other holiday on the calendar deserves more recognition than New Year’s. How about Arbor Day? We all like a nice, shapely tree. Trees are important. They give us oxygen, wood and one less Kennedy or Bono in the world.

How about All Saints Day, which falls the day after Halloween? That’s the day we adults get to savor watching the little fuckers who irritate us all year – kids – spend the day with stomach cramps and bouts of vomitting due to their inability not to scarf up half of their Halloween take in the first 12 hours. That’s one day in which revenge is truly sweet.

I can’t keep the plethora of Jewish holidays straight, but even this former Christian turned atheist gets more kicks from those days than from New Year’s. Just pronouncing the damn days is more fun than drinking until 3 a.m. every Jan. 1. I dare you to say the words “Rosh Hashanah” without smiling at how silly your breathy voice sounds and how funny your jaw looks bobbing up and down like a spasmodic toad. Yom Kippur is fun no matter how you say it. You can cut loose with a perky little Yom “Kip-per,” which makes it sound like an amusement park ride (“Please dad, can we ride the Yom Kipper one more time!” “No, goddamnit, quit whining.”), or you can give it the more traditional Yom “Kip-poooorrrrr,” which makes even the ugliest, untraveled American feel a bit worldly for two or three seconds.

Memorial Day doesn’t get half the attention New Year’s does, but it’s a more important day. This is the day we celebrate those men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom by gorging on burnt hot dogs and pounding 14 Budweisers as we kick off yet another summer of … eating burnt hot dogs and drinking too much Budweiser. Hey, you … yeah you, the poor 18-year-old from Schenectady who got blown to smithereens on Omaha Beach back in ’44? These Buds are for you. Now where’s my goddamn sunblock, because summer’s coming on fast.

Labor Day is certainly more important than New Year’s. This is the day we celebrate the American working man. How do we do this? By giving a day off to the white collar workers so that they can go shop and eat at places being manned by the poor working man who was not given a day off from his menial job so that he could celebrate his laboring.

Let’s not give short shrift to Columbus Day. Federal employees get the day off to commemorate the man who bumped into America on his quest to find one of the Indies (West? East? Who the fuck knows … obviously not Columbus.). It’s a day worth celebrating in this country, because the forward thinking Spaniard kicked off one of America’s earliest traditions, the indiscriminate slaughtering of the red man, which hundreds of years later led to some of the finest casino resorts in the world. If you’re gonna celebrate something with shrimp, this seems to be as good a day as any to indulge. You can double down while dipping into the cocktail sauce.

Veteran’s Day should also take precedence in the Get Piss Drunk and Eat Shrimp holiday hierarchy. This is the day we are supposed to laud the brave men and women who didn’t end up as human minced meat on some foreign soil. You know, the ones who spent four years in uniform and then spend the rest of their lives getting their identity and self worth from those wasted four years, resulting in free college tuition, corny vanity plates (RETD-COL or GRNDA-VET), and a sense of lifelong entitlement.

Yet we get all excited and drunk every Jan. 31 just to acknowledge the fact that the earth has – surprise, surprise – made another revolution around the sun. The roads will be filled with amateur drinkers zizzagging their ways to other parties or the local Denny’s (because nothing goes better with a stomach full of champagne and shrimp like a greasy Grand Slam breakfast). Every television station will have on some overhyped show that features some ultra-bland pop star performing his or her atrociously bland pop songs while an even blander host shivers in the cold and keeps us updated on the year-end countdown.

Once again this New Year’s, I won’t be going to any parties. (No invitations.) I won’t be watching the corny TV shows. (My middle-aged ass will be asleep by midnight.) I won’t sing Auld Lang Syne. (Despite 347 viewings of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I don’t know the words.) I won’t be pie-eyed drunk. (I’m an alcoholic, so I have an insane tolerance for alcohol.) No, I’ll be busy planning my activities for the next big holiday, one truly worth celebrating: Martin Luther King Day. In fact, let me start my to-do list right now.

Item # 1: Order ShimpSSS.

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

We will be back later this week with brand new HoboTrashcan content. But in the meantime, as we all recover from our collective hangovers and attempt to figure out the best way to get all of the empty beer bottles and discarded party hats out of our apartments, we thought it might be fun to take a look back at some of the best content our humble little site had to offer last year …

One on One with Cassidy Freeman
It’s not easy filling Lex Luthor’s shoes, but that’s exactly what Cassidy Freeman was asked to do when she was cast as Tess Mercer on Smallville. While originally brought in to be the show’s antagonist, Tess evolved over the course of the series and eventually ended up teaming with Clark Kent and his pals, taking over Watchtower from Chloe Sullivan.

We talked to Freeman about the evolution of her character and the end of Smallville, which aired its final episode on May 13. We also discussed her big scene with Michael Rosenbaum, her plans for life after the show and the chances of a spin-off with Tess and Emil singing Elvis duets.

One on One with Jason Gann
In June, Americans got their first taste of Wilfred, the lovable anthropomorphic dog that smokes pot, uses foul language and offers questionable advice to the depressed, but lovable protagonist Ryan. While it’s safe to say people here have never seen a show quite like it, show creator Jason Gann has been entertaining Australian audiences with the character for a decade.

Gann and his friend Adam Zwar first brought the Wilfred character on-screen in a 2002 short film. That eventually lead to a TV series in Gann’s home country of Australia, which ran for two seasons. Wilfred made his American debut on FX, with Elijah Wood playing Wilfred’s human companion Ryan. We caught up with Gann to talk about adapting the show for an American audience, showing up to work in a dog suit every day and writing a unique comedy that is “ball-tearingly funny.”

One on One with Judy Reyes
Judy Reyes is a New York girl at heart, but her role as Carla Espinosa on the hit comedy Scrubs forced her to relocate from New York City to LA. Luckily, Espinosa was given a chance to reconnect with her Bronx roots while starring in the independent film Gun Hill Road, which competed at last year’s Sundance Film Festival. We caught up with Reyes as she prepared to head to Utah to talk Scrubs, Gun Hill Road and her dream of one day hosting her own cabaret.

[Editor's Note - Or, if you prefer, you can listen to the audio highlights from the interview instead.]

Cooking with Camille Crimson
Adult star Camille Crimson is a girl of many talents. One of those talents is cooking. So she was nice enough to share her recipe for Rougail Saucisses, a dish she learned living in La Réunion, an island off the coast of Madagascar. She also shared a few photos too. So make sure you don’t miss this fun and unique feature.

Just Friends – Jane
Long ago, in the early days of HoboTrashcan, there was a monthly feature called Just Friends. Our editor-in-chief, Joel Murphy, heard the phrase “Let’s just be friends” so many times in his life that he decided to feature some of his gorgeous friends in a special monthly feature. However, a friend named Nicole set the bar so high that Just Friends sadly disappeared.

It would take a brave soul to attempt to resurrect this forgotten feature, which is why Joel called in the big guns and recruited a bona fide Internet celebrity. Jane, whose infamous site BathroomAdventures has earned her legions of adoring fans, was willing to take a few moments out of her rock star life to declare her everlasting platonic friendship for Joel.

Hanging Around … 79th Annual Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting Ceremony
The 74-foot tall Norwood Spruce that resided in Rockefeller Center this past Christmas was a behemoth that even Clark Griswold would be impressed by. With over 45,000 multi-colored LED lights and a nine-and-a-half feet, 550 pound crystal star perched on top of it, Rockefeller Center’s tree is a sight to behold. And we were there when they turned the lights on for the first time.

Murphy’s Law – In which I attack a nationally-syndicated movie critic
Joel Murphy reached out to a nationally-syndicated movie critic asking for some advice. The response he got back was an angry tirade. So Murphy decided to devote an entire column to tearing film critic Roger Moore apart. The column itself is great, as are the comments from readers, but the best part is that Moore himself was actually foolish enough to comment.

[Editor's Note - There is also a happy ending to this story. Joel Murphy now attends weekly press screenings for new films. You can find his movie reviews here.]

Positive Cynicism – On Bruce Wayne’s boy collection
DC Comics “New 52″ reboot caused a few bizarre plot holes in their comic universe, one of which being that a suddenly younger Bruce Wayne has somehow managed to have four different Robins in five years. Aaron R. Davis decided to have fun with that quirky fact, imagining a conversation between two Gotham City blue collar workers discussing Bruce Wayne’s “boy collection.”

Hobo Radio 196 – We cracked our wang
Back in August, the East Coast was rocked by an earthquake, which sent everyone in the region into a frenzy (and caused everyone on the West Coast to sigh and continue slowly sipping their lattes). Joel Murphy and Lars discussed the unexpected natural disaster, which cracked our nation’s wang – the Washington Monument. And while the show was important for that reason, it will also noteworthy for giving us the following image …

Ned Bitters

[Editor's Note - Ned Bitters is in his annual pre-Christmas drinking binge, so today we bring you this classic Bitters Christmas column that originally ran on the site on December 16, 2008.]

This week’s inductees into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” are … 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.

Joel Murphy

[Editor's Note - Joel Murphy is in New York covering the Rockefeller Center tree lighting ceremony tonight, so today we bring you a column that originally ran on the site on December 3, 2008.]

Last Friday morning, before the sun came up, after spending a day gorging yourself on too much food and doing your best to tolerate annoying family members, some of you headed out to your local malls and retail stores to save a few bucks on what has become known as “Black Friday” (which sounds like it should star Ice Cube and Chris Tucker). Certainly every penny counts now that we are officially in a recession, so I hope that you were able to find some incredible deals. But to be perfectly honest, you are lucky just to have gotten out of there alive.

Three people died this year on Black Friday. Three people. Let me repeat that – three people were killed due to SHOPPING.

In Long Island, New York, a Wal-mart employee was trampled to death while attempting to open the store at 5 a.m. The 34-year-old temporary employee unlocked the doors and was crushed by the overly-excited Wal-mart shoppers as they rushed into the store.

Approximately 12 people were knocked over as customers attempted to enter the Wal-mart. Some sustained minor injuries and a pregnant woman nearly miscarried and had to be hospitalized. The security tape revealed that hundreds of people trampled the Wal-mart employee and it took several minutes before anyone could clear enough space to help the man. CNN reports that police officers attempting to administer first aid were “jostled and pushed.” The Wal-mart employee was pronounced dead at the hospital.

I can’t even begin to comprehend how something like this happened. If all of these people were trapped inside a building that was on fire, then perhaps I could understand how someone was trampled as people fought their way out. But how could hundreds of people trample a man to death in order to save a few bucks on a copy of Lego Batman or a laptop computer? How can these people sleep at night knowing that they ended a man’s life just so they could save 10 percent on season three of Dawson’s Creek? This guy was just some poor bastard forced to work for Wal-mart to make ends meet and he’s dead now. How did we get here?

In Southern California, two men in a Toys R Us were shot and killed. According to Palm Desert Councilman Jim Ferguson, the two men killed each other. Both men had criminal records and it is believed that the shootings may have been gang related.

While the two men who were shot and killed most likely weren’t squabbling over the last copy of The Sopranos: The Complete Series on DVD, it’s still a bit off-putting that even rival gang members felt the need to brave the crowds on Black Friday in an attempt to save a few bucks. If even our nation’s gangs are pinching pennies this holiday season, perhaps the economy is in even worse shape than we all thought. If money is that tight, then who will be there to “make it rain” for the strippers? That’s a world I just don’t know if I can live in.

If you know me at all, you know I am someone who gets excited about the holiday season. It wasn’t too long ago that I shared Courtney Enlow’s enthusiasm for all things Christmas. I’ve gotten bitter and more jaded as the years have gone by, but I still do all I can to find my holiday spirit. I’m truly excited to make my return to the D.C. area this Christmas so that I can see all of the family members I haven’t seen since last December. I also enjoy buying presents for people I care about and seeing their faces when they open those gifts. It’s a good feeling.

But even during the peak years for my yuletide joy, I never once went shopping on Black Friday. I hate crowds and I simply don’t have the desire to attempt to wrestle the last copy of Space Camp out of the five dollar bin at Wal-mart while other patrons are bumping into me and knocking me around. I have enough trouble not stabbing other shoppers in Wal-mart on a normal day, I can’t imagine taking on a group of unruly parents at 5 a.m. on Black Friday.

I’m actually done with all of my Christmas shopping this year. While I missed out on some of the Black Friday savings, I was able to get all of my shopping done this past Monday online. Not only did I not have to fight the crowds, I didn’t even have to put pants on. I bought presents for everyone on my list in a little over an hour without ever setting foot inside a store.

I will never go shopping on Black Friday. I don’t care how cheap the merchandise is; it’s simply not worth it. There is no discount that is worth dying over.

Let’s hope that next year more people take a cue from me. Stay home next year and buy your presents online. It eliminates the stress and frustration that holiday shopping creates, and allows you to focus on what Christmas is truly about – getting free stuff in exchange for spending time with your family.

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.