By Brian Shea

[Editor's Note: Joel Murphy is out buying copious amounts of eggnog, so today we bring you a special guest blog post by former HoboTrashcan columnist Brian Shea.]

In recent years, we have learned more about how television ratings work than we probably ever needed to know. We have been told that whatever precedes a show (i.e the lead in) has a significant effect on how a show does. We had this beat over our heads during the Conan O’Brien-Jay Leno fiasco.

So if this is indeed true, if we as Americans are so lazy that we will watch something simply because we were watching the thing before it, how the hell do five million people get the idea to overcome this laziness when Modern Family ends on Wednesday nights and Cougar Town begins?

I don’t really know how my man crush on Cougar Town creator Bill Lawrence developed. I always loved Scrubs and really enjoyed his commentary on some of the early season DVDs. Then, as Scrubs headed toward its conclusion … and its second conclusion … Lawrence decided to sit down with influential TV bloggers and just open up about the process which determines what shows get on TV and how they stay there.

He had a refreshing and honest outlook on the weirdness that is television entertainment. When a guy says part of the impetus to keeping his show alive is to employ the crew he has become friends with, you can’t help but like that guy.

I also found out that we are the same age and, if not for some very short-sighted thinking by the admissions officer at the College of William and Mary who waitlisted me instead of admitting me, we would have become best friends in college, and I would be his right-hand man today. It was destiny if not for that one decision back in 1986.

So when Scrubs wrapped up and the awfully-titled (admitted by even Lawrence) Cougar Town debuted, I got excited. I could not wait for Lawrence’s new creation. In reality, I should have waited because the show got off to a rocky start. But after a half-dozen episodes or so, something very good happened.

The premise of Courteney Cox’s character Jules being a cougar who bedded young men went out the window for a goofy, inside-joke driven ensemble comedy about Jules and her friends. The power of this development is why I can’t believe those five million people turn off the television each week.

This takes me back to the way my crush on Lawrence developed. In the commentary tracks of the first few seasons of Scrubs, he had a chance to look back at the things they had done and why they stuck with some gags and got away from others. You could tell he didn’t just do the commentary track for the heck of it. He really wanted to let the viewer know about the show.

So I know that in the first season or so of Scrubs, they had a ton of sound effects. You heard a whip when people turned their head quickly. Cartoon running sounds indicated the need for a quick escape. The exaggerated smack of a hand accompanied high-fives from The Todd.

At some point, Lawrence realized he didn’t need the first two of those. The thing with Todd needed to stay, but they looked at whether the writing and acting was goofy enough and determined the sound effects were simply overkill. They slowly evolved the show as they went along from week to week.

In this day and age when some shows only get one or two weeks to show their stuff, the ability of people like Bill Lawrence to pull this off cannot be understated. Sometimes, you have to give a team of writers and actors a while to get a feel for how the show works. They’re making freaking TV shows based on web sites. Can we have a little patience in development?

Since Lawrence had the credibility to keep Cougar Town on the air, his team had a chance to make the transition from what they pitched into what made people laugh. I worried about the original premise, but now look forward to 9:30 on Wednesday nights almost as much as 9 p.m. You should too.

You’re missing a group of people greeting each other like a hibachi chef when someone enters the room just because it sounds funny. You’re missing a group of guys bonding over a game called Penny Can. You don’t get a chance to enjoy Christa Miller’s eye rolls and snarky jokes that made her such a great addition to the Scrubs cast.

Cougar Town gets seven million viewers now, which is nothing to sneeze at. But Modern Family gets 12 million and The Middle, another show I think people don’t rate highly enough, gets nine million. So, for the love of God, keep the TV on after Modern Family. You don’t know what you are missing.

Brian Shea used to write for HoboTrashcan, but like Gladys Knight, he left us Pips behind to write for his own site, Regular Guy Column.

Samantha Jackson

[Editor's Note: Aaron R. Davis is in an undisclosed location, so today we bring you a special guest blog post by Samantha Jackson.]

The following is not meant to be legal advice (et cetera). Truthfully, I’m committing this to text because whenever someone says the word “sue,” my ass begins to twitch.

You can’t sue someone when they cause you minor damage (and by “minor” I mean anything short of “life-altering damage such as paralysis”). All tales suggesting the contrary have been edited for storytelling purposes. If someone won a lawsuit that seems trivial in the retelling, then the teller doesn’t know the truth of the case. A lawyer will not waste his time with a case that a) will not award him a decent payout (for a “bad” lawyer this can be $15,000 – meaning your “win” is $45,000 – but for a decent lawyer we’re talking six figures) or b) cannot be won.

For example, if your grandfather is conned out of your inheritance, that case probably cannot be won because it is very difficult to prove that someone was not of sound mind at the time a decision was made. As an aside, doctors will almost never testify in court, especially if their testimony conflicts with their peers. It’s an unspoken law. Doctors who work with lawyers are virtually on retainer and are exiled from the medical community. It’s like being a “snitch.” Note that this generally applies to all people in all professions.

You can’t sue somebody because they piss you off, kill your cat, steal $500 from you, et cetera. Such a court exists for petty grievances (it’s called Small Claims and they handle person-to-person cases over amounts of $7,500 or less), but it is staffed by the judicial equivalent to cops who give speeding tickets. Nobody wants to work at the bottom of the ladder and nobody wants to oversee litigation for Mrs. Johnson’s broken window.

From the door, they hate you because you are wasting their time with your “silly nonsense.” Most (if not all) small claims litigants meet with a “mediator,” a lawyer on par with a public defender who will do everything in his power to come to an agreement between the parties before they see the “big” lawyer (all judges were once lawyers).

On the plus side, no one is going to sue you for these petty grievances either. People say this all the time and it drives me crazy. Unless someone owes you an excess of $100,000, no court will waste its time with you. In almost all cases, the court and attorney fees would be greater than the winnings. The fees for one lawyer alone are generally over $10,000. It doesn’t make sense to spend $10,000 to win $500, because you’re throwing away $9,500.

You cannot sue big business, nor will any lawyer take your case to sue big business (unless this big business dropped 100,000 barrels of toxic waste over a small town), because the case cannot be won. Be wary of taking people to court who very regularly go to court, because they will have resources and experience you do not have and will bury you (this includes stores, organizations, landlords, et cetera). The court favors the guy who knows what he’s doing, regardless of whether or not he is in the right. Think of law as water that will follow the path of least resistance.

This is the most important thing that no one seems to realize: feelings have no place in a courtroom. It is all about money. Television court is a farce; if you cry in a courtroom, you will be perceived as mentally incompetent and you will lose the case. Second most important thing: do not ever phone in to a hearing unless you are in a body cast. It’s extremely disrespectful, judges hate it and you will lose the case. Of course, you should also dress for the event. If you wear jeans and flip-flops, you are disrespecting the court and you will lose the case. Further, speak to the judge like he is Saint Peter. Do not say “um,” “like,” “dude” or “man.” Speak to him like he is the god-king of all mankind and do not waste one second of his time. He will not like you, but the less reason he has to “hate” you, the better your chances of success will be.

You should not represent yourself in court any more than you should perform your own surgery. It “seems” easy and intuitive, but it isn’t. Forms are unclear, proceedings can be murky and the guillotine can come down on you with frightening speed. If you do not have the money for an attorney, seek legal assistance. The most common complaints are covered by county services.

Court is S-L-O-W. Lawyers have three years from the date of an incident to file with the courts and most lawyers will wait two years and 11 months before filing. They will not return your calls and you will have to wait. It sucks, there is no alternative and no one cares about any fees/interest/pain you may accrue while waiting.

You will not see anything change. The insurance company of the doctor who broke your child’s neck will give you whatever amount of money is appropriate (if your child is not permanently disabled, it will be a pittance) and the doctor will go on breaking necks. Again, feelings are irrelevant.

Being a judge used to mean something; it was awarded to the most deserving attorneys. Now it’s a popularity contest, so there are “guidelines” to control the idiocy – minimum and maximum penalties that can be levied. Judges are like cops; once in a while, one has a good day. Most of them are not good people. All of them care more about their lunch than they do about your livelihood.

If you are in doubt about anything, seek a second opinion – even if it’s the Internet. Lawyers are not gods and can be wrong about very important things (for example, if you are charged with a “group” crime (vandalism, robbery, et cetera) and your lawyer suggests you bury your friend, bear in mind that what happens to one party happens to the whole group – you sink or swim together). Lawyers also lie, manipulate and never have your best interests in mind – they want the money, and if they can’t get the money, they want to get out of there as soon as possible.

Do not lie to your attorney. Tell him the whole ugly truth, or it will bite him in the ass and he will feed you to the wolves. Do not forget any facts and do not fail to bring him any and all paperwork on the issue. However, do take care not to waste his time. Attorneys are often likened to pit bulls for good reason and after a certain period of time that behavior will overcome their personality and they will not be able to turn it off. They are not nice or gentle people; do not take it personally. If they are soft touches, bear in mind they will also be soft with your enemies.

If you are charged and the case is dismissed but you are charged again, that “dismissed” case will be taken into consideration and you will probably be regarded as a repeat offender. In certain cases (such as DUIs) this can mean the difference between fees and prison.

Court is a big, slow, cumbersome, but necessary evil and is never a good tool for vengeance. Do not take someone seriously when they threaten you with “legal action.” This is an empty threat used by stupid people who think you know as little about the law as they do.

“Knowing the judge” only works in television. Corrupt litigators are charged by a state ethics committee who take their work very seriously. You will not get special treatment. That said, some lawyers are certainly better at presenting convincing arguments and are more knowledgeable in the law, which is why all lawyers do not charge the same fees.

In court, whoever you are, you talk too much. Answer the question in as few words as possible and do not ever offer information that is not requested. Do not “guess,” “estimate” or otherwise provide information that cannot be confirmed. Also, this is absolutely not the time to make yourself look like more than you are. If, for example, you suggest that you are Chuck Norris, then your plea of self-defense will go out the window.

If you need an attorney, do not look in the phone book. Call the state board and ask for a referral; it is free and you can see as many lawyers “for free” as you like. A lawyer does not start working for you until you sign a retainer.

This post was brought to you by an idiot who suggested to me that she was going to bring someone to court over $200.

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Ann Marie Weinert

[Editor's Note: Aaron R. Davis is busy watching Camp Rock 2, so this week we bring you a guest blog post by former HoboTrashcan columnist Ann Marie Weinert. Since leaving the site, Ann Marie has become a burlesque dancer, so this week she kindly shares a funny story and a few photos from her new career.]

Texas Burlesque Fest was a wild ride this year. I traveled with my old pal Pearl Pistol, and we had a grand old time. I got to spend a lot of time with folks like Lydia de Carllo and Viva La Muerte, while just barely missing some other folks who I keep wanting to spend time with (like Tomahawk Tassels, damn it!).

It was great. For whatever reason, our hotel lent us someone to drive us around the city, practically at our beck and call – so that really cut down on taxis! I got to duck into some 6th Street bars, shop on Congress (numerous times, with dwindling amounts of actual “shopping” happening), see the bats on the Congress bridge and naturally – I also got to perform.

I was in the Saturday night show, and it went really well. I was feeling cool as a cucumber when I was upstairs getting dressed. My costume was perfect, my fans were fluffy and I was gonna rock it. I walked down the stairs to the stage about 30 seconds before I had to go on and there was this WHOOSH of hot air that hit me in the face. Not good when you are wearing a pair of panties that are essentially taped on (because they are so little).

I mounted the stage and I was killin’ ‘em with my new fan moves (courtesy of the one and only Barrett All). I dropped my panties, I dropped my dress and I was wearing just pasties and a merkin when all of a sudden, I realized my merkin was slipping off in the back! I pushed it back in place at the last minute for a toosh reveal, but felt it slip again when I was doing a semi-front reveal.

Then all of a sudden, the thing was dangling between my legs, and I still had 45 seconds left to my act (talk about relativity – that’s actually *quite* a lot of time when you are on stage, having a wardrobe malfunction).

So I felt it dangling and I knew I was fucked.

So I reach down.

Grabbed the portion of the merkin that was hanging between my legs.

And ripped that fucker OFF!

NEVER have I ever heard a crowd lose their shit in a bigger way. They could see it slipping all over and I think it was a huge relief to them when I just yanked it off! And it matches the song, since technically, it says I don’t wear no panties!

Anyway, that night I got more compliments on the act than I ever have … but that doesn’t mean I’m going to keep performing it that way!

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Ann Marie Weinert is a burlesque dancer who performs under the name Red Hot Annie. She can currently be seen in Rollin’ Outta Here Naked: A Big Lebowski Burlesque. For more Red Hot Annie, check out her official website.

[Editor's Note: To celebrate HoboTrashcan's five-year anniversary, we are bringing back five defunct site features for one week only. Check back every day this week to be overwhelmed with nostalgia.]

Dupont Circle is known for its colorful characters, and this gentlemen was no different. After he spotted me taking this picture he told me his story, which included being in the Pink Berets (Special Forces, of course) under George H. Bush. He received a dishonorable discharge by the former President for failing to complete his mission: invade Canada.

- Neil Greenberg

Click the photo to enlarge. Tales from the Road originally ran on HoboTrashcan from August 2005 to March 2007 and was originally done by Hillary Dempster. For more of Neil Greenberg’s work, follow him on Flickr and Twitter.

By Evan Redmon

[Editor's Note: Courtney Enlow is moving on up to the east side today, so while she enjoys her piece of the pie, we bring you this special guest blog post from former HoboTrashcan columnist Evan Redmon.]

Well hello again everybody. Good to be back. Glad to see HTC is still up and running like a well-oiled machine after all these years.

There’s been some discussion about yours truly returning to this here webernet site, perhaps to pen a regular column which is political in nature. Nothing would please me more, except maybe seeing the Nationals score more than 11/16 of a run every time Stephen Strasburg pitches.

Since my last article, I got married, divorced (must have been the $2.99 engagement ring that started things off on the wrong foot) and had my right hip completely replaced. Stuff’s been happening, in other words. But as a wise man once said, I stayed out of jail and I’m still alive, so things aren’t all bad. In fact, they’re pretty damn good, all things considered, despite being sexless and limpy. (Actually, I’m limp-free and pain free for the first time in six years. Thank you, Dr. Mont. Now, can you help with the other thing? I mean, not you personally of course, but … dah, okay, let‘s move on here.)

So then, I’ve decided to be more positive and complain less. This seems especially sensible, considering how entitled and utterly void of perspective people appear to be when they complain about trivial things, particularly in the wake of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Seriously – how much of a tool do you have to be to whine about the temperature of your Caramel Macchiato when black sludge fields bigger than most Texas counties are washing up on the Redneck Riviera. Maybe talk to a shrimper in Gulfport about how his livelihood is probably gone for the remainder of his life before bitching that Nordstrom is out of size medium in your favorite khakis.

So no complaining.

Yeah right, who am I kidding. Let’s start with Metro …

If you live in, or have ever visited, Washington, DC, then you’ve almost certainly ridden Metro at some point. And it’s nice, isn’t it? That’s what people from out of town always say. “Wow, this is nice! The floor is carpeted and the seats are cushiony! And the ceilings in the stations are so high, and those long escalators are amazing!” True, when compared to New York, Boston or Chicago, the trains and stations in the Washington, DC Metro system are clearly a cut above.

Only one problem; Metro completely blows. For a great many people who use it for commuting to and from work, hardly a day goes by when the seemingly simple task of getting from one place to another becomes an exercise in patience and acceptance.

Now , Metro is well aware of their inherent suckage, so they tout the things they have going for them, as any dysfunctional organization will do. Case in point: a commonly seen billboard prominently features a large brown rat with the caption: “You gonna eat that?” The subtext goes on to say that eating and drinking is illegal in the Metrorail system, which is why they don’t have “rats the size of house cats, like some metro systems we could name”.

First, I’ve seen rats scurrying along Metro’s tracks, so shut it. Second, the aforementioned advertisement is a thinly-veiled bitchslap at New York City’s Metro system. Well, okay, Washington probably has fewer large rats than New York, but then, New York’s system does a few things that Washington’s doesn’t. Namely, it gets passengers from point A to point B, 24 hours a day for $2, no matter how far the trip or time of day.

I currently work near the Vienna Metro but I live near Silver Spring. This means that during rush hour, I pay $5 each way. That’s $10 a day, $50 a week, over $200 a month and about $2,500 a year to commute to and from work. And this is without the next wave of price increases due in August (which will be the third increase in as many years, and the second since June), which will increase fares even more during peak rush hour times when most people travel. Leave it to Metro to invent a second rush hour.

$2,500 a year to commute 20 miles. Soon, close to $3K. Reefreakingdiculous.

This wouldn’t be so frustrating if the reason Metro constantly raises fares was for something other than gross mismanagement over the years, on an almost criminally incompetent level (feel free to Google ‘WMATA mismanagement‘ to get an idea of the horror show). It would be one thing if we got reflexology treatments on the way home from work, or free shrimp cocktails or something. Then I could see forking over three grand for riding the slow train to the U Street/African American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo station (an actual WMATA station name). C‘mon Metro, it‘s not too late, you can still add 17 different locations to the name of every station. Hell, you‘ve definitely got the funds to pay for the new signs.

Personally. I’d rather travel in a tin box with wooden planks if it meant I could get to and from work without spending more than the cost of two pretty sweet vacations.

And the midnight closing hour … and the mistimed transfer connections … and the 20 minute waits on weekends … and the escalators that break down and stay broken for months on end … and the fare gate doors that closed right on my junk last Thursday … what am I paying for, exactly? Oh right, carpet and cushions to impress tourists who ride Metro twice in their lifetimes, and the salaries of executives who solve no problems.

Speaking of things that are better in New York, why is it do damn difficult to get a good bagel anywhere outside of a 50 mile radius of Manhattan? This is really a referendum on Einstein Bagels more than anything else. When you put the word “bagels” in the name of your store, you’d better have some pretty righteous bagels. The only place that trumps Einstein for bad bagels is Starbucks, which will generally be conveniently located right next door to any Einstein Bagels that you may care to visit. Guess they wanted to keep all the taste-challenged, pre-fabricated bagels in the same area.

If you want to know what a really good bagel tastes like, check out Hot and Crusty on Lexington Ave near 86th St. in New York. Actually, if you want to maintain your misguided belief that Einstein has pretty good bagels, you’d better not. Hot and Crusty will ruin it for you.

To end on a positive note: I recently returned to Shenandoah National Park for a day of unparalleled joy and mirth. This park is truly a national treasure; waterfalls, picturesque pools in which to swim, natural beauty at every turn … I could live happily-ever-after in a tent there, if they had WiFi and ice cream.

On my previous visit, as some of you may recall, I was the unwitting victim of an unprovoked attack by a vicious, man-eating turkey. No such encounter occurred this time, thus it appears the supremely talented park rangers at Shenandoah have eradicated the park of these noxious beasts, presumably with modified 9mm semi-automatic machine guns. Trust me, that’s what it takes to eliminate these tenacious predators.

So if you bite into a spray of spent bullets while gnawing on a turkey bone this Thanksgiving, say thanks to the folks at the Tec 9 company for keeping the forests safe.

Evan Redmon gets a lot of spam. If you are not spam, please feel free to drop him a line at hoboevan@gmail.com.