Overrated – HoboTrashcan

Ned Bitters

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

I wouldn’t say the site is struggling for hits, but when I googled “hobotrashcan,” the first six sites listed sell actual trash cans to actual hobos.

What’s worse, those sites proved more interesting than HTC. I wouldn’t say we’re struggling for readership, but I did some research and found that the following sites get at least 10 times the traffic that HTC gets:

Unfunnyjunk.com

AmyWinehouse’sTipsForLookingHotInPaparazziPictures.com

The site might get more hits if some of those chick photo spreads would show a little more of the good stuff instead of keeping it all covered. Suggestive tease shots stopped being enticing the day Playboy issue number one hit the shelves. Now, in this wonderful Internet age, competition for the repeated attention of twisted online perves (meaning men) is fierce. HTC is up against bestiality, orgies, rape and people shitting on each other. The alluring arm-across-the-tits shot just ain’t gonna make HTC a “favorites” link of all the lowlifes (meaning men) searching for pussy shots. Help grow the site, honeys; show us some nip and vuh-gine.

Having a professional sports writer do a regular column is a good idea. Most people like sports. But the HTC sports column? Listen closely. Do you hear that sound? That’s our boy Murf sucking on the collective knob of the Washington Redskins. The guy ought to change his name to Homer McFanboy. It’s all Redskins, all the time. A video could surface of a Redskin cornerback ass-fucking an eight-year-old Filipino boy in front of his mother, and Murf would write a breathless column lauding the guy for his excellent lube technique. His only concern would be that the player might pull a calf muscle, what with that weird (but super-duper Redskinally athletic) fuck position. And of course, the article would include a quote from Chris Cooley, Murf’s mad mancrush.

I have to give him credit though. Murf might be the only HTCer to score some commercial endorsement money some day. Since he unthinkingly laps up the annual Redskin “This is our year” bullshit, he’ll be hawking Kool Aid any day now. “Step right up and guzzle, folks. Try the new Burgundy and Gold flavors! They’re the best. And by the way, it’s Chris Cooley’s favorite.” Okay, I admit it. I’m just jealous because he’s funnier. Need proof? The guy writes serious articles about the Washington Nationals.

Ms. Enlow usually provides a good read. A fine young writer honing her craft, she’ll no doubt find her work in print some day. But until then, howzabout sexing up your columns a bit? Don’t show the readers cleavage and flowing locks in your picture, then not include at least one graphic fuck scene per article. You’re what, 22 … 23? Reader enjoyment of your take on all things pop culture would triple if they ended with a filthy sex tale starring you, two Cubs pitchers and a cumshot. Just tell your parents and friends that you quit writing for HTC, then cut loose with a column detailing what you really want to do when you run into a drunk John Cusack outside of Gibson’s one steamy summer Rush Street evening.

And poor Mr. Murphy and his celebrity interviews. Now that The Wire is no more, he has no one left to interview. I keep waiting for the issue where he treats us to the scintillating thoughts of The Wire‘s assistant gaffer. As for his columns, I’d probably enjoy his smartass tone more if I knew anything about the TV shows he watches. He might be making some very astute observations, but I wouldn’t know, as I don’t have a vagina, which means I don’t watch Lost, nor do I have a buttplug and a lifetime subscription to Blue Boy, which means I don’t watch the homo-erotic feast of oil and muscle they package as wrestling.

Finally, we come to one Ned Bitters. In a gesture of fairness, I let editor Joel take a swipe at my bi-weekly ramblings. This is the best he could come up with:

The byline may read “Ned Bitters,” but all of the credit for each week’s Overrated column should go to Jack Daniels. I mean, when the guy says he would love to be the next Hemingway, Faulkner or Bukowski, he apparently means it literally.

Not that I can blame the guy for hitting the bottle as often as he does. I mean, it’s amazing he is even able to go out in public with all of his social hangups. Everything from outdoor dining to open-toed shoes seems to make this guy break out into cold sweats. The guy has more social phobias than Monk (my apologies, Ned, as I am sure you are too old and out of touch to get that witty pop culture reference). But, like Monk, the guy more than makes up for his social awkwardness with pure talent.

Say what you will about Ned Bitters, but the guy knows how to write. Of course, while his witty rants and killer one-liners are enough to keep readers coming back, the most interesting part of reading his columns is watching him struggle with his sexuality week after week. Last week, he was waxing poetic about the skimpy outfits worn by female volleyball players, but last month he was going on and on about the special times he and his “Muddy Buddy” had together. Here’s a quote from that column: “I went to mount … and this was the beginning of my trauma. He is six feet, three inches tall. I am not.” That’s after Bitters made sure to tell us all what incredible shape his partner was in.

So while he may be on the bottle and out of touch with his latent homosexuality, he’s still a hell of a writer and I’m proud to have him on HoboTrashcan. Even if he is kind of an asshole.

That’s the best he could come up with? Has he even read most of the shit I send him, incoherent tripe banged out under a nightly deluge of scotch or gin? Allow me to add a bit more to Editor Joel’s mild critique. He should have said:

The unfunny prick needs to learn the first rule of comedy: Get to the punchline before the second coming. On and on and on he goes. I know there’s supposed to be a joke buried in there somewhere, but by the time I find the damn thing I’m too exhausted from all the digging.

His topics get lamer every week. How hard could it be to pick something that deserves a good skewering, and then go after it with malice? Let me give this overrated thing a shot. “Hey, what’s with these fucking cancer kids getting all this cool shit when they’re about to die? Why the fuck would anyone waste a perfectly good authentic Major League jersey on a kid who is going to be buried in it next month.” See, that wasn’t so hard. And I bet that would hook readers more than a rant about people’s video game skills. Way to help keep the site cutting edge, ramrod.

I’d also like to take this hack’s crowbar and wrap it around his vodka-drenched head. You know, that crowbar he uses to wedge in an SAT vocabulary word every fucking chance he gets. When this guy gets to rambling, things don’t “get worse,” they are “ex-ac-er-ba-ted.” There isn’t a “fire,” there’s a “con-fla-gra-tion.” Let me give you an example of how simpler is better. Ned, aka Mr. Pretentious, might write, “Please embark on a mission to engage in what is basically an anatomically impossible act of auto-copulation, you sphincter controlled terminus of the large intestine.” Or, he could just say it my way: “Go fuck yourself, asshole.”

That’s what Editor Joel should have written, but he’s probably too afraid of offending me and driving me away from the site. Not that my departure would cause a drop in site hits. It’s just that I might go off and get famous by penning a string of bestsellers, and then he’d want to interview me for the site, and he’d call me up directly, and I’d have to say – no, not “Go fuck yourself, asshole” – I’d have to say, “But why me? I’ve never been on The Wire.”

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