My city has a celebrity garbageman, I bet yours doesn’t. But he’s not one of the guys who gets up obscenely early to ride on the back of the garbage truck: he’s their boss. His name is Sidney Torres and he’s gone from being born with a silver spoon in his mouth to making money off rubbish. Here in Debrisville aka New Orleans we call him the Trashanova. Why? Because he’s the handsomest frakking garbage man in the frakking galaxy:

El Sid, as I like to call him, is actually just another greasy, politically connected contractor who oozed out of the sewer post-K and ended up with *part* of the city’s trash business. His slice of the garbage contract pie includes the French Quarter, which makes Torres the center of both attention and controversy. And the Trashanova knows how to capitalize on publicity; a gift that he’s about to take nationwide via a reality show on TLC. The pilot will focus on the dashing dustman as he and his minions pick up during the Voodoo Music Experience on Halloween weekend. That means he’ll have the chance to compare his massive ego with those of fellow reality teevee star Gene Simmons or his old boss Lenny Kravitz. That’s right: the Trashanova used to be Lenny’s personal assistant, a rich boy working for a rock star. Go figure.

Sidney Torres is not just a figure of fun: the trash contract he shares with two other companies is preposterously expensive and has been the subject of more controversy than you can shake a stick at. Torres, his relations and friends, of course, donated generously to the re-election campaign of our shiny headed fool of a Mayor Ray Nagin. It’s way too complex to go into in this post BUT suffice it to say that trash isn’t the only thing that stinks about Mr. Torres.

Here’s the Trashanova in the City Council chamber with Nagin’s Sanitation Director Veronica White who’s famous for trash talking and for both idolizing and emulating Whitney Houston: