A man posing as Heath Ledger's father managed to get free hotel rooms and talk to Tom Cruise and John Travolta after the actor's death last week. The Post reports the "twisted impostor" got Tom Cruise to console him on the phone and almost "got John Travolta to buy him a plane ticket to the United States." Why does this sound like a radio shock jock prank? With Ledger's father Kim (pictured) rumored to arrive......

A lot of people pick up abandoned furniture on the street, but apparently there's some good 'ol fashion dumpter diving going on around town, too. Treasures in the trash are hard to come by, and we'd be nervous about bed bugs, but for the fearless - there is free stuff for the taking. The best of which is found at Third Avenue and 12th Street as NYU students depart for the summer. The NY Times......

Everyday at 5 PM EST, Peabody award winning journalist Gary Baumgarten sits down with the likes of Arianna Huffington, Dr. Keith Ablow, and Mia Farrow for a one on one discussion. But this isn't for TV or the Radio, it's for Paltalk's News Talk Online , a web based talk show that allows listeners from all over the world to get the answers they want by asking the questions themselves. How did you get involved......

Brooklyn Industries is opening an art gallery in Williamsburg, on the site of their old retail location on Broadway and Driggs. Oh no! Eric Brown has reached the shark-jumping point of his internet celebrity-- posing drunk and surly at a K-Y Jelly party. Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: gas leak on East 4th Street, suspicious package on the Upper West Side, and two missing kids in Harlem. Who doesn't love a classic New York......

Today is a red letter day in the emerging field of, um, digital secret keeping date-related cool free stuff. If you're a fan of Wilco, then please, read on. If you're not, either become one like a good little music fan or skip the next paragraph. If you throw in your copy of A Ghost Is Born and click on the enhanced material you'll be able to download the new Wilco EP starting today. And......

Miramax emailed us and asked us if our readers would be interested in winning some free stuff, and Gothamist thought, "Hell yeah." So we worked up a little contest where you, our readers, can win some stuff related to the upcoming release, Hero starring Jet Li with Zhang Ziyi, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, and Donnie Yen. Four winners will each win a Hero poster signed by Jet Li, a Hero soundtrack, and a......

There are a lot of free concerts in New York this summer. So many, in fact, we're struggling to keep up with all the festivals and park performances. Luckily, the folks over at Prefix have distilled a list of this summer's free-or-really-cheap shows. It's not comprehensive, but this hand-picked list could keep you busy most evenings throughout the summer. Also, it appears to have been pre-screened for that indie-credibility thing the kids these days like......

[Coolfer has given us the cost-efficient music guide for this weekend...hooray for free concerts!] Attenion freeloaders, cheapskates, the unemployed, the stingy and the underpaid: It's a great week for free shows in NYC. If the weather holds up, this could be one of the better weeks of NYC freebies in recent memory. Tonight, the magical Ron Sexsmith kicks off Madison Square Park's evening performance series. Ron is arguably one of the better songwriters working today.......

This weekend looks to be a rather boring for the New York region. The Mets and Yankees are both out of town playing teams in Florida. There is no hockey, no baketball, no nothing. George Vecsey pointed this travesty out yesterday and Gothamist couldn't agree more. When was the last time there were no local sports this weekend? What happened to seeing scores of Navy men and women in the stands of Shea or......

In an effort to help Madison Avenue understand who to target, research company Roper/ASW has released a study explaining more about the so-called "Influentials," or as Ad Age calls them, "a demographic of business networkers, news junkies and community movers and shakers." And as if it's shocking news, this group prefers the Internet for getting its daily information. Other tidbits: - 77% have Internet access, compared to 50% of the general population, according to a......