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It’s time to dig deep into this week’s receptacle of garbage-y gossip!

by Elinor Jones

Hello, Trash Pandas, and welcome to another edition of The Trash Report. I’ve had some serious blues lately and I’m not totally sure why. The likely culprits are: 1) it felt like spring for a second and I opened up my light receptors, but then the weather turned grey again so I absorbed melancholy, or 2) the times we live in, generally. ¿Por qué no los dos? Indeed! I’m so glad that I have this weekly opportunity to try to make you all laugh which will also force me to stop listening to music that makes me cry. Win/win!

The Bore-espondent’s Dinner

Over the weekend, DC hosted the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, hosted by SNL‘s Colin Jost and attended by the biggest names in news and politics, like Molly Ringwald, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Jermaine Dupri, Dr. Jill Biden, and her trusty +1, President Joe. There were some good jokes about Biden being old and Trump being a child. Jost also joked that “it’s after 10 p.m. ‘Sleepy Joe’ is still awake while Donald Trump has spent the past week falling asleep in court every morning—thought Fox News said he was just being anti-woke.” That’s funny! Sure, it’s grotesque to have a glitzy celebration of wealth and power that ostensibly honors journalists while not even mentioning that this has been the deadliest year for journalists ever, when our leader made space to bring up atrocities in Ukraine without acknowledging the atrocities in Gaza, or New York, or Austin, but I’ll admit that there were some good zingers in there! 

Trump never went to those dinners because despite the size of his jowls, he is the most thin-skinned man alive. He was paying attention though, and he took to Truth Social to call the event “really bad” and say “Colin Jost BOMBED” and “Crooked Joe was an absolute disaster!” While of course none of that is true, it doesn’t matter; Trump had to say something because it’s better for the media to report on him being a vindictive asshole rather than an old man who’s spent recent days napping and farting in court. 

Speaking of gross old men, Harvey Weinstein‘s 2020 rape conviction was overturned in the state of New York and he’s now in a hospital. His attorney said “he’s kind of a train wreck health-wise.” I’d go so far as to say he’s kind of a train wreck all-wise? This turn of events is a slap in the face to the many woman who accused him of sex crimes, as well as to people in general who don’t want to get raped at work and/or see rapists go free. 

Remember when Michelle Obama said “when they go low, we go high?” Tarana Burke, who founded the #MeToo movement that led to Weinstein’s (temporary) demise, now says this: 

#MeToo founder Tarana Burke voiced her disappointment at Harvey Weinstein’s conviction being overturned by the New York Court of Appeals:

“When we have low moments, we get low and we get dirty and we do what we have to do… we do our work” https://t.co/WXl1K2RDqJ pic.twitter.com/5BJZXsKKYO

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) April 27, 2024

Yes yes yes. We will get dirty. We will get low. We will wear our assless chaps in a wrestling ring and get Dirrty. We will put on our apple bottom jeans with the fur and get low. Hm, I wonder if I agree with Burke or if I need to be listening to more Xtina and Flo Rida featuring T Pain? Once again: ¿Por qué no los dos?

More Deranged Republicans

I try to keep the political stuff smushed into one subsection, but I have to write about this: South Dakota Republican Governor and Trump VP short-lister Kristi Noem has a book coming out where she admits to killing the family dog and pet goat, on purpose, with a gun.  As the news broke and the internet went wild in horror—it takes a lot to horrify us anymore, but this did it—Noem doubled down on her cruelty, tweeting that oh yeah, she had to kill that dog, and that goat, and she killed three horses too, and what’cha gonna do about it? Biden’s Secret Service agents are discreetly discussing the what life would be like with this woman in the Executive Branch as they bandage what’s left of their fingers after Commander Biden‘s last romp on the South Lawn. 

Challenge Accepted

I haven’t seen Zendaya‘s new movie Challengers yet, but a lot of other people did! I’d like for people to tell me how much I need to understand tennis for the movie to make sense. I’m hoping zero, or as they say in tennis, love, I guess? I’ve been obsessed with the press tour but this has confused my targeted ads, and a bunch of sites are trying to get me to buy preppy athletic skorts and bags that can fit a racket when what I’m actually pining for is the three lead actors looking hot. I feel like my algo should know by now that I’m not an athlete, merely a horny woman with a phone.

Speaking of hotties, the Louvre might be giving the Mona Lisa her own room to make it easier for tourists to snap her pic. I wonder how the famous subject feels about the move. Let’s check her face: Is that a smile? A smirk? Is she happy? Sad? At least amateur art historians with selfie sticks might have more space to ponder it in the future. 

Leave Britney Alone… Take 5,723

Last week Miss Britney Jeans Spears finally, finally officially closed out the conservatorship held over her by her estranged father, who was trying to get the singer to cover $2 million in legal fees accrued while he tried to use the court system to extort money from her. Um, okay. Gossip sites reported on her renewed freedom by publishing paparazzi shots of her, captioned that she was “trying to keep a low profile” as she is pictured attempting to lay flat in the passenger seat of a car as the driver was covering his face while driving away. It’s deeply unsettling and makes me sad. #FreeBritney. 

And speaking of pop girlies and wronged young women, a recent social media trend was to post the lyric from Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poet’s Society, “You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they made me” with a picture of something kind of traumatizing from their youth. I was thinking about how to make my own little joke—was my asylum Lloyd Center back when it was still hoppin’? A basement family room watching daytime court shows that were far too adult for me because my parents both worked?—when former White House intern Monica Lewinsky tweeted the following, and the collective internet decided that she had won, and nobody else needed to say a damn thing:

you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me. pic.twitter.com/hkhdRlBCkj

— Monica Lewinsky (she/her) (@MonicaLewinsky) April 25, 2024

Local Trash

Following protests at college campuses across the country, Portland State University announced that it will pause its relationship with Boeing due to its ties to Israel. Protest works, y’all. They’re listening. Keep going. Last week on Earth Day, my daughter and a friend walked around our neighborhood picking up trash, chanting “hey hey, ho ho, litter has got to go.” Young people give me so much hope. We can have a better world. They’re listening. Keep going. 

Portlanders celebrated Earth Day 2024 last weekend with an upcycled costume parade. Check out these great photos of the beautiful event by Justin Yau.https://t.co/5t7FjyDWVS

— Portland Mercury 🗞 (@portlandmercury) April 27, 2024

Holy shit you guys, it worked! I feel better! I hope that you do, too. Thanks for reading and for giving me a reason to be stupid and silly instead of smart yet sad. If there is a pause in the grey skies, please go outside. Get a sunburn! Plant some flowers! Wear your big floppy hat! Tell your crush you like them! I hope you have a great week and that every one of your enemies gets a sunburn.

Joyfully,