Hello, and welcome to another Trash Report! Tis I, Elinor Jones. I am so happy that the wildfire smoke cleared up, aren’t you? I hate when the end times are so noticeable. Better to have blue skies with all that apocalypse on the other side of a mountain range, I say! Without all that looming gloom, we can focus on what really matters: gossip!
Presidential Insecurity
Donald Trump got busted last week for having a scalp and hair situation, like the bad guy at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade after he drank from the wrong goblet, but before he was fully a skeleton. Two days later, that same Trump was photographed with a full head of hair which was obviously a wig. It was not long ago when his closest advisor Rudy Giuliani had spray hair leaking all over his face and dentures, so obviously Trump had to go with something sturdier, but still: yikes. Imagine being the person who had to make his wig. Wig craft is usually about making something look as natural as possible, but when that sick head is your canvas, natural is not an option. The only way to make a good Trump wig is to make a shitty Trump wig, and that’s just got to be a mindfuck.
In other Trump-is-super-fucking-old news, when recently trying to insist that the reflecting pool was ruined by a random person with a tiny knife and not his pool construction buddies who did a bad job, he forgot the word for video. He lyingly tried to say he had evidence beyond photos, but couldn’t say what. “Moving cameras,” he stammered, gesturing at the video cameras. Anyone else surprised he didn’t go with “talkies?” Trump’s cognitive decline, while alarming in a global security sense, is very funny in every other sense. It also has the potential to be very revealing. What other words have left him, and what other descriptive substitutes are lurking just beneath the surface? This man does have to interact with leaders of different races, and if the minute he forgets a name and looks for an adjective, we are all in for some long-shushed racist terminology.
And finally, Trump’s team put out a video on TikTok using Taylor Swift’s “august,” and tagged her, clearly looking for some attention via social media fight. Swift said nothing, but next thing we knew, TikTok had removed the audio. Taytay is a litigious queen, and TikTok knows who butters their bread. They also know who’s gonna be dead first. They picked the right horse.
And Other Losers
In a recent interview with The Economist, journalist Minton Beddoes asked Elon Musk if he knows why people don’t like him. Instead of shrugging and being like, “I’m the richest man in the world so I don’t need to care about also being popular,” which would have been douchey but not embarrassing, Musk opted for both douchey and embarrassing; he insisted that the millions of followers he has on the platform that he owns means that he is popular, actually, and it’s the journalists who are loathed. This man’s skin is thinner than Trump’s hair before the wig.
Celebrity Couple News!
Let us palate cleanse with some celebrity gossip: Bradley Cooper and Gigi Hadid have been out and about with wedding rings on, leading some to say that they were “secretly married.” I do not say this. You see, if it was a secret that they got married, they wouldn’t be wearing the rings in public. Getting married without putting out a press release is not the same as getting married in secret. There are probably all sorts of things that celebrities do that we don’t know about. Presumably they all poop on the regular, but just because we weren’t told doesn’t mean it was a secret, just that maybe they didn’t feel like talking about it with everyone, you know?
Speaking of couples, Tobey Maguire and Ice Spice might be seeing each other. That’s certainly not a couple I ever would have mad-libbed into a relationship. They were photographed together at a party in the Hamptons last month, but a representative said they were only sharing a vape, except now it seems like it might be real. And like: duh! 26-year-olds don’t just share vapes with men twice their age they’re not horny for. A vape is a highly personal thing for a woman. Asking a Gen-Z girlie to hit her vape is like asking a millennial if you can touch her rib tattoo: disgusting when it isn’t welcome, but a one-way ticket to bonetown when it is.
Celebrity Not-Couple News
Patron saint of sad girls Phoebe Bridgers is coming out with a new album and there is a lyric in there that some think is “throwing shade” toward Gracie Abrams, who is now in a relationship with Bridgers’ ex Paul Mescal. And look. Bridgers also once wrote a song about murdering her skinhead neighbor and burying him in the yard. Not everything has to be taken literally. (Although the thing about burying a skinhead in the yard would be very cool to be taken literally.) (Realization: I’d rather Phoebe Bridgers commit murder than be beefing with another pop girlie.)
Longstanding non-couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are apparently still arguing about the winery they used to own. Rather, Pitt is still trying to argue, whereas Jolie is trying to get away from him. The latest development is a demand for Jolie’s earnings information for the years when they were not together or no longer sharing French property. Have you ever had one of those breakups where the dumpee keeps calling you a bitch while still begging to get back together? Aren’t we lucky we never bought a vineyard with those losers?
Ew Chef (Read like “sous chef”)
Brooklyn Beckham made a new cooking video where he filled a pasta pot with water straight from the ocean. Some people are very mad, but it doesn’t seem that weird to me. I mean, we salt our pasta water, right? The ocean already has salt in it. Makes sense. The issue, however, is that Beckham is standing in the water as he fills the pot, and the visual makes it so that the feet are part of the flavor profile. Now instead of charmingly accessing free sea salt, he’s cooking noodles in the pedicure basic at the spa. I wonder if the friends who eat the pasta and say “yum” are the same ones who encouraged his blurry elephant photography. To his credit, Beckham said “I’m used to the hate; it doesn’t really bother me.” Not that I want Elon Musk to get into showing us his feet, but he could certainly learn a thing or two from Brooklyn Beckham when it comes to being chill.
Last Taylor Swift News
The Swift-Kelces’ alleged dog is allegedly named Wendy Peffercorn, after the hot lifeguard in The Sandlot. Do we think it’s weird that they named their dog after a character that a bunch of young boys lust after? Yes. Is it a good-ass name for a dog? Also yes. This is a very likable move for a dog that has been pictured being escorted onto private planes. We should hate this dog. Eat the rich includes the puppy Wendy Peffercorn, unfortunately.
Local Trash
I, like many others who have lived here for a long time, am nostalgically pouring some out of my cup of Orange Julius for the Lloyd Center mall, which closed down this past weekend after 66 years of business. Or rather, 60 years of business, and another six years of high rate vacancy spliced with local businesses, random pop-ups, an inexplicable amount of trading card conventions (why so many?!?!?!?!), and a constant stream of families cherishing the only public ice rink in the area. I could go on and on about what the mall meant to me as someone who grew up here, but I’ve really loved hearing what it meant to other people, like this missed connection:
A mall is both a shrine to consumerism and a cherished third space, and I hope new places for teens to hold hands and avoid their parents will emerge from this loss. And on that note, I am going to enjoy some other places that still exist instead of mourning the past. I assume I’ll be seeing all of you at Clackamas Town Center soon. Don’t forget the pen.
Nostalgically,
