Hi! How about the cruel joke known as daylight saving time? Old-timey farmers from the past should not be the deciders of how dark it is when I leave work. As if we needed an extra hour of November 2018! It’s been figuratively dark for two years, but now it’s also literally dark almost all the time. I want to wrap myself around a sun lamp like Ilana in Broad City. I want to carry my own personal sun orb in my hand in the style of an Ood from Doctor Who. I want to be a gladiator who stands in the sun like on Scandal. Heck, I might even want to be kicked directly into the sun like that one lady’s dog on The Good Place. Thank goodness I’ve got these sunny television fantasies to brighten my life. And you’ve got this column!
Our Human Sunlamps and My Best Friends: The Obamas
I’m writing this before the midterm elections, and you’re reading it after. As I do in times of anxiety and despair, I’ve been turning to my best friends Barry and Michelle. Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming, is dropping on November 13 and I hope you’ve already pre-ordered it for all the important women in your life (like me)! She’s embarking on a big book tour which, sadly, will not stop in Portland (*sobs*) but I’m very happy for the other cities that will be graced with her presence. And even though thousands of people would gladly pay hundreds of dollars to see her speak, because she is wonderful, Michelle Obama is giving 10 percent of her tickets away to a variety of community organizations, particularly organizations with a focus on girls’ leadership and education. Ugh, Michelle Obama, stop being so perfect. Just kidding, be more perfect. Just kidding, that’s impossible, because you’re perfect.
And what’s that husband of hers up to? He’s not lazily rolling around in piles of money like a big ol’ cat who loves money, which is certainly what I’d be doing if I was married to Mrs. Book Tour. No, Mr. Book Tour (Barack Obama) has been campaigning for Democratic candidates in tight races and calling out the decaying Jack-o-lantern currently serving as our nation’s president (despite losing the popular vote by 2,864,974 votes) as being a lying piece of yuck. They’re “blatantly, repeatedly, baldly, shamelessly lying,” Barry said. “Just making stuff up.” But instead of leading his starry-eyed followers straight into a chasm of despair, he lifted them up. “I’m hopeful because out of this political darkness, I’m seeing a great awakening.” Only an Obama telling me it’s always darkest before the dawn could make me believe it. The Obamas are my political sunlamp.
Oprah and Barbra Streisand: The Section for Our Moms
Oprah also weighed in on the midterms by throwing her support behind Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Will Ferrell knocked on doors for her, too! Our whiny Vice President Mike Pence tried to puff his chest like a cool guy and said, “I’d like to remind Stacey and Oprah and Will Ferrell: I’m kind of a big deal, too.” LOL. Sure, Jan.
Speaking of losers! I just learned that Hugh “Jean-Wolverine-Valjean” Jackman is friends with Ivanka and Jared Kushner. What?! Gross! According to Variety, Jackman explained the couple’s presence at his recent birthday party with “I’ve known those guys for 15 years and we don’t talk politics at birthday parties.” According to this logic, Hannibal Lecter would be a welcome guest at his next birthday, so long as he didn’t mention how much he liked eating people’s body parts. Hopefully some of Jackman’s co-X-Men were at the party to torture them? I have a hard time believing that Halle Berry or Ellen Page wouldn’t have at least done that thing where they say something mean but cough to cover it up, like “cough cough, they’re clearly violating the emoluments clause in the Constitution, cough cough, excuse me, ahem!”
I’m now sure that Barbra Streisand and Hugh Jackman probably aren’t friends, because if she’d gone to that party, she definitely would have thrown down on Ivanka and Jared! Instead, she made a full diss album about the disgusting Trump administration. The first single is called “Don’t Lie to Me” and this makes me smile for a lot of reasons, but mostly because my Baby Boomer mom will like it and even though I give that generation a lot of shit for *gestures to everything*, there are some winners in the lot. Babs is one of them.
Bieber, Nicki, and Cardi: The Section for Young People
Did you guys know that Ja Rule and 50 Cent have a longstanding feud? I didn’t, but now I know all about it thanks to this delicious story, via Consequence of Sound: 50 Cent recently bought up the first 200 seats of a Ja Rule concert so that the venue would look sad and empty, and then photoshopped himself into one of the empty seats and put it on Instagram. This is mean, but also expensive, so it’s also a hilarious reverse diss on 50. “But Elinor,” you say, “what does Snoop Dogg think?” Good question! Snoop Dogg wants 50 Cent to stop it, according to Instagram, where he commented “Stop it.” But guess who’s NOT feuding? Cardi B and Nicki Minaj! According to CNN (CNN?! Okay!) the pair took to social media to publicly bury the hatchet following a short-lived feud involving Fashion Week and a line of “Nicki stopped my bag” swag. It was a lot, but it’s over now, which is a huge relief, because unlike the Ja/50 feud where my allegiance is new but obvious (#teamja all the way), I never wanted to take a side between Nicki and Cardi; I want them both to be bridesmaids in my fantasy wedding. (“Stop it.”—Snoop Dogg. “MAKE ME!”—me.)
My editor Wm. Steven Humphrey is once again meddling with the results of this column after a story broke this week involving both Justin Bieber and burritos. I was foolish to think that “Bieber Believer #1” Humphrey wouldn’t order me to cover it, so here you go: A guy who at least looked like Justin Bieber was photographed eating a burrito sideways. For some reason everyone cared that this rich Canadian jerk-off bit his burrito in a different order than you or I would have. THEN we come to learn that WASN’T Bieber at all! It was all a stunt! Why? Why. Why did this happen? Why was it covered? Why did we care? Why involve burritos? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. We should all be ashamed, including me, but especially Wm. Steven Humphrey. (“Stop it.”—Wm. Steven Humphrey. “MAKE ME!”—me.)
In Local News
I set aside this area for an update on the story I mentioned in my last column about the feral bunnies in Cannon Beach, but unfortunately, I don’t have an update. Does anyone else?? Please, dear readers—if you are in Cannon Beach and see bunnies, tweet pictures of them to me, @elinorjoneser.
Instead of bunnies, you know what’s happening here locally? Our region’s leading newspaper, the Oregonian, published a phenomenally grody think piece titled “The Misunderstood Joey Gibson,” where writer Elizabeth Hovde spewed a bunch of baloney about the Washington-based hate group leader and tried to frame his unwelcome attempts to mobilize violence and fear in our community as some plea for greater understanding. Or something? It was bad. Our own Alex Zielinski summed it up perfectly: “Hovde’s simplistic attempt to soften the reputation of the man at the helm of a group that attracts white supremacists and senseless violence... carelessly normalizes a movement that has planted, and now nurtures, the seeds of hatred and fear in our community.” Alex is smarter than I am; I can only add, “They’re dumb; no callbacks.” This is why they keep me out of the news section.
The Last Word
Bad news, everyone: It’s now the end of my column, and I haven’t had time to write about THE ONE THING I keep trying to write about, which is the casting of the upcoming film adaptation of Cats the Musical. UGGGHHHHHH. So long as the right folks won this election, there will be a future, and I’ll still have time to write about Cats. So you’ve all got that to look forward to! Until then, all alone in the moonlight, yours truly, Elinor Jones.
