Hi Trash Pandas! Welcome back to the Trash Report. I'm Elinor Jones, and I missed you! I am so happy it's freaking MARCH and even though it still feels wintry outside, and is in fact still winter, last week was a gorgeous sneak peek of spring and I can't wait. Times are dark metaphorically; we don't need for them to also be dark literally. For some reason, my household decided to say goodbye to winter by cooking a heavy winter meal, as if to say that since it's about to be a produce lifestyle up in this bitch, I needed to carbo-load with gravy today, for health! And I know all of YOU need to gossip-load, and I want you to be happy, so let's go.

Shithouse

Last week saw an exceptionally embarrassing display from Donald Trump and J.D. Vance as they scolded our ally, Ukrainian president Volodymir Zelenskyy, in the oval office. Republicans then took to the morning shows to try to spin the exchange as anything less than an utter disgrace, and they super failed. Smart people are dissecting the shitty diplomacy of the whole thing, but also, did anyone catch the extremely rapey vibes? I mean, chastising Zelenskyy for what he wore? These men simply cannot stop acting like abusers, even when talking to another man. 

Meanwhile, some Democratic strategists convened to figure out how to take back power and it boils down to "move to the right on all issues, but this time with more guns." Cool. 

We Would Like to Thank the Academy

I don't think any day-after-the-Oscars will ever be as fun as when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock—life as a gossip columnist is pretty much just chasing that high—but we will make the best of what we were given. Last night's show was pretty tame—it was surprising that Anora won so many awards, but that seemed like a scramble on the part of the voters after so much went wrong with the Emilia Perez campaign, and obviously Wicked could not win because it has a sequel coming out next year and the final movie of a franchise has to win. This is my opinion on how things shook out, as an opinionated fan with close to no actual information. I could be right, though.

One of my favorite parts of Oscars Sunday is refreshing the fashion sites to see what everyone is wearing, but starting early, before the big stars show up. For a good hour or so, these "huh?" people are the only outfits that can be reported on and I'm always so happy for those randos to make it onto People Magazine's homepage, albeit briefly. Like who the hell is Scoot McNairy? That's not a name anyone will be discussing tomorrow, but for a precious few moments last night, he was the biggest star to have walked the red carpet so far. It's like how on election night, everybody tries to get into dissecting results out of like Massachusetts or Tennessee when we're all waiting on Michigan and Arizona. 

The WORST news out of last night is that Harrison Ford couldn't be there because he had the shingles. While I have zero proof of his anti-science involvement, I think it's safe to say that this is RFK Jr's fault. Speaking of contagious disease, at last week's SAG awards, Jamie Lee Curtis gave Colin Farrell an award by also sharing that he gave her COVID; Farrell went on to say that Brendan Gleeson had given it to him. For one thing, delightful people need to be more careful about their health because we just lost Gene Hackman and Michelle Trachtenberg and bad news comes in threes, and Jamie Lee Curtis and Colin Farrell better fucking watch themselves because I'm not ready to see either of their names on that list! For another thing, I love randomly sharing who has given who a disease. Think about how much fun that would have been at the VMAs, in like 2005.

Other Sunday Night Viewing

The new season of White Lotus is picking up steam and I'm having a hard time with it so far. It's too dark! I need these people to believe they aren't despicable before acting despicably. Will I give up on the season? Obviously not, and especially not since Chris Pratt shared that his brother-in-law Patrick Schwarzenegger gives full-frontal. Who knew that all Chris Pratt had to do to work his way back up the "Hollywood's Best Chris" list was by proclaiming "I was looking at that dick!" Stars—they're just like us: horny!

Other Movie Trash

The other movie news yesterday was that Zendaya will be voice acting in the upcoming Shrek 5 movie, set to be released next year. This is an interesting choice for a lot of reasons, not least of all that Zendaya tears up a red carpet thematically and she just did all that light green on the red carpet for Challengers last year. Shrek has a similar palette, and are there even any cute outfits left in that color? Law Roach has a life, he shouldn't have to work so hard!

I Kissed a Gayle

 Jeff Bezos's space company Blue Origin announced that an all-female crew will be blasting off later this spring and none other than Katy Perry and Gayle King will be among them. When I was trying to think of a funny thing to say about this, the phrase "I Kissed a Gayle" came to me. I need to be clear that I have no reason to think that Katy Perry and Gayle King have anything but a platonic, professional relationship. However, I never thought about them having any sort of a relationship until two days ago, and when something like "I kissed a Gayle" comes to me, I can't keep it inside. Not writing out "I kissed a Gayle" would do to me what the ring did to Frodo. This column is Mordor, and now Middle Earth is safe.

How's Luigi Mangione?

They tried to keep Luigi Mangione out of the news once they realized everybody hates health insurance executives. But The Cut ran a piece on the women who are showing up to his hearings to show their support. Of course, they are infantilized as "fangirls." But like, good for them! My Instagram feed vacillates wildly between celebrities and the class war; it's great that women have a guy to follow that scratches two itches at once! 

Local Trash

WalletHub released its annual report on diversity in major American cities and Portland came in next to last. What the hell? I've seen an awful lot of "Celebrate Diversity" bumper stickers in my four decades living in this area—did WalletHub not know about those? Is the solution more "In This House" yard signs? 

Well, I have to go work off some of these stuffing and mashed potato shakes that are supposed to stay in November, but I've conjured them out into March and these are my unholy consequences. I hope you find some time for sunshine this week, either literally, if the weather holds up, or metaphorically, by eating some sandwiches.

Wholly,