Hello, beautifuls! It's me, Elinor Jones, back with another Trash Report for your eyes and your hearts. Did you know that the latest PRINT ISSUE of the Mercury is out now, which is a GUIDE TO FUN?! There's a bonus Trash Report in there. And then Mercury editor-in-chief Wm. Steven Humphrey asked if I had anything else to contribute and I was like, "best I can do is a list of places to disassociate." It's not so much "fun" as it is "not agony"—but hey, we write what we know.
Would you like to check in on news and gossip? Okay!
Rest in Peace
Pope Francis passed away last weekend on Easter. With basically zero knowledge of organized religion, I feel like that has to have irritated some people, but I'm not sure who and don't want to force a joke out of it. Regardless, many outlets have been discussing his life and legacy and he seemed like a pretty decent dude. What I can make a joke out of, however, is that the Pope died shortly after meeting personally with JD Vance, and I am not surprised that Vance sucked all of the Pope's will to live straight out of him. Had that meeting and immediately was just like "woof, I'm outta here."**
Many luminaries attended the funeral events, including current President Trump (booo!), former President Joe Biden (also booo! but for different reasons, kind of) and England's Prince William. All I could think when seeing pictures of Prince William is how irritated he must be that he allowed himself to go bald just before hair transplant surgeries became so easy to obtain. He had to rub shoulders with million-years-old men like Trump and Biden with their fake heads of hair and Will's just like, "goddammit, how am I the bald one?!" Anyway, rest in peace, Pope Francis. Or at least, rest in peace once all the funeral hullaballoo is over and a bunch of randos aren't breathing and crying all over your quiet space. I cannot think of anything less peaceful than having several thousand people looking at my face up close when I'm dead. When I go, keep that shit closed, but put a super hot photo of me on an easel right next to the casket. (Please ask one of my girlfriends—not my male life partner—to pick the pic.)
Domestic Trash
Here at home, Secretary of Defense and prototypical "guy you don't leave your friend alone with at a bar" Pete Hegseth has been getting a lot of heat for continuing to blab to whoever about top-secret military operations. Several in Trump's orbit have voiced their ongoing support while leakers are saying the man is toast, AKA the point of a wedding at which Pete Hegseth is usually throwing up in the bushes.
Nothing makes me feel more confident in our military leadership than a guy nervously bouncing from foot-to-foot while speed talking about the cocktail parties he missed
— Mike Drucker (@mikedrucker.bsky.social) April 22, 2025 at 8:16 AM
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Movies!
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences updated their Oscars voting rules so that a person can only vote if they've seen all the nominees, which has everyone shocked, because how the fuck was that not already the rule?! I at least make my child try a new dish before she says she doesn't like it, and she's eight.
But speaking of the Oscars, the highly-nominated actress Michelle Williams recently met her name counterpart, musician Michelle Williams. They shared an adorable photo where they signed photos of the other's headshots. Cute! I came up with a new grammar rule where if the two of them are together, the the correct verbiage is "Michelles Williams." It's like Attorneys General, I have decided.
In other movie news, the latest novel in the Hunger Games universe has barely been released and casting is already in the works for the movie adaptation, which I found annoying until I read that Jesse Plemons will play the young Plutarch Heavensbee—the role Philip Seymour Hoffman played up until his death in 2014—and I decided that I was actually ready for casting notifications and in fact I damn near loved them. Then it got me thinking what other PSH properties could get prequels with Jesse Plemons, and not a single one of them sounded like a bad idea. Jesse Plemons as a young Lester Bangs? Yes. Young Truman Capote? Sure, why not! Young tornado enthusiast joining a ragtag crew of likeminded scrappy scientists? Put it in my weathervanes!!!!
In Other Photo Ops
Hot man seemingly built in a lab Glen Powell has released a line of condiments. And I wanted to know why. He doesn't have to do this! Powell is a highly in-demand actor since breaking out a few years ago. What will having his own kind of mustard on the shelf do for him that kinda-sorta-secretly attending a family member's wedding with Sydney Sweeney won't do? So I set about researching which other celebrities, if any, had their own lines of condiments, and I discovered that this aisle of the supermarket is pretty limited to celebrity chefs, meaning this motherfucker may have just invented a whole new thing celebrities can make money from. The man was born to be a movie star.
In other "wait, what?" photos of the week, it's come out that Billy Ray Cyrus and Elizabeth Hurley are dating. It makes no sense until you start to think about how luxurious both of their flowing manes of brown hair are, and then I can see it. Nothing says "romance" like trading tips on avoiding a limp end.
Local Trash!
Several college students in Oregon had their student visas revoked before having them reinstated, one in a bajillion moves by the Trump administration to stoke fear and anxiety among our immigrant friends and neighbors. True to form, students showed up to protest for the classmates, and this isn't a trash story as much as it is something that makes me so hopeful and glad. I have no snark for this. Shit's fucked all over the place, and a lot of every day, normal-ass people are doing what they can to stop it, and it's beautiful. More people want things to be better than want them to be worse right now. This is good to remember.
On that note, it's time to end our time for another week. When I next see you, it is going to be May, and my heart is with you whether or not you choose to mark the occasion with that one Justin Timberlake gif. Take special care of your friends and yourselves. You're all so, so cute.
Papally,
**I've been trying to figure out a joke about how funny it is that in Spanish the word papa means Pope AND potato, which could lead to saying funny things, like, if someone polishes off a huge plate of french fries you could be like "we call that a papa funeral." This needs workshopping as Spanish is not my native tongue, but I think there's something there.
