Hi! Welcome to the Trash Report. I'm Elinor Jones, doing my damnedest to write and think about anything besides this season of Love is Blind, which sucked so bad. I have very little time to watch television, so when something I consistently make time for lets me down, I feel personally attacked and wonder why I bother with new shows when I could simply rewatch New Girl until my passing so I am never disappointed.

You know who won't be disappointed? You, right now, when I change the subject. Let's gossip!

The Epstein Ballroom

Trump had the entire East Wing of the White House torn down last week to build a ballroom that will dramatically change the White House's look and footprint. While this bad person has been destroying institutions for years, it has still been shocking to watch—but you know what the gold-embossed lining of the situation is? If this display shows us that modern-day presidents can simply knock down whatever shit they want, the next guy can do the same thing, and think about how good it will feel to take a wrecking ball to that monstrosity. For fundraising the next replacement, instead of having tech billionaires funding it for access, have normies chip in like $10 each to piss on it. That would cover the cost of reconstruction and then some!

But more on the rich dickheads who are behind this: the White House shared the list and it's all the bad guys we'd expect, but I admit that I was tickled to see the Winklevoss twins' names. Because like, of course they are. These guys blew it on one critical investment (Facebook) and just can't stop themselves from trying to buy their way back into relevance. But this new ballroom and Facebook actually have a lot in common, in that they're both vacuous places filled with losers trying and failing to impress other losers.

Money Can Buy Trinkets (or You Can Simply Steal Them)

In other rich grifter news, apparently the Golden Globes is adding a category for podcasting and there's a bunch of shady business happening around which ones are getting nominated, and what media conglomerates own them. I am not informed enough about the business of podcasting to know why it's bad, but it certainly seems bad? Also, nothing against podcasters, but they are indoor people, not red carpet people. And imagine a podcaster giving an acceptance speech. Could they even talk for 30 seconds without plugging mattresses or stamps.com?

I think all of this pay-for-play shit in the news is why the recent daytime robbery at the Louvre has been so satisfying. The robbers didn't pretend to be something besides robbers. They wanted some tiaras, so they took some tiaras. It's also very funny that they had to close the museum for a few days afterward to "investigate" the robbery. Like, what is there to investigate? "Our findings are that they're gone now." Yeah, we know, that's the whole thing. But really, it's the Louvre's fault for putting such allegedly precious items in glass boxes surrounded by randos. What did they expect to happen? It sounds like as of Sunday, some or all of the suspects had been apprehended, which never would have happened if they'd used my plan of going full Thomas Crown Affair and having the entire French populace decked out in tiaras so that nobody could tell who had the real things. Alas.

 

Couples News!

Or rather, "no longer a couple" news: Lily Allen and David Harbour are getting divorced and it is messy. She has a new album coming out, which pretty strongly hints of his infidelity. The timing is what makes it juicy, as this is also when Harbour will be on a media blitz for the next and final season of Stranger Things, will have to be out and about, and he'll probably get asked about it. And if the allegations are true, he deserves to be uncomfortable! 

Meanwhile, Megan Fox and MGK appear to be reconciling again as they co-parent their baby daughter. I feel nothing about this, but I do love seeing them in the news if for no other reason than I remember the story of them meeting, when MGK said "I am weed." There's a fondness for him I could never shake. 

Man News

Last weekend saw massive No Kings protests across the country. Alexander Skarsgard, meanwhile, dressed as a slutty maid at the London Premiere of Pillion to which I say: okay, one king. 

The much-less-excellent male specimen Kevin Federline is releasing a memoir that makes him seem like a huge tool. If you'll remember, everyone hated him when he and Britney Spears were married, but for the past decade or so I think we'd become more or less ambivalent and perhaps even fond of him as the lame, but harmless stable parent to the couple's two sons. He could have said nothing and remained in our mid graces. Instead he's publishing private texts from Britney's sister Jamie Lynn Spears, and trying to come across like a hero while also bragging about promoting his rap career (remember his rap "career"?), instead of being there for Britney when the kids were babies. To add insult to injury, he has grown his hair out and looks kind of like Keanu Reeves on the book's cover, which is not a comparison he in any way deserves!!  

Speaking of trying to coast on another person's fame, Cruz Beckham is launching a music career with a song called "Optics." He's gotten heat for the song's raunchy lyrics, but he has tried to explain that references to 69ing are not actually about sex. Buddy! If American princess Taylor Allison Swift can sing about her fiance's schlong and stay in our good graces, everyone else may as well lean into it, too. But Cruz also defended his foray into creative work despite his name by saying "Jesus was a nepo baby"—so it is possible that perhaps this young man is simply not very smart. (If you're curious, the song is about as good as his brother Brooklyn's blurry photography by which I mean: very bad.)

Local Trash

This constant attention from the bad man about Portland is getting so tiresome, but I do love how the city has continued to show up. The latest protest darling is a man who arrived at the ICE facility on horseback. Not only that, but the horse that he rode there had braids. Not only that, but he promised to return on a weekly basis with a different horse each week!!!!!!!!!! This is an iconic threat! Now it seems so lame that in Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger was just like "I'll be back," when he could have said "I'll be back... on a different horse each week."

In other animal news, Tigard police recently saved a skunk whose head was stuck in a jar, and the skunk didn't even spray the cops. Wow, I never knew skunks were bootlickers. You know a raccoon wouldn't go so quietly. 

Speaking of Trash Pandas, thanks to all of you Trash Pandas for reading. This week is Halloween and I'd like to remind you to buy candy now so you don't have to try to buy candy at 4 pm on Halloween, and end up being the house handing out Andes and fruit snacks. Okay, bye! 

Spookily,