Helloooooooo Trash Pandas! Welcome back to the Trash Report. I’m your girl Elinor Jones, fresh off a weeks-long mental health break “sabbatical.” This summer has been fun, but it’s been busy and I was fresh out of jokes to make and fucks to give, so I needed to rest. I’ve also been oddly tuned out of the news, because it’s just so very bad… but if pigs can cool themselves down by rolling around in slop, then so can we. Let’s discuss some things that have been going on!
These Pieces of Shit. These Ugly Losers.
President Donald Trump has been pretty effectively making people stop talking about his murdered best friend, Jeffrey Epstein, by unleashing the National Guard on regular-ass American cities. Republicans who support the effort are saying D.C. is simply too dangerous (it’s not), and like, aren’t these the same motherfuckers who say they love guns? I thought they were supposed to be the tough guys. What are they afraid of? Seeing a poor person? What absolute loser cowards.
They’re threatening to come to other cities in blue states, and I imagine Portland is on the list… but I don’t totally understand how they can try to paint leftists like little beta scaredy-cats while also being afraid to come here? If the inhabitants of liberal cities are such feminized weaklings, why do they need the armored vests and tanks to come visit? Are we pussified snowflakes, or violent criminals? Because we can’t be both. (Just wait till they find out we are a secret third thing: criminal snowflakes, i.e. we throw molotov cocktails, but only because we are so compassionate!)
Assuming Trump Jr made this statement while sitting on daddy’s lap, rest assured I’ll fight this unAmerican and unnecessary threat with all I’ve got.
— Senator Ron Wyden (@wyden.senate.gov) August 23, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Anyway, whatever is in those Epstein files has gotta be real bad. Newly released transcripts revealed that Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell just said she only ever saw Donald Trump being very well-behaved when he was hanging out with his friend, the notorious sex trafficker of underaged girls Jeffrey Epstein. Like, okay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Elsewhere in Hell, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is having parts of the border wall with Mexico painted black so it will be too hot to touch. As long as none of the would-be migrants ever learn what sorcery bakers use to get hot cakes out of the oven, it’s a perfect plan.
i think people need a refresher on what constitutes a Distraction. the cracker barrel logo thing (zero stakes, obviously invented controversy) is a Distraction. the ongoing military occupation of washington dc (ample footage of random delivery drivers being violently detained by feds) is not
— rax ‘levon honkers’ king (@raxkingisdead.bsky.social) August 22, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Celebri-deez Nuts
Okay we must now cleanse our palates by talking about attractive people: Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz are the latest co-stars-turned-maybe-something-more. They’ve been on the press circuit for their new movie Caught Stealing, and wow, what an interesting coincidence that something romantic is also afoot! This is the oldest trick in the Hollywood playbook and they are definitely not actually dating. However, they are both pros and they’re playing the game well and the pictures of them together on red carpets are fun and dazzling. It’s what we want out of our celebrities. Be in your fake relationship, beautiful people, and thank you. This is a summer in which we had been served Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau, which we rejected like children who were too full for broccoli, but suddenly have room for ice cream.
Speaking of Katy Perry, her ex, Orlando Bloom, just said that he’d consider returning to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise only if everyone goes back… and yes, that includes the disgraced abuser Johnny Depp. For a guy who thought Perry’s girl boss trip to inner space was too cringe, this is a weird next move. Do you want us to like you or not?
Families Can be Complicated
Lilly Collins’s father-in-law, the actor Malcolm McDowell, told People magazine that he is not a fan of her mega hit show Emily in Paris. Yeah, and my father-in-law doesn’t like that I don’t own steak knives. It doesn’t matter what fathers-in-law think! That is a family member whose got two jobs: spoiling their grandchildren, and helping with house projects—end of list.
Speaking of family members with some weird opinions, Chris Pratt recently came out in defense of his weird uncle-in-law Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the podcast of… ew, Bill Maher! Pratt said that RFK Jr was a cool guy with some cool ideas who’s fun to play cards with and they don’t really talk about the touchy stuff. Pratt said: “I’m not going to pick his brain.” Yeah, that’s smart—you pick RFK Jr’s brain, you end up with a fistful of worms!
⚠️ #Recall Alert: For the second time this week, the FDA is warning consumers not to eat five additional brands of frozen shrimp due to possible radioactive contamination substance: Cesium-137, or Cs-137.
— Consumer Reports (@consumerreports.org) August 22, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Rich People are Trash
A 75-year-old real estate agent in the Hamptons was accused of biting a 7-year-old girl in a tussle to get a free concert T-shirt. The woman has denied the allegations. And like, true or not, you bite a child in the heat of the moment, lying about it is the only move. And whether or not this lady did it, the kid has teethmarks and the skin was broken—someone in the Hamptons bit that child over a free shirt. These are the same people who spend $400 on a melon. Rich people are insane.
Back to Epstein for a second: There’s a new book out about his client Prince Andrew, who sounds about as awful as one could expect a royal asshole to be. The book reveals all sorts of awful things that he did, but my favorite was that he tried to get a free Faberge egg on a visit to the Kremlin. This is a man who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on helicopters and prostitutes, but couldn’t spring for a fancy egg. I wonder how many children he would have bitten in a tussle over it. Probably a lot.
Local Trash
Not so much trash as a brag, but this mighty alt-weekly has existed for 25 years and I’ve been writing for it for over half that time, which is a very long time! The print issue is on stands all over town and it’s pretty great, I hope you pick one up. I wrote about the last 25 years of trash and ranked each event in terms of its social impact/value. It was a lot of work, so I hope you like it.
Thank you for reading, and for your patience while I took a break. If you’re curious, this is what I was doing while I was not writing: WATCHING: K-Pop Demon Hunters. Also Shrinking, which is lovely, and Hunting Wives, because I am trash. My daughter just got into Great British Baking Show, so we’ve been working through older seasons and we’re almost to to the episode when Diana melts Iain’s ice cream cake. I can’t wait. It’ll be like when nerd parents watch their children watch Star Wars for the first time. READING: Finally got to Crying in H-Mart, which I’d put off because I also lost a parent to cancer and didn’t think I could handle it sooner. I still barely could. It was so beautiful I could hardly stand it. LISTENING: Again, K-Pop Demon Hunters, plus the new Renee Rapp, Toto, and whatever the fuck this is that I was introduced to as a joke, but now cannot get out of my head:
Rectangularly,
