Hi, Trash Pandas! Welcome back to The Trash Report, or if it's your first time reading, classic welcome. I'm Elinor Jones. Recently I applied to appear on Pop Culture Jeopardy. I don't know if I'll get famous writing, but by god, my encyclopedic knowledge of pop song lyrics and The O.C. surely will. Wish me luck! I'm fine, thanks for asking. Onto the trash!
Good Dads
It's wild that it's only been a few days since Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her VP, and we already have declared him to be our dad and savior. Lionizing politicians is a dangerous game and I am enjoying playing it! At least right now. The vibes the past few weeks have been top-notch. That said, nobody's perfect. THAT said, I really feel like the only skeletons in this guy's closet are that he knows too many Jello salad recipes by heart or still cooks his stuffing in the turkey. Republican VP nominee JD Vance is on an interview circuit in an effort to de-weird himself. "They try to say I'm weird, but I eat my pants one leg at a time, just like everyone else." "You eat pants? Senator, I asked you a question about your position on immigration?" "Ha ha ha ha ha, I love you guys. Except for parents who let their daughters wear blue, who should be rounded up and put in camps."
I just know Tim Walz could teach me how to drive stick shift without making me cry once
— Carrie Courogen (@carriecourogen) August 7, 2024
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is catching heat metaphorically for catching heat literally: he spent a day relaxing on a beach and was papped looking very peaceful and calm, which made some people very angry, because they hate peace and calm. I also saw a rumor that he's started wearing shoes that will make him look taller. Joe Biden is already 6' tall so this is not a Ron DeSantis situation. I'm thinking Biden has just always wanted to try a chunky sole and he's finally not running for office for the first time in 50 years and he said, f*ck it, time to dazzle. The man is 81 years old. Let's let him be tan and fabulous.
Off Again (Or Still?)
The ongoing saga of Ben Affleck and J. Lo bums me out, but I do like that a longtime friend has entered the chat to say he never liked Ben anyway. This shows me that J. Lo has supportive friends with her who will pour martinis and reassure her that she's better off without him. That's the silver lining of a divorce: getting drunk and talking sh*t. And I'd know!
Not a romantic falling out, but some interpersonal drama is going down with Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni on their It Ends With Us press tour.Intrepid TikTokers (are there any other kind?) noticed that the two co-stars have been avoiding each other at events, raising questions about what happened, not because either of them are especially interesting (I'd literally never heard of Justin Baldoni until this story), but because we are all messy bitches who live for drama and we yearn for some bitchy red carpet shenanigans to take us back to what we felt when Don't Worry Darling came out.
As some celebrity couples fall apart, others emerge to take their place: general hot person and writer Emily Ratajkowski and musician Shaboozey seem to have gone public with their relationship. This couple needs a portmanteau immediately if I am to ever mention them again, for my life is too complex and busy to spend all of my time spelling those names. Thankfully, all options are delightful: Raboozy. Shabowski. Emizey. I hope they make it so one of these takes off!
Not Making Money > Not Making Movies
Cate Blanchett, who is shockingly likeable for having such a bone structure, recently sat down with Andy Cohen and reflected on her time making the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Cohen asked her if it was her biggest paycheck, to which she laughed and said that she "was basically paid in sandwiches." HOWEVER, she also shared that she got to keep her Galadriel ears. Carb-based foods and niche souvenirs are even better than money in my book, which means Blanchett is rich as hell. And I hope this means that the hobbit boys also got to keep their feet. I hope Gandalf got to keep his staff. I hope Sauron got to keep his vagin*l aura.
In other sausage-making news, Joaquin Phoenix apparently dropped out of the gay romance he was set to star in just five days before filming was going to start because he "got cold feet." With the gay of it all, I guess? The man has a goddamn Academy Award for The Joker and thought acting gay would be embarrassing? LOL, okay buddy.
Olympics Updates
The Olympics have continued to stun us, and this past weekend brought a sweet victory to the US Men's basketball team. Congrats to the team, and especially to player Tyrese Haliburton, who got the gold without leaving the bench:
When you ain’t do nun on the group project and still get an A🏅 pic.twitter.com/xpshYZhMyA
— Tyrese Haliburton (@TyHaliburton22) August 10, 2024
Did you know there is also three-on-three basketball, and all sorts of other weird combos of main sports that are slightly tweaked to form new events? At first I thought this was a cheap attempt at fluffing the games, but now I really like it, and I think combining events is the next logical step. Like put one of the shooting competitions at the free throw line. This becomes a new challenge for basketball players and for shooters! Combine rhythmic gymnastics with field, where instead of ribbons they dance around a javelin and huck that sucker into the air for points. Synchronized volleyball. Put the horses in the pool. The possibilities are endless.
Local Trash
I want to take this opportunity to boost this Craigslist Missed Connection, but with the caveat that I want expect demand a full update whenever the mystery is solved:
And sorry to make this about Tim Walz again, but now it's local so I have to: Willamette Week broke that Tim Walz's glasses are from a Portland design brand. I like knowing this. This makes me happy. And I think connecting candidates to states they want to win via pointless trivia is a great strategy. Like, Arizona maybe didn't get Mark Kelly on the ticket, so maybe we find out that that's where Tim Walz buys his socks. Maybe his favorite jam is from Georgia. His ketchup is from Michigan. This is the equivalent of when touring bands yell out the name of whichever city they're playing in and the crowd goes wild. "He said the best cream of mushroom soup base for hot dish is made in Ohio! That's us! Shut up and take our electoral votes!"
Well, this is all I have to say for right now. Thanks for spending time with me and being excellent to each other.
