Hello, Trash Pandas! Another week is beginning, which means that another scoop of garbage and gossip (garsip?) shall be presented to you here in the Trash Report. Wow, January is finally over! Can you believe it? And we even got our first taste of fake Spring— I spent several hours outside yesterday and my cheeks got pink. I look like a damn cherub and I couldn't be more thrilled. While it's not really warm out yet, we can at least pretend we're at the pool, so let's hold hands and jump in together.

News 

President Joe Biden sure spends a lot of time asking me for $5 or $10 for his reelection while being the same guy who sends billions of American dollars to fund wars overseas. 

Live from New York, it's a MESS!

Jennifer Lopez was the musical guest on SNL last weekend and Ayo Edebiri hosted and there was DRAMA leading up to it! Thankfully, both of them came out the other side like the graceful queens that they are, and I'm saying that part at the top so you know that I'm not in it for the catfight factor. SO. A couple of days before the show, an old episode of the Scam Goddess podcast surfaced in which Ayo talked some shit about J. Lo, calling her career a scam because J. Lo (allegedly) doesn't actually sing all of her music. Then in a sketch on the show, Ayo played a character (or did she?) who says that sometimes people simply say stupid shit when they're 24. Clear, classy. J. Lo powered forward like the pro she is, and instead of feeding into the narrative, she distracted all of us by creating an instantly iconic moment when she pulled an extension out of her hair mid-performance. She IS still Jenny from the Block! 

FWIW, I do think that J. Lo sings. Remember at Biden's inauguration when she bellowed out "Let's Get Loud" in the middle of "America the Beautiful?" She did that. It was her. Also, isn't it funny to think about how that event happened when Biden had been President for like eight minutes and it's remained the best thing about his administration? Honestly, the Biden campaign should text me clips of that when it asks me for money. It would be more fun than the current outreach strategy that's basically like "Don't forget that Trump is worse." Goddammit, I know, but this still sucks!

But back to Scam Goddess. The host of that podcast, Laci Mosley, was a guest on my favorite podcast, Lovett of Leave It, over the weekend, and she went into detail on the feud between Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj which is WILD. So give that episode a listen if you need the full history leading up to Meg's new song "Hiss" (and you for sure do.) It bums me out to see women fight, but if it's gonna happen, we're lucky to get great diss tracks from it.

And back to SNL and the Presidential election— Nikki Haley showed up on the show as herself. Ew.

 

Dearly Departed

Rocky star Carl Weathers passed away a few days ago. He was set to star in a commercial for the online gaming site FanDuel to be aired during the Superbowl, and according to Deadline, the commercial is being altered "out of respect for the family." Which like, cool, that is nice. But it sounds like all Weathers was doing in the commercial was riding a motorcycle and being a badass? How is this offensive? Unless they are altering the commercial out of respect for the family to make him more of a badass? That makes the most sense. And like, please take any and all opportunities to posthumously make me seem cooler. 

Speaking of beloved actor passings, various places on the internet reminded me that this week is the 10th anniversary of the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. He was only 46 when he died. Didn't he seem older? He made every movie he was in worth watching. To this point: Twister had an absolute banger cast and holds up pretty well as far as 90s CGI goes. And the story, of course, remains one for the ages: "I love wind! No, wait— too windy!" RIP PSH, thank you for everything.

Hootie and the No-Fish 

Former Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker was just arrested for some low-level drug stuff. No biggie, many of us could have been arrested for low-level drug stuff several times, who cares. HOWEVER, news of the arrest led to an ex of Rucker's, comedian Kate Quigley, throwing shade his way and I was all "rrrrrr! *car break squeal sound* WHAT???" She posted on instagram that the arrest was karma, and even a thirst trap in a bikini with the caption: "Mood when you hear your d-bag ex got arrested." If you don't want to click through, believe me when I tell you that her mood does not appear to be a sad one. So, there's your update on Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker. You may now forget about that band for another 25 years. Unless "Hold My Hand" ever comes on at Freddie's, in which case you have something neat to tell a friend. 

Speaking of music, the Grammys were last night. Taylor Swift announced a new album that is titled something it's gonna take me a second to get comfortable saying out loud, or even writing. Standby on this. But also, Tracy Chapman did a rare live performance of "Fast Car," reminding me of one of my favorite tweets of all-time, by our own Suzette Smith:

Local Trash

It's usually kind of embarrassing when something happens in Oregon that makes the national news (hello, airplane walls falling off) but sometimes it's kind of cute, like Slate covering Oregon house Republicans being barred from running for reelection because they kept not working and there's laws against that kind of thing now. They tried to say that the language about being ineligible to run after their current term actually referred to their NEXT term, which is basically the "I'm not touching you!" of constitutional legal theory. It's a hilarious story to be shared widely. Dorks. 

In other local news, instead of listening to some East Coast hack groundhog, the Oregon Zoo's Stumptown Fil —a beaver— is in charge of our weather, thankyouverymuch. Fil said it will be an early Spring. I have several highly educated friends who believe with all of their hearts that the location of planets in the sky at the time of their birth mandated their personality and can explain why they're sensitive or always late. I will believe that small brown mammals can predict seasonal change. We are no different. 

LOL I am so over on word count. Sorry if you had plans! 

Astrologically, 

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