Hello, Trash Pandas, and welcome to The Trash Report! I'm Elinor Jones, Portland's best kept secret and your best friend. Happy day-after-the-Oscars to all who celebrate! I have a lot to say about movies today, starting with this: On Saturday I took my kid to see Kung Fu Panda 4 and the movie was so noisy and visually jarring that I developed a full-blown migraine and when we got home I threw up and had to take a nap with my blackout curtains drawn and my blackout eye mask on. It was like listening to a metal box of metal bells being thrown down metal stairs, and I was inside of the bells. I predict that KFP4 will win next year's Academy Award for "Loudest Movie."

Let's give out some more awards, shall we?

State of the Ew-nion

President Joe Biden gave his annual li'l speech to Congress last week, and for a guy who is approximately a million, he seemed fairly quick on his feet. And he's leaning into the whole being old AF thing in campaign ads, which is cringe but there's no way around it. Not acknowledging that he's old would only make him seem more out of touch. Now that Nikki Haley dropped out of the race, it's officially a Biden/Trump rematch. We get to choose between an old white guy who hates women, and an old white guy who cares about women to the extent that having our reproductive rights dangled in front of us like they could get snatched away at any minute will get us to vote for him. There's no joke here. It's going to be such a long year. 

Republican Senator Katie Britt gave the Republican rebuttal and it was refreshing after Biden's speech to be reminded of what a truly loathsome politician looks like. I am proud to present the Academy Award for "Mom Who Makes the Other Parents Want to Quit the PTA" to the Junior Senator from Alabama, Katie Britt! 

Speaking of huge bitches, the Queer Eye fam is devolving into some dirty, dusty mudslinging! Rolling Stone put out a huge expose last week on how star Jonathan Van Ness is allegedly a monster behind the scenes. I'm not super surprised—JVN makes no secret of being high drama, and I have known many people who use "caring too much" as an excuse to be a jerk. But THEN Tan France has his front-facing instagram defense moment where he says that he had nothing to do with Bobby Berk (referred to only as his "former colleague"—way harsh, Tai!) getting fired. Record scratch—excusez moi? When Bobby announced his departure a few months ago, he packaged it as his own decision, not a firing! This was a highly bitchy move by Tan. JVN has yet to respond to any of it aside from liking Tan's post (as did Antoni), and with as online this team and their fandom is, that was saying plenty. (Karamo has stayed out of it as he is probably far too busy healing someone's generational trauma to fuel someone else's new generational trauma.) It's a highly engaging mess, and the worst part about it all is that I have no idea whose side to take! Tan and JVN had been my favorites, but I can't say I love the mean girl vibes. Also, Bobby recently shared a picture of himself attending Zooey Deschanel's disco-themed birthday party and possibly only because I also have brown hair and bangs, I tend to trust Zooey's judgment so therefore Bobby is the better person! I don't know! Stay tuned; obviously I am following this story very closely. Too closely? Who's to say?

Academy Awards

Hollywood's biggest night was last night! The morning after used to one of the best days of the year for fashion, but everyone was highly coddled by their stylists and the red carpet was honestly pretty boring. Margot Robbie, who creatively dressed for dozens of Barbie events over the course of the year, wore a black dress that was pretty much just an elevated version of the dress I wore to my prom in 2000. 

The Academy Award for "Best Typo" goes to People magazine for this: 

Because decades as one of Hollywood's leading directors may earn esteem from your colleagues, but to an underpaid internet entertainment writer on a very stressful night, you are simply a collection of letters and one more fucking task, and frankly, you should feel lucky to be in the fashion post at all. 

Ryan Gosling brought the house down with a live performance of "I'm Just Ken," but Barbie otherwise had a pretty small night. Greta Gerwig didn't even win for writing, which I assumed she was going to since they didn't nominate her as "Best Director." Hmm, is it harder to get noticed as a female writer? Not according to this fuckin' guy named Brian Beneker, a white male writer who is suing CBS Studios and alleging discrimination because he didn't get a staff writing job because he unbelievably believes he saw women and people of color get hired on instead. Poor white men, never getting the credit and power they deserve. 

Breaking Up and Making Out

Natalie Portman dumped her no-good cheater husband and is reading Nora Ephron about it in a very relatable way. I can't wait to see which arrogant man convinces himself he's got a chance with her next. Does anyone have eyes on Moby?

Joshua Jackson disappointed me last year by not making it work with the stunning Jodie Turner Smith, and come to find out he's now dating the stunning Lupita Nyong'o?! The man has taste, I'll give him that. Pacey and Lupita were papped smooching on vacation in Mexico last week. Jodie Turner Smith, for her part, has kept everything extremely classy. While I love mess (please refer back to the giant column space I devoted to the Queer Eye cat fight), I appreciate the niceness here. They just seem like an honest group of rich, stunningly beautiful humans who are doing the best for their own hearts. Also, landing back-to-back hotties like Joshie has done is suggesting BDE. We love that for Lupita.

Local Trash

Our own Taylor Griggs is out with a new column about goings-on in Portland bike and transport talk, and it's worth a read if you want to know what to watch out for in talks about built bike infrastructure. Hint: The person who describes themselves as an "avid cyclist" is likely moments from dropping the most anti-bicyclist take on urban planning at the table. It's very "I'm actually a nice guy, the women are simply too dumb and slutty to notice," but for people who want to drive big cars and not check their blind spots to see if they're about to make a right turn straight into a human being. Do you know what's my traffic/transit bone to pick? When buses have designated spots where they can pull to the right at a bus stop so that cars can pass them, but when they veer over to the right just a little bit, like they know they are supposed to pull over, but they can't be bother to actually pull over in a way that permits cars to pass. They're often totally blocking a bike lane when they do this, too. This makes me want to pull my hair out. The entire amount that I love mass transit—which is a lot!—completely evaporates during those 20 seconds I am behind a bus that could have pulled all the over but opted not to. Anyway, read Taylor's column! 

The Academy Award for "Best Original Cheese Puns" goes to the communications staff of Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, for this:

This thing with Kate Middleton and the photoshop is also weighing heavily on the lump of old Skittles formerly known as my brain, but this column is already way too long. Next week! Until then, the Academy Award for "Cutest Readers" goes to all of you. See you next time. Drink some water. 

Gratefully,