To celebrate 2023 being over, let's revisit some of my favorite bits of trash from this series of months that we have miraculously survived!
January
M&Ms just released a new package that only has the girl candies on it. This is confusing and enraging to a certain category of people whose beef with it seems to be that if only girl candies are on the package, then what... are boy candies just unnecessary? And won't this be damaging to real-life human men and boys, whose value has only ever come from representation on candy packaging? How will human boys dream of hooking up with girls if they are not instructed to do so by an M&Ms wrapper, famously the only place children have ever turned to learn social norms surrounding the normalcy of heterosexual relationships???????????
February
Whenever I'm up against any sort of tiny deadline, I must first review all of the available pets at the Oregon Humane Society, and I was delighted by this darling boy, Tucker:
Tucker is one-year-old and weighs 11 lbs, but most importantly, he looks exactly like Matt Damon. Remember a few years ago when every movie poster was just a bunch of words on Matt Damon's face? Because look:
March
It's been a week, but gossip from last week's Academy Awards is still trickling out. As we know, Top Gun: Maverick was nominated for Best Picture, leaving many convinced that Tom Cruise would grace the Oscars with his presence. Alas, he did not. The official reason he bailed was that he had to work on filming the new Mission: Impossible movie. As if movies can't pause production on a Sunday afternoon so its star can go do something else for a few hours? Not buying it! Others have speculated that he didn't go because he didn't want host Jimmy Kimmel to make fun of him. But the best suggestion is that Cruise didn't go because he didn't want to share the red carpet with ex-wife Nicole Kidman and her husband Keith Urban. This one I like. This makes sense to me. That they broke up 20 years ago and still can't hang is the most relatable thing I've ever heard about Tom Cruise. I still avoid grocery shopping in the neighborhoods of people I dated a decade ago. I get it!
And my favorite little morsel from the event is that actor and environmentalist Ed Begley Jr. and his 23-year-old daughter took public transportation to the ceremony. Like, "Honey, you wanna go to the Oscars?" "Sure, Dad!" "Great! We'll just take the bus, and then the subway, and then walk the last few blocks." This is just such a dad move, to make something as glamorous as getting to go to the Academy Awards, but then making it contingent on taking two different forms of mass transit to get there. I love it tremendously.
April
I bet you wouldn't think of Oprah being pro-wall, but now she is. Except this wall she favors isn't on the Southern border of the United States, but rather, it surrounds her extremely fancy Montecito home. The area has been impacted by flooding and landslides in recent years and Winfrey's new collection of boulders aims to keep her property safe. but it comes at the expense of all her neighbors. There's even some concern that the boulders won't withstand an extreme event, meaning that instead of dealing with a regular landslide, her neighbors will get a landslide filled with cascading giant fucking boulders. Like, you get a boulder, and YOU get a boulder, and YOU get a boulder! Isn't it neat to watch the ultra-rich infrastructure their way out of climate change's wrath? It's almost as if they've never had to worry about the ecological harm done by their private jets, because they always knew they can just wall off their property when mountains start to melt.
May
In our divided nation, where such basic things as body autonomy are somehow up for discussion, I am thrilled that this last week's biggest debate was who was hotter: young Al Pacino or young Robert De Niro. The viral tweet from writer Ashley Reese has received hundreds of thousands of votes and the results have been evenly split. The conversation has since trickled up to the late night shows and early shows and it seems like everybody's got an opinion. Not me! They could both get it. What I'm mainly taking away from all of these convos is that everybody wants to fuck a short king. For real, Pacino is allegedly 5' 6" and De Niro is 5' 9" which means I (5' 5") could have french kissed either one of them without barely even craning my neck, and that is hot as hell.
June
A friendly yet wildly insecure local writer (✋) recently ranked Portland's Five Sexiest Statues in the Mercury's "Say Nice Things About Portland" print issue, available now! And today, the Oregonian published a story about five statues that were removed from public viewing in the wake of the 2020 racial justice protests and now the city has to figure out what to do with them. Colonizing? Not sexy. But huge props to the Oregonian for taking the space to give context about the highly problematic nature of the figures and why each one maybe doesn't deserve public viewing space. Thoughtfully examining racist institutions? Highly sexy!
July
A mysterious white powder was discovered at the White House last week which was later found to be cocaine. Like it for real took them a minute to confirm it was cocaine! Yeah, right. You just know there was at least one guy in the Secret Service, who parties during his time off on State visits overseas, who was totally like "oh wow jeez yeah I simply have no idea what this is!" while aggressively chewing on his lip. The Right Wing media tried to blame it on Hunter Biden, which is so foolish because there is no way Hunter Biden was ever that careless with his drugs. It's not like it's a laptop or something.
Republican House Oversight Chair James Comer is requesting a "full briefing" on the origin of the cocaine, which he was no doubt advised to do by some of his very wealthy, yet very tired, 22-year-old staffers who need a little pick-me-up, but know they're not cool enough to ask a bartender where to find drugs.
August
Beloved Price is Right host Bob Barker passed away over the weekend at the ripe old age of 99. The man who served as our loving caretaker when we were home sick from school while our parents were at work, Barker died as he lived: falling off the top of a mountain while yodeling.
September
The frontrunners of next year's presidential election, President Joe Biden and Florida Man Donald Trump, are trying to out-young each other in front of cameras, which is no easy feat since they're both older than the wind. The leading campaign strategy at this point seems to be going "but could an old person do this?!" and it's one of them walking unassisted for five steps down a wheelchair ramp.*
*This is not to say that there is anything wrong with aging! To make it to one's golden years is a feat and a blessing! But there is also no shame in retiring!
Biden and Trump are probably both relieved to have had some of the heat taken off them by means of Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert getting kicked out of a Denver performance Beetlejuice for singing, vaping, and giving her boyfriend an over-the-pants handy. I know it's still only September, but I think this is my favorite news story of the year. Every word in every development is a tasty morsel that I relish and savor. I am Denethor mouth-fucking cherry tomatoes while Pippin sings during the climatic battle scene of The Two Towers. Just like, oh yeah, this tomato is juicy af and life will never be better. And how cool is it that Beetlejuice works so nicely in so many jokes? Now and forever, if you want to fondle someone's goods through their clothes, you can be like "mind if I juice your beetle?"
October
Longtime California Senator Diane Feinstein passed away last week at the age of 90. The whole wide internet has been piling on with jokes about it because she has been so very old for such a long time, which is admirable, but she was having a hard time at work, which is relatable, but the combo = not so great for a US Senator. Everybody has something to say about it, and I do too! For example: California Senator Diane Feinstein passed away last week at the age of 90. Her office reports that she has no intention of stepping down.
November
Outkast's Andre 3000 finally released his long-awaited solo album, and it's instrumental, which has many people sad and confused. But Andre was really real about it: "I'm 48 years old. What are you talking about? 'I got to go get a colonoscopy.' What are you rapping about? 'My eyesight is going bad.'" Dude. I was actually fine with him not making a rap album until the possibility of him rapping about a colonoscopy was on the table. Now I'm sad we don't have that! I mean, probably one of the reasons elder millennials like me are such lost and entitled basket-cases is our college experience was bookended by 9/11 and "Hey Ya!" coming out. It gave us hope, and ever since then we've been chasing that high of having a perfect banger align with our life experiences. Including now! My optometrist recently offered me bifocals and I had nothing to party to on the car ride home! Give us the butthole camera rap, Andre, please! We are old and sad!
December
Remember a few weeks ago when I shared the really perplexing rumor that Kevin Costner was dating Reese Witherspoon, and that I didn't like it or buy it? Well, my senses were correct: the couple was not in fact hooking up, because Costner is dating none other than freaking Jewel! This one I like. This one makes sense. Not to be gross, and not that it's what makes or breaks a relationship, but I feel like both Kevin Costner and Jewel would be comfortable peeing outside, whereas Reese would never. Good luck, lovebirds!
Also:
Are you ever trying to dress yourself from a heap of clothes that have fallen onto the floor and you no longer know if they're clean or not when, out of the corner of your eye, you get a news alert from CNN that says "8-week-old sea otter peeks out of his enclosure. Oprah reacts to her portrait," and the article is about 2023's best photos but in your mind you conflate the two descriptions and then you cannot rest until you've used one of those AI image generators to put Oprah and an otter together in a single picture? Me too:
2024, Babies!
Wow, what a year! Did I read through every column I wrote in 2023 only to recycle the Oprah/Otter image I made just last week? Who's to say? The undeniable truth is that I cherish every one of you, I'm so thankful for the time we spend together, and I wish you nothing but the cutest, sparkliest, and most compassionate trash in 2024.
Up 'til midnight (not really),
