WEDNESDAY, AUG. 31
Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s top aide, announced early this week that she was separating from her husband Anthony Weiner, the ousted congressman known for accidentally tweeting publicly when he meant to slide into those DMs. It’s been three years since the “Carlos Danger” sexting scandal, so we were actually overdue for another Weiner fail. This one comes courtesy the New York Post, which published photos and screenshots of conversations with a new mistress, including an especially heave-inducing crotch shot of Weiner in revealing boxers… wait for it… in bed with his young son sleeping nearby. The Administration for Children’s Services was even grossed out enough to open an investigation. Meanwhile, Hillary is thanking God that Snapchat wasn’t around 20 years ago. This is why Bill isn’t allowed to upgrade from his Nokia 5110 — but you know his dirty-minded ass probably thinks the game Snake is sexting.
THURSDAY, SEPT. 01
Donald Trump was in town Thursday to speak at the American Legion National Convention downtown, and at this stage of his campaign, it’s not enough for Trump alone to make empty promises, sweeping generalizations and terribly misguided statements. No, his supporters need to stay on message, too. Enter Latinos for Trump (WHY) founder Marco Gutierrez and the terrors of tacos. Appearing on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, Gutierrez warned viewers, “My culture is a very dominant culture. And it’s imposing, and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, you’re gonna have taco trucks on every corner.” As if that isn’t every fatass American’s dream come true! Unsurprisingly, #TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner was soon trending, and Clinton’s millennial outreach committee worked to broker a timely deal with Taco Bell to capitalize on the gaffe. If all goes well, Clinton will pen the messages on all the sauce packets. Look out for catchphrases like “This is my woman card,” “Hot sauce in my bag #swag” and “I’m your abuela!”
FRIDAY, SEPT. 02
Green Party candidate Jill Stein had to delay a rally today in Bexley, Ohio, because instead of flying into the state’s capital, her plane accidentally went to Cincinnati. Stein can’t seem to get Cincy off the brain. The mistake comes days after she tweeted, “The killing of Harambe 3 months ago today reminds us to be a voice for the voiceless.” The statement garnered more media attention than any real policies she’s discussed, which she claims is the point behind the whole thing — to expose the fact that media focuses on the wrong issues. It looks more like Stein is campaigning to become the queen of dank memes. Or maybe she thinks siding with Harambe is the only way to beat write-in darling Deez Nuts in the polls. Update: It has been 0 weeks since Harambe was last mentioned in this column.
SATURDAY, SEPT. 03
Move over, cucumbers and bananas, there’s a new phallic vegetable in town! Thanks to emojis, eggplants have gone from being the vegetarian alternative for chicken parmesan to the universal symbol for penis. American agriculture has never been so proud. And if you can’t get enough of the ’plant, you can now get off to it thanks to the Emojibator! For $32, an emoji eggplant-inspired silicon sex toy boasts 10 vibration settings “that always hit the spot,” free shipping and discreet packaging and, shit you not, a “healthy serving of vitamin D.” Droplet emojis sold separately. But wait, there’s more sextable (sex + vegetable?) news! Durex announced a new eggplant-flavored condom on Twitter this week. This one is less of a product you can actually buy and more of a stunt to promote Durex’s call for “safe sex emojis,” since research shows young people today feel more comfortable talking about sex with emojis rather than actual words. So let’s just go ahead and add sex to the list of things millennials are ruining.
SUNDAY, SEPT. 04
Mother Teresa became a saint; Beyoncé celebrated her birthday with Bill Clinton, Chance The Rapper and Carmelo Anthony (that’s one hell of a blunt rotation); and you spent the day holding a spot on the Serpentine Wall, not drinking, while your friends searched for a porta potty that wasn’t overflowing. Happy EBN Day!
MONDAY, SEPT. 05
When America’s first unions created a vision for the future U.S. worker, I’m sure they were hoping we’d be able to take time from work to watch an actor be ridiculed by his colleagues, and that’s just what happened today during Comedy Central’s Roast of Rob Lowe. Guests as varied as host David Spade, ’90s poet Jewel, Peyton Manning and Ann freaking Coulter assembled to mock the actor (lol remember that time he made a sex tape with a teenager lol) and one another — namely, Ann freaking Coulter. What was the female version of the Night’s King doing at a comedy event like this? She’s currently promoting her new book In Trump We Trust, which sounds like a joke, so maybe Comedy Central got confused.
TUESDAY, SEPT. 06
At this point, whenever you see a headline about Lena Dunham, you can expect a headline about Lena Dunham apologizing shortly after. For being the poster child of political correctness inclusivity and the “safe space” generation, she sure manages to offend a lot of people a lot of the time. People called bullshit on Dunham’s conversation with Amy Schumer in this week’s Lenny newsletter, in which the two talk about the fashion elite’s prom known as the Met Gala. (Alert all meninist trolls: Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer in the same story! All systems go!) In it Dunham goes into great detail about being seated at the gala by the New York Giants’ Odell Beckham Jr., who ignored her presumably because she’s a weirdly shaped lady who was wearing a suit. Folks took issue with Dunham’s sexualizing of black men and overarching narcissistic perspective on a moment she clearly blew out of proportion/imagined entirely, so she apologized for it. Meanwhile, Beckham has yet to comment on the gala non-incident or subsequent apology, as his people are still trying to explain to him who Lena Dunham is.
CONTACT T.C. BRITTON: letters@citybeat.com
This article appears in Aug 31 – Sep 7, 2016.