When Will Rihanna Stop Lying to Me?
Rihanna & A$AP Rocky film something that is not not a Fenty ad, Azealia Banks meets Ramona Singer, Ashley Olsen packs heat (and beer), Gossip Girl breaks brains, and more rated Top Shelf to Low Brow!
The only not great thing about finally having a job after eleven months of post-grad searching is that I sometimes have a very booked schedule, especially because my job allows me time in my schedule to do freelancing and the newsletter. I’m busy, which is exactly what I’ve wanted, but I still feel a pang of resentment toward myself whenever I have to push things back! Case in point: this Monday letter coming on a Tuesday. But at the very least, you and I can both rest assured that something will come eventually, either when I’ve got enough time to click-clack on my keyboard or when I have enough coffee to shake my central nervous system into a fight-or-flight state—the Fight is getting some work done and the Flight is just getting in bed and crying.
But here I am today, armed with a fresh pot of Trader Joe’s Dark Roast, which may eventually get phased out now that I can afford better coffee. But I digress, onto the main event…
Top Shelf, Low Brow: July 5 — July 11
Trickerih Devises Her Latest Troll
Remember that period of time between November 2013 and January 2016 when we, the deployed recruits of the Rihanna Navy, were bereft after 1-3 years without a new album? We never could’ve imagined the hollow feeling of now: five and half years out from Anti, no real news of new music in sight, despite what Elle may say after Riri and purported beau/one of the world’s foremost hotties A$AP Rocky were spotted in The Bronx together:
Wishful thinking if I’ve ever seen it. Just because you slap a camera in front of Rihanna doesn’t mean you can manifest new music and not a holiday ad for one of her Rolodex of Fenty brands being filmed five months in advance.
A$AP and Rih may be serving a generous dose of met-on-Tiktok power couple here, but that doesn’t mean we can just assume it’s for new music, let alone a collaboration. You think Rihanna is beyond putting out from Fenty Faux Furs and roping her man into a three-day shoot? Not a chance. I’d buy the whole line, but that’s not the point. The point is that we actually can’t expect anything from Rihanna anymore until it’s actually out. Not only did she (rightfully) kill her one-album-a-year trajectory after Unapologetic, but she made sure to bury it in six inches of compact dirt, held in place by waterproof Fenty Concealer, and sealed it in the mausoleum of this tweet, which is now two whole years old:
Ms. Robyn Rihanna Fenty has become the music industry’s foremost enigma. Even Fiona Apple has been more generous with disclosing the process surrounding new music than Rih has. So in the meantime, I’ll just keep listening to the song of the summer for the tenth summer in a row, “Do Ya Thang.” As if Talk That Talk and Loud don’t still sound as fresh as a delicious box of Vita Coco tastes!
(Rating: Top Shelf…just because I like watching Rihanna be Rihanna)
Your Brain Has to Be Broken or Galaxied to Enjoy Gossip Girl, therefore I Loved It
If you’re a loyal Top Shelf, Low Brow reader, you know that I’ve been extolling the Gossip Girl reboot long before any actual information was ever known about the show. I’m happy to say that last Thursday, after a hectic day and a hellish commute on the Final Destination Rollercoaster known as the New York City subway system, I got home, fired up GG 2.0, and almost immediately experienced pure euphoria. I felt like I was on muscle relaxers. Turning my brain all the way off never felt quite so fucking good.
Sure, things may have been a little shaky to start, but when you’re going to bring back a show as iconic and beloved as this, the exposition is going to be a little difficult to perfect. But once I let myself sink into the beautifully braindead, backstabbing world of Gossip Girl, I remembered the sheer exuberance of one of life’s little pleasures, which is sitting in front of a television to watch actors on the cusp of their 30s portray 16-year-olds. And then the title card dropped in the middle of the episode, set to the instrumental of Ariana Grande’s “positions,” and immediately I was home again for the first time since 2012.
You can’t buy that kind of happiness. You either get the vibes or you don’t. And luckily for those who don’t, your high-functioning brains can spend their time on Succession season three, coming soon. Us dummies will be enjoying our time on the Upper East Side!
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Ciara is our generation’s Princess Diana!
Ciara doesn’t get enough credit for her career of endless serves, both in fashion and music. It seems that she’s been fed up with that lately (join the club, we in the Ci-Squad have been fighting for her since 2004!), and has been taking to Instagram to post stunt photos of herself and her husband, known caked-up-Christian Russell Wilson, on their Italian vacation. Boldly, one of them was the following:
To this, I ask, simply: why? Why didn’t anyone mention to Ciara some of the history between Prince Charles and Princess Diana?! Or did she kind of just…skim over that in favor of the photo op? Did they book this bungalow just to be able to take the photo? Does she know that Prince Charles treated Diana like shit?! Cici!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Comparing Russell Wilson and his fat, massive honkers to Prince Charles’ curdled milk lookin’ ass…come on, girl.
(Rating: Low Brow)
New Ashley Olsen Machete Pic Dropped
Sometimes, things fall into your lap like blessings from above, little signs in all of the carnage and turmoil of modern humanity that maybe—just maybe—everything will all turn out alright. Like pennies from heaven, so is this photo of Ashley Olsen walking in the woods wearing Yeezys, drinking beer, and carrying a machete.
I’m sure if I sought context for this, I could find some. But why would I want any? Ashley Olsen traipsing through the woods, wrapped in white linen and with a sweater half-draped off her shoulder—like one of the cult members in The Leftovers after they’ve given up—is simply enough for me. Is that the kind of chintzy, hard plastic cup used for high school graduation party buffet tables and punch bowls filled with super-sweet elixirs? Or is it a full-on Marquis by Waterford Markham double old-fashioned glass? I don’t really want to know. The mystery is better.
Somewhere deep in SoHo, Mary-Kate Olsen is strapping on a pair of Balenciaga Triple S’ before grabbing a crossbow and heading out for a nice summer stroll along Houston street.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
The Day The Earth Stood Still, or, The Day Azealia Banks Reposted Ramona Singer to Her Instagram Story
Last week, everyone’s favorite shit-stirrer Azealia Banks returned with the “first” “single” from the long-awaited Fantasea 2, “Fuck Him All Night,” a deliciously brazen electroclash rap song about, literally, fucking someone all night. Personally, I have played it approximately 500 times. When I first heard it on Wednesday evening, I felt an immediate calling to pair it against a video of Ramona Singer dancing, as I am wont to do. Azealia Banks and Ramona Singer are more alike than one might think (closet freaks from New York with questionable politics), so it seemed like a match made in heaven. And I wasn’t the only one who thought so…
More than anything, I would have to say that this is the Top Shelf, Low Brow brand, the one I set out to create with this newsletter and its ensuing Instagram antics. Combing through pop culture occurrences and the zeitgeist archives to create pure, beautiful stupidity for people who are just like me: idiots on the internet with tastes that just aren’t catered to enough. We exist in the shadows no longer! Our day is here!
(Rating: Top Shelf)
The pure joy of Lil Nas X
If you haven’t yet read the fantastic profile on Lil Nas X by Jazmine Hughes in the new issue of The New York Times Magazine, you must immediately.
I just love him, and not because of how often he posts thot content online (though that is certainly a factor I’ve never shied away from), but because he’s truly a powerful and important figure for young queer people. And he not only accepts that but welcomes it as part of his own journey. He really is like sunshine to me!
(Rating: Top Shelf)
The Wendy Beat
Wendy Williams was really taking it to some dark and delusional places last week. And though I love her and watch her daily, there’s almost no broadcast that goes by without me disagreeing with at least one thing she says. After Sha’Carri Richardson was unjustly suspended from The Olympics—already an outdated, idiotic display that ruins my television schedule every four years—for testing positive for traces of marijuana, Wendy boldly agreed with the suspension, citing that she shouldn’t have “broken the rules.”
In territory that’s not much better but is definitely more surreal, Wendy also received major pushback for being cavalier about a young TikTok star’s death. To me, this was Wendy being Wendy. Her mind operates outside of the normal plane. She flies between topics with such ease that it’s scary—one moment she’ll be telling you about a conversation she once had with Dina Lohan and the next she’ll mention that the staff is having Red Robin for lunch and that she’ll be taking the leftovers home to her cats. That’s just how she is! Still, it was her segue into her next Hot Topic that really threw me for a loop, a part that most people either didn’t see or seemed to brush off. But to me, it’s Wendy gold.
Still, that doesn’t necessarily make it…right.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
This week, on Real Housewives Masterpiece Theater
As my flagship, The Real Housewives of New York, continues to flounder this season, I am thankful that I have the helpful guides in Beverly Hills and Potomac to steer me in the direction of sweet safety. Over on Beverly Hills, I’ve never seen more remarkable stage acting than what Sutton Stracke brought to Lisa Rinna’s backyard after being called a peeping tom. Stracke, stricken by strife, quietly whispers, “I can’t get it together!” before grabbing a vodka bottle bigger than her spindly little Spongebob arms and pouring a boat of Ketel One.
On Potomac, one of the great texts, which returned on Sunday for the start of its sixth season of nonstop hits, Karen and Gizelle launch into a fight right out of the gate. It’s good to have a dependable sense of normalcy these days, and I found that reprieve in Karen calling Gizelle a “broken whore from Hampton University” after Gizelle told Karen that her husband’s dick doesn’t work.
Sometimes I shudder remembering that there was once a time I thought I was better because I didn’t watch these shows. Lunacy, babe.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
That’s it for this week! Thanks so much for being here and reading. For all my Riley Keough stan subscribers, this week I was commissioned to watch, rank, and write about every Keough performance to date for Taste App’s blog! You can read right here and check out the beautiful graphic (that I went outside of my pay rate to do!) below. Have a great week, I love you! 💖