friday round-up

i always knew that Serena Williams had big legs and even bigger tatts, but who knew that her tatts were THAT big? that's approaching pre-reduction Oscar Nominee Queen Latifah proportions. gross gross gross!

so maybe they're not "the second coming of For Squirrels" (as Damizz once noted), but Idlewild picks up some much deserved press in today's NYT. Roddy Womble has buzz, unfortch not as much as Roddy Bottum (of Imperial Teen and Faith No More fame).

"'Anatomy of a Scene' is rigorously high-minded. 'Project Greenlight' is deliciously less so. But both shows take viewers deep into the rarefied world of filmmaking. And that is a lot further than television usually goes." The NYT takes a look at both shows in today's edition.

you know, while Mandy Moore's upcoming covers album will likely be atrocious, your Uncle Grambo throws props out based on effort alone. when I think back to my teens, I know that my taste in music wasn't very well-refined. well that is unless you approach artists like Ralph Tresvant and Toad The Wet Sprocket as refined. anyway, Mandy herself writes some quick blurbs about why each song was chosen for her record and the inspirations behind it. i say buzz. (link via Stereogum)

best headline evs? Manila signs ceasefire with MILF! i wonder if it's Stifler's Mom??? (link via Kegzies)

so hott. The Detroit Pistons sign Rip Hamilton to a 7 year, $62MM deal. now if only they'd bring back T. Mills! Terry Mills ... he bombs SO MANY 3s! so fatt. so best!

i think that most would agree that "The Simpsons" didn't fare very well this season. if the truth is told, i can't really remember any memorable episodes, with the lone exception of when Homer went to Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp with the likes of Mick Jaggs and Elvis Costello. but next season's proposed "Incredible Homer" episode surely has must-see buzz. and btw, when is Season Three coming out on DVD?

no buzz. Ford to cut 2,000 white collar jobs by year-end. i wonder how much they spent on their 100th Anniversary Celebration? i bet you that Beyonce got at least $100K to fly in for her performance...

Liz Phair interviewed in Rolling Stone.

got this in an email from The Grizz with the subject line "further proof that las vegas strip clubs are the best places in the world to hang out": "Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose wandered into the Crazy Horse Too in Las Vegas Wednesday morning (July 16) and treated the nearly empty strip club to a preview of tracks from his band's long-delayed Chinese Democracy album. In addition to blasting new cuts over the club's PA system, Rose also visited the VIP room, ordered champagne and signed autographs, according to an employee." Developing!

"They love ritual and feel comforted by it." the following quote appears in what article:
a) Men who addicted to downloading internet porn
b) Children who are addicted to watching the same movie over and over again
c) People who go "on the road" with their favorite band

Blur vs. FoW

have i told you lately that I love you? mad props out to Greedo and Big Matt for sending through photos from recent Blur and FoW shows (respectively). click through on the sample photo below for a whole slew of other shots. buzz!

yawn

Angelina Jolie on the cover of Rolling Stone. not again! what's next, another Brit Brit cover?

Lollapalooza rolls into Detroit today ... who knew? more importantly, who cares?!?

Pink dyes her hair blue ... no matter what color she dyes her hair, she'll still be so uggs that she makes Vanessa C look like Baby Spizz!

Fatboy Slim to remix "Sympathy For The Devil" ... borrrrring! Fatboy ... no buzz since the `90s. yeah yeah yeah, "Weapon Of Choice" was one helluva tigs vidd, but that was all Jonze and Walken.

bill brasky

i'm in meetings all day. i've already interviewed three peeps today for a new position. another update won't follow until this evening. until then, I leave you with Bill Brasky quotes (courtesy of Nummer):

"Bill Brasky is a son of a bitch!"

"Bill Brasky is the father of every kid in this town!"

"Bill Brasky once showed me a video of him making love to my wife, and it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw!"

"One time I was with Brasky in the back of a pickup truck, along with a live deer. Brasky goes up to the deer and says, 'I'm Bill Brasky! SAY IT!' Then he manipulates the deer's lips in such a way as to make it say, 'Billbrasky' ... It wasn't exactly like it, but it was pretty good for a deer!'"

"He'd eat a homeless person if you dared him!"

"His poop is used as currency in Argentina."

"He sweats Gatorade"

"He once breast-fed a flamingo back to health."

"He hated Mexicans! And he was half Mexican!.......And he hated irony!"

"I once saw him scissor kick Angela Landsbury."

"He sheds his skin once a year."

"He makes brooms somewhere in Georgia."

"He did 3 tours in 'Nam...... I was in Corpus Christi on business a month ago. I had this eight foot tall Asian waiter, which made me curious. I asked him his name. Sure enough it's Ho Tran Brasky!"

"I once saw him eat a whole live chicken."

"His favorite movie is 'One on One' with Robby Benson."

"He sleeps eight hours a night! ........ well, he was pretty normal when it came to that."

"Bill Brasky was a two ton man-mountain who could palm a medicine ball!"

"Did I ever tell you about the time Brasky took me out to go get a drink with him? We go off looking for a bar and we can't find one. Finally Brasky takes me to a vacant lot and says, 'Here we are.' We sat there for a year and a half and sure enough someone constructs a bar around us. The day they opened we ordered a shot, drank it, and then burned the place to the ground. Brasky yelled over the roar of the flames, 'Always leave things the way you found em!'"

"Bill Brasky had a four day heart attack...a day for each chamber. At the autopsy, they said his heart looked like a basketball filled with riccotta cheese."

"He once punched a hole in a cow just to see who was coming up the road."

"He taught me how to make love to a woman, and how to scold a child."

"They found $60 in change in his stomach."

"He did all the makeup on the 'Planet of the Apes' movie."

"He grew a 3rd arm and kept it in a vault."

"Brasky drank a full glass of liquid LSD with his eggs. Then he slept for 8 months straight. When he woke he rubbed his eyes and said, 'All in all, I prefer gin.'"

"They say Gene Roddenbery got the idea for Star Trek from listening to Brasky talk in his sleep."

"He date raped David Bowie."

"He once inhaled a seagull."

"The Pope told him it was ok to have a mistress."

"It was the sight of Brasky's naked body that drove Brian Wilson insane."

"He once had sex with a cigarette machine."

"He killed Wolfman Jack with a trident."

"He uses the Shroud of Turin as a golf towel."

"He once ate the Bible while water skiing."

"He drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls."

"He sired a baseball team.. an orchestra if you count the bastards!"

"You know, he would shoot whiskey into his neck with a syringe!"

"He has dandruff the size of mice!"

"He jogged with a fridge on his back!"

"Bill Brasky was a 10 foot monster who slept with all our wives! And punched us all in the face! And we loved him for it!"

"His first name is Bill! ....... I'm drunk."

"He's a ten foot tall beastman who showers in vodka and feeds his baby shrimp scampi."

"He orchestrated the merger between Unicef and Smith & Wessen."

"He went public with his own buttocks and made $7 million."

"Did I ever tell you about the time Brasky went hunting? Brasky decides he's going to hunt down all four of the Banana Splits. He stalks and kills every one of them with a machette. They all begged for their lives...except Fleagle."

"We once had a bachelor party for Brasky. He ate the entire cake before we could tell him there was a stripper in it."

"Brasky once hosted the Grammys and gave every award to Corey Hart."

"He has a toenail on the end of his penis."

"Brasky once got his wife pregnant and gave birth to a delicious 16 ounce steak. The after birth was sauteed mushrooms."

"Brasky's family crest is a picture of a baracudda eating Neil Armstrong."

"Brasky ranked 18th in the AP College Football Pool."

"Did I ever tell you about the time Brasky was in a production of, 'The King & I?' On opening night, Brasky chloroforms the entire cast and slowly eats them in front of the audience for two hours. The production got pretty good reviews."

"He breastfeeds John Madden."

"Brasky named the group Sha-Na-Na. They did NOT want to be called that."

"If you drop a phonograph needle on Brasky's nipple, it plays the Beach Boys' 'Pet Sounds.'"

"They use Brasky's foreskin as a tarp when it rains at Yankee stadium."

"Brasky directed that commercial where the women play basketball in high heels."

"All the 'Yes' album covers are Brasky family photos."

"He wears a live rattlesnake as a condom."

"Did I ever tell you about the time he taught his son how to drive? He did it by entering him in the Indy 500. The kid wrecked and died. Brasky said it would've happened sometime."

"Brasky's semen can form into a liquid human - like the guy from 'Terminator 2'"

"Brasky still believes in Santa Claus, and he wants to put him in porno films."

"He thinks then iron man is gay."

"He framed Roger Rabbit."

"The character of Johnny Appleseed was based on Brasky - except for the apple tree planting and not raping men."

"He gave a handjob to a manta ray."

good tidings

pure hottness. buzz. off to see FoW. l8s!

kill kill bill bill

you're probably surprised I didn't discuss this earlier. trust me when i say it's because i had limited time this morn. before I even walked in the door this morn, both Greedo and The Gorilla had emailed me the information. so despite the fact that everyone on the internet has already weighed in on this subject, it's still worth noting that Quentin Tarantino's HIGHLY anticipated "Kill Bill" is likely going to be released in two parts. while it appears that Harv hasn't yet fully committed to this approach (no release date set for Part 2), I already proclaim this to be worst. two films? eeesh. we're not talking an epic here like "LOTR" or "The Matrix Reloaded / Revolutions", we're talking about a glorified B-movie. a full-on tatts B-movie, don't get me wrong, but still a B-movie. and because of the faith and trust that I've got in QT, I have full confidence that he can deliver one helluva kickass 3-hour martial arts action flick, and obvs it will be fully saturated with Best. splitting "Kill Bill" into two films will not result in viewer anticipation, it will result in viewer frustration. but I'm sure what this comes down to is $$$, and I'm sure Harv is smoking a cigar somewhere and thinking something along these lines ... "Hey, I spent $55 mills on this flick. If I release it twice, that means spreading out my box office returns over eight months as opposed to two. If the first is a hit, the second will be a HUGE hit. And let you think I forgot, this means two separate DVD releases! Cha-ching!!!" or maybe he isn't. Jeffrey Wells has already managed to get a comment from Roger Avary (writer/director of "ROA", "Killing Zoe" and Oscar-winning co-writer of "Pulp Fiction"), who thinks that there's no way in hell that QT would be game for this if he didn't believe in his heart of hearts that two films would be better than one. developing...

Obvs!

David E. Kelley rails against reality television. note to David: you've got no right to complain. number one, you bang Michelle Pfieffer like every night. number two, you haven't written a good TV episode in years. "the practice" blows, eff "boston public", and I'm not gonna let you forget "Girl's Club" and "Snoops." number three, you're a total sellout! you blow out your entire cast yet decide to keep Steven Spielberg's step-daughter on the show? tell me you're not playing Hollywood games. sucka!

hipsters rescued PBR from the dead. will The Olive Garden be the establishment to be saved by the trucker hat cultured youth? The Gothamist seems to think so. i wouldn't mind a visit to the OG, as long as the meals were served with ample doses of irony. who's in?

enjoy the new pic of Vanessa Carlton ... by popular demand!

this is the advertising equivalent of Montana to Rice. Volkswagon and Apple enter into a marketing partnership. Buy a Bug, get an iPod. best! (link via ILB)

are you as much of a media geek as I am? probably not. but if you are, you'll enjoy these next two profiles. Mediabistro interviews Slate.com's Eric Umansky (writer of "Today's Papers") and Newsday profiles America's most successful magazine editor, Bonnie Fuller (formerly of US Weekly, now working with the American Media Corporation).

oh say can you see

so i caught a few minutes of the All-Star Game while I was at the gym last night. apparently there were some late inning heroics, but I was far more interested in the special "Star Spangled Banner" rendition by Vanessa Carlton's nipples. she looked simultaneously grumpy AND perky, depending on what part of her bod you were looking at. i couldn't tell if her rendition was any good because I was too busy with "Nyana" on my iPod. she also looked a little thick in the midds (see below rizz) ... is Stephen Jenkins still hittin' those skins?

on a related topic, caught a few interesting commercials on TV last night when I got home from the gym. have you seen the commercial for "Uptown Girls", starring Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning? first observation, when you see two pratfalls by the same person (both Brittany) during a :30, you know that the studio's marketing department is struggling with how to sell this movie. second observation, I'm fairly confident in reporting that Brittany Murphy hasn't ingested a single calorie since Kutcher dumped her a few months ago. it's really scary when the 25-year old Brittany weighs less than her 9-year old co-star. also caught a new spot for the Wanda Sykes show on FOX where she's Forrest Gump'd into a press conference with Bin Laden. now I may have the words wrong here, but she tries to give a bomb to Osama by saying "I got a falafel fo' yo' ass" ?!?! did anyone else see this spot? the quote may not be exact but the spirit is right on the money. i wonder if they'll be any backlash from the Arab American community. hey Wanda, falafels are tha shizz!

hands down, i have just witnessed the video of the year. nope, not J.Lo's "I'm Glad." nope, not the Foo's "Low." nope, not even Liz Phair's "Why Can't I?" i'm talking FoW, baby, the Fountains Of Wayne. their video for "Stacy's Mom" (available for Windows Media Player at 384kbps, 256kbps or 56kbps) is an homage to "Fast Times At Ridgemont High's" ultrafamous Phoebe Cates bikini scene, this time starring the unbelievably MILF-alicious Rachel Hunter. is she still with Rod or not? who the eff cares, she looks tasty as all get out in this vidds. there are some nice tributes to Ric Ocasek and The Cars involved for the intuitive viewer. and i honestly don't think it's possible that the programmers over at MTV2 and VH-1 WON'T throw this video into heavy rotation in the next three weeks. and having the video be summer-themed could not be better. so hott! (btw, hope to see you at the FoW show at St. Andrew's tonight!)

other news making headlines this morning:

• it's been rumoured for weeks but now it's finally official. Madonna to shill for The Gap.

• The NYT reviews The Boss at The Meadowlands.

• The Village Voice's Michael Musto is reporting that Ed Norton and Salma Hayek have called it quits. How come I haven't heard about this before? Is this old news?

• Royal Oak says no to midget strippers and 300 lb. dominatrixes. The nightclub formerly known as Space was denied a Royal Oak liquor license last night.

• looks like it's official. well, at least as official as these things get until one of them shows up at an awards ceremony / movie premiere / concert with the other. Ryan Adams has dumped his fiancee for Parker Posey.

• How d'ya like them apples?

• Neil Strauss of the NYT reveals Guster's attempts to dissuade P2P file-sharing of their new album: "Anyone trying to download the new Guster album, 'Keep It Together' (Warner Brothers), from the unauthorized file-sharing service KaZaA received a surprise: the vocals were replaced by a man meowing the lyrics, occasionally adding harmonies. The intent was to deter music freeloaders by having the band's monitor engineer, Matt Peskie, spend three days sabotaging the songs. But the meow mixes actually make for great listening. The meows — variously serious and funny, sustained and rapid-fire, low-pitched and high-pitched — convey unexpected humanity, largely because they are the sound of a person who loves the music having fun. So, rather than creating a deterrent, Guster has created a rival for its own album." oh, and btw, he also declares his love for FoW's "Valley Winter Song" in the same article.

• The Freep's Julie Hinds goes (sort of) behind the scenes of the Jack White / Zellweggs love affair. she reports on the Zellweggs sighting at the Magic Stick a few weeks back, first revealed here on whatevs.org last week.

cuckoo for cocoa puffs

bam!

quick hits, it's been a busy morning...

• ouch! the new layout of Slate.com makes my head hurt!

• Dennis Rodman to sign with the Sac Kings?

• Details is gayer than ever. I know, I know, it isn't even fathomable. But check out some of this month's headlines: "So Just How Gay Were the Taliban?" ... "Tobey Maguire Takes Off the Tights" ... "How to Handle Yourself at the Urinal: the New Etiquette." Case closed, the closet is open.

• Is Brooklyn Beckham the world's coolest kid?

• New Sports Guy column! (link via ILB)

• wonder why "Bad Boys II" is Rated-R? Rats doing the nasty.

• Lizzie Spiers of Gawker fame is now writing for Page Six!

• worst spokesperson since the talking oven mitt from Arby's. Lincoln-Mercury signs Magic Johnson to spokesperson deal. quote, "Magic is not going to attract teen-agers but he could certainly help Lincoln with 35- to 40-year-old buyers who remember his basketball career." riiiiight. what about people who remember that he cheated on his wife and got the HIV as a result? Magic. worst.

• Kegzies dishes on the new Sofia Coppola film, "Lost In Translation."

• btw, my Links section has been updated with some tigs new sites: The Life And Times of Deckie Holmes, Les.Yper-Sound, Lindsayism, Shatnerian, The Minor Fall, The Major Lift, Via Chicago, Vlalerlie.org, and of course What Would Kofi Annan Do?

we have a winner

after this weekend's viewing of "Pirates Of The Carribean", Keira Knightley has officially replaced Bynes as the #1 Contender for Uncle Grambo's heart. so British ... so best. don't get me wrong, Bynes will always have a place in my heart and she's got ample opportunity to regain the top spot in the future, but the Aura Of Buzz that Miss Knightley is radiating is just plain imposs to ignore. whatever "it" is, Keira has got "it" in spades. Pure buzz and pure hottness.

worst evs

you thought the story about The Clem was atrocious. then the article about Ypsi upped the ante of Durstosity to unprecedented levels. but I can now officially report that we've bottomed out and hit the lowest of the low ... The Freep declares Dearborn a "cool city" ... pardon me whilst I ralph on my keyboard. within seconds, I'm sure there will be a BackBlog reset from JP McKrengels or (if we're lucky) His Brother Brennan defending Dearbizz. don't believe the hype. no offense, but that town blows. here are some choice excerpts from what quite possibly is the most humourous article in the history of humourous articles:

• "Birmingham and Royal Oak may have more pedestrians and pricey stores, but Dearborn has a special history of labor, industry, ethnicity and race that makes it way more cool" — UG's response: Mmmmm, not so much. I prefer 14-year old blondes with cellphones. Call me crazy.

• "Ten years ago, if you wanted to meet girls, you had to go to Ann Arbor or somewhere else. This place is crawling with chicks now." — UG: If you dig chicks with mustaches, this guy is right on the money.

• "So uncool it's cool." — UG: More like "So uncool it's REALLY uncool." At least the original statement is 50% right.

• "Leann Rimes is among the celebrities who've popped in (The Double Olive)." — UG: Sweet Mary, mother of God! Get outta my way, I gotta sell my Artic Cat so I can make my lease payments on my new F-150! Yee haw! Leann Rimes? Get OUT!

curtains up

it sounds like a punchline but it's not. germans love whatevs.org. maybe not as much as David Hasselhoff, but i'm well on my way. i've made the blog list of Wasguckstdu, a site composed entirely in German. buzz cola! can anyone translizz what "Wasguckstdu" means?

on a completely unrelated note, i need to throw belated props to Coach Glinka / Jillycakes and The Gorilla / Mrs. Gorilla for throwing slick parties this weekend. Friday night's Luau @ the Glinka establishment was super hott and the combination of chocolate covered pretzels and oodles of Liz Phair-related conversation rocked Harper Woods on Saturday night. good times, good times.

on Friday I referenced the fact that Manohla Dargis (of the Los Angeles Times) is currently my fave film critic. another one of my favourite journalists also happens to be an LA Times staffer, Claudia Eller. her beat is to cover the business side of the movie industry, and today she looks at the "palpable shift" in Hollywood regarding the production of movie sequels. sequels have been getting bashed in the press, by the reviewers and at the box office all summer long and Eller talks to the head honchos of a few studios to get their take. good stuff.

by the way, does anyone else remember [Inside] magazine? it was a Brill publication that only existed for a few short months in the early `00s but had some of the best coverage of the media that I've ever read. it was where I first discovered Eller ... i miss [Inside], but obvs not nearly as much as I miss Might.

this may be stale news for those of you that keep up regularly with Gawker, but Jodi Kantor (the 28-year old editor of the Arts & Leisure section of The NYT) is under some mild fire for hiring freelance writers like Sarah Hepola. seems that some of the elder staffers at the NYT are pissed that Kantor has begun shaking things up at The Old Gray Lady by working with "online journalists" like Hepola (not to mention Emily Nussbaum and Liz Spiers) and have been leaking gossip about her to Page Six. meanwhile, over at The Black Table, a reporter takes a look at the battle lines that are being drawn between "traditional" (that is to say, print) journalists and the new guard of "online" writers. while the battle used to rage between print and TV, it looks like the ever-growing influence of the internet is causing traditional journalists to quake in their boots more than a little bit.

while APLarcadia and Kotoroboto might have mixed feelings about "A Confederacy Of Dunces" coming to a big screen near you, they should know that the project will be in good hands. it looks like David Gordon Green (of "George Washington" and "All The Real Girls" fame) has signed on to direct the film version of the cult classic novel.

i'm gonna knock you out

easily the worst news of the weekend was that one of your Uncle Grambo's fave websites fell victim to Russian porno hackers. of all the sites to target, did they really have to pick on AmandaBynesNow.com? just goes to prove how wicked hott my girl Bynes truly is.

ok, so did anyone else watch "Banzai" last night on Fox? it's the TV equivalent of "Wario Ware" which obvs is best. any show in which Lou Ferrigno battles a rabbi and a priest for possession of a baby's soul is a must-see in my book. AND they encourage betting on individual events ... who's in for a "Banzai" party next Sunday @ 8:30?

another day, another Brit Brit paparazzo shot. i think that she looks a lot better here than she does in the new issue of W. and while we're on the subject, a common complaint about Britney that I hear is that everyone thinks her legs are fat. i say not so much. personally, I think the muscle-y look suits her well, but apparently Ryan Adams doesn't agree. here's what he had to say re:Britney on a recent post on his website (sic, btw): "I met Britney Spears in a LA nightclub called BLUE. They have it acros the steet from Boardners on Cherokee/ next to LA Deuux. Anyway, what a fucking gross chunky cheerleader she was. She had stubby body builder legs and she just reaked. Fucking bad sunglasses in a bad LA party. In any event, whatever low cut show more skin thing she was trying to pull off on TV, all those times was pure distraction from her horrible Florida white trash body. Like Berolina, but actually that stupid and un attractive but just not being given the credit for it, Justin Timberlake must be a homely piece if he was feeding her the much. She looked like a germophobe." while Ryan Adams doesn't score any buzz for dissing B. Spears (like that hasn't been done before), he does earn points for inventing a new phrase, "feeding her the much" ...

i WON'T have what he's having. A man sliced off his willy, fried it and ate it after taking mind- bending drugs.

"My favorite party fantasy is to sit way up on my husband's lap and tell him I am not wearing a bra." — Jessica Simpson on how she keeps things hott with her new hubby Nick LaWorst. buzz!