jigga WHAT?

your Uncle Grambo would be hard pressed to name three people on this planet cooler than Jay-Z. let's not mince words here, the guy pretty much has it all. the fame, the flow, the money, the mansions ... not to mention the hottest honey evs. but despite all the accolades, when J-Hova pulls his Bentley into the parking lot of 2 Championship Drive, he's just another punk ass Tommy "Hit Man" Hearns wanna-be. ain't that right?

you want to know why The Detroit Pistons smoked The Nets Nots last night? you don't have to read any articles or analyze the box scores, every single reason is staring at you in that photo. yeah, The Hit Man may be smiling for the camera, but he's also ready to knock your lights out in a heartbeat. notice how Jay-Z has got his arm around the back of Hearns and not the other way around? damn straight, we don't truss NOBODY up in this bitch; you gotta keep both hands free at all times to make sure sucka MCs don't try to step! and in a blue-collar town like this, nothing is more obvs than getting dressed up in your finest suit for a Game 7; meanwhile, Jay-Z hasn't even taken the time to button up his shirt! for REALS, as much as I like Hova, he's just plain outclassed by Tommy Hearns, the same way that The Stons outclassed The Nots in Game 7. we may not have the glitz or the glamour as our East Coast brethren, but god damn it, we've got the street smarts and the HEART; consequently, we always know when to bring it. BAD BOYS, BAD BOYS!

while we're on the subject of hoops, your Uncle Grambo would like to acknowledge the fact that The Gothamist Crew are some straight-up good sports. rolling into my apartment drunk as a skunk last night, I quickly checked Yahoo Mail before going to bed (aka passing out). and sitting there in my inbox was a congratulatory note from Jen! how best is that? good show, I'm looking forward to getting my shipment of saltwater taffy in the post. BEST!

i've kinda been obsessed with SPAM lately. today I received a note with quite possibly the GREATEST subject line ever: "wanted to send you some of our tees"!!! even hotter than the sign at Coachella that read "All Tees - $15"! shmears and bovs, yo.

sorry, ladies. Julian is getting married to his band's "comely brunette assistant manager" ... somewhere on Jefferson, Mandypants* and Les / Cal are bawling their brains out.

The Grizz on The Streets in The DetNews: "(Mike Skinner) embodies the true spirit of hip-hop and manages to push the genre in a bold new direction. A giant victory for rap’s favorite geezer."

is it just me or is Page Six on the rag this week? first, they "bitch-slapped Lloyd Grove" (to quote Just Jazz) and accused him of pinching a story from US Weekly. now, they practically accuse Variety's Charles Isherwood of murdering Tony Randall, claiming that Isherwood's scathing review of Randall's performance in a Broadway play caused him to go into the hospital!!! come on kids, can't we all play fairly in the sandbox together?

Motorcityrocks.com posts an extensive (and ridunckulously best) preview of this weekend's big D*Pollen Festival. whatevs.org faves The Prime Ministers are playing at the Tangent Gallery tonight at 8:15pm; unfortch, other commitments will prevent your Uncle Grambo from attending ... but that shouldn't stop you! and although tomorrow is pretty much packed with events, I'm going to try and make it over to see Audra Kubat's 6pm performance tomorrow night. shmears.

if you haven't been on Retrobuzz for the last few days, you've been missing out. today, Damore reviews last night's heavily hyped Velvet Revolver show at the State Theatre. this quote pretty much describes it: "showering after work proved to be a complete waste of time" ... in other words, absopurely mmmmBEST!

Why You'd Want To Live Here

getting quite daring during her last few weeks in LA, Just Jazzercise Don't Call Me Foxy Jessica Blueprint Buzz breaks all kinds of embargos and goes to press with reviews of the unaired pilot episodes for both "Joey" and "The Office" ... big, BIG ups to Jess for another "entry" in what is turning out to be a long string of consistently hott blog buzz. and pardon me for beating this particular dead horse into the ground, but I stand by my story that Nick Denton totally fumbled months ago when he didn't offer up the Defamer gig to Jess. not that the current, anonymous author of Defamer isn't doing a good job (because he / she most certainly is), but Denton missed a prime opportunity to hook up with a true H-Wood insider and get some of the REAL dirt that's flying around La La Land. case in point, the Bill Murray Golden Globes story that got picked up by E! this past January. is Denton focusing too much time on building his own personal buzz and not enough scouting for talent? developing...

some freakin' douchebag complains to the BBB after dropping nearly $28 grand at Scores. what a fuckin' amateur. obvs he's never been to the Ypsi Vu with Peabs, Amit Dot Com and your Uncle Grambo. we drop more than that on bottomless sodas, bovs.

speaking of strip clubs, did you hear that strippers stole my digital camera? lousy strippers. no really, SPEAKING of strip clubs, Chazz Palminteri was refused entrance into the Hustler Club the other night after refusing to check his overcoat. Chazz, baby, you're supposed to keep the coke in your PANTS pocket, not in your overcoat! silly rabbit.

guess who's back? back again? Spiers is back, tell a friend. the lovely Lizzie weighs in on Graydon Gate, which is an issue that your Uncle Grambo hasn't wasted any effort covering. mainly because it's the biggest non-story ever given this kind of run by both the NYT and LA Times. what's less ethical, accepting $100K for recommending that a book be produced into a feature film or evoking the name of "journalistic principles" to investigate and publicly humiliate someone that you're clearly jealous of? i vote for the latter, yo. eff you, Cieply. you blow.

some say impossible. The Grizz manages to write an entire article on the Blue Martini without ONCE mentioning how many pairs of fake tees are juggling (or not juggling) around that place.

SO BEST! Jeffrey Wells disses Franzia Ferdinand!!! you see, some footage of the buzzless band turns up in Michael Winterbottom's "Nine Songs", currently playing in Cannes. Wells, being the genius that he is, calls the footage "drab and plodding" and goes on to describe that the film "blows chunks"! well no shite, it's got fookin' Franzia Ferdinand innit, what did you expect?

as much as I would LOVE to blame last night's loss by the Sacramento Kings on C. Webb, I just can't do it. sure, it was his awful play in the early third quarter that prevented The Coolfers from taking an outright lead instead of just tying up the game and YES, that blown layup in the closing minutes was positively durst. however, I place all the blame squarely on the shoulders of Peja ... what a choke job that homeboy turned in. once again proving the old adage that Euros are great regular season players but chokemeisters come playoff time, the third-place candidate for this year's MVP award only scored 8 points on 3-12 shooting in 46 minutes of play in the decisive Game 7. those numbers are sharply down from both his regular season scoring average (24.2 ppg) and playoff average (17.5 ppg) ... some say durst.

so the question is this: who's going to be the NBA's equivalent to Sergei Federov, a foreign-born regular-season superstar who is able to take it up a notch in the playoffs and lead his team to victory? Nowitzki? no-way-ski. Drazen Petrovic? too bad he's dead. Darko? aw shit, check back with me in 2007! or maybe later tonight after The Pistons WHOOP on The New Jersey NetsNOTS! Fear The Fro and GO PISTONS! see you chumps at O' Tooles for a shitload of Science Beers!

PoMo Spam

if there's one thing that most of us can agree upon, it's that we all hate SPAM clogging our inboxes. i was firmly in this camp until yesterday, when I received the following email:

now THAT's what I call the creme de la creme of unsolicited marketing! there weren't any references to Viagra or betting or mail-order Asian nympho brides, just a quick credit card solicitation followed by this company's "Postmodern Story Of The Day"! in a world that is becoming increasingly fractured by the day, your Uncle Grambo is glad that someone has FINALLY realized that something as simple as postmodern short stories can bring us all together. i can see the future now, gleaming before me like the glow of the new Sierra Mist® Shrek™-A-Licious Slurpee® Beverage at my local 7-Eleven. soon, sidewalks will be brimming with people reading DeLillo instead of "The DaVinci Durst"! the "Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Fiction" will replace "The Betty Crocker Cookbook" as the ONE book that every household owns! and we will hold stalwarts such as Coupland and Leyner up as the pantheon of cultural importance, instead of celebrity sycophants like Fuller and Min!

but then again, maybe not. still, you GOTTA appreciate the extra effort that nefarious email marketers are putting into their SPAM these days. did it result in a click-through? HELLZ NO. but still, your Uncle Grambo applauds the effort.

Life In The D™

people around these parts like to talk about how our fair city is on the cusp of experiencing a cultural renaissance. hell, your Uncle Grambo is just as excited as the next guy at the prospects of having something to do other than score crack and beat-up hookers in downtown Detroit. but it's articles like this that REALLY make you re-evaluate your thoughts, hopes and dreams for the crumbled city that once stood tall as the epicenter of American manufacturing: Rats Thrive In Detroit Suburbs. shit, how are white folks supposed to feel comfortable south of 8 Mile when not even the RATS will live in The D™??? [related: You should visit Damore's instantly legendary post that compares and contrasts Detroit and NYC]

if one was paying attention during Monday night's epic Last Tourist gig at Small's, you might have heard the crowd repeatedly (yet quietly) request that the band tear into a searing version of "Black Shuck". you know why? because Detroit hearts The Darkness the mostest. which is why THIS news will surely set the backblogs ablaze with buzz ... The Darkness hire legendary producer Robert "Mutt" Lange to helm their next album! this announcement pretty much assures that the band's follow-up to "Permission To Land" will be the best album of 2005. bovs!

both Alanis Morrissette and your Uncle Grambo turn 30 this year. while our lives and careers have often been compared in the press and gossip rags, I think I can safely say that my haircut is finally better than hers. yo Lanni, sup with that grandma `do? no buzz! meanwhizz, your Uncle Grambo was on the receiving end of one of history's greatest haircuts on Saturday. note to the kids out there: this shit works wonders!!!

since when does Roger Ebert sport lipstick and rouge? who does he think he is, Larry Linda Wachowski? this old bugger is lookin' a little frail these days, I wish Ebert the best. but for REALS, drop the lipstick, holmes.

T-minus three weeks til she breaks down once and for all. Brit Brit stormed off stage in a flood of tears during a recent concert in Berlin ... before the show was even over!

though I can't really be arsed to watch this, it's probably important to note that the series finale of "Angel" airs tonight on the WB. no Buffy + no Cordy + no TrachtenHottness = no Grambo.

"Boner UP"! er, what I really meant to say was "Batter Up!" Anna Pornikova threw out the first pitch at yesterday's Rangers / Royals game. I can guaran-damn-tee you that Rangers Catcher David Dellucci was sporting more wood than just his Louisville Slugger when he went to the plate yesterday ... get it? HUZZAH! by "sporting more wood than just his Louisville Slugger", your Uncle Grambo REALLY meant that "Dellucci had a boner". and by "boner", I really meant "an erection caused by sexual thoughts of Anna Kournikova" ... get it? sometimes I can be so clever it hurts.

Business 2.0 takes a look at Nick Denton and the business of blogs. wait, there's business involved with blogs? someone call my agent! [via T-Muffle]

memo to Miami Heat coach Ron Jeremy Stan Van Gundy: next time you're facing elimination in a playoff game, don't let some freakin' scrub take the final shot of the game! for some reason unbeknownst to anyone who's ever played, coached or even WATCHED a basketball game, Rafer Alston took the last shot of the pivotal Pacers v. Heat game last night instead of hot-hand and go-to-guy Dwayne Wade. some say durst. enjoy your summer, douchebags!

buncha effing tourists!

"Pope of Mope"? more like "King of B-E-S-T"!!!

if you haven't already gone out and bought "You Are The Quarry", what the eff are you waiting for? my only beef with Moz is that the CD came in one of those "environmentally friendly" digipak cases, Pearl Jam stizz. man, I say eff the environment, what about the havoc this is gonna cause with my highly coordinated CD organizational methods? looks like I'm going to have to file this one next to my "Ballhog or Tugboat?" and "Vertigo" oversized CD holders. schmobvs.

related! EW takes a look at the Top 10 Morrissey Songs of All-Time. they cheat a bit by going into The Smiths catalog, but the list is pretty solid. however, there are some egregious omissions. on this list, I would place the following: "Suedehead", "Now My Heart Is Full", "You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side", and "Will Never Marry".

good riddance! i'm sure that Nummer and H-Bomb will agree with me on this one. see ya never, douchebag!

BELIEVE IT! Lima Time sang the national anthem before a Dodgers game last week. while the performance was heralded as one of the best singing performances by an athlete of all-time, it's most notable for the fact that it gave brand new meaning to the phrase "bombs bursting in air" ... more like "bombs BREASTING in air"! bovs all over those tees. [via Brad Wilson]

Chewing qat is the new shooting horse. Yemen ... who knew?

common wisdom holds that a REALLY good way to get in trouble is to hang with Snoop Dogg on any given night. howevs, in the case of Kobe Bryant, NOT hanging with Snoop got him in the worst trouble of his life. Tom Arnold reveals a story that will make Kobe rue the day he turned down a cameo in "Soul Plane."

Variety reports that Fox has renewed "Tru Calling" ... what a bunch of malarkey! this news was FIRST revealed by Just Jazzercise Blueprint Buzz YESTERDAY. so bovs. boy, Hell-Ay's loss is certainly going to be NYC's gain.

"There's shit going down that you can't disguise / when your boobs dem got ten times the size / cups gone up from A to D / that's bad for you, it's fun for me." your Uncle Grambo isn't really stepping out on any limbs to pronounce that these are probably the worst song lyrics since Liam wrote "Little James" ... yep, you guessed it, these song lyrics were authored by none other That Fookin' Student (aka MakeTradeWurst) under the pseudonym "The Nappies" ... gawky bird anti-buzz revealed. doesn't bode well for the future of Coldplay, I must say. you can watch this abortion of Roe V. Wade proportions @ Coldplaying.com. [via Page Six]

because I'm a firm believer in the fact that one abortion deserves another, your Uncle Grambo turns to a reliable source. obvs, I'm talkin' about MTV.com: Franz Ferdinand Get The Jaded Hipsters To Shake It.

it starts with "r" and ends with "ack"

simple question, simple answer.

bow to me now or bow to me later ... it don't matta

come on up for the rising! whatevs.org has gone national, Glossy Stizz! HUGE ups to Glenn Kenny for namedropping this very website in this month's issue of Premiere magazine in his review of a film called "Stander" ... mmmmBUZZ! my obsession with The TrachtenHottness will now be forever immortalized in the hallowed hallways of the Hachette Filipacchi building, to which I say "Obvs" ... obvs! word has it that the very mention of whatevs.org has sent this issue's sell-through rates through the roof! so best.

Where In The World Is Elizabeth Spiers? some say the most asked question since "Does Lindsay Lohan have fake tees?"!

speaking of Lohan, I had three conversations in the last four days in which different people referred to her as "Lisa" instead of "Lindsay" ... WTF?

most anticipated book ever. The Slam Man, aka Jay Mohr, has a new jawn entitled "Gasping For Airtime" that streets on June 9. his warts-and-all memoir has already earned must-read status for revealing the little known fact that Kelsey Grammar has two half-brothers who were eaten by sharks ... wait, what's that? eaten by sharks? i wonder if those are the very same sharks that "Frasier" jumped back in 1993? BOVS! Slam Man, so best. some say best "Jungle" guest evs (next to Gracie, that is).

even for diehard fans, this is probably the least-essential article on Liz Phair ever printed. speaking of Lizzie, she looks smokin' hott in her new video for "Extraordinary" ... too bad Capitol effed up and waited a full five months too long to release this single. some say worst job marketing an album ever. "Why Can't I" was blowing up last August or so, why wait until May `04 to get this to market? NO BUZZ! and then attaching this single and video directly to the impending abortion that is "Raising Helen" ... if you're gonna do that, how come the song isn't prominently featured in any of the trailers or TV spots? someone should get fired for this. hopefully that person will be Durst (even though he's not at the same company ... it couldn't hurt, could it?).

Jennifer Aniston in a bikini. while your Uncle Grambo ain't exactly complaining, I'd have to say that Rachel looks a wee bit pasty. that being said, nice rack.

"I’ve gone to clubs in my pyjamas and everyone’s like, ‘Hey, cool! She’s wearing her PJs.’ And it’s not cool! You have to do stuff like that sometimes." er, not so much. Brit Brit loses more and more buzz everytime she opens her pie hole.

talk about a strumpet! some trampy bird gets knocked up by both Liam Gallagher and Pete Libertines. dude, having sex with any member of The Libertines is roughly equivalent to getting blown by Jonathan Winters while watching "Battlefield Earth" on VHS ... obvs, there are MUCH better ways to spend your time. shmears.

while Bob Cook might be best known for his "Kick Out The Jams" sports column that appears weekly on Flak, his recent piece on "Freaks and Geeks" is definitely worth your time.

local spies (aka Coach and Jillycakes) report that Natalie Portman and Robert DeNiro had dinner at City Cellar in Birmingham on Saturday night. on a related note, I saw Ben Wallace at the dry cleaners this afternoon ... BEST! he was sporting corn rows and dropping off an olive green suit to be cleaned. hott. i wished him good luck on Thursday ... GO PISTONS!

speaking of which, what the eff is this? ChaunceyBillups.Blogspot.com. even though it doesn't appear to be authored by the Detroit Pistons supreme PG, it's still probably the best blog evs! [via Nick Catchdubs, who I've pretty much been ripping off non-stop all day]

hey you dog-faced Gore girls, move the eff over!

cuz there's a new Democrat hottie in town ... say hello to Alexandra Kerry. nice rack! bovs!

happy Monday to the FOW Nation. all apologies for being such a whiny little beeyatch on Friday, I had a magnifico weekend and I'm back to 110% gramboliciousness, despite starting my Monday morning off with three consecutive hours worth of meetings. nothing like some hott celebrity nips to get our week off on the right foot, yo ... bring on the buzz!

buncha fookin' students! MakeTradeWurst and his Gawky Bird welcomed a baby daughter into the world on Friday and IMMEDIATELY confirmed what we had suspected all along ... namely, that they'd give their brat one of those pretentious celebrity pseudo-names! for REALS, who names their gawky kid Apple? i mean, it'd be one thing if you were the Information Leafblower (dude loves Apple almost more than Jobs!), but come ON now! they shoulda named that baby Buncha Carbs Martin ... fookin' thing weighed in at 9 lbs, 11 oz! no buzz.

when you think of words to live by, what immediately comes to mind? "ask not what your country can do for you"? "do onto others as you would have done to you"? well, if you ask Brit Brit, chances are she'd say "smoke 'em if ya got 'em!" man, it's one thing to kick back with a P-Funk every now and then, but the effects of hanging around with that WTBF are TOTALLY dragging her down.

Best headline of the year: (Cameron) Diaz sends for zit squad. apparently she forgot to bring the Oxy to Cannes, shmears! [via D. Wells]

Chris Eigeman: The Best Gothamist Interview Ever! Max. so best. man, I haven't seen "Kicking And Screaming" in YEARS. who owns the DVD rights and why are they sleeping on one of the Top Ten Films of the 1990s?

None other than Stephen Merritt (of Magnetic Fields fame, natch) gushes over The Delays in the Sunday Times, describing their single "Nearer Than Heaven" as " liquid pop ecstasy."

looks like Lindsay Lohan forgot to wear a bra, and god bless her for it!

i started working on a recap of the finale of "Making The Band 2" this weekend, but then I read Byron Crawford's and completely gave up. some say genius. [via Nick Catchdubs]