Don’t get a blogga wrong, I love all things Ash. But your Uncle Grambo would be being less than honest with you if I didn’t say that I’m nervous to see what the band’s sound will be like now that the band’s fairest member, Miss Charlotte Hatherley, has gone solo. Which is why, along with the impending release of Miss Hatherley’s second solo record, that I’m leading the charge to change Ash Wednesday to Charlotte Hatherley Wednesday. Your Uncle has been a Charlotte fan for, like, forevs (see pics of Ash @ The Shelter circa `03), so you can imagine how geeched I was to scoop an advance of “The Deep Blue” a few weeks back. The second single off the LP, “I want You To Know”, is a delicious slice of top-notch pop that recalls the Girl Group Sounds of the `60s (lots of “wella wellas”, if you catch my drizzle). Check out the song’s video at the bottom of this post, just after I satiate your thirst for some PHC. True.

• —“All the girls kept saying how fugly she looked as a baldie.”
• —After a slow start in January, Spring 2007 is shaping up to be a cinematic cream dream. Your Uncle Grambo is having a hard time deciding whether to be more fired-up for the release of “Zodiac”, “300″ or “Grindhouse.” Since “Zodiac” is first up on the release calendar, I guess that’s the default choice as of February 21, 2007. Wells is on the record calling Fincher’s first film in five years a “knockout”, adding that he walked out of the theater feeling “like I’d taken an art-film quaalude.” Huzzah! When combined with the mostly positive piece in this Sunday’s NYT, this observer proclaims megabuzzpatrol.

• —The Passion Of The Weiss went to a Camera Obscura show so you don’t have to.

• —Any of you literary cats out there heard anything about the new Smiley jawn? Your Uncle Grambo’s a big fan from the WAYback, but her latest novel is getting mixed reviews. Michiko hated it (obvs), but EW lurved it.

• —18 years, EIGHTEEEN YEARS!

• —Just because Kurt Anderson comes off like a real jabroni in person doesn’t mean that dude isn’t pretty brills when it comes to thinking about the future of the future. For instance, he’s got a real smaht thinkpiece in the new issue of New York Mag heralding web video as the future of the newspaper business. On that note, just wait until The Grizz gets jiggy with his Wrestlemania XXIII coverage over at DetNews.com! [via ETP]

• —Winehouse? More like Cokenose.

• —It’s Creation Records Week over at Send Me Dead Flowers. Curated by one of whatevs (dot org)’s original old skool fools, Kegzies, S.M.D.F. has become a morning must-stop on the Information Superhighway.

And now, as promised, the video for second single off the new Charlotte Hatherley record, “I Want You To Know”…

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“The newest way to legitimize yr previously suspect celebrity is too off yrself when being a punchline becomes too difficult. Her death rattle is my ringtone.” — Johnny Loftus, when reached for comment on the death of Anna Nicole Smith [via text message]

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Although it’s difficult to put a date of origin¹ on the most classic of all the classic playground putdowns, it’s fair to say that “Let’s not and say we did” was WAY ahead of its time. Not only did it predate the whole revolution of “Irony As Comedic Device” by a full five years², it had so much new school appeal and relevance to the children of the `80s that old-standbys like “Your mother wears combat boots” were wiped from the lexicon almost overnight. What this has to do with the price in China, I’m not quite sure. But I figured it was a good a start as any to get into my first bullet-stizz post in weeks. Snarls!

• Quick shout-out to John Carney … get well soon, holmes!

• “If you have it, you don’t need it. If you need it, you don’t have it. If you have it, you need more of it. If you have more of it, you don’t need less of it. You need it to get it and you certainly need it to get more of it. But if you don’t already have any of it to begin with, you can’t get any to get started which means you really have no idea how to get it in the first place, do you? You can share it, sure. You can even stockpile it if you’d like, but you can’t fake it. Wanting it, needing it, wishing for it. The point is, if you’ve never had any of it, ever … people just seem to know.”

• It’s been almost a full-month since it happened, but time doesn’t seem to be reducing your Uncle Grambo’s ire over Owen Gleiberman naming “Casino Royale” his #1 Film of 2006. It’s hard to go TOO ballistic on a fellow Wolverine alumnus, so instead I’ll ask him two simple questions: first, how high were you when you saw “Casino Royale”? Second, how can I get my hands on somma that stuff?

• Binky’s Girls — Easily the best SFW gallery of babes that this blogga has come across in `07. And when I say SFW, I mean SFW … but barely.

• If you haven’t yet experienced the highwire hysterics of Zarf, resident tranny on “All My Children”, your time is now. Your big, masculine hands will thank you for it later.

• Your Uncle Grambo would be lying if I said that I ever really got over the way that the 1993 NCAA basketball championship game went down. Nearly 14 years later, I still harbor a great deal of resentment towards Chris Webber. Not just because of the outcome of that game, mind you, but because of the way that his selfish actions decimated the entire basketball program at Michigan. But now that he’s a Piston, I’m torn. As much as I hate C. Webb, I heart the Pistons. This oughta be interesting…

• Lastly, I just wrapped up Special Topics In Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl’s mostly wonderful debut novel. I say “mostly” wonderful because the last 100 pages or weren’t able to match the level of intensity that the book’s earlier sections established, but then again, the real joy in reading this book has very little to do with what happens to the characters, plot-wise. For this reader, the conscious decision to focus less on plot and instead indulge on Pessl’s delicious phrasing resulted in an experience akin to eating a hot fudge sundae — the key to enjoying both rests in your ability to balance competing desires. Do you savor every bite, or do you finish it off quickly?

¹ For the sake of this argument, let’s just say that it’s been around since at least 1980, the year your Uncle Grambo matriculated into Brewster Elementary school.
² Dennis Miller became host of SNL’s “Weekend Update” in 1985.

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When asked to name the greatest minds of our times, most people are apt to regurgitate names like Einstein, Hawking, Salk or maybe even Fermi. Not your Uncle Grambo, no sir. My money’s on Jeffrey Wells.

Wells. Honestly. There is no rival for his all-time besteverness. Dude is LEGENDARY. Take, for instance, his thoughts on New Year’s Eve:

“Nothing’s ‘happy’…nobody’s ‘happy’ anywhere. At best, people are content, joyously turned on for the moment, laughing or telling a funny story or a good joke, placated, relaxed, energetic, enthused, full of dreams, generous of heart, intellectually alive…but ‘happy’?

I hate everything about New Year’s Eve, especially young guys going ‘ooowwwooooh!’ in animal bars as midnight approaches … We all know the same mistakes are going to be made over the next twelve months, and that the only thing certain is that everything will be more expensive twelve months from now.”

Animal bars! That hat! Wells! Can’t imagine a better start to 2007. Here’s hoping Lloyd and the boys keep up the 2007 hottness and BRING it this afternoon!

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