We’d be lying if we said we didn’t see it coming, so we just won’t say it. But Philebrity has learned through a variety of sources that former Philebrity contributor Jonathan Valania is now also, um, a former Philadelphia Weekly contributor as well. According to sources close to the story ‚Äî that would be, er, us ‚Äî Valania’s “Hear No Evil” column, in which dude writes mostly about things that he’s already read about in Mojo magazine no less than three times, has been treading water since, well, since it debuted. And when new music editor Brian McManus was brought on last summer, it was clear that he’d been given marching orders to do some much-needed dusting. The exact story about what happened will be fuzzy depending on who you talk to, but things seem to have reached a head last week when PW killed a scheduled Valania column in order to run an obit on Jason DiEmilio of the Azusa Plane. Valania then ran the column on his blog, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Philebrity, with a kind of shitty headline and, well, things seem to have deteriorated from there. (Keep in mind that this whole blowup is over, we shit you not, a piece about a fucking Lucinda Williams reissue. The mind wobbles.) So what’s next? Mr. Valania, a well-known “promosexual,” is now working at breakneck pace to secure a new venue for his Trouser Press-era recycled musings, and seems to have good news to report: “OUTTA THERE! Taking my shit to the Inquirer. More coming…standby,” he said today in an email. Inky arts desk, we do not envy you today. And if we may address our prodigal son directly for a moment: Like we said before, Jonathan ‚Äî it’s not that we wanted you to get fired, it’s just that, well, you deserved to.
HearNoEvol: See, It’s Like That Sonic Youth Album Title, See? I Like Album Titles!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 3:06 pm.