It’s quite a rarity to have so many hip hop luminaries in one room, or one (Hammerstein) ballroom, as it was. But VH1 managed to cram as much talent as possible into their Hip Hop Honors show, which taped last night but airs Monday at 10 pm. Yes, there was a lot of talent there, but I don’t count Tracy Morgan, who hosted the awards and couldn’t quite get that teleprompter thing down. Could his SCRAM have been going off right about that time? No worries, I’m sure they’ll have that all cleaned up by Monday.

I had the pleasure of spending the evening in the press room, where the honorees and presenters came back to chat. In fact, so many VIPs were in attendance, I decided to write up my experiences in a handy superlative format. Check out the Best and Worst, plus lots and lots of pictures, after the jump.

CONTINUED »

Oh, Tracy. Tracy! Just a little while longer and you would have been in the clear, free to shrivel your liver on your own time, without your SCRAM recording your every beer, your every patron shot, your every…you get the picture. Was it the 30 Rock Emmy win? Was it the divorce? Whatever it was, you drank some alcohol, SCRAM and all, and now you have to wear the device for another 80 days. If you cheat again, it’s 30 days in jail. Call me a bleeding heart, but what good is a SCRAM going to for a man clearly addicted to alcohol? Can someone sentence him to a stint at Promises, please?

[SP]

You know when television’s premiere awards show has to resort to bringing out Kanye West, who was completely irrelevant to the proceedings, you know the show’s producers are feeling like the ceremony has gotten kind of boring and out of touch over the last few years. But it’s not the actual show that makes the awards a joke, it’s the nominees and the eventual winners.

When The Wire’s not even nominated, Jaime Pressly wins a best supporting actress award over the brilliant Vanessa Williams or Jenna Fischer from The Office and James Spader from Boston Legal wins best actor over, well, anyone (but particularly James Gandolfini), I have a hard time respecting the importance and meaning of an Emmy statue. Nevertheless, congrats to the winners — especially 30 Rock — whether they deserved their awards or not. More pics and a list of winners after the jump.

CONTINUED »

The above headline is my last SCRAM joke ever. I promise. And really, the dissolution of Tracy Morgan’s shockingly long 22-year marriage is no laughing matter.

Funnyman Morgan confirms the split, telling tabloid National Enquirer, “Me and my wife are going through a divorce, but she is still my friend. She is my rock and is totally supportive of what I am doing, and that’s me having hit rock bottom.”

If the man is this much of a mess when he’s married, I can’t imagine him being single.

[SP]

A very sweaty and disgruntled-looking Tracy Morgan made a court visit today in NYC. I’m sure the SCRAM is very uncomfortable in the summer heat. He recently had this to say about the attention he’s gotten for various stumbles in his private life, including drunk driving arrests and parole violations:

“You know how America is. When you get to a certain point, they have to bring you down. People are fixated on other people’s private lives and that has got to change. There has got to be a boundary, man. People shouldn’t be able to go into clubs with camera phones and take photos. I call those people who want to dig into people’s private lives scumbags. It’s real creepy,” he said.

Isn’t it terrible how America pumps you full of alcohol then forces you to get behind the wheel and then calls the cops to arrest you?

Is Tracy Morgan trying to be as ignorant as his 30 Rock character or is his ignorant 30 Rock character simply based on his personality. I’m inclined to believe the latter.

TRACY Morgan is maintaining his sobriety with a sense of humor. At the Yankee game the other night, he showed off his SCRAM alcohol-monitoring anklet and told onlookers, “Check out my Lindsay Blowhan bracelet . . . I’m taking it to Jacob the Jeweler to get it blinged out!” The “30 Rock” star also “bragged about the $100,000 Jaguar he just bought - which a friend has to drive because he’s on parole - and the $3 mil he made this summer,” our spy said. Nothing like being humble!

Unfortunately for Tracy and every other person proving their sobriety with an alcohol monitoring bracelet, Lindsay Lohan blew the lid off of the SCRAM sham when she was able to get drunk, steal a car, chase her assistant’s mom, blame the black kid, and get arrested before the monitoring company even knew what was going on. What good is a bracelet that alerts the powers that be after you endanger lives?

It’s a terrifying thought, but SCRAMs could be on their way to becoming the latest “it” fashion statement.

[]

Struggling music producers out there, take heart. You can enter “The Score,” an online competition where undiscovered producers vie to have their original piece used as the score for VH1’s “Hip Hop Honors,” which airs October 8.

Not only does the winner get his score professionally produced and played on air, but he or she gets a mentoring session with ?uestlove and a trip to the live taping of the show, hosted by Tracy “SCRAM” Morgan.

Upload your beats and listen to the submissions of others here.

You know, this is how the Neptunes started out in the biz. Well, not really. But you could still be the next Pharrell!

Well, not really.

Three things:

1) Eve’s SCRAM is so not going to look good with her streetwalker chic outfits.
2) This is further proof of a mass conspiracy to have at least one black male comedian in drag at any given time.
3) I can’t believe Tracy Morgan landed this woman, his wife of 22 years, before he was rich. is holding this woman’s hand instead of his wife’s. Wait, yes I can…

[TMZ]

Like Tracy Morgan before her, Eve will be forced to wear an alcohol monitoring ankle bracelet (SCRAM) as punishment for her DUI-induced April car crash. She also has to pay some fines and attend an alcohol education class. Unlike Tracy Morgan before her, Eve is not an alcoholic (I don’t think), so this should be a piece of cake.

[TMZ]

Dear Tracy Morgan,

Since you made your television debut in 1994 as a portly Hustle Man on Martin, your career has kind of been waiting on the runway instead of completely taking off. The short-lived Tracy Morgan Show was, well, very short-lived, and as modern-day black SNLers go, you never quite reached the ranks of Tim “Ladies Man” Meadows, did you? But 30 Rock is another story. The critically acclaimed, absolutely hilarious television show is your ticket to the type of stardom career comedians only dream of. And you’re doing your best to f*ck it up.

Look at the above clip, Tracy. It’s from your show, but it might as well be real. Tracy Jordan must not stretch your acting chops too much, since this is exactly how you act when you go on actual talk shows. You take off your clothes, you are either drunk or on drugs or both, and you generally make a fool of yourself. Your alcoholism has reached the point where you’re forced to wear an alcohol-detection bracelet, yet you still drunkenly harass female DJs when you’re trying to do publicity. Seriously, Tracy. In your profession, there’s a fine, but very important, line between making the joke and becoming it. Which side are you on?

Love,
Lauren