It’s Labor Day weekend, celeb news is slow, and I’m resorting to talking about Hugh Grant’s father’s art show.  In other words:  It could be a rough one, guys.  You should also expect stories today with scintillating titles such as “Where is JM J Bullock Today?” and “Why Isn’t Joanna Kerns in All the Lifetime Movies Anymore?”

Hugh hopped across the pond Long Island Expressway to Southampton this weekend to make an appearance at his dad’s watercolor paintings exhibit.  

“I’m so proud of my Dad – he’s been painting all my life,” said Hugh Grant, 48, who was visiting his 51-year-old brother for the weekend from his home in New York. “I also come out here to play golf, since I’m a golf fanatic.”

He said his Dad comes form a long line of military officers “but he wishes he had gone to art school.”

“My Dad, who lives in London and is originally from Scotland, follows the tradition of Scottish colorists,” the leading man said. “And I really love his colors in these nature scenes.”

James Grant Sr., 81, was more modest.

“I’m only an amateur painter,” he confessed. “This is only my second exhibit, and it’s for a good cause – the Southampton Fresh Air Home, a camp for physically challenged kids.”

Hugh’s brother Jamie, had a rather sad take on his father’s artistic motivations:  ”Most of these paintings came about because when my brother and I get together, my Dad just disappears to paint, so he doesn’t have to spend time talking.”

In other, completely unrelated news that I just felt like putting up with this story even though it has absolutely, positively nothing to do with Hugh Grant:  Check out this blind item from Evil Beet reader Julia aka owner of Dipped in Cream.  Any ideas on who it could be?

Hugh Grant is leaving show business.  Again.  Still.  Since 1994.  This is how it goes:  Hugh Grant appears in a romantic comedy.  Hugh Grant does press where he explains that he sucks because he has stage fright.  Hugh Grant talks about what a sucky job acting is.  Hugh Grant says he’s retiring.  Hugh Grant signs on for a role in a romantic comedy.

He said he had been on the verge of quitting acting before his life-changing audition for Four Weddings and a Funeral.

He has since described his job as a ‘miserable experience’ and threatened to retire at least twice.

And now, just months after completing work on yet another movie, Hugh Grant is talking about throwing the towel in yet again.

Blaming a string of stage fright attacks, the 48-year-old actor insists he is ready to give up his day job at last.

‘I like everything about filming except the acting,’ he told US magazine Entertainment Weekly.

‘I’m wonderful in rehearsals, but I have never been very good when they actually switch the cameras on.

‘In recent years I’ve had really bad attacks where I totally froze up. I though “Well, if I am going to get stage fright, then I am packing it in”.’

He’s like the Cher (or Rolling Stones) of Hollywood.  There comes a time where you have to stop saying you’re leaving and you have to follow through.  How many more sheepish, one-eyebrow-cocked half-smiles are we supposed to endure in this lifetime, anyway?  I just want Hugh to know that the cinematic world can continue on without him.  He’s just not that relevant.  Hugh needs to start being a man of his word and keep a promise.  Go.

Hugh Grant was walking down a street in New York City last night and chit-chatting with some TMZ dudes.  Someone asked the actor what he’s been up to lately and he replied with a laugh, “wanking off on the Internet.”  It all seemed like a friendly exchange, until he got a bit of advice on the best location to hail a cab.

One of the paps had the unmitigated gall to tell Hugh that he might have better luck finding a taxi if he went in the opposite direction of where he was headed, at which point Hugh thanked him and then kicked a cameraman in the nuggets. 

It’s really weird video that you can see here.  I’m hugely impressed by the pap seen right at the end of the video who is so close to Grant and isn’t wearing a cup.

Now, it’s all speculation, but I’ve always thought that Hugh Grant was in the closet.  Maybe he didn’t want to be caught on film with his, uh, dinner companion.

Hugh Grant may be off the market once again. After splitting from heiress Jemima Khan in February, it appears Grant had a recent change of heart. The two were spotted together at the Ritz in Paris.

Said a source: “The time they spent apart made Hugh realize just what he was missing without Jemima.”

Rumor has it that Grant may have even proposed to Ms. Khan, although neither of them will comment on that point.

You know, in looking through pictures of the couple, it occurred to me that Jemima Khan is what you’d get if you bred Elizabeth Hurley with Sandra Bullock and then beat the child with an ugly stick. I’m just saying.

AP LONDON – Hugh Grant has been arrested for allegedly throwing a container of baked beans at a photographer, London police said.

There are magical fruit jokes to be made but those are juvenile and insulting to our reader’s intelligence. So I’ll just say this: I’d love it if Hugh threw any canned good at my dome. Then I could take the next few years off.

Hugh Grant is very Lost in Translation at the Tokyo premiere of Music and Lyrics. Meanwhile, Lindsay’s lending her support and considerable star power to the new Charlotte Ronson store out there. Um, how do you say “butch” in Japanese?