In Jason Buhrmester’s brief website bio, he notes the following bit of personal trivia: “I was born in Kankakee, Illinois which was once voted, “The Worst City in North America” by The Places Rated Almanac. I now live in Los Angeles.”

He sure does. An associate editor at Playboy magazine beginning in 1999, the 39-year-old Buhrmester returned to the Hef fold in 2010 as a contributing editor and, as of 2012, full-time senior editor. He has now ascended to the even-more plum (and Kankakee-distant) perch of executive editor. From today’s announcement:

In addition to interviewing celebrities including Mariah Carey, Kate Beckinsale, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Knoxville, Danica Patrick, Fergie and Charles Barkley for Playboy’s iconic 20Q and Playboy Interview features, Jason has also brought a variety of high-profile articles to the magazine such as the April issue’s “Ghost in the Machine” (an exclusive interview with rap legend The D.O.C.) and “Dancing Off the Edge” by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh on the rise of electronic dance.

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Handicapping Grammy Noms: The Envelope reports that Fergie and Vince Gill will be on hand to announce the Grammy nominations on Thursday, noting that it’d be a creepy kind of awful to have them wake up for the press conference only to send them home with nothing.

Why Not? Everyone Else Has: The drivers’ ed teacher who appeared in Borat is adding his name to the long line of people futilely suing the producers of the film. Michael Psenicska, a Baltimore high school math teacher says the producers told him he’d be in a documentary about the integration of immigrants into U.S. life. Which, really, isn’t that far off from the truth.

Thank You, Tina: One of our fave columnists, Tina Daunt dedicates this week’s ink to Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation. We’re happy that she’s giving his rebuild-New-Orleans cause a big push. But we’re even happier that she gave us an excuse to run another picture of Brad Pitt.

Pop songbird Fergie turned to eBay to ditch her gas-guzzling Hummer.

And she did it in the name of charity with all proceeds going to Global Green USA following on the heels of her participation in Live Earth last summer.

So far, the bidding is up to $63,999 and more than 660,000 people visited Fergie’s eBay page in the auction’s first five days. Bidding is expected to close Saturday night.

- CHRIS GARDNER