Awl pal Rob Walker takes a look at “one of the most popular blogs on the planet.” (Spoiler: It’s Boing Boing.) “Boing Boing’s longevity hasn’t happened despite its refusal to get serious, but because of it,” he argues. This is a good one to print and read at leisure.

Patrick Stump, “Spotlight”

I have been patiently (OK, semi-patiently) waiting for the release of the first full-length by Patrick Stump, the former Fall Out Boy lead singer and ex-Law & Order guest star who also happens to possess one of the best voices in pop today. He also has finely tuned musical instincts; I saw him play a brief set at SXSW in March, where he pulled off a Jon Brion-at-Largo style “play all the instruments then loop them” bit and a Bobby Womack cover. (It was awesome. Too short, of course, but awesome.) Last night he released the first single off his forthcoming record, “Spotlight,” in not one but two forms! Let me say that again: !!!!

The two tracks are being packaged as a 7-inch, and the A-side would appear to be “Spotlight (New Regrets),” a sinewy bit of synthpop that would fit quite nicely into whatever radio station calls itself The Beat Of [Insert Your City Here]:

Then there’s “Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia),” which has a piano bit that reminds me of Billy Joel’s “My Life” for a split-second and which has a bit more of a slow-burn build that I think works better with the chorus’ lyrical sentiment:

(The outro is very Rocketship, no?)

Here is hoping that this means more is to come, but in the meantime, there’s still Folie à Deux, the final Fall Out Boy record. It’s two years old next month and I have been endlessly listening to/evangelizing it lately, because this time of year reminds me of replaying it while riding buses and subways during short-yet-long gray days that refused to stop blurring into one another. It’s a really fantastic album that got lost in the end-of-year shuffle in ’08, and recently it’s served as an excellent palate cleanser for me when I’ve tried to engage in “keeping up” by listening to wobbly-cassette “hypnagogic” bullshit like Autre Ne Veut; in stark, refreshing contrast, Folie à Deux is pop on blast. Here is “27.” It has the line “My body is an orphanage, we take everyone in,” which has been ping-ponging around my head these past few days even though it has approximately 0% relevance to my own personal visitors’ roster at this point in time:

Here is a list of “125 Fearless Female Bloggers,” most of whom apparently possess that quality because they’re not afraid to post about SEO practices, people being “Too Fake On Facebook,” and “How To Get Incoming One Way Backlinks to Your Blog.” What these women are trying to say aside from “Look at me! I have a message!” is unclear, but that is precisely why I am never not fascinated by the alternate-universe Internet; it’s not even the medium that is the message over there, but its amplification. [Via]

We did not much talk about the latest WikiLeaks document dump yesterday, mainly because I am not really sure what to say. As Tom Scocca puts it, “Which side is one supposed to be on? It is wrong for Wikileaks to have disclosed this, because the intelligence-gathering program was sensitive and secret government information. The Wikileaks disclosure is newsworthy because it is wrong for the government to have a program gathering people’s sensitive and secret information. Either way, somebody’s data gets mined, though, doesn’t it?” But there are plenty of other voices in the debate, including (I’m guessing) Sarah Palin’s. It’s tough to sort out. Still, apart from the bit where they refer to Iranians as Arabs, this wacky Taiwanese animated news video is probably a good place to start. At least you will have a baseline that helps you sound like you know what you’re talking about.

by Mat Honan

Vincent Gallo says it wasn’t him. The New York Post quotes the actor-cum-director-cum-musician venting frustrations about fake Twitter accounts using his identity, lamenting “it is embarrassing having anyone believe I would sign up for and communicate with Twitter.” It sure is!

Yet since April of 2009, someone claiming to be Gallo has been writing weird, vitriolic, perverted and syrup-obsessed tweets as @Vincent_Gallo. In other words, it’s a rather convincing portrayal. And despite Gallo’s protests, the account remains live and continues to plead for maple syrup. But storm clouds on the horizon! Twitter just kicked Fake Gary Busey off the set today. How much longer will @vincent_gallo be able to keep it up?

We corresponded via email.

Awl: So, who is this? Is this Josh Simpson again, the guy behind @BPGlobalPR?

@vincent_gallo: I have no idea what @BPGlobalwhatever is. This is Vincent Gallo. Do you not even know who you’re fucking interviewing? Because I have better things I could be doing with my time. Trader Joe’s gets new deliveries in this afternoon and they’ve been out of corn dogs since yesterday, which kinda sucks.

Awl: The New York Post ran a story last week claiming that all the Twitter accounts were hoaxes. Are you claiming to be Vincent Gallo, the actor, director and musician?

@vincent_gallo: Well, all the OTHER accounts are hoaxes, duh. This one is real. Maybe one of those other frauds managed to convince the New York Post that they were really me. But I never talked to the New York Post. Honestly, I don’t pay too much attention to the mainstream media. The print whatever the liberal shadow government tells them to.

Awl: Should people be embarrassed to use Twitter?

@vincent_gallo: People should be embarrassed of EVERYTHING they do. Honestly, have you watched people lately? They’re ugly, they’re fat. They wear bad clothes. Just last night I was walking to the 7–11 to get mini-donuts, you know the waxy ones, right? And I almost tripped over this guy sitting on the sidewalk eating a bucket of chicken. Big ass bucket. Licking his fingers. Grease all over his face. Anyway I go to the store and on my way back I pass the same guy and he is SHITTING into the bucket. The same fucking bucket he’d just been eating from, man. I mean, I guess I should be glad he was shitting into a bucket. But no, I’m not embarrassed of using Twitter at all. I can vent my animosity towards my fans from my own home. I like that.

Awl: Why did you ask people to bring maple syrup with them when they come to see your band? Do you actually eat it?

@vincent_gallo: Of course I eat it. I eat it on pancakes, on corn dogs, on anything I think it made taste good on. I ask people to bring it to shows because I want it. And when I’m on tour I don’t always have time to do my own shopping. Plus it’s fun to make people do things.

[Editor’s note: Here is a video of Vincent Gallo playing live.

This video is also of Vincent Gallo playing live.

Clearly, two different people!]

Awl: Are you particular about maple syrup? For example, I’m at my mom’s house in New Hampshire right now, and she claims that Vermont stuff is all junk, and that only Granite State syrup is worth eating. Do you have a preference?

@vincent_gallo: Let me tell you a secret: Grade A maple syrup is shit. It’s light and boring. You want good maple syrup you get Grade B. It’s got a much stronger and darker maple flavor to it. It’s made from the musk of the tree. Now, Vermont they grade their syrups on a higher standard than the rest of the US. And New Hampshire doesn’t grade theirs at all.

Your mom is probably using the Grade A stuff. Tell her to try Grade B. Also tell her I said hi.

Awl: Twitter’s verified accounts are cutting down on successful celebrity impersonations. Is that a good thing? Will Twitter be better off tamed?

@vincent_gallo: I was in SF last week and I went to the Twitter office to get my account verified. They wouldn’t let me in! I even stopped at Whole Foods to bring them a bottle of maple syrup. Sadly the dumb hippies only sell Grade A maple syrup, but whatever. Anyway the secretary wouldn’t let me in. She handed me a form to fill out. Like I carry a pen and shit, right?!? You know whose account they should kill? Kanye West’s. That ass is a train wreck.

Awl: If Twitter takes your @vincent_gallo account offline, will you resurrect it somewhere else? Why aren’t there more fake celebrity Tumblrs or Blogger sites? It would be just as easy to fake one of those. What is it about Twitter that lends itself to fakery?

@vincent_gallo: Why would twitter take my account offline? That would really piss me off if it wasn’t for all the water therapy. I don’t know what a Tumbl is. I like twitter because it’s easy and Rainn Wilson set it up for me. I don’t know much about computers.

Awl: Tell me about your relationship with Roger Ebert. I see you reaching out to him quite a bit on Twitter.

@vincent_gallo: Roger and I have made our peace. When he was too stupid to appreciate Brown Bunny, I put a curse on him. Which I kinda sorta feel bad about. But we text each other all the time now. I even called him a couple of times, but Steven Hawking keeps picking up his phone.

Awl: What are you trying to accomplish by communicating over Twitter?

@vincent_gallo: I just wanted to tell people when my band was playing, and then I got sucked in. People want to know what Vincent Gallo is doing. It’s a good way to stay in touch with fans without having to smell them or touch them.

Awl: Can you prove to us, in some way, that you are the person behind the @vincent_gallo Twitter account? Can you tweet about @awl?

@vincent_gallo: I’ll link to the article once you post it. I’m not giving you assholes free advertising unless you’re talking about me.

Awl: Who are you, really?

@vincent_gallo: I’m Vincent Fucking Gallo!

[Ed note: we remain unconvinced.]

Mat Honan is a contributing editor to WIRED, and co-founder of Longshot magazine.

Well, this is fun/weird! (And behind the paywall — though of course you subscribe, yes?)

Please welcome… the Gowanus Whole Foods.

There is a Facebook page lobbying Adidas to actually produce Scottish designer Gerry McKay’s Facebook-homage sneakers. I’m sure a Twitter campaign for the Twitter version will “follow” (Hey! Get it?!) Someone should do a Myspace pair, except for, like, Starburys or L.A. Gear or something. Anyway, the day I actually see these on peoples’ feet in the street (and I fully expect to) I’ll want to unfriend everybody IRL.

Here is your caption of the day: “Apple iPad 2 gossip, commence! According to a Taiwanese newspaper, Apple is readying an iPad 2 for a 2011 launch. At left, a regular old iPad is shown at a store in Moscow.” It is hard to even remember now what the world was like when they released the first iPad way back in April of aught ten. We were all so much younger then, so much more full of hope. I can’t believe we’ve had to wait so long for a new version.

“First bite? Juicy, rich, earthy, and savory, with a twang of something that said, ‘I am not beef.’ Holly and I thought it reminded us of the wonderful yak meat momos we’d eaten at a Tibetan restaurant in Minnesota years ago. No strong odor, no off taste. This was some damn good bear.”
 — Now you know what it’s like to eat bear.