Fashion people suck, Fiona Apple rules, and the sky is blue.

The August issue of Texas Monthly carries an ultimately amusing feature about the Sierra Blanca inspection station, an infamous U.S. Customs and Border Protection road stop that's ensnared a number of high-profile musicians, including Willie Nelson, Fiona Apple, Nelly, and Snoop Dogg. The Hollywood Reporter once referred to it as “the checkpoint of no return.”

During the press onslaught surrounding Fiona Apple's recent album, The Idler Wheel. . ., the most important character in the artist's personal sphere was her pit-bull mix, Janet, a 13-year-old stray rescue.

Not one to let Fiona Apple's a bizarre, rambling statement concerning her recent arrest at a Texas border checkpoint for hash and marijuana possession go unretorted, the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department Public Information Officer has released his own bizarre, rambling statement, calling Apple out for promising to make him and other department members "fucking famous any time you ask."

Fiona Apple was arrested for hash possession Thursday — which, come on, seriously? On Friday, she related her jailbird blues to a concert audience in Houston.

Fiona Apple was arrested for hash possession in Texas. Would she have been if she stuck to the spiked lemonade?

Internet-producing partners LOL Boys have never recorded in the same room — they pass tracks back and forth online from their respective locations of Montreal and Los Angeles. Earlier this week, they released an excellent mix (via Fader) of their revisions of recent (and some not so recent) songs by the likes of Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Avicii and Carly Rae Jepsen. They've converted these tracks into woozy, pulsating dog-day summer jams. We got our hands on the original versions of what went into the mix, and are sharing one of the most unlikely remixes: a clattering, pumped-up rerub of Fiona Apple's recent "Every Single Night." The setting has her sounding even more unsettled than usual.

By the time Lana del Rey released her album Born to Die in January, the discourse around her had swirled hard enough that critics merely had to push back for an angle. Many of the reviews served as backlash to the backlash regarding her persona, her inadequacy as a performer, and her deeply frivolous lyrics. Some of the best (/-paid) thinkers about pop music responded to her antagonist, the Internet, to say that it didn't matter if she changed her name from Lizzy Grant and obscured the real her with "gangster Nancy Sinatra" posturing. The biggest sham in question wasn't del Rey but the entire notion of "authenticity."

Seven years later, Fiona Apple finally follows up her acclaimed third studio album Extraordinary Machine with the garrulously titled LP, The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do.

CNBC's one-time "money honey," Maria Bartiromo, turns 42 today. Moby is turning 44. Marie-Josée Kravis, the wife of billionaire Henry Kravis, is 60. The rapper Ludacris is 32. Brokerage founder Muriel Siebert is 77. Hedge funder David Tepper is turning 52. Political operative Bill Cunningham is 59. Singer Harry Connick Jr. turns 42. Director Brian De Palma is turning 68. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas is 38. Actress Taraji P. Henson turns 39. And hockey player Mike Comrie, who may be better known for being Hilary Duff's boyfriend, is turning 29. Weekend birthdays after the jump.

Author James Frey turns 39 today. Another author who has dealt with a bit of controversy is celebrating, too: Jessica Seinfeld, the wife of Jerry Seinfeld, is 37. Restaurateur Stephen Hanson is turning 59. Sculptor Robert Gober is 54. Photographer Nan Goldin is 55. Emmy Rossum is turning 22. Actor Benjamin McKenzie is 30. Book designer Chip Kidd is turning 44. Blogger and former magazine dude Jeff Jarvis is 54. Literary agent David McCormick is 47. Ben Folds is 42. And two American Idol winners are celebrating: Jennifer Hudson is 27 and Ruben Studdard is 30. On Saturday, former Yankees outfielder Bernie Williams will turn 40, Stella McCartney will turn 37, Ben Savage will be 28, and Fiona Apple will celebrate her 31st. On Sunday: Sex and the City producer Michael Patrick King will be 54, Nas will celebrate his 35th, model Carmen Kass will be 30, and former financial titan (and Mike Bloomberg's former boss) John Gutfreund will be 79.

Last night in the sweaty morass of Gleason's Boxing Gym, a crowd of weird literary types gathered around a boxing ring. Famous pervert-alcoholic-author Jonathan Ames was set to fight Craig Davidson, Canadian author of pugilist novel "The Fighter." At 43, more than a decade older than his opponent, Ames was technically the underdog. But the crowd was in his corner. His friend Mangina was there, with the fake leg, wearing a flesh colored unitard and a fake vagina. Sitting in the front row was none other than 90's chanteuse Fiona Apple, looking anxious. Why was she here, we wondered to her face. "Because Jonathan is my boyfriend." Oh? It looks like Ames won before he even started. But Fiona couldn't help him when the bell rung for the first of three two-minute rounds. But maybe she helped him win! Laurel Ptak was there to capture the carnage, the victory and the moments of tendresse.

A truly gifted singer/songwriter usually can convey emotion and inner life through a few simple chords and some heartfelt vocals. Sometimes, however, it requires a little more. A reader sends in this report from last night's Nellie McKay performance: