Holy mackerel, the American businesswoman executive who wants to be Senator Carly Fiorina is an insane person! Who would vote for the person who made such a crazy video? (A: Crazy people.)

Let’s hope the hula-hoopers in the video for the new Beach House song, “Silver Soul,” left patches of unpainted skin on the bottoms of their feet. Remember what happened to Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger! (Actually, as Mythbusters proved a few years ago, there is no such real thing as “skin-suffocation.”)

The New York Observer, once sort of a fruity, faggy, Jewy, weekly too-smart-for-its-own-good rag, always with just a little too much Yiddish, has had a real change in flavor this year! Kyle Pope came over as editor from his post-Portfolio break, and then he hired his buddy Chris Stewart (also formerly of Portfolio, and author of Hunting the Tiger! About the “dark, bloody world of Serb paramilitaries”!). And today they announced the hire of a new managing web editor, the awesomely-named Tyler Thoreson, late of the late (and, in my minority opinion, heinous) men.style.com.

This is Kyle (in a rather dated picture), and Chris, and Mr. Thoreson. (I know. But. He really has a last name you just want to use!)

Disclosure: I don’t really know any of them! They seem nice! And given the fratty attitude of the paper’s publisher, Jared Kushner-at least back when he was single-one wonders what the Observer is like now with dudes just bein’ dudes, talkin’ about dude things. Their experiences too-Thoreson had been at men.style.com since 2004, Stewart has written about corruption in Iraq, etc., and there are apparently babies and wives galore-are a real macho change for a paper that publishes mincing Simon Doonan. (Though Thoreson’s Twitter proves he really does care about fashion, so.)

There’s also a change in pace for all of them. Though Pope worked long and hard at newspapers, of the three of them, they largely have magazine and magazine environment experience. In an age when publishers don’t allow real budgets for copy-editing, at least as evidenced from today’s otherwise pleasant printed paper, one wonders how the very real work-flow differences at a newspaper is taking its toll on the dudes.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Mr. Thoreson’s old (and infamous) email address? It was: kegmeister@***.com. So, I guess, well, wow.

The NFL has licensed Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” for use during the Super Bowl, “with 100% of the licensing proceeds benefiting Partners In Health’s Stand With Haiti relief efforts.” It upsets me to no end that I now think of this as “the Wild Things song.”

So the new Peter Gabriel album, Scratch My Back, is sounding more and more intriguing. It’s all cover songs, all orchestral arrangements, and two leaks, versions of Arcade Fire’s “My Body is a Cage” and Bon Iver’s “Flume,” are both excellent.

Gabriel has said that he intends the album to start a “dialogue” with the artists he covers, in hopes that they might cover songs of his in return. Pretty cool. (Also: a clever way for lazy musicians to not have to write new songs.)

Here’s the tracklist:
“Heroes” (David Bowie)
“The Boy in the Bubble” (Paul Simon)
“Mirrorball” (Elbow)
“Flume” (Bon Iver)
“Listening Wind” (Talking Heads)
“The Power of the Heart” (Lou Reed)
“My Body Is a Cage” (Arcade Fire)
“The Book of Love” (The Magnetic Fields)
“I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” (Randy Newman)
“Après moi” (Regina Spektor)
“Philadelphia” (Neil Young)
“Street Spirit (Fade Out)” (Radiohead)

And here are the Peter Gabriel songs I’d like to hear each covered artist cover in return:

David Bowie: “I Have the Touch”
Paul Simon: “Solsbury Hill”
Elbow: “D.I.Y.”
Bon Iver: “Sledgehammer”
Talking Heads: “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway”
Lou Reed: “Family Snapshot”
Arcade Fire: “Games Without Frontiers”
The Magnetic Fields: “Don’t Give Up”
Randy Newman: “Big Time”
Regina Spektor: “Shock the Monkey”
Neil Young: “Back in NYC”
Radiohead: “In Your Eyes”

Okay, guys. Now, get to work!

While we’re on Peter Gabriel, it’s a good time to remember how, first of all, he was the good part of Genesis, back in the early ’70s, when Genesis was actually good. (Hard to believe, I know. But check out “Back In NYC” from the The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway album.) And he got even better as a solo artist, really sort of defining the charms of straight-faced 1980s avant garde weirdness. He always seemed like the short-haired guy in a suit who’d politely excuse himself to get a glass of white wine during a performance-art piece in Soho. The the next thing you know, he’s, like, crouching in the middle of a circle of fire wearing face-paint and an Apache-chief headdress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo9riZYUpTw

And for all the i’m-a-serious-artist-who-takes-the-problems-of-the-world-seriously stuff, he always had the goods to back to it up. If “Biko” doesn’t make the hair on your arms stand up, you must not have any hair on your arms. (And you’re a racist.)

Lastly, here’s a very sweaty live version of “Family Snapshot” from 1986. Man, what a great song. Phil Collins can suck it forever.

To the Editor:

Re: “Heel. Sit. Whisper. Good Dog.” (February 3), an article about “debarking,” that barbaric procedure in which a dog’s vocal cords are cut so that its owners are no longer troubled by noise complaints from their neighbors:

I want to thank you for addressing this topic. I am a Maltese terrier who has resided in New York City my whole life. Several years ago, my owners Marty and Sylvia Bayer had me “debarked” after the people in 3G complained to the co-op board about my playful yelps. This kind of surgery is indeed as tragic and inhumane as you make it out to be.

While I applaud you for shedding light on this grisly procedure, I wanted to alert you and your readers to something even more horrific: My owners have threatened to cut my nuts out. As shocking as that may seem to you, it is in no way an isolated incident. Many of my friends from doggie daycare have already undergone this terrible disfigurement. One day they’re energetic canines with everything to live for, and the next day they’re sluggish zombies who can’t even be bothered to chase a squirrel or run to the door when the bell rings. Also, they no longer have testicles.

I would hope that this revelation elicits further coverage from your fine organization. It would be a shame if we focused on the admittedly grotesque operation that severs a dog’s vocal cords while completely ignoring the even more serious crime of canine genital mutilation. I would be even more appreciative if you could do something about this prior to March 7th, when I’m scheduled for my appointment.

I appreciate your taking an interest in this matter. And please tell Maureen Dowd that she is my absolute favorite part of the paper.

Malty
New York, Feb 3, 2010

The writer is very concerned that they are going to CUT HIS BALLS OFF.

“I would like to announce that due to pressures and threats from a certain animal rights group, I will be changing the genuine fox fur on my free program costume that I will use in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, B.C., to white faux fur…. I hope these activists can understand that my decision to change my costume is in no way a victory for them, but a draw.”
 — Hero American super-athlete Johnny Weir is going to cut a number of animal-loving bitches after Vancouver for threatening him and making him deal with this shit right now while he is super-busy.

by D. R. Adams

Our hiatus-taking videogames columnist D. R. Adams just sent over a brand new theme song for us, to update our previous. This is pretty much the only thing getting us through this sleep-deprived day.

Um, be careful with your volume levels on your computers here, fellow headbangers.

[wpaudio url=”http://www.theawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Revenge-of-the-Awl-2.mp3″ text=”Revenge of the Awl, by Sleazy Handshake, from the forthcoming album Born on the AOL” dl=”0″]

I’ve never watched Anthony Bourdain’s show, but this made me smile. I hope this kid’s life doesn’t replicate recent studies out of Sweden. [Via]

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA)-a vet who has his father’s old seat in the House, and who says democracy doesn’t work?-came out swinging against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. His point of view is that the military bond (ooh) is broken “if you open up to the military to transgenders, to hermaphrodites, to gays and lesbians.” Oh, so we’re against the life choice of hermaphrodites now?

In fact, intersex people aren’t welcome to serve, but no one’s quite sure how and why. There’s this interesting comment on Politico:

As an Intersex person, currently in the US Military, they are currently banned from serving on Active duty, Reserve or even the National Guard. The closest thing that an Intersex person can do is serve in the Coast Guard Auxiliary or the US Air force Civil Air patrol. The US military bans intersex people not only on the gay issue, but also the medical issue as well because the military thinks that Intersex people will be a burden to them and to the military health care system.

Which backs up the research. Let’s take a look at “Gender Identity and the Military — Transgender, Transsexual, and Intersex-identified Individuals in the U.S. Armed Forces,” published in 2007 by the Palm Center!

Similarly, intersex-identified individuals are excluded from the U.S. military as “hermaphrodites,” a term that is seen as pathologizing and pejorative by many. All U.S. military representatives we contacted indicated that intersex identified individuals are presumed to require greater medical attention than the armed forces can provide would therefore be excluded from service, although we were unable to identify any regulatory, legal or policy basis for this claim.