Dog Bites

The Miracle Whip of the Web?
Apparently imbued with the warmth of the incipient festive season, Mission revolutionary Nestor Makhno called to wish us a happy Thanksgiving. "You get some time off, right?" he asked.

Well, kind of. But we shouldn't complain, because it does seem that Dog Bites has been getting out a little more than usual, especially to open-bar type events. At one of these we were amused to hear that disgruntled employees of Wired News have a secret code word for their new owner, Web search engine-slash-portal-wannabe Lycos -- "Mayonnaise." Why? "It's just such a completely mayonnaise-ish, zero-personality type of company," explained our source.

Lindner in '99!
Luckily for television news, it rained in San Francisco. Coverage of this phenomenon -- large puddles! slow traffic! airport delays! snow at higher elevations! -- took up pretty much the entire first segment of all the local newscasts this past weekend. So, nodding off over our soy cocoa, we very nearly missed hearing about San Francisco's next mayor.

That would be Michaela Lindner, 40, of Quellendorf, Germany. Michaela, nee Norbert, was forced out of office after announcing that he would be having sex-change surgery, although villagers had previously been pretty darn scandalized when their mayor began wearing women's clothing.

Michaela says she will be leaving Quellendorf and quite possibly Germany too. Now, we think this could work out quite well for San Francisco, should Lindner decide to move here. After all, Michaela would bring with her previous mayoral experience, yet she has no ties to local labor unions, party machinery, or real estate developers. The write-in campaign starts now!

Would: Garcia Strangely Split Personality
Radio ads for the Chronicle run with the tag line, "One paper. Many voices," but how many of those voices are actually in Ken Garcia's head? Eerily enough, it often seems there are two Kens -- a happy, civic booster-type Ken, and an angry, Old Testament-type punishment-meting Ken.

Perpetually disgruntled Dog Bites contractor John Would may have the answer: "I am starting to notice a pattern: Ken gets really, really mad for about a week, then has those kerosene-sweat dreams in which he realizes what a bad, evil man he is, then plays nice for a while, until the niceness makes him mad for some strange reason and the cycle starts all over again.

"Saturday, Nov. 21: The AIDS Grove in Golden Gate Park is nice. Really nice, in fact.

"Tuesday, Nov. 24: You see, my column can be funny. I just have to pilfer some material from Gary Larson. (Special bonus -- My editors said if I want to keep my column, I have to plug that Far Side run. So tell 'em Ken sent ya!)

"Thursday, Nov. 26: Thanksgiving is a good time to be thankful. Especially for family, and nice things like that."

Cothran and Boulware Are Not Yuppies, OK?
Staff writers Jack Boulware and George Cothran, stung by spray-painted allegations of being "yuppie infliltrators [sic]" ("Vilified! And for What?" Dog Bites, Nov. 25), apparently spent much of the Thanksgiving weekend compiling a detailed rebuttal, which stretched to 30 or so single-spaced typewritten pages.

We reproduce a small portion of their screed below:

As told to Laurel Wellman

Tip Dog Bites -- especially if you're disgruntled. Phone 536-8139; fax 777-1839; e-mail dogbites@sfweekly.com.