Dog Bites

Reader: Larger Issues Raised by Larger Hair
Dog Bites' favorite perky on-air personality -- especially now that the formerly glam Leslie Griffiths has had that unflattering, factory-second-Martha-Stewart-type makeover -- will always be Channel 7 anchor Terilyn Joe. So imagine how thrilled -- thrilled! -- we were to discover that we have a national origin in common.

Or, to quote from KGO's press kit bio, "Prior to her appointment at Channel 7, Joe spent almost five years solo-anchoring the network morning news on Canada AM, CTV Television's live, nationally broadcast, two-and-a-half-hour daily current affairs program." (The bio then explains, helpfully, "This is equivalent to anchoring the news on ABC's Good Morning America.")

Well! We hope Terilyn will consider joining us sometime for Victoria Day, or Canada Day, or maybe even British Columbia Day, and that if she does, she will take the time to share some hair care tips. Because God knows we could use them: Our very own stylist recently asked us how, exactly, we'd learned to blow-dry our hair. "Gravity would do a better job than you do," he lamented, surveying the hash we'd made of his handiwork in just a few short weeks.

Anyway, reader mail continues to flood in regarding Ms. Joe. We reprint one especially entertaining missive here:

In the hopes of continuing the is-she-or-isn't-she controversy, (Canadian? Haven't we just answered that question?) I think the last word on Terilyn Joe has not been said yet. I had a job in the newsroom with Terilyn, and I can attest that Ms. Joe is probably not a manifestation of the Dark Lord, as she is known around the newsroom as "the Ice Princess."

I would imagine that it has something to do with her ability to keep everyone at bay, but I do believe it would be more likely that the title has something to do with her hair, which is in fact a substance much akin to said Ice. I would like to report that I had the occasion to touch the Hair, but I don't have any such experience.

One reporter working with Terilyn was rather impressed with her ability to conduct an entire conversation with him all the while looking at something else above his head. He had to turn his head and look around just to see if there was in fact someone else in the room to whom she was speaking. Oddly enough, Terilyn's conversation was being directed towards him. Let's open up the discussion and see if we can in fact decide whether Terilyn's mission in this world can be determined.

We guess it's worth a shot.

Fashion Hints for the New Economy
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the wrap skirt is not a garment suitable for wear in San Francisco. But Dog Bites, heading through South Park on some lunchtime errand or other, noted a number of women wearing it anyway, in defiance of the unrelenting wind. Obviously, this has something to do with the current season's revival of the quasi-hippie look, and also with fashion editors' insistence that the wrap skirt is "flirty." (Dog Bites notes here that "flirty" and "indecent exposure" are not synonymous concepts, and will mention -- oh, just for example -- the intersection of Gough and Geary as a place at which the unconvinced female pedestrian may put this theory to the test.)

Many of the skirt-wearers' male counterparts are currently sporting shirts of a shade one of Dog Bites' acquaintances has, wittily we think, termed "new media blue," a deep, denimlike tone whose popularity is partially due to the nice contrast it makes with Dockers khaki. Meanwhile, the standard Dog Bites e-mail continues to predict the imminent and apocalyptic collapse of all Internet-based industry and the ensuing return of a chagrined ex-work force to Duluth and Bangor, where misery and ruin await its members as they attempt to dodge their creditors in the subscription department of the Industry Standard.

"It's a bubble economy!" rants one correspondent. To which we reply: Well, sure. But did you have a bet-ter idea?

The Home Section
For some time now we have neglected to monitor the progress of Mitch's Garden, the Chronicle's ever-so-homespun monthly gardening feature starring management consultant Mitchell Marks' vegetable patch. But this has given Dog Bites time to thoroughly review the copy of Joining Forces: Making One Plus One Equal Three in Mergers, Acquisitions, and Alliances sent to us by Marks' hyperactive publicist. And we can say with complete confidence that we got almost nothing out of it, though we're sure somebody can explain the following sentence: "Its objectives are, first, to raise emerging cultural perceptions and stereotypes between the partners and, second, to initiate dialogue on the desired cultural end state for the combination."

Meanwhile, Mitch himself has given up proposing attractiveness contests between himself and Phil Bronstein, to be held within the forum of this column, and is apparently contenting himself with growing "thrifty" tomato plants.

All the best!

As told to Laurel Wellman

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