Mark Spitz, swimming legend/big jerk

Is it just me, or does Mark Spitz sound like a total dickhead? Seems Miss Thing's upset that no one invited him to the Olympics.

"I never got invited. You don't go to the Olympics just to say, I am going to go. Especially because of who I am," Spitz told AFP in Hong Kong.

"I am going to sit there and watch Michael Phelps break my record anonymously? That's almost demeaning to me. It is not almost—it is."

Oh, so sorry, Mr. King of the World Spitz! Especially because of who you are! What else is bugging you?

Now a stockbroker and motivational speaker, Spitz also thinks he could have won eight golds himself in Munich if only he had had the chance.

"I won seven events. If they had the 50m freestyle back then, which they do now, I probably would have won that too," he said.

Spitz, whose brief stint in show business in the 1970s never quite matched his success in the pool, said he attended the Athens Olympics four years ago—when Phelps also tried to break the record.

"They did not once put my face on television," he recalled. "But as soon as the swimming was over, and Michael Phelps didn't break my record, every time I went to beach volley, they put my face on the volleyballs."

Wait, what? They put his face on volleyballs? WTF is up with that?

Anyway, yeah, you're a legend (in swimming, anyway, which, by the way, Mark Spitz, isn't exactly like being in the baseball Hall of Fame or being a member of Led Zeppelin or something), but quit acting like such a petulant jerk and maybe someone will invite you to something next time. I bet you're a hell of a motivational speaker. "They didn't bring me a water pitcher up here to the podium! I'm a legend! Where's my water pitcher?"

In a related story, I'm not into the Olympics at all.

(Wo)Man vs. Wild

Super Hot Irish Girlfriend just left on her "team-building exercise," which seems to be some kind of rafting trip in Tuolumne County. She's picturing a savage battle between man and nature, and has asked me to "avenge her" if she does not come back. I'm picturing a bunch of city folk in oversized life vests making their way carefully down a placid stream at about 3 mph.

Anyway, we'll see which is closer Tuesday when she returns.

Party last night at the home of the lovely Evany and Marco. Evany made this very tasty punch that she said was similar to a Swedish massage and involved something called lingonberry of which I didn't know existed until last night. Great to see the assembled peeps there. Ugh, I just used the word "peeps." Also while there, I had, for the first time, Acme Pale Ale which I can endorse heartily. I don't mean to emphasize the alcohol over the excellent company. That's just how I think.

OK. SHIG's gone. Wait, what do I do now?

Happy Friday, everyone!

- Somehow I neglected to follow up on this earlier, but Aoife Gallagher, Miss Clare, did not, in fact, win the Miss Ireland pageant. Rather, she was robbed and Sinead Noonan, Miss Meath won. What a rip.

Sinead Noonan, the new Miss Ireland. No Aoife Gallagher, but not bad, I guess.

For some reason, I am the go-to source for news on Aoife Gallagher, even though I only mentioned her once, in passing. You should see the Google search hits I get on her name. I'm like the Aoife Gallagher Clearinghouse. I'm starting to suspect it's just Aoife Gallagher and her friends. So here you go. Aoife Gallagher.

- My close associate Rocco is pleased to announce the launch of her new blog, Tales from the 22, which concerns the 22 Fillmore, one of my fave Muni lines. I predict this blog will achieve great success and will result in a book deal for Rocco while I continue to toil for the sheer love of blogging.

- No, really, I do love it.

- Aoife Gallagher.

- Jordan Mackay is a wine writer who also bartends at Cantina. He just wrote a great piece for 7x7 magazine about bartending that you should all go read right now. Here it is.

- An idea whose time has come: randomly matching cute cat pictures with Craigslist Casual Encounters headlines. Warning: headlines may be NSFW.

Have a nice weekend. Maybe it'll get above 58 degrees at some point in this wind-swept godforsaken city.

SF Giants: Ruining birthdays since 1958

Yesterday was Super Hot Irish Girlfriend's 31st birthday. We did what every girl loves to do on her birthday! We went to a professional baseball game.

That would normally be fun, except the team we went to see was the Giants, and they put on their usual Festival of Suck and lost 11-4 to the Atlanta Braves.

Now, I should point out that going to the game wasn't some typical dumb boyfriend move. SHIG has become quite the baseball fan in the past few years. When I first met her, she didn't know the difference between a line drive and a box score, but she can now discuss Giants pitching intelligently and had a conversation with one of our friends last weekend about the relative merits of RBIs and on base percentage in evaluating a hitter.

Anyway, as we're sitting there watching the pathetic Giants get pwned by Mike Hampton, who's pretty much the definition of "washed up" and is so fragile he'd break like cheap glass if he ever bumped up against anything solid, just to add insult to injury, it started to rain. The average precipitation for San Francisco in August is 0.07 inches, so it really felt like piling on at that point. Bleh.

Oh, so on the train on the way home, who's right across from us but District 6 Supervisor/Gavin Newsom enemy Chris Daly? He was with his kid coming back from the game. Now, I'm pretty much a tax-and-spend, free-drugs-for-orphans, give-wealthy-estates-to-spotted-owls liberal, but Chris Daly makes me look like Barry Goldwater.

"I want to take your money and give it to the hobos!"

Whatever our political differences may be, I gotta give Chris Daly mad props for riding Muni like the rest of us fools. Sorry we were looking at you and whispering to each other, Chris Daly!

ANYWAY, Happy Birthday, SHIG!

Beheadings, Russian chicks, etc.

- Wow, beheadings certainly seem to be on the rise. What's up with that? First, we had the Brazilian guy who beheaded his British girlfriend. Then the Canada bus beheader. Then the Greek "cleaver killer." Beheadings are the new black.

- Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood got hisself a new chick. Meet 18-year-old Ekaterina Ivanova:

Not bad, Ronnie Wood! It's worth reading the article, which contains high amounts of win, to learn that Wood drinks two bottles of vodka a day, met the chick in something called an "escort bar," and that the chick called Wood her boyfriend on Facebook.

- I'm a big fan of the Neighborhood Crime Log. Here, for example:

At 2:50 a.m. July 23, an individual was sitting on Broadway and Montgomery Street playing a guitar with an amplifier when he was approached by four men, two of whom were from Santa Rosa. One attempted to divert the man’s attention while the other stole his amplifier. When he tried to get it back, one of the men punched him in the face. Officers stopped a vehicle with the suspects and stolen amplifier aboard. Three of the four men were arrested for robbery.

First of all, if you're playing a guitar with an amplifier at 2:50 a.m., I say you deserve whatever you get. Second, I love the fact that two of the men were "from Santa Rosa." What's the significance? Is Santa Rosa known as a breeding ground for robbers and I'm just not hip to it?

- Brett Favre is kind of a dick. He goes through this whole big teary retirement thing and the Packers go with Aaron Rodgers and Rodgers is finally going to get his chance to be a starter and I'm sure he works his ass off in the off-season to get ready and then Favre goes, "Ah, fuck it, I'll unretire." And now everyone's all confused about whether he gets his old parking space back and what to do about the whole mess.

Flagpole Sitta

The first Saturday of every month, the Knockout in the Mission hosts a party called Debaser that features 90's alternative music. We went last night. It was a total blast.

Want to know what it was like? Picture a bunch of kids with ironic hipster moustaches dancing to songs like "Possum Kingdom" by the Toadies and "Holland 1945" by Neutral Milk Hotel and "Been Caught Stealing" by Jane's and "Last Splash" by the Breeders and "Song 2" by Blur and you'll have an idea.

I realize this photo isn't very helpful. I wasn't using the flash. For some much better pixx (not from last night, but from other nights), check out our friend Chris's set here.

There was also a live performance by Ocean Spray, a Cranberries cover band. Yes, there is a Cranberries cover band. They were really good. What struck me was how many songs I recognized. I guess the Cranberries achieved greater market penetration than I realized.

When I was outside smoking, I heard some guy say "Five bucks just to get in a bar?" Well, fuck that. It was worth way more than that. I forgot how much I love those songs. I would have paid six bucks. Maybe seven.

Earlier that day, we went to see Stephen and Jessica's new dog, Todd. He's some kind of chihuahua/terrier mix. Todd kicks ass.

Sit, Fubu, sit.

The LA Times just put online a database of dog registrations in LA County and it is SO MUCH FUN.

First, the boring: the most common names in LA are Lucky, Max, Princess, Rocky, and Buddy. Super yawn.

Let’s get to the good shit. Hey, is your chihuahua named Terminator? Because there are 2 in LA, along with 2 huskies and 2 German shepards.

How to look suspicious in the park: “Here, 8-ball! Here, Blunt! Come, Reefer, come!”

Some are just great because they’re just, I don’t know, fucking weird, like Fred C. Dobbs, Dr. Bodega, or Number 2. For some reason, Dr. Bodega makes me laugh every time I say it out loud.

This is fucked up: There are 15 dogs in LA named Hitler.

And then you get to the ones that are just sad. Poor Stupid and Bad Dog.