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Biter The Last Bite By JavaScript must be enabled to display this email address. AFTER ALL our adventures over the years, Biter has decided the time is right to join AARP and lay to rest this incendiary forum. This wasn't an easy decision and it made us engage in some hefty navel-gazing as we solemnly reflected on all the jabs, scars and wounds we've inflicted through this column. You can look 'em up here at Metroactive if you want to get sentimental. There were some doozies. In the summer of 2002, one confused reader called us an asshole and a cultural ignoramus for trashing downtown and how it's always in a state of "coming soon." A few weeks later, readers applauded us for making fun of the ridiculous outdoor Monopoly board in Discovery Meadow Park. There's so much, it's hard to remember it all. We went to a Japanese bondage workshop, got tied up and wrote about it afterwards. We took a class in astral projection and tried to get our astral bodies the hell out of San Jose, since we can't seem to get our physical bodies the hell out of San Jose. We entered a bachelor auction and planted two females in the audience to jack the bidding up, only to have the whole thing fail miserably. And we even interviewed the guy who's played Big Bird for the last 36 years. Then there were the vampire live-action role-playing gamers. After trashing them in print, we found ourselves in a bitter email exchange the entire weekend afterwards, only to have the leader encourage us to show up and trash them again. When the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles committed the greatest press release gaffe Biter's ever seen, we engaged in a Jungian analysis and broke down the situation. They had printed "guilt" instead of "quilt." In January of 2003, we learned that folks were planning to culture-jam the Mountain View Wal-Mart by donning white lab coats and pushing empty shopping carts through the place for 45 minutes. We scoped it out, but the event never happened, as only one person showed up. The piece was titled "A Call to Jams." One of the best Biters of all time occurred a month later when we exposed the machinations of the Downtown San Jose Nightlife Prevention Bureau. The article itself was a deep sarcastic joke, but many readers thought it was real, so they started calling friends to find out who this "bureau" was. And then we lauded the opening of Sugars Coffee Bar at 22nd and Santa Clara streets, causing a firestorm of activity. Men flocked to Sugars to objectify the Asian female waitresses while the cops repeatedly shook the place down. Yes, Biter can take credit for starting that entire fiasco. Most recently, we cried foul when the Flying Pig Pub didn't get its lease renewed after 10 years in business. To this day, Biter still receives apple-polishing praise on the streets for that rabid outburst of phlegm-spittle. And we appreciate the support. But Biter never once confined our sordid escapades to just San Jose. When the Earthquakes won the 1993 championship, we covered the match in Los Angeles and complained that we weren't amongst the screaming Quakes fans pounding beers directly below the auxiliary press box. And a few weeks later when coach Frank Yallop quit the team and moved back to Vancouver, we flew up there and screamed, "If we can't have him, nobody will!" French Canada also popped up a few times. Local gadfly Steve Cohen spent years complaining about pigeon poop in downtown San Jose, so Biter flew to Québec City to investigate that city's Pigeon Condominium, the pigeonnier (pronounced pee-zhon-YAY). We also filled our Sharkless hockey void by writing up the Canadian Museum of Civilization's exhibit on Maurice "le Rocket" Richard in Gatineau. So what does Biter plan to do after we retire this column? There's much more to come, brutha. You'll just have to wait and see. Send a letter to the editor about this story to letters@metronews.com. [ Silicon Valley | Metroactive Home | Archives ]