There was a time in New York City's history, back in the heady days of "a few years ago," when nightlife queen Amy Sacco's life was a worthy item of gossip. She was at the center of an entire universe of celebrities at their most glittering. Today, she's worth chronicling mostly as the living embodiment of the transience of nightlife fame. And a new profile of her in Page Six Magazine (by former Gawker-er Joshua David Stein) can be seen as a grand requiem for Sacco and her Bungalow 8-driven empire. Nothing lasts forever... Sacco's rise to fame is familiar by now. She's just a Jersey girl who came to New York City, worked in the restaurant business, and made some important friends who eventually bankrolled her first club, Lot 61. She hit her peak with the opening of Bungalow 8 in 2001, which succeeded in turning the once-barren area of West Chelsea into the club capital of New York-to the point of destroying the exclusivity and isolation of the neighborhood that helped attract the top models and A-list celebrities to Sacco's clubs in the first place. But Sacco's more recent history is one of unmistakable decline. She opened a Bungalow 8 in London, which received (and still receives) a tepid reception from the locals. Bette, the restaurant Sacco opened as a "neighborhood joint" near her own Chelsea apartment, closed without warning earlier this summer. She got a slew of nightlife and image consulting jobs that, while lucrative, aren't nearly as glamorous as her former life as an NYC tastemaker. And she says she's simply getting tired of it all:

Set aside the money NBC minted broadcasting the Olympics to American TV sets. The network is hinting it wants to give internet video a bigger role in its coverage — and advertising sales — around the 2012 games in London, where the time differential makes it awkward to broadcast live events in the U.S. So how did NBC do Webcasting the 2008 games? The network bragged to the Times about doubling its 2004-2006 Olympic traffic. But somehow Yahoo, with none of NBC's exclusive footage or capital outlay, managed to draw even more people to its Olympics section than NBC, according to Nielsen. And NBC made a pathetic $6 million in video ad revenue from the Olympics — a quarter of what CBS Sports made streaming a college basketball tournament earlier this year. The problem? NBC saved all the good stuff for television. Writes the Journal:

"Sampley says Fox News producers haven't invited him on to bash McCain the way he bashed Kerry." [Daily News]

Even assuming Marc Jacobs remains clean and sober per his recent stints in rehab, there is no doubting the designer retains quite the pet collection of addictions. Add to unabashed bed hopping and obsessive workouts a new fascination with bathing and a mushrooming collection of tats. The fashion designer says in a New Yorker profile this week that "I spend hours in the bathroom now. I like shampooing my hair. I like putting on moisturizer." The 28 tattoos, meanwhile, include "Bros before hos." The 29th will read "Shameless," an apt label for a narcissist who uses gossip columns as mirrors through which he might further admire his own reflection. Jacobs should be especially thrilled to gaze upon his words in the New Yorker, especially this defining quote: "I am a perfect being in a perfect world." [Daily News] (Picture from Marc Jacobs via Daily News)

The number eight is considered lucky in China, and so everyone assumed that's why the Beijing Olympics opened on August 8, aka 08/08/08. This little chestnut gave the media a mildly exotic (but easy to understand!) piece of Chinese culture to talk about in their inevitable stories on the Olympic host country, and also something interesting to say about the opening ceremonies before they happened. But NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol explodes the myth of 8-8-08 in the Times today, saying superstition is "not really why the Olympics started then." The real reason? Money. (Duh.)

There was a small, nonviolent, "mild" anti-war protest in Denver today, timed to the upcoming Democratic convention. The protest organization is stupidly named "Recreate 68," but has specifically decried the violence at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Fox News of course wanted to cover this boring thing in the most insane way possible, with race riots and burning flags and naked hippies on PCP. None of that was available, so instead Fox sent a nerdy correspondent to go right into the middle of a throng of protesters trying to march in the opposite direction. The protesters managed not to collide with the camera crew, so no one was hurt, but they refused to grant interviews and started chanting "Fuck Fox News," which means they are Censor Fascists who hate the First Amendment. Everyone has to grant interviews to everyone else, unless they are Nazis, which is why we are looking forward to our big video interview with Bill O'Reilly the next time we catch him on the street or outside his apartment or maybe in his office. Video of the leftist non-riot after the jump.

"While 72 percent of the children online belonged to a social networking site (usually MySpace), 60 percent of them said they rarely or never read blogs." [Times]

Someone is lying at Nike. The only question is who. The mystery surrounds how the shoe company approached the thuggish Chinese dictatorship over online rumors about an athlete it sponsors. No one disputes that Nike, which recently claimed its shoes have "become an icon of self-expression and a symbol of Democratic style," ran to the repressive regime in a snit. Someone claiming to be close to Nike had issued an anonymous Web post claiming the company forced Liu Xiang, pictured, to exit the games because he was unlikely to win. This echoed tampering allegations Nike also faced in Brazil. Does Nike want the poster hunted down and thrown in jail? Hunted down and unmasked, so he can be sued? Or simply handled by the Chinese government in whatever manner it feels appropriate? No one has any idea, because Nike keeps changing its story — and digging itself into a deeper hole.

Dexter Filkins spent four years covering the Iraq War for the New York Times. Today, the paper's magazine has an excerpt of his upcoming book, The Forever War. Filkins is a beautiful writer, which only serves to enhance the enormous sadness of his story. The piece pulses not with political outrage, but with weariness over a steady diet of death. After the jump, one small excerpt: Filkins tells how his desire for a photo of a dead insurgent ended with a Marine shot and killed:

It's about time that the paper of record started covering the happenings in McCarren park, the ragged dirt patch that is home to the Brooklyn Hipster Kickball League, that den of sociological intrigue so ably chronicled by our own Sheila McClear. What with the legal drama and fundamental instances of human love associated with the hipster kickballers, it's no stretch to say that they are the demographic group most worthy of media coverage in NYC or anywhere else. But in an article today that is lightly reported to a comical degree, the Times attempts to deny the BHKL-ers their rightful place at the top of our minds!: As you would expect, the reporter starts off the article by telling you that she has been in Williamsburg for a decade-way before all these gentrifiers got here. But in her discussion of McCarren Park and the accompanying photo slide show, the kickballers receive only a passing mention in a photo caption! Instead, the reporter's single source for the story of the park's rich variety is a 64-year-old Ecuadorean hot dog vendor. What does she know about Bloc Party? Sheesh. [NYT. Note to hipsters: the last McCarren Pool Party is today and I walked by earlier, and there is no way you're getting into that motherfucker. Seriously, take up basketball instead.]

Ha ha, the New York Times ran a story about how all Brits are drunken louts and when they go on vacations to Greece they fight and vomit and drink and cuss and cross-dress so much that Crete is like, wanting to ban British citizens altogether. Ha, unruly people. But for Times reporter Sarah Lyall, all this drunken madness coverage is familiar territory. We must ask, in all seriousness: has Sarah Lyall spent her entire career on the "Drunk-ass English people" beat? Look at this: NYT stories by Sarah Lyall, a selection: 6/2/06 "It's Springtime for Soccer, And For Rowdy England Fans" 1/11/06 "Ever Since Falstaff, Getting Sloshed Is Cricket" 7/22/04 "British Worry That Drinking Has Gotten Out of Hand" 9/2/02 "What is it About British Men? Cheap, Drunk, and Stiff-Lipped." 5/1/00 "Later Pub Hours? Europe Tells Britain It's Time." There's more!

Toby Young, the British exile and former Vanity Fair writer whose mildly amusing book How To Lose Friends and Alienate People is now being turned into a (doubtless middling) movie, is concerned about how hard it is for even famous writers to make any serious money in America these days. Except for Toby Young himself, of course, who is getting paid to write cute little missives back to the UK about how hard it is for even famous writers to make any serious money in America these days. "I'm currently in the Hamptons," he starts off:

The US Army has freed Ahmed Nouri Raziak, a cameraman for the AP, who had been held without charges for the past three months. Not to be confused with AP photographer Bilal Hussein, recently released after two years in US custody. [Reuters]

Biggie Smalls was one of the greatest rappers of our generation. Way nicer lyrically than the more iconic Tupac, his fellow murdered MC. Another point in favor of Biggie: he had a crazier wife. That would be Faith Evans, the Bad Boy R&B singer who is most famous for-let's be honest-being Biggie's wife. Now Faith has written an autobiographical book, and although I'm sure there's lots in there about empowerment, mourning, etc., check out this part where she sneaks into Biggie's house, pulls Lil Kim out of his bed, and beats her ass!:

So much for being the first to know, as Barack Obama's campaign promised Internet users who handed over their email addresses and cell-phone numbers in exchange for early notice of Obama's VP pick. "Multiple Democratic sources confirm to CNN that Sen. Barack Obama has selected Sen. Joseph Biden as his vice presidential nominee," CNN.com reports. A text message with the announcement will be sent to Obama's supporters sometime Saturday morning." BarackObama.com is still soliciting users' emails and phone numbers. Oh, and Twitter?Earlier today, users of the microblogging service were convinced Obama had picked Bloomberg. The Twitter users who got word of the real pick heard it through, yes, a Twitter account reposting CNN's story. Why didn't the campaign just direct people to sign up for CNN's breaking-news alerts? Those seem faster.

Well, this weekend. My brother's getting married and we're having the inevitable Atlantic City bachelor party thing tomorrow through Sunday. So your old friends Richard Lawson and Hamilton Nolan have graciously stepped up to cover for me-Richard tomorrow and Hamilton on Sunday. Thanks guys! (Please don't show me up?) In the meantime, I fear a monkey-free weekend, so please click through to see some adorable-and deadly!-baby squirrel monkeys. See you all Labor Day weekend!

Former Gawker editor twice over (twice-former??) Choire Sicha recently got canned from his job writing columns for a pittance at the New York Observer because he wrote something about how no one at that sad newspaper has any air conditioning, because of wee Jared Kushner (and now we know that we shall never work there!). But good news for him! He is joining former Gawker editor Alex Balk at Radar, where he will certainly never get in trouble for writing anything about anyone who may or may not own that fine publication. He will be called an "Editor at Large," just like Hamish Bowles! The position is sort of the one our own Moe was going to take, but then she came to Gawker instead. There are like three jobs in New York and they now they are ALL taken. [Radar]

A Wisconsin couple bought four lottery tickets-all with the same numbers, for the same drawing-and won. AP headline: "Wisconsin couple each hit lottery - twice." Same story on WNBC.com, headline: "Has Couple Found Formula To Win Lottery?" Same story on Drudge, headline: "Couple Finds Formula To Win Lottery; Rakes In $700K This Week!" This is why America is losing.

So the "really angry" e-mail sent out to New York magazine's freelancers and others—warning them to stop using their New York associations to get into events—wasn't so mean after all. It's just that "at least one party crasher and one overly ambitious editor" have been getting, well, a bit overly ambitious! Click for the memo. Update: we think we know who the party crasher is!

So Andres Martinez, the former LA Times editorial page editor who just sued his former flack girlfriend for her stunning betrayals of his confidence? Maybe totally crazy! As we mentioned this morning, Martinez's suit came after his ex, Kelly Mullens, filed a restraining order against him in DC for stalking her and generally being a psycho. According to her filing, Martinez (who now works for the Washington Post and the New America Foundation) spent months emailing her, her family, and her professional contacts, calling her mom a "whore," inventing a separate false identity, and threatening to kill himself. Yea. Here are some of the most salient allegations, which purportedly quote from Martinez's own emails: The two broke up. Then Martinez allegedly emailed Mullens over and over and over, moaning about his lost love and his bad mental state, and promising to stop contacting her (which she told him to do). But it just kept on, and got worse: