Clue in the clueless, please...many of us don't know the back story here.

First, welcome back Chris!!

Now, many moons ago a project was started by Tony to write the most cliche ridden, pointlessly plotted, ridiculous story ever.

Tony kicked it off by writing a couple of hundred words, I carried it on with another couple of hundred, then it moved on, around the board members one by one.

Unfortunately, it sort of vanished (about the same time Chris did), so Chris took the blame. Sorry Chris.

But it turned out Tony got it back, he just hated it so buried it in an undisclosed grave on the Canadian border.

Would be interesting to see where it fell under it's own weight.

Dave

This is a question for the author. In reading Infernal, a few buildings were mentioned that Jack would like to show his father on a tour. What all buildings would end up on a complete list of Jack's tour (and a little something about why) would be fascinating.

Chris

Here are some of Jack's favorite buildings. The first 2 are international landmarks, but they become a little more obscure -- to out of towners -- after that:

Chrysler Building – E. 42nd

Flat Iron

The old Pythian Club (now apts) - 135 W. 70th

The Level Club (build by Masons) on W. 70th

Hearst Magazine Building - 959 8th Ave. (57th & 8th) 6 stories with urn-topped columns jutting above the roofline at each corner and over the entry arch.

The Radiator Building – 40 W. 40th

Woolworth Building (esp. lobby) 233 broadway

Sherry-Netherland Hotel – 781 5th

Jefferson Market Courthouse – 6th Ave & 10th

NY Yacht Club – W. 44th (the windows look like the stern of a galleon)

Clue in the clueless, please...many of us don't know the back story here.

As best as I can recall Maggers (I was a newbie then)

It was a dark and stormy night and the sea was angry, my friend....

AsMoral, I believe (once again, newbie I was) started a piece of literature that all the board members would take turns writing chapters. I was immediately intrigued, my heart pounding with anticipation of my turn, which was to follow that of the future DrFoix who was in posession of the manuscript at that time.

Daily I watched the board like a kid waiting for that package post marked BATTLE CREEK, Mich, (it was Mich. then, not MI like today) hoping, hoping that today would be the day I would be asked to eMail my address, that I might finally make my contribution and become a real boardwalker and not just an "also posts".

I was jonesin' I tell ya, I checked the board and my eMail several times daily, like those rats that hit the lever 5,000 times for a shot of cocaine. I turned down food, sex, sleep, money. I stopped going to work, stopped bathing, shunned TV. I KNEW that my turn had to be coming any second now. I'll check again. Damm this dial-up connection, connect..connect..then the familiar handshake icon, launch Netscape, hit the first bookmark, scroll down, then MY WORST FEAR realized.....Tony pulled the plug on Bad Fiction after receiving the manuscript from Mr. Foix. Apparently, it had failed to meet AsMorals expectations.

That's the way I remenber it.

I saw the final product of the Bad Fiction. Trust me, folks, Tony did the right thing pulling the plug. Funny haha bad is one thing, suicidally bad is another.

Maggers--Chris Foix was our dental school darling long ago in pre-GU times. As you can see, he's all growed up!

Lisa

Too bad the bad fiction became very bad. I bet it was pretty funny up 'til then.


Thanks for the info, guys.

Too bad the bad fiction became very bad. I bet it was pretty funny up 'til then.

I blame myself. I should have never introduced a roving gang of killer monkeys.

I blame myself. I should have never introduced a roving gang of killer monkeys.

Killer monkeys! You had killer monkeys and I missed it? How can anything with gangs of killer monkeys be bad? Just add bellhop uniforms and you've got a classic.

I blame myself. I should have never introduced a roving gang of killer monkeys.

Actually, the killer monkeys were great, at the end of the story I was going to have the main character discover the reason behind the murders was that someone threatened to expose a dangerous truth, that the killer monkeys in question were the ones responsible for writing scripts for 7th Heaven. Alas, it never got that far.

Bad fiction was a labor of love, a child of the collective mind of geniuses on the board. That child had to be aborted though and carried away in a stainless steel bucket.

It had the best of the worst descriptive narrative. Example: "The phone on the bedside table beside the bed began to ring." It could have been a contender!

First off, thanks to FPW for the response about Jack's favorite buildings. The one time I went to New York I loved the concrete jungle. Standing on the street looking up at the buildings, it felt like I was standing in a man made canyon. The vast variety of architecture was amazing and the weirder the building the more curious I became. I could probably spend weeks just going around the city at the more unusual buildings, even though 9/11 severely changed the landscape.

In regards to Bad Fiction, I still write lots of it on my own. My Merry Christmas Letter to you all:

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and Exuberant Festivus!

Well it’s that time of year again! This year ranked right up there with 1978 and 1985 for me and Susan. Those were fairly mediocre years for both of us. No wedding, no new dental practice, no new dog as in years past. But is has been a time of steady accomplishment as I built a great deck (finishing just in time to wait till next year to enjoy it) and Susan moved up (well we movin’ on uuu-up!) another rung of the old career ladder at work (which continues to inspire the TV show “The Office”). BarkLee buried his 147th pig ear in the back yard in mid-November before the ground got too hard (that bettered his rookie year when he burst out of the gate burying 113).

Susan and I have really begun to settle in to our home and our marriage this year. We’ve tackled some nice home improvement projects and thrown ourselves into an intensive ESP/mind-reading experiment to bring our relationship to a fun new level (Susan saw a thing about it on Dr. Phil). We can move an Oldsmobile with our minds. But mostly we use it to play tricks on the neighbors (the ones with the Oldsmobile).

I continue to play soccer in the “Past Our Prime and Kidding Ourselves League” where the ultimate highlight is flattening anyone under 30. Susan enjoys her Pilates classes where they use medieval torture devices to create 6 pack abs, increase flexibility and build enough stamina to make a Kenyan distance runner scream “Sweet, Fancy Moses!”

In July we had our summer party at Elmwood Park where the hotdogs flowed like wine all day and kids from 2 to 67 enjoyed the bounce-house. Most of our friends and family showed up and a great time was had by all.

We traveled quite a bit this year. In March we took a long weekend in Scottsdale where we climbed Camelback Mountain in shorts one day and toured Sonoma during a blizzard on the following day (not making this up). In June we spent a week in Colorado splitting time between gorgeous Rocky Mountain National Park (where we went on spectacular hikes and rode horses/little ponies with the Lowndes gang) and relaxing at the fabulous Beaver Creek resort (in Beaver Creek). But the big travel highlight was the Caribbean cruise in November. My folks and some close friends made the trip with us and made it all the more memorable. We swam with the stingrays off Grand Cayman, snorkeled off Isla Roatan, Honduras and Belize and had fun saying “poop deck” the whole time. My dad hasn’t quit wearing his white Captain Stuebing socks since we got back. We would love to go back to Roatan as it doesn’t have a Starbucks, a Gap and a Home Depot anywhere on the island.

As the New Year approaches we are thankful for each other, for our family and our friends (and for our mutts). Hope to see each of you soon. Take care of yourselves and one another. A donation of $.05 has been made in your name to the BarkLee Foix Squeaky Toy Foundation for their annual Fire Hydrant Poker Run to raise money for backyard poop removal. Peace, out!

Happy Holidays from Chris and Susan Foix!

First off, thanks to FPW for the response about Jack's favorite buildings. The one time I went to New York I loved the concrete jungle. Standing on the street looking up at the buildings

That's usually when your pocket gets picked.