The History of The Frisco
Foil . . .
Go back to 1849, the
city of San Francisco. Streets of mud led the way to honky-tonk
bars, and inside those bars sat a thousand fools who thought
they might find gold in them thar hills.
Tiberius Kirk sat among them.
Born in Iowa, raised on a farm, he had come West to seek fortune
and adventure. Instead, he lost his foot in a mining accident
and they started calling him Footless Jimmy. Not bad, but nicknames
don't pay the rent.
In six months, Tiberius had run out of money and found himself
sitting in a bar called The Chinaman's Tooth, staring into the
bottom of an empty glass. He got mad. He got drunk. Then he got
even.
After a three-week bender that is still described with reverence
in certain circles, Kirk sobered up and decided to start a newspaper.
He named it the Frisco Foil, and he planned to skewer all those
people who made fools out of honest people like himself.
He had only two goals. Print the truth, and print the mayhem.
Even he didn't know what the hell that meant, but it sounded
good under the banner.
The Frisco Foil started as a single-sheet penny-paper. Kirk published
it from a little office in back of The Chinaman's Tooth. He had
a hand-crank printing press and some old parchment, and he printed
whatever struck him as funny or odd or just plain newsworthy.
Sometimes people bought it. Sometimes the bar used it for placemats.
Eventually, Kirk developed a following that surprised even him.
He published the Frisco Foil for 50 years. He was last seen walking
off into the desert in 1901 to view Halley's Comet. Who knows?
Maybe the comet picked him up.
Anyway, the Foil went on printing the Truth and Mayhem. It published
through The Great War, the Roaring Twenties and the Depression.
When it came time to skewer the Nazis, it did that, too. And
in the 1950s, when certain people in our own country started
getting a little out of hand, the Foil told it like it was.
Now fast-forward a little bit.
It's the 23rd century. San Francisco is still there. The streets
are a little nicer. The Chinaman's Tooth still occupies the same
building, except now it's called The Andorian's Tooth.
The Frisco Foil is still there, too. Except now it's called The
Federation Foil.
Don't get excited. Not much has changed. Still hardboiled. Still
tough. Except now there's guys with wierd heads.
The Federation
Foil covers The United Federation of Planets. The
UFP is this big confab of mugs from all over the galaxy. You
got your Klingons, your Romulans, your Cardassians, even your
Gorns.
We covered the Doomsday Machine, the Rommie/Voyager cover-up,
the whole Tribble conspiracy, and a few other things you should
probably read about. We've done interviews with a guy named Khan
and a being called the Borg.
Back in the 1900s, the government hated us. Well, it's no different
in the 23rd Century. The UFP thinks we have it in for them, but
the fact is, they hang themselves most of the time.
Hey, all we're doing is printing the Truth and Mayhem. Sometimes
it's in Klingon, but it's still there.
