Dale and everyone,
How about this idea. Let's put a cork in the Mario thing for a while. Clearly this plague isn't going to go away, a few people are always going to be interested in Confente and things are always likely to get stirred up any time one comes up for sale on eBay. Dale doesn't need the added chore of makeing sure we aren't all out in the sandbox kicking sand at each other while he got his hands full. Instead, this might work out better.
I think a timeline of events from the beginning of Masi in Carlsbad (and the resulting tributaries) to some point as the end, say 1985, might be the best thing to do. I have trouble keeping concious track of what detail fits where relative to other parts of the story; and I am now quite familiar with the majority of the details having spoken with several of the other participants in this fiasco. I imagine most people don't care that much, and those who do most likely don't have anywhere near the grasp on it as I do, since I was present for a lot of it.
During this "corked period" I will talk with a few other participants in an effort to cross reference what I've heard so far and to squeeze out any new details that may help clarify any issue. I feel anyone who ever worked at Masi/Medici/Confente during this period can and should contribute to the effort, by proxy if neccessary, until we have a bunch of details, dates, and any other relative information. No one on the list will have to hear a thing; no dialog, bickering, or long debates. You just wait for the freeze-dried version. Don't look at it if you don't want to. It could (quite easily) take a while to produce a result. As far as I know, there's no hurry to do it. Listmembers have had enough for a while; a long break I'm sure is welcomed. Let Dale chill for a while.
Then I can work with Dave Feldman trying to make sense of it all and hopefully come up with something that one could look at and say " that all fits and makes perfect sense". It should explain all the questions as to why such and such happened when it did and what resulted from the key events once they happened. At that point, anyone who gave a rats ass what or when any given thing happened, could look at it and say "yeah, so what!" End of "Mario Problem". Even I'm getting tired of it. I'm for sure tired of the old method of trying to straighten out this mess. But once laid out, I think most people would agree that the tale is crazier than Mr. Toads' Wild Ride and semi-interesting at times (to some people). One can't deny that it is a small part of cycling history that is of some interest to some of our membership.
Brian Baylis
Disneyland, anyone?