PrivateTim

Robbie Rogers was talked about in a very minor way in another topic, but with him being an OC surf boy and now being on the LA Galaxy with another OC surf boy (Jack McBean) I thought it worth talking about his "Letter to my 14 year old self". It is very moving and maybe if you've never been a 14 year old gay athlete at a Catholic school it is hard to relate to, but I think the words he's said and the ease with which the LA Galaxy players have publicly accepted him made him worthy of his own topic. Letter to my 14 year old self

Horse properties are hard to come by. In LA County they are in Malibu, Calabasas and Agoura, maybe a few in Burbank. Burbank has the LA Equestrian Center where they held the '84 Olympic events, Griffith Park has stables and there is a private stable in the Hollywood Hills, but boarding a horse isn't the same as having them stabled at home. I can't see Wade being overly worried about horses and babies in law school. He and Matt have plenty of time to buy the big house someplace, but The Wilshire, or a place like it, is more likely where two grad students are going to land. An interesting thought...... Wade could go the John Kennedy route of working in the public defenders office. A nice touch for someone with aspirations to higher office who doesn't give a carp (sic) he is being grossly underpaid. It could also bring in story lines for Father Tim and the mission.

He'd be a scary ass boyfriend

I am thinking Tonto was more like this.... all dolled up to go out at De Angelo's Family Restaurant and Pizzeria in downtown Claremont.

Very cool chapter..... poor Marie, she is so out of her depth trying mess with Will and she just keeps digging her own grave deeper and deeper. The binoculars. I am guessing Be Rad had them placed there.

It is funny to think how many of the listed "who should" list aren't very relevant to the story anymore.

Matt & Wade aren't going to live in Bel Air, no one under 50 wants to live in Bel Air. They'll get a condo on Wilshire Blvd. And Silver Lake is the La Brea Tar Pits of the gay community, it is where old gay go to die. There maybe have been a hipster subculture move in, but it wasn't gay hipsters and no one going to UCLA would ever live in Silver Lake. Even WeHo is too far. UCLA students live in Westwood, the Wilshire corridor, the Brentwood corridor and maybe a few in Santa Monica who are hard core beach people. And no one with a half an ounce of self respect would ever be a hipster.

Agree with all that, especially the anger part on Will's part. He can easily forgive the guy who broke his nose and almost ruined his summer, but gets bitchy with two of the people who love him the most? I am sure Marie will be spreading the STD rumor around school with the help of Ferret and we'll see how Will is able to handle that pressure. I don't think his temperament is geared to let that slide off his back. I also agree that Marie's character seems to have shifted radically from the NYE party to the time of the Bastille Day party. Stef is a gossip, why is that so surprising? What Stef has said is that he'll keep confidences confidential, but that everything else was fair game. Did Will tell his contractor not to tell Stef about the sex room? I mean the contractor was working with Stef on the house why wouldn't he have told or asked for some direction? When Stef told Brad it was more gossip than some sort or tattletale situation. Brad handled the situation badly, but you certainly think he would have learned by now how to approach Will to get the results he is looking for. As to Noah, do we know if Will has talked to Noah since the Bastille Day party? Did Noah go to the party? Will has been gone all summer, how do we know what Marie has been filling Noah's head with? (like how Will is just being nice because he wants to get on him) We've seen Noah as a pretty nice, straight forward (read gullible) guy. Those kind of guys don't understand people who are devious and two faced.

I am guessing that Kyle got the warts from Ferris, which is how he got pulled into Marie's little drama. I still think Will's fuse is way to short, especially when it comes to Brad, He is willing to fuck and fall for a guy who broke his nose and all but accused him of giving him an STD, but won't cut his father a break and was even bitchy with Stef who has done as much or more. Will needs a little anger management or something.

Did Will approach it maturely or like a horny teen? I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and call it mature. Me too on the anticipation and dread, we've been building to this point for a while. I was thinking Noah worked in a restaurant/fast food place for some reason. I think Marie is doing it just to spite Will. I am not talking about teen drama, I am talking about life drama. In the last two years Brad has been kidnapped and slotted for death and had an assassination attempt on him. Everybody in his family is high profile so they would be trying to keep a low profile and I think that would have been discussed. As hard as this is to believe, because it feels like they've been with us forever, we are still in a pre-MySpace, Facebook even Friendster era, there are no camera phones yet and texting isn't a thing yet so those parts of "be careful where you are and what you do" aren't with us yet, but even so I think that there would have been conversations on safety and image. I can't imagine Claire not knowing who Marie was dating, especially if it was common knowledge amongst the peers.

I just called missing persons and reported Mark Arbour is missing! Consequences from sex? Sure doesn't sound like any author I know! Where is Mark Arbour and what have you done with him!? What are your demands?! Very interesting chapter and mostly interesting because it opens so many new avenues. If we didn't have the variable of the author's choice to make Marie's actions about what ever he chooses I'd say it is pretty obvious and transparent. Marie has been hanging with/dating Noah because it is about the only way to get to/get back at Will. Ruin his best friendship in Menlo. If Mari had had an epiphany about what a little bitch she has been, she would have already apologized to Will, told him she was dating Noah and life would be hunky dory, but hello, this is CAP! So no, Marie is using the relationship with Noah to get to Will and will only hurt both of them. Poor Noah is just going to be collateral damage. Whether it damages his friendship with Will long term remains to be seen. The question I want to know about is what does Claire think? She isn't stupid, surely she must be wondering why Marie is suddenly dating the guy who "creeped her out" and set off a bomb in the family because he was removed from the guest list. She knows he is Will's friend and knows what Marie had said. So what is she saying/doing? One interesting aspect of this chapter is the observations of Eric, both in how clueless Will is about the bubble he lives in and the scrutiny that comes with it. Surely you would have thought that Brad and Robbie would have had this discussion with the boys long before this especially since Robbie is in the movie business and they live in Malibu. That would be enough to trigger interest in their lives in Los Angeles. People in the "outside" world might not know the Irwin Winkler and Wendy Finerman of the business, but in small world of "The Industry" they are well known. In any case it gives me hope that the CAP series will survive the next two weeks Thanks for enough storylines to see 9-11 through a lot more chapters!

Hunh.... I wonder who wrote this chapter??? Consequences from sex? Sure doesn't sound like any author I know! Where is Mark Arbour and what have you done with him!? Very interesting chapter and mostly interesting because it opens so many new avenues. If we didn't have the variable of the author's choice to make Marie's action about what ever he chooses I'd say it is pretty obvious and transparent. Marie has been hanging with/dating Noah because it is about the only way to get to/get back at Will. Ruin his best friendship in Menlo. If Mari had had an epiphany about what a little bitch she has been, she would have already apologized to Will, told him she was dating Noah and life would be hunky dory, but hello, this is CAP! So no, Marie is using the relationship with Noah to get to Will and will only hurt both of them. One interesting aspect is the observations of Eric, both in how clueless Will is about the bubble he lives in and the scrutiny that comes with it. Surely you would have thought that Brad and Robbie would have had this discussion with the boys long before this especially since Robbie is in the movie business and they live in Malibu. That would be enough to trigger interest in their lives in Los Angeles. People in the "outside" world might not know the Irwin Winkler and Wendy Finerman of the business, but in small world of "The Industry" they are well known. In any case it gives me hope that the CAP series will survive the next two weeks Thanks for enough storylines to see 9-11 through a lot more chapters!

Thanks Mark for all the writing. I abandoned the Granger stories just because I don't have the time to read both stories which is why I am amazed that you can write them both simultaneously. I liked Hornblower when I was a kid and then graduated to Patrick O'Bryan. When CAP ends here in the next couple of weeks with the collapse of the towers and everyone in the story's demise I'll get back to Granger

You obviously have no conception of what life is like when you are rich.

The problem I have with Brad is the Jekyll and Hyde aspect of the character. He is reasonable enough to not fight Will's emancipation, starts treating Will like an adult and talking to him differently and gets good results from it and then suddenly reverts back to crazy, controlling Brad? And because Will is drinking? Like Brad didn't drink like a fish and throw wild parties at Escorial? And now Robbie is the reasonable one? When two months ago Will was so pissed at Robbie he couldn't see straight? THC does not stay in the bloodstream very long, which is why when anti-doping agencies test they usually do urine tests. If they really want to know they do hair tests, but that is rare because hair tests are pretty expensive. The IOC just recently bumped the "positive" standard from 15 ng/ml to 150 ng/ml. Not eveN Cheech Marin would flunk that test.

The CAP series is coming to an abrupt end if Hank and Jeannie hold their ceremony at Windows on the World..... but I suspect this means that Hank will survive the day, but get called away before the ceremony takes place or maybe immediately afterwards. Thanks Mark for the amazing body of work. I have no idea how you keep up the frenetic pace of writing. The only writers in America who write with such rapidity have to be the writers for the soaps. The characters are skillfully written that many of us feel like they are friends. Wouldn't it be interesting if it were Isidore who reminded Brad what his stubbornness and attitude in high school were like, the drinking and partying he had done and some of the consequences?

Improper makes it sound like its "against the rules" just for the sake of being "against the rules" and that there are no practical or legitimate reasons as to why children shouldn't be promiscuous, No one, at least no one I know, says that getting laid when you are 14 is going to be traumatic for a guy, not even when the person is twice you age. I know it is inconsistent, but I do think it is different when a guy is 15 and the woman is 30, than a 30 year old guy and 15 year old girl. But traumatic isn't quite the right word. I don't know the right word to use, but I do think that when you've had 30 partners before you are 15, especially when you are straight, it is going to effect future relationships. I do think it is slightly different for gay males. With your friends, how many of the three have had more than one marriage? How many of the wolves stayed wolves and ruined relationships through it? Sociology and psychology are not really my things, but I did have a lot of the classes in college and it does come into play in my job in peripheral ways. I think there are any number of studies that show practical or legitimate reasons why being promiscuous (as opposed to just sexually active) is not healthy emotionally, whether or not the person realizes the consequences and anecdotal evidence aside.

Can we just go ahead and add Erik and Pedro now or do we have to wait until they actually have sex before adding them?

Great chapter. Will Will's generosity of spirit extend to his father? I am pretty sure we haven't seen the last of Kai, obviously Will owns that house now so he'll be back in Maui, but how will things change? It is never the same as it was before, but that doesn't mean that different is bad, its just different. I get that Marie is probably going to be a bitch the first couple of weeks at school, but I bet 9-11 changes her attitude. I remember how it seemed like everyone went out of their way the first few weeks after 9-11 to be extra nice to others. It was like people reordered their priorities, at least for a while, before settling back into "the new normal".

Whether or not Will is a real person and the work is fiction or non-fiction doesn't really matter. The situations and moral dilemmas are real and the discussions around them have validity. Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Jungle, and the works of Charles Dickens, all of which were fiction, served to change the societies into which they were introduced through the discussions they engendered. I'd like to think one day every Christmas we could be treated to Will Schluter instead of that simpering brat, Tiny you know who. God Bless is everyone

A nice little chapter. I hope Kai doesn't fall back in with Scott and his cousin when Will leaves and that he and Will stay in touch even if it is just an email once a week. It's funny, I am actually getting nervous as 9-11 approaches. It is something we've talked about for a couple of years now and that time is just around the corner.

Without looking at anecdotal experiences, Will is way, way ahead of other 14 year olds. There are all kinds of studies out there that talk about at what age teens have sex for the first time and all kinds that talk about the average number of lifetime partners.

Will at 14 is not mature enough to make these kinds of decisions, decisions effecting his health and psychological make-up. Don't misunderstand what emancipation means. It means he can sign contracts to rent an apartment, buy a house, get a job etc. It does not change the laws on who he can have sex with, whether or not he can drink, whether or not he can drive and the other decisions associated with the age of majority. The Supreme Court in the Roper v Simmons ruling (juvenile death penalty) noted in the decision, “[a] lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility are found in youth more often than in adults" and "These qualities often result in impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions.” and “adolescents are overrepresented statistically in virtually every category of reckless behavior.” So if Brad were mad enough to go back to the court to try and have the emancipation revoked, he might be on solid ground if he knew about Will's 28-30 partners, their ages and all the circumstances. But it all misses the point. There is an incredible gulf between settle down in virtual marriage when you are 14 years old and fuck every guy and any guy you like without regard to the dangers and damages to yourself. Most 14 year olds are acquiring friends and family is not the same as friends, they are entirely different dynamics. Jane Mendle released an excellent study on the links between promiscuity and depression in adolescents and the link is even more pronounced for those under 15 ( Depression and adolescent sexual activity ). The idea that 14 year olds need to "experiment" in order to figure out what is good for them is patently absurd. Should they experiment with heroin to figure out if is good for them? Laurence Steinberg, PhD of Temple has been doing groundbreaking work on risky behaviors in adolescents. One of his studies shows that adolescents, while they understand the risky behavior, are actually hard wired at that age to ignore what their minds tell them on the risk. That is one of the reasons that most minors do NOT win emancipation and why it requires parental consent. It assumes that the parent is going to stay involved with the child and that the reason they are seeking emancipation is not so they can engage in high risk behavior. So no. Will is not the best judge of what is good for him. if it is not an adult in his life, it might have to be his psychologist. And apropos to nothing, I bet Will's number of partners is twice that of the supposed Lothario, Darius. In the previous section I mentioned I bet Will is well ahead of Darius in sex partners. I bet he is well ahead of Wade as well and maybe even with Matt or ahead of Matt. The point is, that since Will is really on his own, no adult really knows what he is up to or is plugged into him on the level where Will talk about what is going on in his life. I bet Wade would be appalled to find out that Will has had close to 30 partners already and two of the last three have been close to double his 14 years. I think Jeff would provide valuable insight for him on how vacuous just sex can be. I think even Stef, as promiscuous as he is, would think Will has gone too far too fast. I have no doubt that because of the connection between Jeff and Ryan, that Will will continue to have contact with Ryan, plus the bond that they have developed on their own. I also think that there is a dynamic between Alistair and Will that has a lot of upside.

Will is not yet a sophomore in high school, nor is he 15 yet and he is approaching 30 different sexual partners already. I don't know a single, mainstream psychologist or psychiatrist who would think that is normal or healthy for a 14 year old. Will needs friends he can rely on more than he needs sexual partners. I don't think most people are looking for Will to find his love now, settle down now and enter relationship bliss at 14, but there is a lot more to life than flitting from one sexual encounter to the next. Right now Wade is the only person that we can really say is a friend who is in Will's life. Ryan might be a friend still but is out of the picture because he is back in L.A. And despite Will's blowing up the family over Noah not being invited to the party, we haven't seen Will having any contact with Noah. Is that because Noah isn't a potential sexual partner? Here is a scary calculator. How many people have you slept with I think you have it wrong. You are better off being satisfied with what you have, then always looking for something better. If Tony "rocks" his world sexually, what's to say there isn't someone even better? If you don't keep trying with guy after guy after guy you will always be ignorant (have a lack of knowledge) of how good they are in bed? I would also challenge that "ignorance" as you seem to be defining it isn't always bad. For example, I am ignorant of what it is like to be the son of an alcoholic, abusive father; I am ignorant of what it is like to have a leg blown off; I am ignorant of what it is like to inject heroin into my veins. I don't feel my lack of knowledge (ignorance) of these things is bad. Acquiring direct knowledge that is potentially bad or harmful to you isn't a good thing. I didn't need to experience first hand putting my hand on the hot stove to know it was going to be bad. But back on the topic of Will specifically, should he be with a partner who can give him great sex, but nothing else? No loyalty? No trust? No commitment? What we like isn't always healthy for us.

Based on the latest chapter of 9-11, I am so glad Tony has to be in NY next month to meet with his financial advisors at Cantor Fitz. Here is an interesting point to ponder...... does Will's satisfaction with Tony as a sex partner get in the way of a potential relationship with not just Kai, but anyone else as a future partner/spouse and at the next level of pondering, does it then give credence to the notion that promiscuity and sex before marriage are bad? Not bad on a moral level, which would be "it is bad just because we say it is bad", but on a practical level? It is slightly encouraging that Claire is worried about Marie, but surely if Claire is who we all thought she was, why hasn't she called Will to apologize about excluding Noah? If she is who we thought she was, while being disappointed in how Will chose to approach the exclusion of Noah, she would surely have seen by now that her own actions were wrong (back to that pesky Golden Rule) and taken the first step to restore her and Will's relationship and then worry about how the rift between Will and Marie is going to effect the family. So it is one thing for Claire in conversations with Isidore to feel badly about what has happened with Will and to be worried about Marie, but it is another to acknowledge that publicly or even to acknowledge it to JP, who is still smarting over the fact that Claire and Marie didn't go to Claremont for the dedication. It will be interesting to see if the Claire we'd grown used to and thoughts was the heir apparent to JP will reemerge.