PrivateTim

Denver will go further, but not far enough, they lose the AFC Championship to New England, 28-26. San Francisco will beat Atlanta in the NFC Championship 45-27.

I can appreciate that, that being said.... welll, ummmm....

George Catlin and Claude Monet.

Well the minute Will turns his cellphone on, he is traceable and I am not sure a 14 year old would know that in 2000. I am not sure most people realize it now how easy it is to find you now. If you run away and don't want to be found, leave the cellphone at home.

Except of course Will had already planted drugs in Martin's coffee. Will started the chain of events without knowing what the consequences would be. I believe Lark is on Maui.

The only thing Brad and Robbie have done so far as I can tell is be too permissive. If I had pulled a stunt when I was 13 like he did in Paris, I'd still be grounded. They might be a little clueless as to Will's lashing out is a symptom of deeper issues than ordinary teen angst, but I would never have gotten away with speaking to my parents like that in high school, or certainly not my freshman year. I would have lost privileges a lot sooner than Will did. I don't think LA family court is going to find "taking away the credit cards" as a reason for termination of parental rights. Brad and Robbie haven't done anything wrong in the eyes of a social worker. Being a distracted parent isn't what you call a major offense compared to the babies with cigarette burns, kids with strap marks and broken bones. Everyone needs to get a grip about Brad and Robbie's shortcomings in the real world. Just because Will has a mad on no court is going to take away custody. Will is supposed to be this smart, mature kid. Even at my worst, "woe is me", angsty teen moment did I ever doubt my parents loved me. I believed them misguided, ill equipped to guide the direction of my life, unreasonable and down right mean at times (why else wouldn't they let me go skiing with the seniors from the team when I was a freshman if it wasn't just to be mean), but never did I doubt their love based on everything else. It took a while, but I came to understand they had been right usually.

Armie lived Pasadena so he would have traveled in very different circles from Will and his friends. Robbie would have known Armie's father because among his business ventures was a production company. And Brad would have known Michael (Armie's father) the way that all the well off know each other, from functions and fund raisers. I think Michael sits on the board at Pepperdine, so I suppose Will and Robbie could have bumped into Michael and Armie at the Malibu Country Mart one morning or afternoon.

Tim's "Disney career" ended because Tim got the plum role of Mike Douglas on My Three Sons and his role ran for 185 episodes over 5 years, but he got too old to be in the cast as a son so he was married off. After that he did minor roles here and there, but when you've done a role like he did for 5 years it can be hard for a child actor to break that corner you put yourself in. But he didn't need the money, he was well off; he didn't need to attention, he was pretty grounded; and he had other interests. He mostly moved on.

I would say for a certain segment of the young rich in LA, that rings very true. The only thing missing was a $500 sushi lunch. Did you ever see the TV show Princes of Malibu? See if you can find the episodes online someplace. They would have been contemporaries of Will and JJ. But it is only a certain segment. There are also the young rich in LA that are highly motivated and successful in their own right. They work hard in high school, go to top notch universities, top notch grad schools and become doctors, lawyers and start their own businesses.

If that is the toned down version I'd hate to see the non-toned version. I think I'd have just burned the houses down with Martin strapped in the sex room. The police and arson investigators would have led us to the trial of the century and the tabloids would have gone ape-doo doo.

Hmmmm a very hard review to write because I realize that Mark puts his heart, soul and precious time into writing. I appreciate what it takes to write a story of this magnitude and to have been doing it for years. But. I just didn't get this chapter at all. It seems out of character for everyone, for Brad, for Robbie, for a former Marine Corps officer who is now a licensed child psychologist and especially for Will. Brad just does not seem like the Brad from Paris from a few months back. When that kind of a major trauma happens with your kids you just don't do what has been done in the past few chapters, you walk around on egg shells, wake up in a cold sweat and go check to see if your kid is in his bed at 3AM because you can't sleep. They might have hired a child psychologist to work with Will, but it wouldn't be someone who has a past that would probably have been well documented. It might have even been a woman. Marine Corps officer don't go around slapping people into compliance, they brow beat and out think, but they don't use violence, they have other forms of punishment. Brad is supposed to be a highly intelligent man and he hasn't been doing very smart things. He is also someone who has been through a lot of counseling himself and knows well enough how to manipulate people to control them, not using force or the standard tools that some people might use. Robbie too who has been through even more counseling would have recognized the signs in Will that said a different approach was needed. These are not your average high school grad fathers who now work in a trade, they are two highly intelligent guys, graduated from the finest schools in the country and each highly successful where you have to deal with people all the time, lead them and you don't lead through intimidation you lead by building partnerships and that is exactly how we have seen Brad lead his co-workers when they were getting ready to take over Triton. He didn't bark orders at people, he leaned on people's strengths. I can't believe he'd approach Will's upbringing in a different manner. As to Will's implosion, that seems out of character too. Will, the Will you've created, while he might be an angsty teen just isn't the kind of kid that would do that destruction. Kids don't usually externalize their pain, they internalize it by doing damage to themselves. Will is supposed to be a smart, mature kid. He didn't think or act as a smart mature teen. Once Martin hit him and did what he did, Will should have adjusted his plan and gone to Paly directly. Once Stef and JP saw the photos of what Martin did, Brad would have had hell to pay getting Will back from Stef and JP. If there was anything of Brad left after Claire had ripped through him Stef and JP would have picked over the carcass. I can't express enough Mark my deep appreciation of you and the work you do. Also the deep respect I have for you as a person. You are one of the few people in The Soapbox that can actually influence me, such is my respect for you. I just think this chapter is a miss for me. I do trust you enough that there is a bigger picture I am not seeing because you know where you are going with all this and I don't. PS. A fake ID in the area where The Mission is would run about $50 and ten roofies another $50

Hmmm, I've always used "that being said" as a way to qualify what I am about to say. For example, someone asks, "I am coming to L.A. for a week, I won't have a car, I want someplace very safe and my budget is $150. Should I stay in Hollywood or Santa Monica?" I would answer, "Hollywood isn't the safest place in LA to stay, it is gritty in places. That being said, it IS the best place to stay in LA without a car and there are lots of hotels in your price range."

1. Comoros 2. Nauru 3. Burkina Faso 4. Mauritius 5. Tuvalu

You have the story completely wrong. Tim Considine is completely straight, has been married twice, his second and current marriage started in 1979. Tommy Kirk IS gay and everyone at Disney knew, including Walt himself and no one cared until in 1963 when the 23 year old Kirk was having an affair with a 15 year old boy and the mother complained to the studio. Even at that the studio brought him back in 1965 for The Monkey's Uncle. In 2006 Tommy Kirk, Tim Considine and Kevin Corcoran were all inducted in the Disney Legends hall of fame.

As to JJ, I think peers have as much influence on you as anyone. Being around people who are serious about school, who think school is cool, have motivation, goals etc, you mimic that behavior as much as emo's mimic the behavior of their group. With friends like Alistair who are very goal oriented you tend to be too.

Almost every school I can think of these days in CA requires community service. As to JJ, since skaters have so much down time, all they do is study since they aren't really allowed to do much else. I am sure H-W would work out a tutor for JJ on times he was away.

"conservative" "liberal" are the wrong terms to think in. Traditional and progressive are better labels. Parents send their kids to H-W knowing they are going to get a no nonsense, tough, traditional education. There is no touchy feely good-hearted-ness because you really tried. The kids are expected to hit high standards. A lot of the parents are ones who send their kids there to give them their best shot at the best colleges in the country. I am sure there are parents who send their kids there because of the high achieving sports programs, but even then I think it is one more avenue to get them to top schools like Stanford, etc. And ditto for the artsy types who want to go to NYU or USC for film, Carnegie Mellon and Juilliard for a BFA acting and Northwestern and BU for drama.

But if her parents were hippy dippys who got (or were already) affluence Raine would be at Crossroads or Oakwood, not the ultimate establishment school in L.A.

My thoughts that I somewhat touched on in my review. I find Ryan's reaction interesting. In my experience most straight guys are more freaked out by kissing a gay guy (or straight) than being sucked by, fucking or even sucking themselves. Kissing is more intimate than just recreational sex. I know he'll come around though and when Ryan gets shit for Will not being in school a few days from his peers, he'll come around even faster. Raine could be preggers (the story is called "Paternity" after all), but no parent of a 14/15 year old at Harvard-Westlake is going to let their daughter have a baby. Even if her father was president of Pro-Life L.A. you'd be surprised at how views change when it is personal, not theoretical. As to Will and his fathers, that little scene in the study and the resulting new bodyguard, etc wouldn't have even been skirmish in the battle I had with my father for two years in high school. One of the major problems I think is that Brad and Robbie have no moral authority when it comes to their kids. They know their parents smoke bud so that undermines their "respect my authoriah!" (or any authority) posturing. They know Brad was rowdy and drank in high school and I don't recall Brad ever having a conversation with Will about why it was BAD that he drank in high school, that it led to his Uncle Billy's death and that Brad now regretted some of the things he did in high school looking back from an adult standpoint. I knew my father had been a bit of a wild man when he was younger (knowing his friends from that age and hearing their stories), but when he sat me down (the day after I came home drunk from my first high school party my freshman year) and told me he had made mistakes, he didn't want me to make the same mistakes and that getting busted by the police or sheriffs department could take away everything I valued at that time (playing HS sports, future college admissions, especially Annapolis, respect of my grandparents and more), I listened because he acknowledged his mistakes back then AND I had never seen him doing anything illegal or shady; no drugs, no drunk driving, no cutting corners in business, not murdering people even if they deserved it etc. He had moral authority even if I was pissed at him for a couple of years, I still had respect for him and his moral authority. His deeds followed his word and I noticed. Expanding on the battles between fathers and sons, I think it depends on what the relationship was like before they entered the high school years, what else is happening with the kid and what the home is like in general. My father and I were close before the war started and closer when it ended. I wasn't a rebellious kid, I was a straight A honor student, three sport letterman, active in school government, active in my church youth group and popular in my peer group. I am not sure what precipitated the rough two years with my father (end of 9th grade to end of 11th) other than maybe my growing up, being too smart for my own good, my youthful arrogance and stubbornness. I am not sure what brought the feud to an end, whether it was my mother's intervention, my grandparents, my maturing a bit (just a bit), all of the above or what, but that summer between my jr and sr years was good and so was my senior year. The big break through came on that first trip back from college for Thanksgiving. I had been away at school since early August by that point and I had grown up a lot in that four month period and realized how much my family meant to me and I think that separation did the same thing for them. Even though I'd seen them in that four month period because they came to more than a few of my water polo games, it was different being back in my old room and old house. It made me see the house as more than that and made me appreciate the distinctions between a house and a home. I am confident Will and Brad will get there too.

I find Ryan's reaction interesting. In my experience most straight guys are more freaked out by kissing a gay guy (or straight) than being sucked by, fucking or even sucking themselves. Kissing is more intimate than just recreational sex. I know he'll come around though and when Ryan gets shit for Will not being in school a few days from his peers, he'll come around even faster. Raine could be preggers (the story is called "Paternity" after all), but no parent of a 14/15 year old at Harvard-Westlake is going to let their daughter have a baby. Even if her father was president of Pro-Life L.A. you'd be surprised at how views change when it is personal, not theoretical. As to Will and his fathers, that little scene in the study and the resulting new bodyguard, etc wouldn't have even been skirmish in the battle I had with my father for two years in high school. One of the major problems I think is that Brad and Robbie have no moral authority when it comes to their kids. They know their parents smoke bud so that undermines their "respect my authoriah!" (or any authority) posturing. They know Brad was rowdy and drank in high school and I don't recall Brad ever having a conversation with Will about why it was BAD that he drank in high school, that it led to his Uncle Billy's death and that Brad now regretted some of the things he did in high school looking back from an adult standpoint. I knew my father had been a bit of a wild man when he was younger (knowing his friends from that age and hearing their stories), but when he sat me down (the day after I came home drunk from my first high school party my freshman year) and told me he had made mistakes, he didn't want me to make the same mistakes and that getting busted by the police or sheriffs department could take away everything I valued at that time (playing HS sports, future college admissions, especially Annapolis, respect of my grandparents and more), I listened because he acknowledged his mistakes back then AND I had never seen him doing anything illegal or shady; no drugs, no drunk driving, no cutting corners in business, not murdering people even if they deserved it etc. He had moral authority even if I was pissed at him for a couple of years, I still had respect for him and his moral authority. His deeds followed his word and I noticed.

Milo.

I am not familiar with A Rent Boy Named...... What was it about it that it could not be published here? Or at Nifty?

I do love the story, but I am not sure God's messengers speak in 17th century English

Wow, sex in their tent on the float trip, I never saw that one coming It was freaking hot and not unrealistic based on some of my high school misadventures. I hope Ryan stays cool and doesn't freak out later. The only thing I have a hard time believing is that Brad wouldn't be already up at 5AM everyday with or without an alarm clock. Someone with major business interests on the east coast is just used to being up early, being on 6AM conference calls, etc. I do think that Brad and Robbie need to figure out how to sit Will down and have a conversation with him. And if Will starts to pull his teen angst routine, they need to remind him if he wants to be treated as an adult, he needs to act like it. I am a little surprised Shiloh didn't stop when she saw Ryan, most HS kids when they get busted having sex, even busted by a peer, freak out a little.

Who believes anything a goat has to say..... they are only useful for making stews and tacos....