PrivateTim

Zach would have to come to a place where he loves Will more then he does football and he is no where near that now. It has nothing to do with savvy or fortitude, but is a case of priorities.

Here is how it is SUPPOSED to be

Well it's about time there was some major drama...... Although I am not understanding this "exhibition" thing. High school football has showcases and combines, I've never heard of an exhibition. And if it was an important combine or showcase, Barry would have already known about it. I don't remember what the state of them was in 2002, but these days getting invited to the NUC 100 is pretty significant to a high school player. It is also interesting that Wade and Matt seem closer than they have been in two or three years, but they still aren't getting back together. I think they are at a more crucial point than they realize.

Modern feminism started in the 1960's and early 70's with Betty Friedan and then led to Catherine MacKinnon, Andrea Dworkin and the rest.

I think the discussion is getting close to the now banned political forum, but this was not a hate crime. It was very clearly a mental health issue and no one wants to start talking about mental health issues because no one likes the answers about forced commitment and forced medication. This also clearly not a crime against women. That he couldn't get laid by women was merely the fixation of his mental illness. Did no one notice that he murdered more Asian men than he did women? Or that male victims outnumbered female victims 2 to 1? College students getting drunk and having sex isn't new. This aggressive language of tarring men as predators for "getting women drunk and raping them" is ridiculous. The incidents of women actually raped while they were passed out or unable to consent are quite few, but the modern feminist interpretation of any impairment on the part of the woman constitutes a rape case against the man is absurd. The focus of the Santa Barbara shootings should not shift off mental health issues, which is where it lies.

Thanks for the chapter Mark, I don't know how you do it. I can barely squeeze out time to write a proper review, let alone a full chapter. I am hoping the action swings to Hawaii soon, Chicago is boring me Who the hell wants to be in ChiTown in summer?? I think one thing that is lost on so many of the readers is how young Matt and Wade are. Brad is too for that matter. When I was a grad school student I thought I was pretty grown up, but when I look back from the wrong side of 30 I understand how young I was still at 28. I suspect when I am on the wrong side of 50 I will look back at how young I was still at 39, and so on through life. My grandfather at 84 talks about what a kid he was at 70.

It is nice to see JJ with more depth and seriousness about him. I still don't know if we know JJ's sexuality or not. He may not. He is young enough to be in that ambiguous stage. It is cool that Cam is back, maybe we will get some other old faves back in future chapters or books, Alistair, Ryan, Kai..... Still not wild about Will in bars. I say what happened to the club kids who used to be at Arena in LA when they 13, 14 and 15. Most didn't end pretty.

A mistake that many easterners make is thinking that 1) western cities WANT to be like eastern cities and 2) that high rises make a place a "real" city. Who wants to live in 600 sq ft apartment that costs $2 million when for $180k in PHX you can have an 1,800 sq ft, 3 bed/2 bath house?

Cool chapter continuing down the path of reconciliation, healing and the next chapter (not literally, but figuratively). I am sure there will be some more drama and twists before we get to the end of this book, but I do see a lot of story lines in the queue potentially. People need to remember for every Brenda Hayes there is a Jerry Umanos out there.

Very sweet chapter. It is nice to see Brad really moving on and stepping up to be a father to all his boys, including Matt. Matt it is nice to see maturing, but sometime you don't know what you have until you lose and you lose it because you don't know what you have. You think a person will always be there irrespective of your behavior and it is a shock of reality when they aren't.

OMG you so need to move to LA for a year or two to get a grasp on what life is really like in LA..... that hippy dippy girl is so divorced from reality as to what people want in LA.

I don't know if the timing was accidental or not, but with the opening of the 9-11 Museum yesterday I couldn't help but assume that Brad and maybe the boys were at the ceremony. 9-11 is one of those things that you try to bury and put behind you, but it is impossible because of annual commemorations and events like this. I don't know if CAP will get to May 2014, but it is so hard to not wonder about 28 year old Will, 35 year old Matt & Wade, JP approaching 80 and Brad into his 50's. Thanks for a great chapter and all that CAP has been so far and where it will be in the future. I hope you never lose the zeal to stay at it,

What an awkward position to put Matt in. Does he tell Cam about what happened, or does he let it slide? You'd think it would be an easy decision, you let your friend Cam know his BF is a sleaze.... no? No. I had a friend in the same exact position and who was the Cam in that situation mad at? His cheating, lowlife BF? Of course not, he was mad at my friend.

Sorry, underage drinking stories can not start, "when I was 20...." An underage drinking story starts, "The night we graduated 8th grade....." ************************************************************************ One concept that seems to elude people sometimes in CAP is the Gatsbyesque, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." The Dutchess of Alba The Dutchess of Alba is the 18th of her line and has lived her whole life in ratified circumstances and circles. JJ, Will, Darius, etc are the first of their line to grow up this way. It would take the Schluters and the Cramptons until the year 2550 to get where the House of Alba is today, but be that as it may, Will and the rest of the Schluter/Crampton kids don't know a life any different than the world of private airplanes, private security, yachts and complete self indulgence where the rules are for other people. Let's hope Stef ages more gracefully than the Dutchess has

What? There's an age limit of some kind on drinking???

You need better sources hun...... everyone knows hipsters drink Pabst Blue Ribbon.

The NFL has its first openly gay athlete. Michael Sam, SEC Defensive Player of the Year to the St Louis Rams.

Difference between Manhattan and The Loop? “Gives you more options in Chicago,” Will joked. “Shit, you could buy a whole building.” In Manhattan $15 million only buys you a nice 3 bedroom, 2 bath place...... I think the club apartment is a bad idea on so many levels, but it is easy to sound proof the condo from the club.

Interesting end to the chapter. I am going to guess that the return of the rings was based on real events? I think Will is still heading for disaster because I am not sure if he can go along to get along for the foreseeable future. If they were just kids waiting for high school to be over to feel "safe", that would be one thing, but if Zach is really good, John Elway good, he is looking at 20 years of this or more. I just don't see that fitting his personality. it is hard enough for high school love affairs to survive college, but the circumstances here would put a huge strain on any relationship.

I always preferred Please Don't Eat the Daisies. <media>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNxWnXeKKFs</media> Happy birthday doll!

The Los Angeles flood of 1938 killed 115 people in Los Angeles alone and many more deaths in Orange County, and both my grandparents remember it well. It was that flood that led to the cementing if the LA River and all the other major rivers in So Cal. Before the LA Flood of '38 was the Pasadena Flood in 1914 that killed 43 people. So flooding was/is a problem What you don't understand is that Los Angeles is a naturally arid climate so the streams and rivers are very low most of the year, but when the winter and spring storms hit, because of the very high mountains that ring the LA basin, water comes screaming out of them and are extremely dangerous. Here is a video of how the LA River can be. <media> LA County Fire has a Swift Water Rescue Team because every year people wind up in the culverts. I remember one year just before the Rose Bowl I was in the Rose Bowl parking lot and a bunch of firemen were standing around a culvert and the water was raging. Normally there might be an inch in it, now is was ten feet deep and moving at 35 miles an hour. Anyone falling in would be gone in an instant. Some tourists from Ohio walked by and started looking too, but wasn't sure what they were supposed to see. Finally they asked what we were looking at. I said, "the water" and they looked at us all like we were crazy. So I asked them, "do you know where you are?" and they said "sure, Pasadena." I said, "no, this is the Arroyo Seco. That means 'dry creek'. There wasn't an inch of water in there three days ago. I am not sure they believed me. So while it would be nice to see a restored river, it is really not worth the cost or risk.

Is it me or does it feel like this book is winding down? Which would be fine with me, I think shorter books gives you the chance to get more narrators involved..... Anyway, it is nice to see Matt coming to self knowledge he should have come to a year ago or more and could have saved himself some grief.

Any game that can end 0-0 and the fans call the game "brilliant" has serious issues.

Water polo is much more physical and brutal than wrestling. Wrestling is hugs and kisses compared to what goes on in the water.

Seriously? As if caveman Grok who had 20 rocks and 3 mastodon pelts didn't lord it over Ugh who only had 3 rocks and half a musk rat pelt