methodwriter85

Eh. In any event, the '06 idea was based off of Mike's joke that JJ will get his license and lose his virginity sometime in his 20's. LOL. But like I said, if I'm being realistic, 16 or 17 seems more likely given that Brad has noticed that JJ's become stunningly handsome, if short. I felt like the main point of having Zach flirting with JJ was to show that guys his age are starting to notice JJ, probably because he doesn't look 12 anymore- more like a 14-year old. I think part of JJ's middle-child angst was rooted in the fact that Will was basically a male version of Brooke Shields- a kid who woke up in a stunningly gorgeous adult body that got all sorts of attention. Will, already the Golden Boy, got even more attention, while JJ, who stayed a little boy- didn't...unless it was from the creepy coach. Now we're starting to see that people are noticing him in that kind of way, but JJ's still pretty uncomfortable with it because it's not something he's used to. If I'm reading things right, in Zach's senior year- fall 2002, they won the state championship, so that does make for good timing. They were also tanked Top 10 in 2002. In fall 2001, Zach's junior year, things were probably on their way up. It makes total sense that Zach would've gotten recruited if he's as a good as people said he was- Zach would have had his freshman and sophomore years to make a big impression, and they would've had to have scooped him up as a junior. College recruiting happens junior year, and they'd have him for two seasons. Although here's my question- do you have to commit to a school junior year, or can you also do it senior year? Because Zach would probably have more leverage when he's a senior and Don Bosco wins state. My impression has been that you have to commit junior year, or else you have to become a walk-on, but I could be wrong here. I wonder where Mark will send Zach. Penn State could have been interesting, but they weren't a hot program again until later in the decade. If Mark's definitely sending Zach to California, USC seems the most likely. UCLA is more of a basketball school, and Stanfurd wasn't hot until later.

Mark wrote that as a plot point in Be Rad, where Brad called Robbie's car "bad" and Robbie asked what's wrong with it.

Depending on how you define virginity, I waited until I was 21 years old- though it was in a really, really technical sense. When I was 19 and 20, I used to joke to people that I was a "Catholic virgin" because I had done basically every other sexual thing you can do (oral, mutual masturbation, frottage, and getting one's salad tossed), but I could still basically call myself a virgin. Which is funny, because I had by that point at least 7 sexual partners, but I was a virgin. It'd be interesting to have a character that operates in that grey area of abstinence. Although if we're being realistic, I think I can see it happening when JJ is about 17- when he's had a few years to process what happened with his coach, and when his libido is really going at full speed. When I was in high school, there was a rash of teen car crash driving incidents in Delaware, the most memorable one for me being in March of 2005, when two guys from the Charter School of Wilmington were killed in a car crash, with one girl left in a coma. (I think she woke up, but she never recovered cognitively.) I didn't know the guys personally, but they were friends of friends. The school was already reeling from the death of the son of an popular English teacher, who was killed in Iraq, so the school was really hard-hit. 2003-2005 was when I started hearing about the push to up the driving age to 18. I kinda get the regulations, but on the other hand, I feel like restricting kids from having licenses until they're 18 means you're going to get a lot of inexperienced 18 to 20 year old drivers instead, and then we'll start hearing about a rash of college student car accidents. In any event, you are right and sometimes people break the rules, which is why I'm okay with Mark taking "artistic liberty" on this. JJ technically shouldn't drive his friends or family around until about June 2002, but if it's January 2002 in CAP World Mark needs for him to do it for some plot-related reason, gosh darnit, why not?

Tim, you realized you just dissed Mark, right?

When I was about 13-14 years old, I read a book called The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker. It was published in 1997 and was popular during the late 90's, so it was a bit before your time. The book outlines warning signals that people who were attacked by violent people saw but ignored. Intuition is a good thing- what struck me about the article was that Jay Roberts had this realization that as much as he wanted to stay, as much as he wanted to go back and hang out more with the guy that was making him feel good, something inside was telling him to get on his bike and leave. I've had that experience two times- the first being that I knew I couldn't go through with meeting a guy at a motel room that I didn't know, and the second when I was running through the woods during Cross-Country practice and this group of guys wanted me to stop and talk to them about our mutual friend, Val. I'm a very friendly person and they were awfully insistent that I talk to them, but I just kept running instead because something didn't feel right and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I mentioned the incident to Val and she said to the effect of, "Good thing you didn't stop. They are NOT good guys."

I like how you're writing John as the guy that everybody in his generation can get along with, much as his father Jack was during Be Rad and Man In Motion. Another thing I really like is that as JJ is starting to catch up to his age physically, he's starting to get people noticing him- but flirtation is still really foreign to him. You're setting up Zach as the Lark of this generation, aren't you?

Chapter 51 -When John comforts JJ. "I'll Stand By You" by The Pretenders I fucking lost it listening and watching Amber Riley perform the cover on the Cory Montieth Glee tribute episode. -When Zach tries to unnerve John and JJ with his hot little self. "Sexy Boy" by Air -When JJ and John decide to sleep in bed together, with JJ obsessing about whether or not he should make a move. "Walk Me Home" by Mandy Home Eric Lively from So Weird. God, I had a thing for him. He's still pretty hot, if you've seen Pink's Please Don't Leave Me video. Sadly, the closest his career has gotten to the A-List was when his character raped pre-Twilight Kristen Stewart in a T.V. movie. -When Will has sex with Zach, and the lessons of Tony have clearly left his mark on Will. "U Remind Me" by Usher

West Point Hosts First Wedding Between Two Men Check this story out. Pretty cool, I think. And what an adorable couple! Disclaimer: Please do not discuss the political process and debate that has gone into making gay marriage legal. Those who do will find their posts removed and given warning points. Thank you.

Live was in the previous playlist. Not a huge fan of Alice in Chains. NIN was an oversight though, I'll agree.

Can we post about gay marriages that happen so long as we don't talk about the political process to allow them, like if we're talking about gay marriages that happened in states where it's already been legalized for awhile?

I don't really know enough about punk rock to do that. This playlist was based completely off of memory.

You just never know sometimes. When I was 15, I used to talk to men online. Around June of 2001, I had plans to meet up with two men in their 30's at different times. After the first meeting wound up freaking me out after we had a sexual encounter, I cancelled the second meeting. The second meeting, we were supposed to go to a motel. I was a 15-year old kid, who was going to meet a 30-something stranger in a motel. I am so glad that I cancelled it- maybe nothing would have happened and it would have been a good time, or I could've ended up on a milk carton. You really just never know whenever you choose to go off with people you don't know to a private place. Although the good thing is that we do have instincts that gnaw at this. Reading Jay Roberts's account, I really think that something deep down was telling him to go, and it had nothing to do with not wanting to do something gay. Even though from all appearances to Jay, he was having a good time and even though Jay was reluctant to leave, something told him to get on his bike and leave. That probably saved his life.

Mega cheese fries from Pat's Pizza: Pat's Mega Fries are served in a disposable aluminum pie tin. Fresh fries are loaded up in the pie tin and then covered with Cheese Whiz. Then a generous mixture of chopped bacon, shredded Swiss and mozzarella cheeses are applied to the top of the fries. The whole thing is then sent through the pizza oven for the shredded cheese to melt up and around some of the bacon. Instead of ketchup, you dip your fries into ranch dressing. It is so, so good. I only eat them though once in a blue moon, because as you can imagine, it's not a very healthy dish. Another great pig-out food would be the Pittsburgh sandwhich: Basically, stuffed between two pieces of Italian bread are fries, an Italian-dressing coleslaw, a tomato slice, and some kind of fried meat. Soooo good. I got that every night I went out when I was a student in Western Pennsylvania.

We like to think of serial killers as gruff, crazy, wild-eyed ugly people running around with axes, but quite often they're charming, attractive people. Which explains the the myriad of emotions. It's something so horrific, but at the same time, because Jay Roberts wasn't actually attacked(although I'm sure he was drugged- someone suggested that it was benzos), it was a pleasant memory on a pleasant afternoon from over 30 years ago. The knowledge that he could have very well ended up horrifically murdered(seriously, read about Randy Kraft- really chilling stuff) really contrasts with that emotion. It was interesting from a time period and cultural standpoint as well- as someone who grew up in the 1990's when it was constantly drilled in our heads that you could be kidnapped and end up on a milk carton, the thought that people had a habit of hitchhiking and accepting rides from strangers in the 1970's and 1980's just seems so foreign to me. And from what I understand, this case didn't gain much traction because the victims were thought of as dead queer runaways and the like- even though they were often straight. And the other thing it made me think about was how much we prize good-looking, masculine military straight guys. They're as much of a fantasy for gay men as the college frat boy jock. Think about how many stories have been written with the theme of seducing that straight military guy with beer and the like. We're essentially reading that story here- reading the p.o.v. of a straight guy getting seduced with very little protestation on his part, only the intentions of that seduction were entirely different from the Nifty stories. Again, very disturbing but still alluring. It made me think that the reason why Randy Kraft targeted these guys was because they were venerated, by himself and by the gay community at large. They weren't vulnerable, small women or children- they were grown men trained to be killers. Which is probably why they were the ultimate prize to him- Kraft caught these invincible young men and made them vulnerable. It just leaves you with the same question though- why didn't he kill the author of the article? Was there a connection and he had just a tiny moment of empathy? Or is it simply, as one comment said, Jay Roberts left before he passed out? In one of the comments, the author mentioned that he soon passed out when he got back to base, which strongly points to the idea that he got drugged. I think the author does such a great job of conveying all of these conflicting emotions and questions that this experience gave him. Randy Kraft made the author feel beautiful and special that one day over 33 years ago, and now he's realizing that it was a ploy, and he could have very well ended up dumped on the side of a California freeway.

Right. The O.C. and Laguna Beach made "rager", "dunzo", and "sick" popular across the U.S., but there are other terms that came out of the O.C. where I'm wondering if they were made-up slang. Like minty being someone acting fruity. Speaking of, I do think we should be at the point where they're saying things are sick. I always thought it'd be a hilarious callback to Be Rad if one of our Cali teens tells an Ohio guy that his car is "sick", and the Ohio guy wonders what's wrong with it. But we'd have to do it before we hit the mid-2000's, when everyone and their mother was saying that. I knew the term was "over" circa 2009 when I heard it being said by a businesswoman in Georgia on Househunters. Blue, what do you call it then when someone's trying to mack on a girl, and his friend/brother, etc etc says embarrassing things about him that leads to a cockblock? "Busting up his moves" or what?

I'm voting for JJ to lose his virginity in a threesome with bitchy Sasha Cohen and hunky Jeremy Bloom at the 2006 Olympics. Apparently the Olympic Village is quite the slutty orgy. Mark will have a lot of fun with that. On a completely unrelated note, Mike, you might wanna check out this thread in the lounge about a marine who haplessly met infamous California serial killer Randy Steven Kraft in 1980. Dubbed the Freeway Killer because he dumped the victims near 5 Freeway leading to Camp Pendleton, Kraft targeted Marines during the 1970's and early 1980's. Before your time, of course, but I'm sure you knew older MP's that had heard about this. It's so crazy to me, as a child of the "Never Talk to Strangers" 90's that people often hitchhiked back in the 1970's and '80s.

Alright, you Los Angelenos...would a teenager from Malibu use the slang term "salt" his/someone's game? It was used on The O.C. in the mid-00's, and the generally meaning is similar to cramping a person's style. Like, say there's this guy who's hitting on this girl. His best bro decides to cockblock by telling the girl all this embarrassing stuff about him. The guy can turn around and say, "Way to salt my game, dude." Or a person can be "salty" by being rude.

The Grunge Era Playlist, Part II 1. 2. 3. She Don't Use Jelly by the Flaming Lips 4. Under the Bridge by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers 5. Spin the Bottle by Juliana Hatfield 6. Lump by The Presidents of the United States of America 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. The Distance by Cake 22. 23. 24. Ledbetter by Pearl Jam 25. Someone in the comment section for "Sex Type Thing" called it the Blurred Lines of the 90's. Eh, I can kinda see it.

Not quite- they didn't bump into each other on the campus quad.

Will especially has to be chomping at the bit to get his license. You KNOW he is. And if Blue is right and Will isn't subjected to restrictions because he's emancipated, then I imagine Will is going to be driving around a lot of his friends come junior year. (Although I'm not sure Blue is right about that- because driving is not a right so wouldn't emancipation be irrelevant?) He'll probably have some kind of tricked-out 2003 model year SUV with built in DVD/TV's in the back for his passengers. I remember how modern and cool that seemed back then. As for JJ being someone that would prefer to be driven...yes and no. I can see why you'd think that, but JJ strikes me as someone who likes alone time, and I could see him as someone who takes his commute as a way to meditate and be by himself. Although I can see Marie, Will, and John bugging JJ for rides come the summer of 2002, when he's allowed to transport other teenaged passengers. Which is why I think he'd get a compact Euro mini-car so he doesn't get pressed into it by Claire or Brad.

Good to know. See, the way Delaware developed...Delaware was divided into "hundreds" more often than into towns. As a result, there are few downtown areas here, which means that there's much less parallel parking, because Delaware's hundreds developed into suburbs for Philadelphia with lots and lots of strip mall shopping centers with ample parking. It's actually funny- Delaware is so suburban that our state licenses list our housing developments instead of just towns, because our "towns" are often just Census designated places that happen to have a large collection of housing developments, like my "town" called Bear. The only place in Delaware where parallel parking is critical is in Wilmington, and I always take the bus into there. I've also never tried driving myself into Philly, so yeah- parallel parking was a skill I just never really had to use so I forgot it. It's interesting for me to learn all the different driving rules in states in any event.

The curfew post-2006 also got pushed back from 12 a.m. to 11 p.m. But yeah, thanks for the illumination- so JJ on his 16th birthday in December of 2001 could get his license, provided that he's been driving on permit since around June. Which is very possible, because JJ has a driver and Escorial probably has plenty of small backwoods roads he could practice. His license would allow him to drive by himself from 5 a.m. to 12 a.m., and he cannot drive with other teenagers until June of 2002, i.e. the end of sophomore year. So JJ could drive around his brother and his cousins during the summer of 2002. However, are you saying that because Will's an emancipated minor, Will could just get his license when he turns 16 in September 2002 without any restrictions? That's going to be annoying to JJ and Marie. Of course, like I said before, Mark could just invoke artistic license and have JJ drive around Will, Marie, and John if he wants to. Like how the O.C. had everyone driving at the age of 15. LOL. I'm really not sure I could see JJ doing that, though. JJ strikes me as someone who would get a small Euro compact car, and prefer to be by himself when he drives because he gets irritated easily. In my case, I didn't bother getting a license until I was 19 and about to finish high school(I was held back a year), so I didn't have to worry about graduated licenses. I'm scared shitless though about what happens if I move and I need to get a new license, because I've completely forgotten how to parallel park and Delaware licenses are supposedly one of the easiest to get.

I have to agree with Yang Bang. This is satire- the moralizing at the end lessened the bark. The article doesn't need to be hit over the head with the moral at the end. We get it. If you don't get it, then the lecture part will still go over your head. And you know, the idea that all "masculine" gay guys were once effeminate kids who were teased in elementary school for having a limp wrist is a pretty fucking offensive thing to say, because here are guys who did indeed have a very hard time coming out of the closet because they were masculine jocks growing up and had more in common with straight guys as opposed to gay guys. Otherwise, an excellent article.

I would imagine that California and New Jersey would have pretty strict driving laws, because both states are notorious for their heavily trafficked interstate highways, right? I read that in California, it's illegal to drive in the state with an out-of-state driver's license if you've been there longer than 10 days. Delaware's much more relaxed. We have a lot of traffic here, but it's not that insane. It's focused mainly around I-95 and the out-of-staters that come here to take advantage of the no-sales tax at Christiana Mall.

That's actually something I'm wondering about- I know that circa 2003 in Delaware, you could get a permit at 15 years and 10 months, and an actual license at 16 and a half, but with restrictions, like you couldn't drive past a certain time and you couldn't have more than 1 or 2 passengers. According to a website I found, the California driving laws were changed in 2006...you could get a permit at 15 and a half and drive as long as you were with someone aged 25. At 16, you could get a restricted license- for the first year, you cannot drive between 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. and you cannot transport people under the age of 20 unless you're with an adult over 25, a guardian, or an instructor. (Man, that's harsh.) Although it's possible before that, JJ could've gotten a less restricted license- I wonder what the laws were before the change in 2006. Of course, Mark can just take artistic license and have JJ drive his cousins/teenage friends around. Although JJ strikes me as a compact Euro car type, not an SUV type. There was a general move in the 2000's about raising the driving age to 18- I know they slowly edged it up in Delaware- now you can't get a permit until you turn 16. In New Jersey, you can't get a permit until you're 17. In any event...it is totally going to bug Will that JJ and Marie are getting their licenses first, and he'll be one of the last guys in his grade to get his. I think in a couple of years, JJ will be an ideal Bret Easton Ellis novel character- gorgeous, rich, snobby, and bisexual. Does anyone here remember The Rules of Attraction? I LOVED that movie when I was 17. (And it wasn't that far-off from depicting what college is like.) I still have a crush on Ian Somerhalder because of that movie. God, he's beautiful. (Which is why he's the character model for Jack Hobart.) I'm not sure JJ would want to be that tall. He might hope for 5'8" or 5'9" which would make him more average height, but 6 feet is kinda tall for a singles male figure skater. Extra height makes it harder to jump, and a shorter person can do them easier because of the lower center of gravity. Evan Lysacek being 6'1" makes him a rarity for singles male figure skaters.