methodwriter85

Since I'm watching Grease 2 right now, I figured I'd go ahead and take some time to appreciate our Stefan model, Tab Hunter. The dude was just hot, even going into his 50's. Kind of a shame that he couldn't come out of the closet until long after his career was over. I can easily imagine a guy who looks like this would be able to get as much play as Stefan does. Shame the guy didn't have a son and leave us a hot copy like Clint Eastwood did: Scott Eastwood...god, the things I'd wanna do...

And my point is that while JJ is probably curious, he's not at that point where he wants to nail everything cute in sight. Not yet, anyway.

Hunger Games: The Theme Park Wow, talk about completely missing the point of the book. It's like when they made an amusement park ride of the Titanic. How exactly would a Hunger Games theme park work? Would there be a fake forest where people can throw fake weapons at each other? A fake beach where people can run from deadly fog? Or a fake bombed out city where you have to rescue victims?

You're mistaking my intent. I'm not saying JJ is an ice queen. JJ IS curious about being intimate, and we know he masturbates, but my point is that he's not at the point where sex is on his mind 24/7. He's at the point where the hormones are starting to go, but they're not at full gallop yet, which is why I don't agree with your joke about how JJ needs to lose his virginity by the end of this story, which I'm assuming will close out in December 2001 or January 2002. My guess is that it'll happen when JJ's about 17 or 18, in either 2003 or 2004. I feel like that was the point Mark was making with this chapter, about how people have different rates of maturity. Will has the body of a fully grown adult male, about the age of 18-19, which is when men are at their sexual peak and everything is screaming, "Fuck something! Fuck something now!" JJ's body is not that mature, probably still lagging behind a year or two his chronological age- he's curious about doing sexual things, but he's not quite ready for going all the way just yet.

I like the idea of Zach being morally grey- not really a good guy, but not a sociopath like Brian or Alexandra Carmichael. (I'm on the fence over whether or not I think MaryEllen and Elizabeth are sociopaths.) I think when JJ wants to, he can read people well- he clearly has both Matt and Will's number about how easily they'll grab their ankles for any handsome guy that wants to play. But because he's generally a loner and doesn't want to let people in, JJ just stays in his own little world. When I was in my early 20's someone once referred to me as "willfully obtuse", and I think that term could apply to JJ- you see these little flashes of insight with him, which makes his general self-absorption and reticence to see beyond his front door all the more frustrating. What I think has been interesting about his trajectory is that Mark slowly and methodically destroyed the safe little bubble that JJ existed in- first the troubles with Tiffany and Jeanine, then Jeanine going nuts, then it turning out that his coach was molesting him, and finally killing off Jeanine and Robbie. JJ can't really hide behind anything now, except his bitchy diva act. Will, and I suppose John now, really seem like they refuse to let JJ just slip through the cracks. The Trevor here was Trevor Morgan, a child actor from the late 90's and early 00's that appeared in such films as The Sixth Sense, The Patriot, and Jurassic Park 3. It's actually pretty funny that Mark's having him cameo, because I had a mild crush on him- although nowhere near the level of obsession I had for Josh Hartnett and Nick Lachey. What I liked about the scene is how much of a parallel there is between child actors and child athletes- just because you do well as a child athlete does not mean that you'll do well as an adult one, and the same goes for actors. JJ's transitioning to adult-level competition and the whole ball game is different. Evan Lysacek didn't even leave junior level entirely until he was aged out of it, at 19- he had some difficulty with getting that competitive. Then he wound up becoming one of the best figure skaters for that decade. I thought more seriously on this, and I think the point of seeing inside JJ's mindset vs. Will's mindset for this chapter was to show the differences between how a person who's libido is going at full-blast thinks, vs. someone who's libido is starting to heat up but hasn't really switched on to "Must fuck something NOW!" yet thinks. JJ will probably be ready in another year or two, but he's not there yet. JJ thinks in terms of people being "cute" that he'd want to make out with and possibly get to second base with, but he's not thinking in terms of, "God, I want to fuck every cute person in sight!" Which is hard to imagine, especially from guys who were "developed" at 14/15 like Will was.They have a man's body, which tells them to screw everything in sight. JJ doesn't quite have one yet even though he's almost 16, which explains the difference in perspective with that chapter.

You're really a 35-year old virgin, Ashi? In 5 years, you can star in your own movie.

Now that we're in the waning days of 2001 in CAP, here's a look at the music that will dominate the United States in 2002: Eminem hits his creative and commercial peak, Nelly continues his ride, Avril Lavigne pops up as the anti-Britney Spears "Punk" goddess, and Nickelback begin their reign as the Gods of Soft Rock. I also remember 2002 as being the year that John Mayer started getting notice, Maroon 5 was a hot new band, and boybands were officially dunzo. Some 2002 songs I can't wait to use (assuming that Mark doesn't skip to 2003) : 1. "Lose Yourself" by Eminem 2. "Til I Collapse" by Eminem 3. "Your Body Is A Wonderland" by John Mayer I feel like almost every single acoustic guitar player I saw in college sounded like John Mayer. 4. "Sk8er Boi" by Avril Lavigne I am laughing my ass watching this, and remembering all the hate Avril seemed to inspire from people back when she hit it big in '02. She was the lazy, go-to Halloween costume for girls that year, much like Miley Cyrus is for this year. Oh, the days of Hot Topic and studded bracelets and black cargo pants matched with ironic retro band t-shirts. 5. "Head On Collision" by New Found Glory Poppy punk at its finest. God, I must have listened to this album on repeat the summer I bought it at Hot Topic. 6. "Screaming Infidelities" by Dashboard Confessional Welcome to the indie emo era of the early/mid-2000's. It was an easy song to play, so it was easy to get your friend who had a guitar to sing the song.

The 10 US Cities With the Worst Commutes Average amount of hours people spend in stalled traffic every year : 1. Washington, D.C. - 67 2. Los Angeles/Long Beach/Santa Ana - 61 3. San Francisco-Oakland - 61 4. New York City/Newark - 59 5. Boston - 53 6. Houston - 52 7. Atlanta - 51 8. Chicago - 51 9. Philadelphia - 48 10. Seattle - 48

Not really my type but if you're into arty hipster twink types he'll do fine.

James, I got into a True Crime kick over Halloween weekend because of the article, and read about the "Candy Man" case. There's a documentary on YouTube. The chilling thing about the case was that they often lured people they knew- most of the victims weren't random strangers. They were people that that his bird dogs had been friends with and had grown up with. The basic impression I got was the public didn't care as much because these were blue-collar kids, and at the time, it was much easier to just dismiss them as teenage boys who had run away because they didn't come "from good families." Going back to the Randy Kraft case, it's pretty incredible that the guy killed at least 50 people, but it's not that well-known of a case- certainly not to the level of Dahmer. I wonder if that's because his targets were military guys who were probably transient and didn't have roots in the area, so it felt like less of and "this is our town and our people" kind of case like Jeffrey Dahmer. Learning about this made me really glad that there's more awareness now about safety...although that's not always a given. One time I picked up a guy who paid me twenty dollars to give him a ride to his friends house. Probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, but he didn't really give me a bad vibe.

Good point. Remember when Tony was introduced as the too-good-to-true, loving Italian stallion jock? Then Mark revealed that Tony isn't a dick because he hates being gay- Tony's a dick because he's a dick. I love how the characters tend to evolve in ways you didn't predict- I remember that Mark didn't really intend for Wade to be anything more than a passing fling for Matt, but the character clicked and now he's anchoring the newest CAP core family. That would probably be why Mark wrote that a New Jersey private school went through the trouble of recruiting someone from Ohio off the strength of his freshman and sophomore years- Zach has to be somebody that's getting national, "he's in the Top 10" kind of notice. I don't think even Jeff or Robbie were getting that kind of notice. Speaking of USC though...did you guys hear the story about a middle school kid that gave a committment to play at USC but quite predictably, isn't quite the phenom at 17 that he was at 13? I'll be shocked if David Sills actually does play at USC, but we'll see what happens. David Sills went to Red Lion Christian Academy in Delaware, and the school had some shady dealings going on with the football program, which got the kibosh so he left for a football team affilated with an online Christian academy.

Gay men are more vulnerable to serial killers because you're more likely to try and hook up and go off with complete and total strangers than you would be if you were a straight man meeting women. That's just the nature of the fact that you're a very small minority. Although it seems like Randy Kraft, by the late 1970's, seemed to target mostly just Marines that were straight- like he got out his first kills with easy gay bar targets, and then moved on to prey that were harder to bag- the challenge of getting straight guys to come back to a hotel room with him.

I loved the subtle foreshadowing that Kyle isn't meant to be the boyfriend, because Kyle's good-looking but he has a crooked nose. The soon-to-realize-he's-gay jock always has perfect features.

I remember someone told me once that it's a sore spot for certain Californians to say that football takes a backseat to basketball in their state, and that there's a bitterness over Los Angeles not having an NFL team. (I do remember when Los Angeles had the Raiders, but that was almost 20 years ago.) And thanks for the Cal Berkeley note. Although Mark can throw us a left curve and send him to LSU or Michigan or Alabama. I'm not sure if I can see it happening because they're too alike physically. You ever notice how skinny nerdy twink types almost invariably go after the big buff jock types and never other short skinny nerdy twinks? Especially at that age. Personality-wise, I don't think Alistair would be good for JJ. JJ needs someone who will call him on his bullshit constantly. Alistair is too nice to do that. JJ's best bet is with someone who will tell him to his face he's being a diva bitch, and to knock it off. If I recall initial plans correctly, 9.11 was going to be a shorter story but then Mark changed his mind. I do like your idea of going back to the shorter book format for future stories, especially because I feel like the groundwork really has been set for this new generation of characters. Mark took a much longer time developing the characters for Will's generation than he did for Brad's. I kinda wonder if that's why Ace feels like such an afterthought, while his Gen Y counterpart, Darius, doesn't feel that way. Now back to Zach...I'm pretty sure he's a classic narcissistic type who lacks empathy for other people but wants to be admired by others. He realizes that he fucked up by angering the family Golden Boy a year and a half ago so this is his attempt to get back into the good graces of the Cali kids. Zach probably figures that he's not going to get any kind of trust fund from Robbie's estate like Gathan did, but what he does have is a promise that his college will be covered. Since Zach is probably eyeing USC right now, he wants to see if he can make peace with them, and eventually charm one of them enough that he'll start to get showered with cars and the like. I'm sure Zach will have success, as this is what he looks like: God, does Liam Hemsworth look the part of the cocky American football jock or what? Chris has the prettier face, but there's this Teddy bear quality to Liam that I'm really into, which is why he reminds me of a Hayes guy. (Well, that, plus the blue eyes, the wide-flat nose, and the short curly dark blond hair.) Anyway, I'm not sure Zach would make a good narrator because of his lack of empathy for other people, but he does make a pretty fun character.

With his 200+ million salary, A-Rod's delivered exactly 1 World Series. I'm just saying.

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?