methodwriter85

I really have to disagree with you on this. I think it's precisely because they had such a tight relationship that became restrained over the past year that JJ will be hit really hard. Darius and Will more or less resolved whatever issues they had with Jeanine. JJ has not, and he spent what could have been the last weekend of his mother's life shopping in Europe and then ignoring her once he got to NYC to shop on 5th Avenue. That's the kind of thing that haunts a person for the rest of their life. Anyway, other than JJ cursing a bit more than I think he would (then again, he doesn't have to be Disney JJ since he's not around media or the judges), I thought his perspective was pretty spot-on. He's really angry and really repressed a lot of it, but still falls in line to go to his mother's house because he knows it's the right thing. I also loved that he just didn't get it and lovingly talked about his $300 Diesel jeans that he probably got at Lexington Ave in New York City, his Bally loafers, and Dior shirt, while taking the time to mess with his hair. (I imagine that JJ's hair is like Cody Simpson's- thick wavy blond hair that he has to put a lot of product in to keep tame.) I thought having JJ waiting on the rootop watching things go down was a great way to tie into the scene where Will is admiringly checking out the New York City skyline from the rooftop when Jeanine and Hank bought the condo. It angers me so much when I think about how many lives could've been saved if the people had been evacuated in the second tower after the first tower was hit. I actually think JJ is pretty much in peace about that, because as JJ noted, being Brad's most-loved (partner in Robbie, son in Will) comes with a pretty huge fucking price tag. It kind of bothers him but it mostly doesn't. I do think it'll drive this need in JJ to be famous beyond his family, though. The summer of '05 would be an interesting summer for what you're proposing, since that's when he's either working towards the Olympics or seeing his dreams crushed. Then you've also got Hurricane Katrina going on for a historical perspective, and it'll probably interest Will's scientific mind.

Water polo players on The O.C. were depicted as being kind of evil. I had a distinct feeling that Josh Schwartz really, really didn't like water polo players, and as a result built them up in his mind as this overpowering prescence.. Me, I've personally never been around one. It seems like they've got the reputation that lacrosse players have here on the East Coast, though- being the "rich boy's" sport. Anyway... New Urban homes tiny and trendy This article talks about the "small lot" home movement in the Los Angeles area. They're basically like townhouses or row homes, but without actually sharing walls. Pretty interesting, I thought. Pretty antithetical to L.A.'s historic mid-20th century/onwards development as place of suburban houses with lawns out front and swimming pools in the back. 700k houses are considered affordable workforce housing in L.A.? Geeze.

Wow. That was a pretty well-deserved bitchslap. I get your point, and in a previous post, I did point out that I grew up in an area that was close to military bases (Dover AFB, Aberdeen Proving Ground, and we're not that far away from Fort Dixx which was still open when I was in high school), and not only that, those two bases were one of the lucky bases that are actually expanding as per BRAC. Aberdeen especially seems targeted for a big expansion, with the city of Newark, DE trying to reap the benefits of that by upgrading their rail line that goes through Aberdeen. Also, I also lived pretty close to where the Reserves and Air National Guard are, which probably explains why I saw so many guys walking around in uniform not just at college but just around malls and the like. Anyway, I didn't have a comfortable surburban existence. I did grow up in the blue-collar suburban town of Bear, DE, though I wound up going to high school with mostly middle class/upper middle class kids. But in any event, this pile-on did actually make me re-think about why I have this perception, when it seems like other people my age don't have the perception of seeing tons of military guys around and haven't had at least one friend go off to Iraq. You must have REALLY hated Green Day's Wake Me Up When September Ends video. It's basically about a poor small-town teenager who goes off to Iraq and his girlfriend who waits behind. I protested the war while seeing friends go off, and reading about deaths in the newspaper, which probably has created some very strong emotional ties to this subject, and the war is the most tangential reminder of 9/11 because it went on for a decade. I have this strong desire to see Iraq played out in the story, and I'm just trying to think of ways for it to plausible. Since Mark doesn't think it likely that any of the grandkids would go, and it not being likely for their prep school kids to go, I figured it would make sense to get at Iraq through the Claremont side of the story, because Claremont has had a history of strong miitary involvement. I spent some time in a similiar kind of town to Claremont (depressed Rust Belt town), and I also noticed that the town had a strong military involvement with all the major conflicts going from the War of 1812 to Iraq. I've kind of felt like that's probably at least one of the reasons why Mark's had Will making friends with Claremont people, so that it becomes possible for him to know people that go off to Iraq. Anyway... Brad's lucky that JJ wouldn't try to get an emancipation like Will would. JJ wouldn't want the press, and it's pretty easy to avoid Brad anyway, especially when he goes off to competitions with Tiffany anyway. It's really cool we get to see that. We kinda sped through Brad, Ace, and Bily's growing up (and then Billy died at JJ's age), while we're getting to see this trio of brothers growing up. As for JJ...I kinda see him as a male mix of Teenaged Erica Kane (childish spoiled brat who desires fame so strongly and is always searching for that "Corner of Hollywood and Vine") and Blair Warner (preppy brat who is very prissy and uptight but does care very deep down.)

It works on so many levels, right? About the Vietnam War, which Barry McGuire called out as being a bad deal in 1965 when people were still supporting it, and in a foreshadowing bit, as the sunny, optmistic America of the mid/late 1990's that has a booming economy, a budget surplus, and no enemies- the one that Will, JJ, and Darius grew up in- is about to disapear forever.

I really liked the scene between Will and JJ. It felt so realistic- Will is concerned about him and worries about him, and meanwhile JJ feels pissed off that it still gets brought up and he's sick of his brothers hovering over him like he's still the little boy we met in If It Fits. JJ shooting back that Will is acting just like Dad when he does that was perfect. I see JJ as somehow who has become inexplicably aloof, and generally divorced from his feelings. He has this persona to rely on- the Glamorous Burberry-clad rising star- but with anything real, he runs away screaming from. JJ clearly wants nothing to do with this wedding because of his resentment of Jeanine, but instead of saying that he throws a bitchy tantrum about not wanting to wake up at 8:30 instead, when we all know that the boy probably gets up at 5 or 6 a.m. every morning to practice.

Chapter 35 -When JP and Will talk while setting up the presentation, and then Will realizes that JP is having some nookie in the bathroom. "Manic Monday" by The Bangles I thought it was such a shame that the Bangles were so underrated. They were true musicians, not just a bunch of sex kittens. -When JP gives his presentation about Vietnam to Columbia. "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire -When Will flirts with a college boy and scores himself an invite to a college party. "I Do" by Toya -When Will talks to JJ while he shops on 5th Avenue. "Moon River" from Breakfast at Tiffany's Tell me you guys couldn't see a 25-year old JJ, wearing a slimcut black suit, eating a pastry while standing outside the Tiffany's window. -When Will has yet another fight with Brad. "One Step Closer" by Linkin Park

Really fascinating breakdown, Tim. (Though it's DE, not DL. LOL.) My state is very small(the state is 110 miles long) and as a result, there's not a lot of variety. We have the typical urban ghetto part of the state (Claymont, the Wilmington slums, and New Castle), the upper middle class part of the state (suburban North Wilmington, Hockessin, Pike Creek), the University of Delaware mega-area, the Joe Biden Millionaire's that we refer to as Chateau Country and is our old-money area, the cookie-cutter middle class suburbs part of the state as best seen by former-farm-town-turned-Philadelphia-bedroom-community Middletown, the Slower Lower redneck south part of the state, the Dover AFB area, and then finally, the beaches. We're mainly influenced by Philadelphia, although further south you see influences of Baltimore and D.C. In your opinion, Tim, what was the nouveau-riche part of SoCal? Wasn't there some California area that was getting hyped during the Boom and then got hit really hard by the crash? I'm thinking Inland Empire, but my impression was that it was a burgeoning middle-class area, not a McMansion area. I know the Real Housewives of the O.C were from Coto de Caza, so was it that area? I did get the impression that inland areas of the O.C. were hit hard by the real estate crash. I used to watch House Hunters and Flip That House quite a lot around 2005-2007, and it seemed like California had such outrageous real-estate prices. It seemed like three-bedroom house after three-bedroom house was getting appraised at a million or above. I'd understand that if we're talking beach or inner-city San Francisco, but it seems like they were in just typical suburban areas.

I'm not saying that it was like Pearl Harbour. I'm saying that in small towns like Claremont, people did join up, for the reasons that Blue listed. Note that I've shifted from saying that Will is going to have schoolmates that went to Iraq, to saying that Will is likely going to have buddies he's made in Claremont go off there. And the Claremont Hayes family in general fits the profile of the type of people who would go off, though I don't think Matt would go anywhere near it. The other bit of context I should add is that I'm from an area that has the Dover Airforce Base (it was where they flew in the bodies from Iraq) and Aberdeen MD Proving Ground in relatively close proximity, and UD had a pretty strong ROTC program, plus I live in an area of Delaware that has the state's Air National Guard and the Army Reserve all pretty close together. It was a pretty common sight to see guys in uniform walking around. And I was strongly imprinted by the memories of having a teacher at the school I ran cross-country for lose a son, plus a friend who went off to Iraq after getting caught pot dealing derailed his college scholarship plans. And again, the G.I. bill was pretty popular in this area, at both UD and at Wesley College in Dover, where I went to for my freshman year.

Seriously, why does the California college system love quarters so much? Do they really want college kids roaming almost all the way through September? LOL. It's gotta suck for out-of-state kids who go there, because their spring breaks never match up with their hometown friends. It did strike me doing research that Stanford, UCLA, and Santa Clara were all on quarter systems. UD had what we joked was almost like a quarter system. It's called the 4-1-4 system. Fall semester is September to December, while spring semester is February to May. In the middle is a month-long session we called Winter Session. Winter session was often used to take classes, or go off to study abroad. (University of Delaware had the first study abroad program in the United States, so it's a major part of the school's philosphy.) I wound up taking winter session my senior year. It was cool. But it meant that you were also out of whack with a lot of friends who were going to schools with semester systems, and our graduations happen during Memorial Day week. It's why the city of Newark has to celebrate Memorial Day the week before it.

Kitt wrote this in the 9.11 thread, and I can totally see it happening: It would totally fit into J.P.'s "let's do good for Claremont M.O." for him to start a support center for veterans...maybe renovate an old clinic or an old Claremont mansion? On a personal level, it'd make sense for him to want to help the vets, because of him dealing with Andre's death, and his friend Fritz's suicide, not to mention Steven. I would imagine that Iraq is going to dredge up a lot of unpleasant memories for J.P., especially once it becomes clear that Iraq is not going to be the Gulf War "Mission Acccomplished!" few-months war people thought it would be. But yeah...9/11 is the start of such an incredibly shitty and depressing decade. The only highlights from that decade, IMO, would be the tech advancements and the gains in gay rights. Other than that, it's 9/11, Aghanistan, Iraq, the Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, Virgina Tech, the housing crash, and the economic meltdown.

Oh, I can TOTALLY see JP trying to revamp an old hospital facility or perhaps an Old Claremont mansion and turn it into a support center for veterans. He'd have Steven, Andre and Fritz on the back of his mind once Claremont youth start turning into war veterans.

Guys, check out the 9/11 Digital Archive. Pretty interesting stuff.

Little House on the Prairie is fun to snark on. The show was just so damn campy, especially in the later years when it seemed like every week babies were being burned in fires and kids were being adopted left or right and Mimes were raping young girls. I have to snicker though at watching the Waltons, because I can't help but think of the time Richard Thomas played Brooke Shields's crazy stalker in a T.V. movie: Anyway, point being...it's pretty hilarious that Mary Ellen on the Walton's namesake is quite the nasty piece of work in our story, isn't it? It's not that out of the question for Tony to wind up joining Iraq, though- he graduates college in '04 so it's still fairly early into Iraq, and I could see Tony seeing the military as a way to run away from himself. I did figure that you're having a lot of Claremont kids that we've met joining up with Iraq at some point. Iraq is the next big event coming up- I can't see you not having the characters involved in it. Claremont seems like a place that'd have a lot of future Iraq veterans.

Cool. Noah being Hispanic AND a Jew makes a lot of sense of how he's kinda not really fitting into the lily-white Atherton society. Olympic medalist Tom Daley as Cam, then?

This is random, but I'm watching a Waltons T.V. movie marathon. I just realized that the Danfields named their daughter after a character on the Waltons. The irony is hilarious. LOL. Although it does make sense, as The Waltons takes place in roughly the same area as the Danfields come from. I was more of a Little House on the Prairie fan growing up, although I vaguely remember The Waltons re-running on the Family Channel back in the 90's. It's so earnest, as opposed to the entertainingly campy over-the-top-ness of LHOTP:

Tyler Posey (J. Lo's son in Maid In Manhattan and star of Teen Wolfe) as Cam, the freshman crushing on Will? Tyler is so damned cute in that puppy dog kind of way. Tyler Posey has such a wonderful, infectious smile. It'd be interesting for Cam to be hispanic. Anybody remember Tyler from the episode of Smallville where he played an illegal immigrant from Mexico?

When Mark described Jersey Guy as a round-faced blond beefy type, I immediately thought of Beaver from Greek: He just LOOKS the part of the dumb friendly gentle giant.

I would think they would because this is post-Columbine, but I could also see that a wealthy, private school would rely on their security guards and plus, it's not an immense, bad public school. You're not getting rowdy kids who are bored and don't want to be there. The set up of the school is pretty serious(seriously, 9th graders have to take physics), and I can't see it as being the type of place where the kids run amock while bored teachers hand out packets. The entrances probably would have the cameras to keep non-students out, but I can buy them not having an all-out security camera system in 2001. From what I've read of Menlo, at this time period they were undergoing renovations and expansions (the first one was done in 1999, the second was completed in Will's graduation year of 2004), so you can just pretend that in Will's locker wing they didn't have cameras yet. In any event, I don't think the cameras would have made that much of a difference, because you've only got so many junior/senior office aids who could've gotten access to the locker assignments who would have been working during the homeroom/first period, so Ferris would have been caught either way. I think how they handled it made a lot of sense- it wasn't physical fighting. There's a zero bullying policy there, but without Will getting physically manhandled I can't see the school making a big deal out of it, especially as long as Ferris took his punishment and apologized. Otherwise, they'd have to bring Ferris's parents into it who might not take Ferris getting expelled from the school well, and then things could get really ugly. It's a disapointment that Noah turned into such a chump, but it's really realistic. Noah is dyed-in-the-wool follower who's following a woman who's declared Will the "enemy", so it all makes sense. Especially since they estimated that at least 50 people died at the Marriott when the building collapsed.

Chapter 34 -When Ferris is forced to write an apology note on Will's locker, which Will leaves up to further humiliate him. "Rip Her To Shreds" by Blondie -At lunch, when Will realizes that someone's got a little crush on him. "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus -When Will founds out that Noah and John got into a fight, effectively ending any positive feelings he might have had about Noah. "Seventy Times 7" by Brand New I learned about this song because my friend Meghan had this group of friends. She was dating a sophomore(we were freshmen), and then she dumped him. The entire group of friends sided with him over her, and then she found a burned cd duct-taped to her locker."Meghan's Song" was written on the front, and this was the song her friends dedicated to her. As you can imagine, it was NOT a flattering thing. (I actually wound up keeping the CD because I really loved the song.) You gotta love high school drama. -When Will and JP arrive in New York City, and JP takes Will on a tour of the City. "New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra -When Will hangs out at the barbeque at Jeanine and Hank's place. "Start the Commotion" by The Wiseguys

What's interesting is that Brad's least-favored son and niece both have that "win at all costs" trait to them, but Will doesn't. That's not to say he won't go nuclear, but Will's general philosophy, like Wade's, is winning at life rather than winning for winning's sake. I really think that Robbie finding out that JJ was getting molested by his coach while Robbie was going on to the family about how much they were ignoring JJ's problems really was a major wake-up call. I think it made Robbie re-evaluate a lot, and made him see that perhaps he doesn't have the answer to everything. That in turn made his judgement better than it was when he thought he was infallible.

Chapter 33 -When Will and Robbie bond, and Robbie tries to give him advice about Brad. "Trouble" by Coldplay (instrumental) I remember when this was the go-to "sad, contemplative" song for MTV shows.

It's a weakness only in the sense that it's going to keep Will from being capable of the kind of ruthless behavior that Stefan and Brad can do. I'm not sure Will could ever do the CEO deal because he's generally too compassionate.

Agreed. I have Tim pictured as a sexy mid-30-something Republican lawyer hot Suburban Dad type.

This is a teenaged son, not Brad's middle-aged lover.

I'd rather Will take a while before meeting Daniel Radcliffe. He was born in July 1989, which would make him a newly-turned 12, and more importantly he LOOKED 12 at this time period. I'm not really into the idea of having Will fuck Harry Potter just yet. Maybe by the time of The Order of the Phoenix. Will could have a threesome with Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory. In any event, Robbie's looking at a banner year, with The Princess Diaries, Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings. Although 2000 was Robbie's "Oscar year", with Erin Brokovitch and Gladiator. 1999 is definitely going to be a distant memory. I loved how much he regretted turning down American Beauty and took on Bicentennial Man instead. LOL.