methodwriter85

Do you think you're going to bond JJ tighter to his dads? This seems like one of the purposes of the current storyline- to bond JJ tighter into the family, because he was kind of isolated into his own storyline with Jeanine and Tiffany in the skating world. I do like that you wrote JJ as someone who, in a very male-dominated family, generally seems to relate and look up to more of the females in the family such as Tiffany and Claire. It's kinda similiar to JP when he was younger- it seemed easier for him to relate to females such as Tonto and Maman.

See, the thing is, I actually agree with you. I don't think we should head back over to the young kids again until they're upperclassmen in 2003, or hit college in 2004-2005. I'm really not that interested in following Will's 10th grade year, but I got the distinct impression from Mark that he wants to follow more of Will's high school years than just showing his 9th grade year, or doing senior year like he did for Brad and Matt. There was way too much set-up with the Menlo water polo storyline, as well as Will's friendship with Zach for me to believe that we're not going to peek into Will's life during the 2001-2002 school year.

I don't know if I agree with that. I think skating would be the one thing that'd keep him together at this point. It's like Will and surfing...you can't keep JJ from it too long. It's the pen with which he writes his verse.

Tim, they're not completely detached, but I thought it was pretty clear that Brad and Robbie didn't really know much about what was going on with their middle son, and that's going back to Millenium where Jeanine springs it on Brad that JJ is being singled out for having Olympic-level potentional, to the point where he wants to drop out of school. There's not knowing the date of every single competition your kid has, and then there's not realizing that your kid is spending their every waking minute molding themselves into a serious athlete, to the point that they want to make considerable life changes. As for the other bit, Brad said outright that JJ isn't going to Nationals in Boston. He said that he contacted the USFSA and told them he won't be going to Nationals, which basically means that the 2000-2001 season for JJ is basically done, unless he can somehow get into Worlds. Although...that is an incredibly good point, Sharon. It's set in 2000, and I think of and react to Brad and Robbie like they are the "parent generation" and Will is my peer. I think that part shades a lot of how I view them- it's hard to see them now as just regular human beings, because they're now the parental units instead of the young generation.

I'll give you the Will thing, because he is pretty well bonded to Brad, and it did seem like Robbie and Will had some good bonding moments. I do think one thing that's clear is that JJ is not that close to either of his dads, and that they never really paid that much attention to him until Will stabilized and JJ's own behavior started took a major turn for the worse. I got the feeling from this story that Mark was actually setting up a situation in which Brad and Robbie were made to realize that they needed to step up as parents to JJ once Jeanine was out for the count, then Robbie overcompensated with JJ's ridiculous Super-Sweet 15 while JJ wasn't really letting Brad near him because Brad had "chosen" Will's side. It did seem like at the start of this story, JJ had this insulated world away from his family of figure skating with his mother and with Tiffany, and that whole insulated world got slowly chipped away, as Jeanine went , then the family stepped in at Norway, and then Tiffany got the point where she couldn't stand JJ's behavior. The final two punches were then Brad telling JJ he couldn't go to Nationals in Boston, and then finally his coach dying. That is one completely obliterated world that he had spent years building. I wonder if Mark did that so that he could have JJ more bonded to the men of the family and less in his own world, or what.

This one goes back to September...this is the reaction of a coach instead of a sports fan, but I still thought the Patriot's coach was pretty funny here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlxxtk-NLgA He looked so damned pissed. LOL.

I can't really see how you can look at this story and come out of it thinking that Brad and Robbie succeeded as parents. They weren't always depicted as being bad parents, but it felt pretty clear that once Millenium came around, they sort of lost their way with their kids. Will basically "fired" Brad and Robbie as his parents, and I thought it was pretty clear that his moral sense of right and wrong was something that rubbed off him from Tonto, and his study habits were a JP-inspired trait. I also thought Mark made it pretty clear that JJ doesn't have a tight, paternal bond with either of his dads, because they relied on Jeanine to raise him. That lack of a close paternal figure in his life made him pretty vulnerable to an older man that would pay him attention. (Of which I have some pretty personal experience with.) I mean, didn't Will basically call out Brad and Robbie for not knowing when JJ was competing at the Southwest Pacific Regionals on Brad's birthday? It's not like Brad and Robbie should be expected to know every single competion, but I thought that it was pretty obvious that neither Brad nor Robbie were all that in-tune with JJ's life, and Will was calling them out on that. I also remember Mark saying once that we can't expect Brad and Robbie to be the kind of involved soccer parents that we've come to expect, because the kind of pressures they deal with and the time constraints they have make it impossible to do so. This would be backed up in the scene in the boardroom, where Will has an epiphany about the amount of time Robbie and Brad have to put into in order to maintain the kind of lifestyle that he takes for granted. So Mark himself admitted that he didn't write Brad and Robbie's parenting style as being that of very involved parents, because their lifestyles make it impossible to do so.

Because as similiar as he and Brad are, this is one area that he really, really differs from his father and grandfather on. I think when it was just a plan it was one thing, but when the guy was actually dead it was a whole 'nother thing.

Which is especially funny considering that Brad had this whole speech in Millenium where he patted himself and Robbie on their backs for successfully raising three happy, healthy sons. They lucked out with Darius (and even seem to realize it), but Will basically didn't want to submit himself to another four years of being raised by them, and JJ was basically raised by his mother and then his skating rink.

Although come on, let's be honest here, neither Robbie or Brad were all that pro-active as parents, especially when it came to JJ. They really did depend on Jeanine to raise him. I think the two people who are currently most in tune with JJ would probably be Tiffany, and I suppose Will. JJ does feel like an enigma, for the most part. JJ is a very repressed person and doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve like Will and Darius do, so I can't fault people for not being all that in-tune with him.

Alright, as we begin to gear up for the 85th Oscars, I thought I'd start us off with this... 2012 really was great year for films. It's pretty incredible to think just how loaded the Oscar Race is- the only real sure bets are Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor and Anne Hathaway for Best Supporting Actress. I really wish Bradley Cooper had a chance because his turn in Silver Linings Playbook was just that good. Who are you guys rooting for?

I re-adjusted my thinking on Grafton's dad...now I'm picturing him 50-something, very WASP-y looking. A good looking guy for his age, but not someone who's a 50-something knock-out the way Dylan McDermott or Tim Daly are. Jack Coleman from Heroes and the Office as Mr. Grafton? Jack Coleman has the look of someone you can tell was just a total hunk when they were young, and now has the look of an attractive WASPY 50-something "Daddy". That's how I have Grafton's dad pictured. I gotta say...Jack Coleman aged pretty well, and without looking like he's had work done. (I mean, the work done on Tom Cruise was beautiful, but still- you can tell there was work done.) He looks like a typical 50-something man who aged in a natural, nice way. Good on him. Way too many actors feel like they need to hack their faces up to stay looking young, and wind up looking like freaks a la Meg Ryan. I personally can't wait until I'm fiftysomething, and have wrinkles and fine lines and my life experiences etched on my face. Speaking of another "aged naturally" person...Melissa Leo from The Fighter as Tonto? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ3oY3DpQps

I thought you did a fine job of displaying that, in a teenaged way, in the chapter where Will goes to his first Menlo party. He initially tried to fit in with his Abercrombie outfit into Carter's crowd, but ultimately didn't see much point in trying to get a bunch of assholes to like him, even if it might cost him popularity points. Will rejected the social authority of Carter, because he didn't think the popularity it might afford him to suck up to Carter was worth it. We can't know what Brad was like at 14, but at 17 we knew that fitting in and having the power that being top of social heap afforded him was pretty important. It's not hard to extrapolate from how Brad was senior year to imagine that when Brad was a freshman, he likely kept his mouth shut to the popular upperclassmen about things they did that pissed him off, because Brad didn't want to alienate them, because popularity was important to him. It's not really that way with Will, and you're doing a good job of showing that.

I really liked that you were able to bring in "cutting" into this...it was a hot-button teen issue back in the late 90's/early 00's, and it made total sense for JJ. I think the biggest irony is that while JJ is generally seen as being like the weak kitten by the family, I think when it came down to it, JJ would have had no problem with the family using vigilante justice. I don't think JJ has Will's "white and black" view of the world.

As Adam likes to say, I'm a fan of sports fandom, so I love watching reactions people have to sports. Here's a compilation of funny fan reactions, mainly to the Super Bowl. The first two reactions didn't do much for me, but once we got to the guy reacting to the AFC champ win, it picked up. My favorites were the , and the young 49ers fan going nuts with anger . There's also a funny bit at the end with a Buffalo Bills fan who is so pumped up and talking trash on the Dallas Cowboys...it made me think of Harry Grace. God, that had to have sucked back in the 90's. I only had to watch the Eagles lose in the Super Bowl once. I can't imagine what it'd be like to watch them lose 4 times. (That was also true of the Vikings, right?) Then there's this hysterical clip of Keith Letorneau, who went absolutely batshit crazy while watching the Ravens vs. Broncos game. This video got over 200k views, and because of that, he and his family were flown out to watch the Super Bowl game. I was wondering why the wife didn't post his reaction to the Super Bowl, and that's apparently why- because he was actually at it. That's a pretty damn lucky break- I wonder what his reaction was when the 49ers almost pulled off a comeback victory.

Okay. Not so much on the quiet, but still JJ hasn't really been doing much to break the rules. Compared to Will setting his parents clothes on fire and running off to Hawaii, JJ has been pretty obedient. Bitchy, but not rebellious. No one really cared to look at JJ during that period except for Tiffany, and it wasn't until Will stabilized that JP realized that something was up with him.

I loved that Corbin finally gets his Nicholas Sparks movie moment with Mike, and he completely trashes it. Then a couple of scenes later, he's playing the whole, "I'm so together at 20 compared to your barely legal teenaged antics" with Lee.

www.funnyordie.com/videos/7a77b32244/the-adventures-of-pete-pete-20th-anniversary-reunion

Chapter 93 -When Will finds JJ cut up like a Christmas ham. I've gotten jokes about this song since I was 5 years old. I'm sure JJ has, too. -When Will and JJ talk at the end of the chapter, and Will tries to convince JJ that he doesn't need the coach like he thought he did. Jam God, why couldn't I have been in college during the Grunge Era like Private Tim was? What a great era of music.

I really liked you bringing up "cutting" into this. "Cutting" was very of the time, to the point that at least two t.v. shows did episodes about this issue. I had friends in middle school and high school in the late 90's/early '00s who were cutters, and I think JJ is pretty strong candidate to get into that. Cutters are usually people who are in a lot of pain, but can't verbally express it, so they harm themselves instead. I tried cutting myself when I was 11 or 12, but I couldn't do it. My self-harm method was instead occasional bouts with binging and purging from 11 to 18. I also loved how JJ just can't really see what love is- he repeatedly goes on about how he loves his coach because he was going to take him to the Olympics, but nothing else about what made the coach so damned loveable. The line about how JJ's coach may have loved other boys but he loved him the best also spoke volumes. I think in a couple of years, when JJ's 17 or so, it'd be interesting to look at how he recovers from this and realizes what actual love is. Will's reaction to this has been pretty in-character, I thought. He believes in black and white, and what they set up definitely fell into "black". It was nice differentiation from Brad and Will. My final thought...the family was so concentrated on all of Will's big yelling and acting out; that they failed to see what was going on with JJ, who was the quiet, obedient one. That seemed like a very true-to-life family dynamic, where the family assumes that the quiet one who isn't breaking rules is okay while they wring their hands over the rebellious ones. I know Mark only has one sibling and one child, so I'm really impressed at how well he's been writing the dyanmic of when you have at least 3 siblings.

Nah, my guess would be one of Mitt Romney's sons.

Good point. See, that's the reason why I'm hoping Mark holds off on giving Will a "forever" love, because if he does that, Will either has to go off into the sunset with his happily ever after and not really be used again, or Mark has to blow up that happily ever after for the next story, which could then really irritate and alienate fans. It might work better if he has both Will and JJ (and John) playing the field in their 20's instead of settling down into partnerships. Of course, I realize that I probably contradicted myself, but eh. It'd be nice to see monogamy, but I also get why we probably won't ever see it. It's a soap. "Happily ever after" means a write-off for the characters, not something sustainable. Of course, this would be different if Mark plans on ending the story sometime when the Will/JJ/John trifecta reach their early/mid-20's in the mid/late 2000's, but I'm starting to get the distinct feeling that we'll be following Riley's adventures as a teenager in the 2010s when it's 2035, and Mark's going to be writing this from his retirement home while I'm planning out my 50th birthday American road trip, and Private Tim is gearing up for his 58th birthday.

I meant a main protagonist and his boyfriend/girlfriend. I can't think of any protagonist who was able to be in a committed monogamous relationship. Brad and Robbie had a 14-year run of monogamy, but then that got blown apart for Millenium. (Which is actually why I think a lot of people had a problem with that storyline, because there weren't many examples of monogamy in the world of CAP.) I do think it would be interesting for Mark to go into that sometime. I remember George Michael said once that because gay men can't get married, they don't view monogamy in the same way that straight people, hence all the open relationships. But the feeling that I'm getting, especially with current twentysomethings, is that gay guys are becoming more interested in monogamy and committed relationships because of gay marriage and civil unions happening, as opposed to the way things were even a decade ago when the "circuit boi" Queer As Folk image ruled. Kyle Kessler, a character from Adam Phillips's sublime Cross-Currents story, had this great monologue about how so many gay men only live for the next trick, and how he was the odd man out for actually wanting something real and lasting. That scene was set in 1998...I think things have changed, at least a little bit.

I do wonder if there's ever going to be a gay couple that is successfully monogamous in this story. I do hope that happens with at least one potential couple in this new generation. I think Will thinks that he could be successfully monogamous, but he's destined to be a slut. I could see JJ, if he were really in love and committed, being able to.

So, I was thinking of this post because of some jokes made while I was hanging out with my friend Mike. This one guy there kept saying that this guy Trent graduated from college in 2006. I thought it was for real, and was like, "Oh, cool- you graduated in '06...let me think of people that went here when you were here." Trent replied, "No, I graduated in 2011. Matt is just calling me old because I won't go out as much anymore." So. People who graduated college in 2006 are apparently old now. I graduated in '10, but that was because of a series of circumstances, and I was a freshman in college when the class of '06 graduated. I mean, I get that people who started college in 2007 would not look at people who graduated in '06 as peers, but that made me feel old. Then again, when I was 22, I didn't think 28-year olds were young, so I guess it makes sense. I stopped thinking of myself as a "youth" when I turned 24. I like to think of myself at 27 now as "youngish", and my current definition of not-young is over 35. Still, that was kind of weird, because I had a fair amount of friends who were seniors in 2006 when I was a freshmen. I mean, of course the guy was drunk, but it was just kind of funny and made me think of your quote, Blue. As a minor quibble, it's ridiculous that I'm 27 and recently got carded to see an R-rated movie and get carded for alcohol all the time, but I was told by my play director Stan(who's about the same age as Mark) that I'll really appreciate looking younger than my age someday. It's a familiy trait- aside from one of my sisters, my entire family looks much younger than they are. It's annoying now, but I guess when I hit my 30's and I still look cardable it'll be nice.