methodwriter85

"All this time"? Norway happened only about six weeks ago in CAP-time. Just sayin'. I can't see Will being okay with whacking off family enemies like JP and Brad are. I just can't. He's got way too strong a sense of right and wrong for the murky "greyness" of what his father and grandfather deal in. I mean, Will could change, but I feel like if Will's being set up as the next Tonto, that's going to be a strong, core characterstic. He might grow up to see some grey, but not when it comes to going all Sopranos.

Well, like I said, Max isn't exactly wholesome looking in real life, even as a teenager. But I'm wasn't that set on him anyway. I'm kinda surprised that his features aren't round. I totally pictured him with rounded features, like Mike Vogel. (Of course, he doesn't look 14.) I'd think Cam Gigandet, but Cam Gigadet has this old look to him...he had it even when he was in his early 20's as Volchok on the O.C. Hot, but not boyishly good-looking, which I think Ryan would be. Do you have any idea yet on an Allister? 'Cause I still think it should be Logan Lerman. Seriously. Watch . The kid even wears a suit in it. And his somewhat stilted, surprisingly deep voice is exactly how I picture Allister's. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMS7Y65gkB0 Mark, tell me how that's not Allister, sans glasses. I felt like that scene right there embodied who Allister is as a person- someone who really cares about people and goes out of his way to be good to people, even when he's not getting much back. He is the quintessential example of the guy that's short and small and gets picked on, but then grows up to be pretty beautiful and attractive. (I've liked Logan Lerman ever since he was the brainy prodigy on the short-lived WB show Jack and Bobby...I'm glad to see he's transitioning well to more adult roles.)

In honor of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd post one of my favorite 80's love songs. According to the director of Adventureland, this song was major make-out music during the summer of 1987. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URZe0y3fKrU

Private Tim really should think about becoming a politician.

I think this conversation should be concluded by yourself, myself, and Private Tim dancing around to "Everybody's A Little Bit Racist". Now, that's enough of that. Let's all hug it out, and then go on a burn ride down to the beach. :2thumbs: (That was the awesome part about going to my high school- you'd hear people break out into Broadway musical songs.)

Cool. In that picture he does kind of have a rough, blue-collar feel to him. I kinda like Max Thieriot circa Nancy Drew as Ryan: He is of course, about 24 now and looks completely different, but at this point I could see him as a good, 14-year old Ryan. There are photos of him at about 14/15 wearing tank tops that I thought about posting here, but honestly those pictures kind of creeped me out, so I'll just go with his Nancy Drew look.

I refuse to fear the Zombie apocalypse, if said zombie looks like Nicholas Hoult: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgBVW7L7DzI

Contrary to what you probably think about me, I wasn't born in some small Delaware town where I spent all my life. I was born in the Phillipines,and lived in Spain, Louisiana, New Jersey, Texas, Delaware, Maryland, and Western Pennsylvania.Yeah, that's a real "narrow" band of existence. And in terms of my actual life, I've been friends with punks. I've been friends with jocks. I've been friends with Conservative Christians, wiccans, and atheists. I've been friends with affluent kids who have lovely memories of their trips to Europe, and friends with kids who were poor like me. I've known military guys, and I've known people who were peaceniks. I've been friends with people who worship at the altar of Corporate America(as Delaware IS the Corporation state), and those who were into Occupy. I've been friends with frat boys, and friends with theater types. At graduate school I was hanging out with both 19-year olds, and with thirtysomethings who had families. If there's one thing I haven't lived, it's a "very narrow life", because I've always lived with a curiousity about people, and their stories, and have always loved getting to know people from all different walks of life and places. And again, I'm not saying that you haven't experienced discrimination. I'm saying that as a person who reads as "racially ambigious" to a lot of people, there are certain experiences that I've experienced(and what Blue experienced) that you haven't lived. Just like I haven't had the experience of being bisexual in a gay community that constantly says "bi now, gay later". Finally. Think about what you said. Your response to my idea of John dating a beautiful, hot chick who looks like Amber Stevens(who's got that Beyonce kind of look that guys my age are going wild over) was to post a picture of a white blonde girl, on the grounds that John is shallow and immature. So a shallow and immature guy is only going to find blonds hot, because it'd take a mature and understanding guy to even want to touch a black woman? Is this what you're saying? Thank you. That is what I'm trying so hard to get across, and something that I don't seem to be able to convey. THIS is the mindset that people who don't immediately read as "white" or "black" run into. They'll just make assumptions and go from there. So what bothers me about Private Tim is going on about is that I'm apparently making assumptions about his life despite the fact that I've lived some "narrow life" apparently, is the idea that it's pretty much an assumption for a guy who is not brown, Persian, whatever to make the statement that Persians(or people mistaken for Persian) didn't experience racism(or even subtle racism) post-9/11. How exactly would you know that? I don't claim to know what it's like to be a sexy bisexual water polo player who grew up in Los Angeles and eventually became an attorney. That's not my sphere of experience, like this sphere of experience isn't Private Tim's.

Mark also grew up in 1970's California, a time and place that was very free in terms of how sex and drugs were viewed by people. There was no AIDS, cocaine wasn't addicting, parents were incredibly permissive because they were busy divorcing and having Key parties, and people just wanted to have a good time. I think had Mark grown up in Puritan times, he probably would have at least "played" the part in public. Although I don't get the feeling that Mark's a complete "my folks can be traced to the Mayflower" WASP like Wade Danfield, so you're right about that. My guess is that he descends from the wave of immigrants that hit the mid-Western area in the mid-1800's and helped build the great cities of Chicago and Detroit. (Well, Detroit is not so great anymore.)

I'm really confused by it, too. It's just bolstering my idea that it's really hard to explain to people what it means to be neither white nor black in America, and the kind of experiences you have because it. My feelings on this subject are actually pretty close to the surface right now. I was actually pretty irritated on Saturday night by some douchebag at the local frat boy club I went to who referred to me as"That Chinese guy". There are times where I seriously just want to write "I'm flipinio" on my forehead and be done with it. Matt also noted on how dark Darius is. From chapter 6 of Bloodlines: I think Mark's been pretty clear throughout the entire saga that Darius does not pass as white. I do think the times that Mark's touched on racism has been pretty good, like when Matt dealt with his own racism because he figured Columbine had to have been some inner-city school or when Brad learned that it's racist to say "Japs". The kind of blatant racism you saw during the Jim Crow era doesn't happen that much anymore, but there's still a lot of subtle racism around. I'm sure when anti-Arabic sentiment gets stirred up post-9/11, it'll be good.

Deadly Courthouse Shooting From I what understand, the shooting victims were a woman involved in a bitter custody dispute, as well as one of her friends. The shooter was the father of her ex-husband. The ex-husband had years ago kidnapped their children and took them on a 18-month run throughout South America. I remembered that story, and I remember that the ex-husband did his best to paint the woman as a crazed bitch and himself as the worried father. Talk about a terrible way of concluding this saga. I think what shakes me up about this...it's not like it was a typical Wilmington drug-related shooting. This was in a high security area, and I've been to that courthouse several times. He shot them in the lobby before the gun detectors, and it shakes me up to think that someone could just flat out get killed in a place as heavily guarded as a courthouse. Those poor girls. Not only do they have to live with the fact that their father and grandmother kidnapped them for over a year, they now have to live with the fact that their own grandfather killed their mother. Damn.

Again, I really don't think it's a diversity issue that would keep Will out of a frat. It would him plain just not seeing the point in going through Hell Week to be friends with and accepted by a group. Unless it were a frat that didn't engage in pledging, I can't see Will doing it. Will just is who he is, and he doesn't strike me as someone that would go the extra mile to fit in. For JJ, yeah, I could see that happening. Darius, I'm kind of shocked that he's not pledging, although that might be more of a grade thing than anything. I don't, either, but damned if I didn't have some people at a track meet my freshman year of high school act like total douchebags to me, and when I asked them why, they replied "9/11".

I didn't say you don't know what it's like to discriminated against. I said you don't know what it's like to be a racial minority, which you don't. You don't have those experiences. You don't know what it's like to have people actually ask to touch your hair and comment on how "weird it is", or have someone you ask you where you're from, respond "Delaware, and get, "That's not what I mean. Where are you from really?" Or what it's like to be called black, respond that you're filipino, and then get told, "Oh, that's close enough." WTF? I wasn't going to bring this one up, but since we're going there... Why did you respond, "Oh, hell no" when I posted a picture of the very pretty Amber Stevens as a suggestion for John's girlfriend, and then post a picture of a pretty blond white girl? Think about that. Think long and hard about why you had that reaction to the idea of John Hobart having a black girlfriend, and then responded with a picture of a pretty blonde white girl as your idea for John's girlfriend instead. And given that Gathan very much hinted that if it weren't for Darius's wealth, he'd be looked down in Claremont, I'm not sure Darius is someone that would read to most people as "white". Didn't Ace almost call him a "half-n-word" back in 1985? I think you mean well, but I find it incredibly offensive for a white man to tell actual racial minorities that racism isn't really that bad in the country, and things were just hunky dory for Arabs in this country despite our own personal experiences of seeing anti-Arabic sentiment in this country because we were mistakenly identified as being one. It would be like me telling you that bisexuals aren't discriminated against, because I've had a relatively okay time being gay and bisexual girls were seen as "cool" at my high school.

You'd be surprised. When I told this guy on my Alternative Spring Break trip that I was filipino, he said that it was kind of disapointing to hear that., because everyone had planned on spending the break guessing what my ethnicity was. I get asked about my race constanty, as if I'm some exotic curiousity that people had never seen before. And it's not like I grew up in some 98 percent WASP community either- the Greater Philadelphia area is a very diverse area, and University of Delaware had at least some diversity to it. I've been asked if I were black, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Mexican, and Arab. If you're not clearly white or clearly black, people don't tend to be that good at nailing down what you are. The thing is, Private Tim, you're white, unless I'm somehow missing something. You don't know what it's like to be non-white, and percieved as non-white. Or what it's like to be non-white, and percieved as white, which I've found pretty interesting in the stories of people who "pass" as white even though they actually aren't. Racism isn't just putting burning crosses on the lawn. It's way more complicated than that, with levels and degrees that you can't really get unless you've been there. Anyway, the frat thing isn't about Will not seeing frats as diverse. It's about the idea that I can't see Will getting himself through the pledging process. He would never humiliate himself to try and fit into a group of people, or follow along with what the pledgemaster told him to do if he didn't want to do it. I mean, Will couldn't even fake being nice to Carter or ingratiate himself into that group, purely because he didn't want to. And he's got a very GDI mindset to him. In college, I hung out with both GDI people, and frat people, and Will just doesn't strike me as someone that would feel a need to belong to any certain group. The only kind of frat I could ever see Will belonging to would be a honor kind that didn't have any real pledging process. JJ, if he's not skating, I could very well see as joining a frat as a means to try and gain back some of the social interactions that he lost because of his skating schedule in middle school and high school.

I could see Darius, if he put himself into the mindset, letting himself be molded into becoming a military guy. We know there's some interest there, and when 9/11 hits, I think there would be some need on Darius's part to prove that he's as loyal of an American as anybody else, once he starts getting some racist comments thrown his way. (*I* got racist comments from people who thought I was Arab, and I'm filipino.) Will, never. For that reason I couldn't see Will joining a frat, either. He's way too much of an stubborn individualist. JJ would never work in the military because he'd take one look at sheets that were less than 800 thread count, toss his head, pick up his Prada suitcase, and leave. I'm not saying it has to be anybody in the family, but I could see it being friends of their's, especially because Claremont fits the profile of the kind of town that would be sending a lot of guys and gals off to Iraq. Friends of Gathan, especially.

That's a good point. People can and do change, and the characters in CAP aren't static. When I was 23, if you had told me that I'd spend two years in literally the middle of nowhere Western Pennsylvania, and I'd actually love being there and would consider it the best two years of my life, I'd ask if you were on crack. It'll be interesting to see if JJ becomes less effeminate over the next couple of years, because it seems like his fathers want to become more involved with him. It's interesting when that happens. I was very, very feminine at 13/14. Now at 27, people actually don't believe it at first when I tell them I'm gay, because I somehow come off as straight-acting to them. When I was about 22, I met some guys I knew from high school who couldn't believe how deep my voice had gotten, as opposed to the high-pitched girly voice I had for most of high school. I wonder if JJ will go through something similiar, or if he'll follow the Johnny Weir mode of lots of makeup and designer purses.

I think the reason why it felt like a Pearl Harbour moment was that you had news stories about people joining up, who weren't the typical profile of people joined. I guess the fact that they did deem it newsworthy does point to the idea that it wasn't like World War II when people were coming out in droves. I'm just really hopeful that you're going to address the Iraq War in a pretty meaningful way, because even though it wasn't exactly a "Vietnam", there were a fair amount of people in my generation who were pretty impacted by it. I think the way you've written Will...he'd care, and he'd be pissed that his generation wasn't doing much to protest it because they were too busy downloading "My Humps" on their cell phones. As for Cody, I think it's unlikely, but it's not something I think is impossible, and your explaination makes sense. The only thing I'd say is impossible would be JJ hooking up with Gathan, or any hockey player. Zach and Will certainly would never happen, either.

That really does explain so much of why Mark associates military people as only being blue collar types, and why I have memories of knowing kids from white-collar families who joined up from high school and college. You really bridged a generation gap between us there, Tim; one I didn't even realize existed until you pointed out the difference in the demographics of the army when Mark was enlistment age back in the early/mid-1980's, and when I was enlistment age back in the mid/late-2000's. Good job there. I wonder who will join up, if any of them do. I definitely can't see Will joining up in the army. There's no possible way a guy who's that stubborn would ever listen to a drill sergeant. And JJ's way too soft. Darius and Gathan, I could see it.

I'm going to try another Noah...Jeremy Irvine from War Horse? Is this closer to what you were thinking for Noah, Mark? I could imagine him looking absolutely fabulous in a blue polo shirt, with those eyes.

I don't know if you've ever been around Pittsburgh people, but this nails it. Pittsburgh sports fans are incredibly loyal to their sports teams. Like, in Philly, you'll get people who are Eagles fans, but aren't Phillies fans. Or vice versa. In Pittsburgh, you have to be a Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates fan. There's no deviation there. It's a down-the-line loyalty. I remember I would go to this bar...I told the bartender that the Ravens lose if I watch the entire game...he joked that he'd get me a NFL Network pass so I'd never miss a game again. I also got some crap from a Browns fan about my Flacco fanboy stuff. Any funny stories, pictures, or videos that poke fun at rivalries that you've witnessed?

So, this a comic web series called Pittsburgh Dad. These three episodes pokes fun at the Steelers/Ravens rivalry. This is a rivalry I had no clue about until I moved to Western P.A. for two years. Wearing a Flacco sweatshirt wasn't entirely welcome there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_688366&feature=iv&src_vid=ORW_ZP3xEIA&v=eJqVZyNlE0E

Be careful with that. Eagles fans can be batshit crazy. Anyway... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ1YPo-pSLw I wish I could have been there- that looks incredible.

Senior year of high school, one of the teachers there had to deal with the death of her son in Iraq. I also had another friend who went Iraq...physically he lost his pinky, but emotionally he had to deal with substance abuse issues and the like. I also knew a good amount of people who were on the G.I. Bill. I always thought it was interesting- these were kids, basically, but they had far bigger concerns and responsibility. Of course, the thing to keep in mind was that there were three military bases in my area- Dover Air Force Base, Fort Monmouth, and Aberdeen Proving Ground were pretty close, but still. If there weren't ties to a small town like Claremont, which in the past Mark has shown as being pretty active in sending their sons and daughters off to war, it'd be one thing, but with that, and the fact that Mark's given this current generation ties to the youth in Claremont...I don't see them not knowing at least a person or two who goes. I'm not saying that it has to be someone they're close to, but at least an acquaintance or two, to make this war personal to them. I could see JJ not caring all that much, but I can see the war really bothering Will, and finding his generation's general apathy toward the war pretty bothersome. My friend Steve (Long Island Hipster Steve, not Jersey Stoner Steve)...he was really into protesting the war. One time...I wanna say during my first junior year, he staged an Iraq War die-in, where we basically dressed up as soldiers, put on fake blood, and lied on the ground pretending to be dead in order to try and get people to care. There were maybe a dozen people at most that participated, which was kind of disapointing. Thank you for explaining why I noticed a large amount of people who had joined up when I was in high school and the first half of college, and why I percieved that as a big surge even though Mark's numbers doesn't back that up. I think there's a little bit of a generation gap between myself and Mark in this regard- for Mark's generation, you didn't see white collar or white collar-aspirational people joining up. I think Mark has the perception that it's only blue collar people who sign up, because that's the way it was back in the 1980's when he was military-aged. For my generation, you were seeing a shift in the demographics of the people joining up- the fact that college tuition is like three or four times what it was in the 1980's probably has something to do with it. Kids from families that twenty years ago could have sent their kid to college when it was like 3 or 4 thousand for an entire year at a state school couldn't by the 2000's, when you could expect to pay at least 20k a year at even a relatively in-expensive state school. I felt like there was something that I just wasn't conveying correctly to Mark in this regard, and Tim, you just explained what it was. Thanks for bridging a generation gap here. :2thumbs: I agree about Lou, but I don't think Cody's going happen. Cody is his sister's biological father, so there's something kind of squicky about having them hook up. Also, even though I don't think Will's going to hate Cody for this, I do think it bothers Will that Cody doesn't have it in him to be a father to his daughter. Family is very important to Will, and even though I think Tiffany's talk with him about Cody makes it so that Will can be friends with Cody, I can't see Will wanting to hook up with him. Will have a very strong sense of responsibility and what's right and what's wrong, and I think Cody would be permanently dinged in his mind. Maybe it wouldn't be fair, but it would be very human, and I think that's how Will would view Cody from this point on. Yeah, yeah, Will's a guy and hormones are huge and yada yada yada, but I think in this case, Will's sense of responsibility, and his love for his sister...I can see that ruling over any physical appeal that Cody would have to him. I think before Paternity, I would have agreed that a Cody/Will hook-up is inevitable, but not after this story. I don't think it would make sense, character-wise, for Will to get with Cody. I don't think it would be as out of character as it would be for you to have JJ and Gathan have wild hot sex, but still out of character.

Damn it Mark, you and your need to back statements up with statistics. LOL. Okay, so there's not a huge surge, but there are going to be guys who join up in the War...so I'm assuming that characters we've met in CAP will join up in the coming war. There are way too many characters and these characters aren't that insulated, so I can't see you being able to avoid sending at least one of Will and JJ's friends off to the Iraq War. It won't be like Vietnam because this isn't a draft, but they'd still have at least a friend or two that'd go. And Gathan would especially be hit hard, because his Claremont buddies are pretty much screaming "Future Iraq War veterans". I don't see you being able to avoid the War on Terror/the Iraq War...those were the big long-lasting effects of 9/11 on this country and the world.

Well, in about a year guys are going to start joining the miliary en masse for the new-fangled War on Terror. I could see Tony joining the military, superficially because of patriotism, but really because it's his last-dtich effort to prove to himself that he's not gay. Tony would not be the first closet case to think that the army would turn him straight, and that would actually be a pretty "of the time" storyline- a closeted gay soldier fighting the War on Terror during the last decade of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.