methodwriter85

I was inspired by your reminsces of the 1980's in my "Memories of the 1980's" thread.

I love the 80's and 90's a lot, but I think the 90's gets the edge because the downside of the 80's were that it's the last decade in which it was totally okay to be homophobic. The 90's were much more socially concious. However, there's something about the cheesiness and bright colors of the 80's that just feel fun to me, like here:

I think I can explain it better this time around. I have three older siblings who were born in 1977, 1981, and 1982. That put them squarely as "80's children", and I was familiar with a lot of their childhood toys like Cabbage Patch Dolls, the Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, etc etc. I was also familiar with a lot of 80's movies and t.v. shows....one sister could not get enough of that movie. And I watched with them a lot. Hell, I even remember my sisters having that perfume that Debbie Gibson named after her song. As a consequence of having older siblings, I experienced more of 80's culture than I would have if I had been an eldest child with siblings born in the late 80's/early 90's instead. I was also one of those latch-key kids who had been raised by television back in the early/mid-90s, and at the time a lot of 80's shows were being re-run on TV, like The Facts of Life, , (why were there so many shows about adoption back in the '80s?), , (yes, kids, before there was a movie there was a tv show starring Johnny Deep), etc etc. I actually once had someone who believed that I was lying about my age because of the references that I was making would point to me not being a 15-year old in 2001, but meh. I missed most of the 80's in terms of a physically tangible sense, but I experienced a lot of the culture, hence the nostalgia. I mean, I get all the references in Bowling for Soup's 1985: I totally feel justified in my 80's nostalgia, because I "get" that decade. Sometimes I wish I had been born in 1974-ish instead of 1985, so I could have experienced the 80's as a teenager. (And then later on, experiencing the grunge era as a college student. That would have awesome.)

I was born in 1985, but I consider myself to be a historian of the 1980's, so I understand more about the decade than someone my age normally would. Private Tim thought it was weird that I'm nostalgic for the 80's, but I really consumed a lot of the pop culture of the time period so I "get" that decade more than a typical person in their 20's would.

My impression of the 80's was that the early 1980's was the "transition" period, as the early part always are. I knew about the economic recession of the early 80's, and it seemed like the UK was on more of an "up" at that time period as Thatcherite policies kicked in. I felt like the 80's boom hit first in the UK, which is why it seemed like you saw a lot of emulation of UK "New Wave" culture in the early 1980's. Reagan conservatism was on it's way in, but you still had that relaxed late 70's mindset of everyone's free to be you and me. It doesn't seem like that was completely over until about 1984-1985, with Regan's second term coming in and the emerging hysteria of AIDS, coupled with the rising evangelicalism. There are two movies that I think really reflect the mindset of circa 1980 America: with Jodie Foster and Foxes to me represented the tail-end-of-the-70's America- the malaise, the haziness, the anti-kid sentiment, and a time period where latch-key teenagers were really allowed to run around and do whatever they wanted to because the grown-ups were too busy discovering themselves as a consequence of the "Me" decade. Fast Times At Ridgemont High also represented the openess about teen sex and teen drug use, but you also saw the rising materialism. You could easily see these kids, who were all about having jobs so they could afford brand-name clothes and pay for cars, becoming yuppies by 1986-1987.

Right, that's why I'm saying "heading towards", not that it's actually there. But Mark has slowly and steadily given the clan ties to the East Coast, which is why I get the vibe that the influence is becoming bi-coastal. The other thing was that up til the 1960's, Crampton Construction was the big family business, where you were supposed to grow up and take over. Now they've got all these different companies being run, and those companies can't just get run by family, so that adds to the feeling that it's less of the French model of the family head.

I actually agree with you that I don't really see "one" head of the family, at least going into the newer generations. The reason why that worked for JP's generation was that everyone was tightly focused in Claremont. It also worked for Be Rad's generation because everyone was stationed in Stanford, and JP as the head of the department made the natural leader for this generation. But the Cramptons/Schluters/Hayes seems like they're moving from being a regional power to being bi-coastal, with influences ranging from the West Coast to the mid-West and now in D.C., and if/when the kids start going off and moving on their own I can't see how the "one person at the center" deal would work. I actually think that's realistic...it's like the du Ponts of Delaware. They were very well focused and powerful in Delaware, and they followed the French deal with the head of family and the like. But nowaways, the company is global, and the family is so spread out that while they have a greater global influence, they're less of a player provincially.

Hey, for those of you who have been missing my doing music recs for CAP, I'm currently doing music recs for JWolf's story, The English Year. I got to a point where I just couldn't hear music anymore for these particular characters in this particular year, so rather than forcing it, I decided to wait until I could again. In the meantime, I've been focusing on the 2004-2008 music era for Jwolf's story, The English Year. Please check out the story, and here are the music recs: https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/36047-music-recs-for-the-english-year/

You do realize I was trying to be loyal and defending you and your writing, right?

I'm not saying it's ridiculous, but I'm saying that it's never going to happen, because CAP has never been nor will ever be a realistic coming of age story about gay teenagers. It's a soap opera with a gay erotic wish fufillment angle to it. Imagine Dynasty from the 1980's, but if Steven Carrington was actually allowed to have lots and lots of gay sex instead of just giving his boyfriend a hug and then deciding to bang Heather Locklear.

Well, the Eagles are dead and gone for '12, but it's nice to know that my secondary team the Ravens still got a chance.

And that is exactly what I'm trying to say here, but somehow failed to convey. Would I like it if this story depicted teen sex lives as awkward and sloppy as they can actually be? Yes, I actually would. And I know that Mark is capable of doing that, because anyone who's read Mark's semi-autobiographical story On the Mark would know that he can write that. But the simple truth is, he doesn't want to write CAP like that. CAP is and has been, from day one, a well-written gay erotic story with soap opera plotlines, not a realistic coming of age story about young gay guys fumbling with the awkwardness of coming out. If you want that, go read DomLuka, because this is not the place for that.

Because Will looks like a green-eyed version of this?

And that won't happen either, because again, this is a gay erotic wish fufillment fantasy. We're supposed to live vicariously through Will's sexual exploits, like we were supposed to live through JP's sexual exploits or Matt Carrsworld's sexual exploits.There is no such thing as unrequited lust in CAP-world. I'm sure if Brad would have hit on Jack back in 1980, he would have gone for it, too. I think the only reason that didn't happen was that Brad was afraid that Claire would castrate him if he did.

And you're missing my point- that in CAP world, it's not immoral or wrong to have sex with a minor, like it's not immoral or wrong for a 17-year old guy to have sex with a man in his 50's. Therefore, you're not going to have Will get turned down by someone because of his age, because in CAP World and according to the rules that Mark set up for his characters, it's okay for 14-year olds to have sex with grown men as long as it's consenting. You get the vibe that even Wade, who Mark is setting up as the moral voice for his generation, seems to have suggested that if he didn't see Will as a brother, he'd have sex with him, too. Because again, pesky little things like statutory rape laws don't really apply in CAP world, and the characters simply don't think it's wrong. No one is going to have the moral fiber to say no, because no one thinks that it's immoral to have sex with a minor.

It's not, but the bulk of the over-18 guys he's hooked up with don't actually know his real age, other than Tony, Gathan, and Jeff. And like I said, this is Mark's gay erotic fantasy story. Saying "no" to the hot jailbait because you're afraid of landing your ass on the Megan's Law List isn't really part of the whole "gay erotic fantasy vicarious thrills"aspect of this story. If you wanted a realistic look at sex offender law, . Mark is never going to have Gathan, Tony, or Jeff get jailed for having partaken in statutory rape, because according to the CAP World moral code, there's nothing wrong with having sex with someone's who under the age of 18 as long as they consent to it. That goes all the way back to when 26-year old JP had sex with a 17-year old Jeff and 16-year old Stefan, in the very first CAP story.

No one says no to Will because CAP is first and foremost a gay erotic fantasy written by Mark, and Mark doesn't really want to delve into the reality of a post-Megan's Law world? I think it's also different because Will really does look like he's 17/18, so in some ways that makes it "okay" in the mind of the people that are hooking up with him. It's like Brooke Shields back in Mark's day... , and what made it "okay" was that she looked like a 22-year old woman, not a 15-year old girl.

Here's this adorable Folgers coffee ad about a young girl who's excited that her big brother has come home for Christmas. Just too cute. I wonder if that's what it was like for Adam Phillips and his own baby sister when he'd come home from college. (I don't know what it's like to have a younger sister.)

Happy Christmas, Mark. This song kind of reminds me of you...

And my comment was meant to convey that as I read your post, I realized that Ace and Darius are superficially similiar, but when you get beyond that in terms of their actual personality, Darius and Ace are actually pretty different. And it kind of feels like the bond that Darius and Will are developing is actually more similiar to what Brad has with Jack, because it kind of seemed that the older Ace got, the more apparent it was how shallow a person he is. Ace didn't turn out to be someone that you'd turn to in rougher times, the way that I believe Jack can be for Brad, and for the way that Darius can be for Will.

I think it'd be hard for someone with Darius's life to be completely vapid- he was 3 years old when his mother dumped him and his little newborn brother off on Brad so she could go be a crackhead. His father was never seen, and at 13 he had to re-live all that trauma again when his mother came back to try and take custody of him and JJ. He's also someone of Middle Eastern descent who grew up in a lily-white family and community. I think that adds layers to him aside from being just the fun-loving Mr. Popular Guy. Here's something I'm curious about- does Malibu have a reputation for being racist like Newport Beach and the lily white communites in Orange County do? It's made up of liberal people, apparently, but it's also over 90 percent white, which makes me wonder if Darius growing up had to deal with the same thing I did of having people questioning constantly my race. I doubt there's open racism, but there could be some subtle racism there. This is probably for the Cali culture thread, but I did remember when the O.C. premiered back in 2003, people complained about how there weren't any black characters. And that's when I read that Newport Beach is over 90 percent white, and that they're not exactly considered a bastion of tolerance and diversity. I'd never experienced living in an area like that until I moved to the Pittsburgh area for grad school, in an area that was really white. I actually had a grown person make Korean jokes about me(which I'm not), and I was told once that people were going to play guessing games about what my race is but I spoiled the fun by revealing what it is.

See, I generally agreed with most of what you wrote in that post, but I'm not entirely sure I'd call Darius the new "Ace". He's Ace in a superficial way in terms of being the future frat boy ladies man, but once you get past those layers, Ace and Darius are actually pretty different. Ace wasn't about honor or responsibility. He's someone that's easy to get along with as long as things are okay and fun, but Ace never really came off as someone that you could confide in when things were going rough. Ace was also depicted as being pretty judgemental, stubborn, and temperamental, while Darius really isn't. This might just be more of a consequence of the fact that Mark does try to develop his characters more deeply than he did during the first couple of CAP stories, and the fact that we're not zipping through years anymore we get to know more about a character as they are at a particular age rather than getting quick glimpses of them at 17 and then again at 21. Mark has done a hell of a lot of character development for Will's generation, more than he did with Brad's generation with them as teenagers. So I suppose that's one brightside to the fact that Mark's kept CAP World in 2000 for three long stories. He has created a pretty interesting "new" generation with lots of issues to capitalize on as they grow up and reach into their 20's against the back drop of the Dubya adminstration, which has been called one of the worst presidencies this country has ever had.

I'll leave that up to you.

I'm going to reiterate All-American Guy model Phil Fusco for Tony. He's just that classic good-looking Italian American guy- not a pretty boy, but handsome in a really masculine way. It's just a shame male models are generally discouraged from having chest hair- I bet his would would have looked hot.