methodwriter85

Hey, just curious...does anyone remember the scene where Will showed JJ how to masturbate, and when that took place? I want to say somewhere around August.

Damien Lewis is now the emmy-awarding winning lead actor of Homeland, which has kind of usurped Mad Men as the cool cable t.v. show that people are raving over. It stars Claire Danes (your generation's Molly Ringwald) as Carrie, a Homeland Security agent who believes that Damien Lewis's rescued POW character has been flipped to the terrorist side. I've enjoyed the episodes I've seen...I'm glad that Claire Danes is having a comeback, and it's great to see Damien Lewis getting the recognition that he should've gotten for Band of Brothers.

Well, I kind of figure that Mark's kept us in 2000 for so long because there's a lot he wants to set up before shooting us off through the decade, not that three or four stories for every year is going to become the norm. If it does, Mark will be in his 60's and Brad will be barely in his mid-40's at some point. LOL. In any event, I think he's done a great job of creating a new generation that will have a lot of interesting issues to explore as they navigate their teen and twenty-something years in the 2000's. (Hopefully we'll see less of their teen years and more of their twentysomething years...your 20's are just a lot more interesting than a person's teen years. Well, unless you're Molly Ringwald.)

There's a big difference between "formerly rich" and someone who grew up with the mindset of being poor. Brad even noted that, in a sense, he was more comfortable with Drew because he didn't belong to the shelter crowd in Millenium; that there was something "different" about Drew that made him stand out among the kids there. And Drew went back to his family and private school life, and likely pretends that his time on the street never happened. Marie was born April 18th, 1986- she's older than Will by about five months, but Will is kept in the same grade with her because of California's late kindergarten-cut off. In most states, Will would have been in the class of 2005 with John, who was born in July 1987 and is currently thirteen. And in JJ's case, if he had been born about five days earlier, he would have been in the class of 2003 instead of in 2004. Mark had me figuring out the ages and classes of this generation while we were on the late states of Millenium- Darius, Tony, and Gathan are the class of 2000, Ella is the class of 2001, Zach is the class of 2003, JJ, Marie, and Will are the class of 2004, and John's the class of 2005. Courtney Clearault would be the class of 2013, therefore a senior in high school right now. There isn't much overlap between her and John, but I wouldn't be surprised if Mark would up having characters who were born circa 1989-1992 to represent more late 2000's/early 2010's classes. Or we might just stop with high school stories once we get to John Hobart's graduation in '05, and the stories will just focus more on college kids/twentysomethings. It depends on how much of the 2000's Mark wants to skip or how much of a teenaged viewpoint on this decade Mark wants to have, I think. I thought it was kind of cool how it worked out that both Brad and Claire have a set of Irish twins each- JJ and Will are 9 months apart, while Marie and John are about 15 months apart. I'm kind of surprised though that Claire and Jack didn't have more kids- they seemed like the type who would have had a big brood- at least three or four. That they stopped at two makes me wonder if Claire has some kind of career that just hasn't been mentioned. As for Bohemian Grove, Hampton Sides wrote a pretty cool story about it that I read in my American Culture and Counterculture Class. The impression that he gave is that it's mostly middle-aged men and elderly men, so I'm not sure how much appeal that would be to Will...no college-aged guys to be jailbait for. LOL. *waits for Private Tim to correct me and insist that there's tons of hot young men from the elite families of California traispsing around there sans clothing for Will to get it on with*

MJ, she's 14. Wanting to think you're cool because of the way you dress is incredibly normal and common for that age. And her point is that people like Stefan and Ella will ONLY wear popular labels instead of going out of the box and trying and experimenting with new looks that mix and match different styles to create something edgy and cool. It's not that she refrains from designer stuff, either- just that not everything needs to match with her, because her style is more eclectic. I was kind of surprised that Will didn't pick up a poor boyfriend from his tutoring days at the shelter...I'm liking the entry of Noah. He reads to me as a poor scholarship kid who is begrudingly but barely tolerated by the popular crowd, who scrimped and saved up for the one or two Abercrombie polo shirts he wears to try and fit in with Carter's clique. I like Will having a friend from the wrong side of the tracks. I mean, there was Gathan, but Gathan also got injected with a 5-million dollar trust fund and was about to go off to college anyway, so Will never really had a poor high school friend. I also really liked the entry of Marie's crowd. As someone who tended to lean more towards the eclectic people in high school and parts of college, I liked the reminder that it's not just preppy jocks vs. nerds in high school...high school/college was much more nuanced than that stereotypical viewpoint of it. I think this is the first time since Mouse that Mark has depicted people who fell outside of either the preppy jock category or the surfer boy category, which I'm appreciative of.

As someone who tended to lean towards more eclectic people in high school and parts of college, I really liked the characterization of Marie. Not everyone could be classified as a "jock", "prepster", or a "nerd", and I enjoyed seeing that getting reflected.

Tim, that was a reference to the emo boy look, which was huge with a certain segment of young people in the mid-2000's. They would dress like that, and then post pictures of themselves on Myspace with funny angles.(Myspace. Man, I'm dating myself with that reference.) It was a national trend that faded out during the late 2000's- most of them aged out and became hipsters. They were to my generation what "goths" were to your generation, and I'm not surprised you missed out on seeing that trend. It was pretty specific to a certain segment of people, who I don't really associate with being into sports. I personally never did the look- I was more into wearing cargo shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops, and wearing a faux-hawk. But I had friends who were into the look. I'll never forget the time I walked in on my friend Long Island Hipster Steve making out with this emo boy at a St. Patty's Day '07 party. Despite the ridiculousness of the styles, I loved how comfortable emo guys were with gay people, to the point that they'd post Youtube videos of them making out with other guys to show how cool they were.

I loved that this chapter was basically a preview of coming 2000's trends. The only thing missing was a guy who likes wearing girl jeans, eyeliner, obscure band t-shirts, and flat-ironed hair. (My friend Josh was a prototype Emo Boy, several years before that came into style.) I remember when leather pants were a big deal circa the late 90's/early '00s. David Boreanaz on Buffy rocked the hell out of that look... Anyway, I really liked Marie's characterization. You can see how she's Claire's daughter, but at the same, she feels like a totally different and new character and not a re-tread.

I'm sure that's the only thing you're interested in giving to those young college men...inspiration.

Have you hit up Christiana Mall yet, Tet? They renovated the shit out it, and it looks great. You would almost never guess that the mall was built in 1978. The only parts of the mall where you can see that would be JCPenney's. I moved to Delaware when I was 9, so sales tax was never really anything that I was used to or understood. When I visted Tennessee, I couldn't get over how high the sales tax was. Thanks for all the trivia there. The low altitude of Delaware made it a hard adjustment to living in Western Pennsylvania, which has a higher elevation. I'd feel sick driving in cars and I didn't know why, until someone told me I'm likely just sensitive to elevation changes. I did a summer internship at Delaware Museum of Natural History, and it was cool how well-known it was. And I'd take naps at Daughterty Hall on a regular basis, so I saw parts of the amber collection.

Ah, you're lovely. Thanks for the well-wishes, guys.

Over in reviews...Tim said... I liked Will's wake-up call, as well. I think we all have that person- either in a platonic sense or a romantic sense- who you feel so strongly drawn to but it's not something that can really work out. I also like seeing "50 Shades of Gay" when it comes to Tony. It reminded me of a friend I had, who genuinely enjoys having sex with woman, but can only be both physically and emotionally satisfied by men. That is what made it so hard for him to accept being gay, because he liked having sex with women but it was more emotionally satisfying to have sex with men. I'm assuming Tony's similiar- he's gay and struggling hard against it, but his ability to enjoy sex with women makes it easier for him to deny it.

Today marks the 225th anniversary of when the state of Delaware signed the Constitution, becoming the first state to do so. Let's hear it for the Diamond State! Woo-hoo!

Happy 27th birthday, JJ. Hopefully by 2012 you're on speaking terms with your brothers.

John's in 8th grade, which means he's still in the middle school part of Menlo, so he's not that much of a factor. I generally agree with what you're saying. We had a middle school combined with the high school, so the only real time eyebrows would be raised for ignoring age would be if you were in 10th or 11th grade dating an 8th grader. That would get some serious ribbing. (To the best of my knowledge, there wasn't a senior dating someone in 8th grade, although I wouldn't be surprised if that happened.) MJ, not exactly. I started out with the class of '04(A December 7th, 1985 birthday gets you cut off to start with the 2003 class even in California, let alone in New Jersey), but I had to graduate with the class of 2005. I was held back in first grade over concern about my reading level. So my high school years(2001 to 2005) actually correlate exactly to John's. If we see John's perspective during his senior year of high school, I'll get to play such illustrious hits as this for senior prom: True by Ryan Cabrera If I recall correctly, at my senior prom the faculty basically had to force the DJ to play old stuff like Footloose by Kenny Loggins and (Napoleon Dynamite for the win!) because they were so sick of having to listen to wall to wall hip-hop at proms. 2003-2005 was when hip-hop was really wall to wall and hard to escape, so I couldn't blame them. I really, really welcomed it when Green Day made their big comeback when I started college. '05 turned out to have been a good year to have graduated though- it was the last entering class before my school initiated a lottery for people to get in, and it was the year before the implementation of the new SAT system. On a personal level, the class of 2004 and the class of 2006 had some seriously annoying people in them. It's not to say my class didn't- but by junior/senior years we had all mellowed out in a way that the '04 and '06 people hadn't. So I was happy to be a "5" boy. Not my school, but eh. '05 forever!

Am I the only one who thought the middle school was much more socially stratfied and mean than high school was? Middle school was basically killed or be killed. High school had some of the same leftover b.s., but it wasn't nearly as bad because people had their own activities and groups to be part of. Especially by senior year- most of the petty bullshit was over and people were more or less cool with each other. People were too into doing their own thing to care all that much about what people who were in other groups were doing to really bother with them. The only people who really got messed with where the people that tried too hard to fit into groups that they didn't really belong to, i.e. the wannabees like Noah. As for Will...the way I have him pictured is like a high school "floater", i.e. the popular guy in high school who could be friends with people in all different groups and find something in common with all of them. There were people in high school that were popular because they were geuninely likeable and friendly to everyone, as opposed to the people in high school who were popular because they intimated the shit out of people like Carter, and I think Will would be the former.

I'm wondering where JJ will fit into the Evan Lysacek/Johnny Weir rivalry of the 2000's. He'd likely side with Evan, but it'll be interesting see if JJ is going to be right up there with them, or several notches behind. If JJ is always right behind them but never winning over both of them, I can see that driving JJ crazy, his friendship with Evan be damned. I'm just itching for the inevitable cat fight between Johnny Weir and JJ, especially if JJ decides attending a well-regarded university on the East Coast with one of the best figure skating clubs in the country is a good way to prepare for 2006.

That does make a lot of sense. It kind of feels like when it comes to JJ, this kid is walking on a bridge made of sand that could collapse any second. Knowing that he's walking a pathway towards a dream that will never get fufilled makes it even more precarious. Will going off to Menlo will be good for JJ, but even better for JJ would likely be a move to New York City, Chicago, or maybe Europe after he finishes high school. That would be a way for him to develop his own network that Will can't intrude on. I think when they're in their mid-20's, they'll be happily skyping each other weekly, but at 14/15, it's really hard for two warring siblings to reconcile totally. Anyway, thanks for the back up on Will. It's not that I think Will doesn't enjoy being social or would pass up being well-liked, but at the same time, acitvely campaigning to be social king like Andy and Matt did in Cross-Currents wouldn't be his style. I just can't see him buying into the high school mindset of "Oh, gawd, the seniors don't like me. I'm ruined forever!" that a lot of high school freshmen and sophomores buy into.He's more along the lines of the kid that was popular because he was actually cool and was friendly to everyone, not the "intimidation popular" that Brad was. The kind of "high school angst of peer pressure and upperclassmen intimidation" would be better suited to someone like John or JJ, I think.

You're right, MJ. Think about it- this a guy who just got himself emancipated at the age of 14. As we've seen at the Menlo party, bowing down to the uber-elite of high school upperclassmen is just not something he's going to do, not if he doesn't like these people. Someone who was aiming for social king would have made the effort to play by their rules, and Will pretty much gave the middle finger to that crowd, showing that while he wants friends(which is natural), he's not going to make friends with people that are total assholes in order to better his social standing. And note that the one friend that Will did make was Noah, who is heavily implied to be more of a wannabee joke as opposed to someone who is legitimately accepted by the in-crowd. So much of high school b.s. is based around the feeling that everything you do in high school is life or death, and that everything and every move is so important. A guy who has gone through what Will has gone through from July to November of 2000 just isn't look at typical high school situations of "I don't know where to sit in the cafeteria" or "the cool kids don't want to talk to me" and find them all that important. That is where Will is going to differ massively from a typical 14-year old guy.

We didn't see Brad in his freshman year, correct, but we're also supposed to think that Will is more physically and emotionally closer to being that of a high school junior or senior. Will was establishing his popularity by being cool and nice to people- not by being the social tyrant that Brad was depicted as being, and playing the kind of games that Brad would play. My deal is that Brad would have likely put on a front to get people to like him- Will doesn't do that, because while I'm sure he doesn't mind people liking him and looking up to him, he doesn't need to be Social King the way Brad did, or Matt does. That is why Will is above the social game of high school- he'll make friends and enjoy them, but he won't play games. A male version of Mean Girls wouldn't suit Will as a character. As for the nickname stuff, my family has called me JR since I was little. It annoys me. Hence, I'm projecting that onto JJ because Mark gave JJ some very similiar personality traits. Sure, I guess I probably shouldn't, but hell- I cringe at reading the stuff that JJ does while remembering the very bitchy things I could say when I was his age so it's hard not to project because he reminds me so much of myself at 14. As for JJ's personality change...two things to consider- within the span of a year, he watched his two dads nearly implode in on themselves, and he watched his mother completely break down. That's a tough thing for a 14-year old boy to handle, and I think it'd be hard to maintain a happy, cheerful personality while going through that. I also think that Mark is writing JJ kind of similiar to how he wrote Jim in The Box...maybe a case of nature over nurture?

I don't think it's that Will isn't into socializing- he is- he's just not willing to play the social game b.s. that is so prevalent in high school. I thought the Menlo party scene made that abundantly clear. Whereas Brad was all about trying to control everyone at Gunn High, Will's more along the lines of being that guy in high school who was just cool and didn't play games with people. For example, High School Brad would have likely befriended Carter while plotting to destroy him socially, as in "keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Will would never do that. And I hope Alistair sticks around, too. JJ does still go to HW and Alistair is his friend, so I'm sure he'll stick around. I'm kind of surprised that JJ hasn't demanded that his family call him Jeremy yet and not the baby nickname. I'm sure that will come up at some point the further along JJ gets into his career, with JJ wanting to be called his actual name because it's more mature and he's trying to hold his own against the twentysomething greats in figure skating. The one reason I can think of would be that at this point, JJ's in no kind of hurry to grow up yet and so it hasn't occured to him yet that JJ is not actually a grown-up name to get called.

It kind of feels like the only reason to have Will even going to Menlo is so he can have sex with cute high school water polo players.

There are times that I think Brad should have just let Neal have Robbie. This would be one of them. As for Will and school...I think in real life, he would have been the type of kid that either tested out of high school with his GED, or he would have doubled up on summer school courses so he could have skipped at least a grade or two. I'm not sure if Mark would have Will do that, but I can see that happening. He's over high school drama and he's not even out of his first semester.

What are you talking about, Blue? I'm always nice.

I've been watching the Office a lot lately on Netflix, and I think John Krasinski comes pretty close to how you describe yourself (good-looking but in kind of a nerdy way), especially in terms of the height/body type (6'3" and lanky) and the coloring. (Pasty with hazel eyes and reddish brown hair, right?) He also has the total whitebread look that I imagine you having. I think the face shape is right as well, but you'd have a much smaller, sharper nose and higher, more defined cheekbones. (That would be the French genes at work, right?) Plus, in real life you KNOW that Jim Halpert would be sparking up a J every day after work. I can also see you dressing really similiar to that. You strike me as a "layer" guy when you're being casual.