methodwriter85

Thanks for that, RJo. Sometimes I feel like JJ could disapear and go away and no one would even notice because they're too busy paying attention to Golden Boy Will...I'm glad you feel like he's an important character that matters. I do think having a legacy character from a core family is always important, especially if they've got a niche that makes them unlike anybody else on the story canvas. Over in reviews: I wonder if JJ would benefit from being sent off to live with relatives not in California. CA isn't the only place with figure skating coaches, and I get the feeling that if JJ got a chance to start over new where no one knew him as the middle-child overshadowed by Will and Darius, he'd do really well. He'd be forced to learn how to socialize with people without his mother and I guess now Robbie, which would make him grow up. As it is right now, JJ's stuck being the angry middle child who doesn't get enough attention. I wonder if there are any good boarding schools on the East Coast or mid-West that are close to Olympic-level figure skating clubs... I see Tony as gay, but the kind of gay that can still get it up for a woman. Because Tony can have sex with and enjoy a woman, he can lie to himself about not being gay, but he won't be fully emotionally and physically satisfied with a woman. Unfortunately, he's the type who just can't see himself having and raising a family with a guy, which is why he won't get serious about dating a guy. I have an online friend who was a lot like that- he enjoyed women, but there was a deep physical and emotional need he had to be lying in the arms of another man in the morning after. It took him a long time to come out- he wasn't out until he was 26. I think Tony will be similiar. I wonder if he'll be like my friend and try joining the military to prove to himself that he's not gay. That is a very common and sad story. I do like the contrast- Will(and my) generation is really that first generation of guys where you could say that they didn't need to come out because they were never in a closet to begin with. I'm not saying Will has become the rule, but it's becoming much more common, and I think the fact that gay families and gay marriages have become an option and something that current twentysomethings have grown up with really has done a lot to de-stigmatize being gay. I've talked with an author here...he's from Dallas like Adam Phillips is, but he has a hard time understanding Andy's struggle with his gay side in Cross-Currents because it just wasn't that big of a deal. And this guy is only about nine years younger than Adam is, but you can kind of even see a generation gap there. Even though people complain about how slow the progress is on gay marriage...the progress in terms of how the teenagers and twentysomethings act in regards to gay people is pretty fucking astounding. I mean, in 1992, a 15-year old gay kid couldn't have even concieved that one day he could get married to a guy. Twenty years later, a 15-year old gay kid has that option in a decent amount of states, and can see himself as not missing out on all that much because he's gay. I gotta admit, I like Tony and I get why Will is so attracted to him, but I also don't really see them as a match. Even when they're 26 and 30, and Tony has finally become okay with being gay, there's something about Tony that tells me that they wouldn't be a good match. I think it's because my gut about Tony tells me that he's a guy who believes in the status quo and upholding tradition, while Will is very much about challenging the status quo and forging new traditions and modes of acting. I mean, can you honestly see Tony as he's being written now going off with Will to help save the marine life in Louisiana when the oil spill happens in '10? Tony strikes me as someone who is set for a very conventional life in a white-collar 9-to-5, even if he does wind up married to a guy. That's not to say he can't change, but that's how I'm reading Tony as a character. High School Brad, I think, would have done that. Brad as he is now basically has done stuff like that. Will wouldn't do something like that- I think that's where there's a major difference between Brad and Will. Brad, at times, will treat people like his chess pieces to move around. Will doesn't treat people like that.

Look at the end of the quote. JJ is approaching his 15th birthday, so maybe Mark will pull a "Billy" on us.

Mark Arbour used to work in the investment/banker world before he decided to follow his bliss during his mid-life crisis and become a middle-class family guy teaching business classes instead. He knows shit tons about the financial/business world and the personality types that inhabit it. Mark likes to keep at least a little bit of plausbility in the story. If Mark didn't think that Robbie as a character could have run a corporation, he wouldn't have set that story up for Robbie at the end of Man in Motion. The only person in CAP that I really couldn't see in the business world would be JJ...temperamental diva types with a theatrical personality tend not to make the best financial decisions. That kind of adds to the feeling of JJ being the odd duck in his family- I can't see JJ having a head for business the way I could see Darius and Will having it.

See, this is why I'm interested in seeing what happens to JJ in 2006 and 2010. We already know that JJ won't win the Gold- that goes to Evengi Plushenko and Evan Lysacek, respectively. As he's written now, JJ wouldn't handle that all that well, if he indeed makes it to the age of 20 and 24.

I completely disagree with that. JJ has drive. It's just that his drive is to win the the competition, whereas Will's drive is more about succeeding in every facet of his life. JJ sees his life as his sport, which is why JJ is neglectful on the "life" part of winning. Well, JJ is just about to turn 15, the age that Billy was when he died. That would be interesting if Brad lost a son at the same age that he lost a brother. As for JJ's radical personality change, good points. He was described as being sweet and cheerful throughout Bloodlines, which is two years ago in CAP World. In The Box, which is set in summer 1999, JJ's described as being more serious now than he was, but not described as being bitchy. I could've sworn Stefan had a bit where he mourned the loss of the lighthearted, sweet boy who had now become very serious about his sport. He doesn't really get described as being a bitchy diva until the end of the Millenium, when JJ starts butting heads with Gathan during Easter Break, 2000. So he's only really been a bitch, in CAP time, for about eight or so months. Then again, this IS Cap. You should expect rapid personality mood swings and such, to maximize drama. In 8-10 months, Will went from being mournful that Brad didn't ask him to be his best man at the committment ceremony to torching his wardrobe, filing for emancipation, and then basically getting to a place with his dad that you usually don't get to until you're in your 20's.

Well, you can't get divorced if you can't get married, which doesn't happen in the United States until 2004. (In Massachusetts.) I thought Mark did a nice little bit about that, in the scene where Brad tells Will about the time in 1986 when Brad and Robbie decided to commit to each other, and Will thought about how it seemed like gay couples have a hard time describing their relationship milestones. It's going to be an interesting contrast with Will's generation coming up, where you hear guys his age using terms like "enaged" and "husband" and "married" more often instead of terms like "partner" and "committment ceremony" the way guys Brad's age and even Cody's age do. Anyway, I liked Darius being brought in. I think it's realisitic how the siblings take turns being pissed at each other- first Will and JJ team up against Darius, then Will and Darius are teaming up against JJ. That's very true to life when you have at least three siblings. JJ's bitchiness isn't excusable, but damn I feel sorry that his mom isn't going to be there for his 15th birthday. To use a Mark writing term, that's "raw." It does feel like Mark realized that JJ was pretty isolated off into the corner with his mom and Tiffany in the figure skating world, and little by little he's breaking that down to try to bond him more with one of his fathers. It seems like Mark's chosen Robbie for that, which makes a lot of sense.

Damn, Mark. 2012 is going to be one crazy year for you to cover. I can't believe all the crazy stuff that happened this year.

This Candadian actor named Jesse Moss is kind of how I picture Noah... Cute in this very innocent, kind of nerdy way. (The actor was also fucking hilarious as a psycho frat guy in this cult film called Dale and Tucker Vs. Evil. I highly recomend you netflix it.)

She's a gorgeous, well-spoken woman. Why not?

Zachary McGinness - You're 17. You were born in 1995. I was 9 years old in 1995. You know how many very vivid memories I have of 1995? You got a very long time to go before 30. NotNoNever- Thanks. I'm looking forward to the next year.

Jennifer Lawrence is not considered thin, though. Jennifer Lawrence: "In Hollywood, I am obese. I am considered a fat actress." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlGo3JVFGoE I'm glad that Jennifer Lawrence is around to show young girls that they don't have to starve themselves down to a size 0 to look beautiful.

I got into One Direction because of the parodies about them. They really seem to have a good humor about themselves and don't take themselves seriously like Bieber. Bieber's "haters" comment at the AMA's seriously bugged the crap out of me. The Wanted are actually pretty cool and interesting though- they've got an edge to them that One Direction doesn't have, and they're not generic-looking. You might like them better. They have a sensibility that reminds me of Robbie Williams during his "Millenium" phase.

Last Friday, I turned 27 and officially entered the land of the late 20-something, starting off my countdown to the 30 club. If this were Logan's Run, I would be a red now. It was a pretty quiet birthday weekend- just an Olive Garden famly dinner, a drink or two with a friend and a late-night Saturday trip to Waffle House. It's gotten me into relfective mood over the age stage I've just left, my mid-20's. When I turned 24, I was a senior in college and I was convinced that my best days were behind me- that there would never be a time as a free and as crazy as being in your early 20's, and I'd never have as much fun as I did the spring/summer I was 23 when I really went for broke with the college partying. 24 was just old, man, and it was all supposed to be downhill from there. And I couldn't have been more wrong. The ages of 24, 25, 26 were pretty damn good for me. I finished college after 5 years and having some major close calls with failing/flunking out. Through some miracle, I got into grad school on the absolute minimum GPA I needed to get in. And when I decided to can my original choice of Millersville to go to this school in the middle of bumblefuck Western Pennsylvania called IUP, I wound up making one of the best choices in my life. My two years in grad school were the most difficult, but ultimately rewarding periods in my life. I had the first and only 4.0 semester I've ever had, and met some great professors. I also had two great internships- one at a natural history museum; the other at a local heritage society. I had the eye-opening experience of living in a different region with different mindsets than the one I had grown up in- I mean, really, I took it for granted that if you started shouting E-A-G-L-E-S, people would join in. That's what life is like in the Greater Philly region. It's a totally different mindset in the Greater Pittsburgh area, and I was glad to have experienced that. I had a job for two years- a crappy job, of course, but beggars can't be choosers in this economy and that was the longest time I've ever held a job. And having that job enabled me to pay for Alternative Spring Breaks in Florida (2011) and Tennessee(2012), the latter of which holds some of the best memories I've made in my life. Nothing will ever beat the feeling of standing in the Tennessee air on a beautiful mountain. (Okay, big hill.) I made some real friends at this age rather than my mainstay of just having "party buddies", and I even found my "grad school" bar- this place called Spaghetti Benders. It wasn't Deer Park Tavern but that was kind of the point- it was a quiet bar with good people from all ages and walks of life who were great people to get to know, and were very different from the typical University of Delaware kids that I grew up with. I think I was probably the most "open" and eager for new experiences than I had been since I was 19/20...at 22 and 23 I was filled with such cynicism that I really felt like I had been there, done that. These past coupe of years showed me just how wrong I was, and just how much more I have left to experience. So bring on my late 20's! My mid-20's were awesome...let's hope these next three years are just as awesome.

I think she's better looking as a brunette... This clip, and Bradley Cooper's character reactions, are pretty hilarious.

I'm not sexually oriented towards women, but I know Gay Authors has members who are. It's totally kick-ass that such an awesome actress is getting admired by straight and bi men instead of vapid talentless hacks like Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton. Jennifer Lawrence is the Most Desirable Woman of 2012 Emma Stone remains my favorite girlcrush, though. She was awesome throughout Zombieland, Easy A, and The Amazing Spiderman. I do like that Jennifer Lawrence is getting kudos for being attractive despite all the "fat" remarks she's gotten- nice reminder to young girls out there that you don't have to be a size 0 to be attractive.

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.