methodwriter85

"Baba O'Riley" is just one of those tracks that never age. I remember it being used so well back in the 1990's with a montage in Summer of Sam and the trailer for American Beauty. There was also this funny scene with Michelle Williams on Dawson's Creek just rocking out to this song.

I was fully prepared for you to tell me I'm wrong. I'm cool with it. I've just been on a proletariat kick lately- I must have absorbed the rantings of my Occupy! buddy Steve and my Early American Labor professor than I thought I had. Rich kids getting special treatment bothers me more than it used- UD was a pretty affluent school...IUP wasn't...and I think that changed my viewpoint a lot. I really find myself identifying with blue-collar Appalachian folks these days. In any sense, it does set up a quid-pro-quo for Ryan and Will's friendship. I really have enjoyed seeing Will in the school atmosphere, as opposed to Poor Man's Son when he was leading the life of a 20-year old guy.

Right, I thought that meant the extra lunch duty they were likely going to give to Will, not the actual required service amount as required under the SQUID program because you want to avoid the thought of Golden Boy in a hairnet doing lunch duty. You can't just have Will get out of doing something that every 9th grader at the school is supposed to do. I can see him getting out of a punishment, but not an actual requirement. I can't see a school that went through the bother of setting up lunch duty as a service requirement for their kids as a means towards building a sense of humility and social duty actually letting people get out of it...if one kid did it, other kids would do it, and that would defeat the entire purpose of having SQUID there in the first place. Julian, you wanna weigh in on this? I'm curious what you thought. The other question I was wondering about...is Will in any other extracurricular activities aside from the tutoring? I was thinking Environmental Club and Surf Club.

Well, Will doesn't have to do lunch duty for a month but you will have to do it three periods in the year. So he's not entirely dodging the bullet here...all of the students have to do it.

I wasn't thrilled with Will getting his get-out-of-jail-free card, but then again, everyone's entitled to one in high school. I don't think Will is going to make a habit out of testing what he can get away with at Harvard-Westlake. Since Will is actually supposed to do lunch duty as a 9th grader for three service periods, as outlined here: Do you think we'll see him do one with Ryan at some point? A Malibu Colony prince wearing a hairnet and cleaning tables is a pretty hilarious thought. I like that Harvard-Westlake really tries to keep their impossibly wealthy kids as grounded as possible.

Chapter 43 -When Brad recounts the time that he and Robbie decided to be life partners, back in 1986. "Leather and Lace" by Stevie Nicks and Don Henley -When Ryan makes it up to Will. In a really fun way. -When Will gets his "get free out of jail card" with the headmaster, and feigns being horribly punished to his friends.

Now I'm off to picture Ryan Reynolds with another man...

Life went on, but it did change. I remember on 9/11, one woman posted at this message board we were on that the government surplus we had, which was FINALLY able to start going towards education and health care, was all going to go to fighting this new war we were in. Damned if she wasn't right. We went from being raised during an amazing economic boom with no wars to coming of age in a hit-or-miss economy with spiraling government debt and a 10-year war.

Well, that's good to know. Thanks for the illumination.

Mark is re-writing figure skating history somewhat to accommodate for JJ, just not in terms of who gets Olympic Gold in '06 and '10. At least, that's what I'm assuming. Mark will bend things a little bit in order to fit the fictional characters into real-life events, but he won't change major things like the fact that Evengi Plushenko won gold in '06 and Evan Lysacek got the gold in '10. Which makes it all the more interesting- we KNOW going into JJ's career that he'll never reach the pinnacle. How he deals with that will be something to see. I agree that the 9/11 story doesn't for the protagonist to be going through some major stuff- there's enough drama without needing to pile stuff on.

On the other hand, losing a legacy character for the drama of having Claire go through losing a child could be pretty short-sighted. Legacy characters, and legacy characters that actually got to grow up on canvas instead of being introduced as long-lost as a teenager, tend to be hard to come by. We've got Will, Darius, JJ, John, and Marie. Courtney also counts, but she's mentioned very, very sparingly. We need this generation to drive the next wave of stories, so killing them off might not be a good idea. That was one of the (many) mistakes that General Hospital made- they kept having legacy characters like Georgie Jones die off and you lost the continuity of generations that used to characterize soaps. Of course, Mark could always come up with long-lost sons like he did with Matt to replace whatever gets lost(Marcel replacing Billy as Jeff's living son is the most glaring example), but killing off legacy characters should never be taken lightly. Especially since, barring Aaron Hayes, dead characters do not come back. I could see Mark narrating the story from different points of view- from the parents to the kids. And I was 15 when 9/11 happened, and it really did effect the hell out of me. The moment I remember so clearly about that day was this look a guy gave me when I asked him if any people survived the plane crash into the Tower. I just couldn't comprehend it. In terms of actual character effects...JJ might be in Bulgaria, and 9/11 affected junior figure skaters because they couldn't participate in the Junior Grand Prix per decision of the United States Figure Skating Association. And there's no conceivable way that Zach and Gathan wouldn't know people that join in on the War on Terror. Gathan's Claremont friends are practically screaming future veterans. Right, Wade said at the beginning that Beau isn't as close to him anymore because he's caught up into the senior year deal. That's why I'm wondering if Riley might serve to bring the family closer together, because that can happen when you add in a new grandkid/nephew, because the family starts getting together more often to get to know the new blood. Not so sure with the Danfields, but I really just can't see Beau as he came off in Bloodlines being totally disinterested in getting to know his nephew, stress over college aps or no. MaryEllen is a completely different ballgame, however- I'm pretty sure she's thinking in terms of how the inheritances are getting divided up because of the new addition, from a brother she probably assumed wasn't going to have kids anyway. A Danfield Family Christmas would probably be even more explosive than the last one we saw with them.

Noah's actually a bi character, but I love the guy.

I hope not. Claire's teenaged pregnancy storyline was pretty touching, because she and Jack really cared about each other and they COULD have raised the baby if they had decided to keep it. Claire was also a pretty naive Daddy's girl who didn't seem to see much beyond Stanford Shopping Center- having an abortion and then losing her twin brother was all the more poignant because of that. I'd hate to see a watered-down repeat between two people who didn't even make love. They just had sex. And Raine doesn't seem like a naive little girl who doesn't know what her options are- she comes off as a lot more savvy than Claire did. Which is true of the generation- it's much more sexualized and knowledgeable than Brad's generation was. Lewinskygate happened when they were 12. I get the feeling that, going by what Harvard-Westlake seems like, they'd force Raine to leave the school as soon as she started showing because "pregnant teenager" does not seem to jibe with the image of the school. Correct me if I'm wrong. Although if she does get an abortion, man...the drama would be intense, because this is 2000 and the anti-choice advocates were really rearing up. A girl could get a discreet abortion like Claire did in 1980. In 2000, it's entirely possible she could be faced with a picket line. It'd be cool to see a female narrator, but I can't see that ever happening. We tried going with a semi-straight male narrator and that didn't even work. Anyway, I do really hope we see Beau at some point. Wade does seem to miss the guy, to the point that some of his bond with Will is based in part on the fact that he needs to fill the little brother void that Beau kind of left.

Alright. So, it's (unofficially) summer, and I got the idea in my head to highlight a song from a particular summer every Monday and encourage people to share songs/memories from that year. I'm starting with the summer of 1995...this is my choice: Kiss From A Rose by Seal Kiss From A Rose. God, what a classic 90's pop track. Summer '95 was the summer I moved to Delaware from Texas. I was 9 years old. My sisters were 12 and 13, and those lucky bitches got to spend the summer on the Jersey Shore with a family friend. They were supposedly getting watched by him, but it was basically, "Hi Bob, we're hanging out at the pier. Bye!" They got to do whatever they wanted- my older sister apparently learned to appreciate a cup of Joe that summer as late-night diners are big in Jersey. I was stuck hanging out with my mother's boyfriend's crazy children and playing with pogs, but on the other hand...being 9 years old and getting to walk around neighborhoods with no supervision...I feel like kids don't really get to do that now. I think that summer was the first inkling of independence I had...the first summer where I wasn't constantly being watched or babysat. That was pretty cool.

Word.

I didn't get a gay/bi vibe from Beau- I feel like if Beau was gay or bi Wade would have known that by now. You really just don't want Will winding up with Tony, do you? I actually like Tony a lot, but I'm not sure I see them working out well together. But we'll see what happens. Tony does have four years in California- a lot can happen between 2000 and graduation in 2004. (Not to say he doesn't wind up settling in CA, but it's not a given- all depends on where Tony gets a job after graduation. He does seem like he's pretty tight with his family, so that might be a deciding factor.) I'm just glad Mark isn't pushing the whole "soulmates" deal with Will yet and getting him settled into a deep relationship. He did that with Brad/Robbie, and he's doing that with Matt/Wade. Aside from Will only being 14, having someone wind up his "soulmate" and getting into a permanent relationship with said guy can be problematic for the kind of series that this is. Happily ever after is sweet and nice, but it's not compelling soap. It's why long-running soap supercouples have to constantly break up and then get back together again. Hence, after Brad and Robbie got their "happily ever after" with MiM, we didn't see Brad again as protagonist until their relationship got into some trouble. We also didn't see Wade again as a protagonist until his relationship got into trouble, but now that they're in sync with each other....as Tim noticed, Wade's chapters don't seem to be as popular as Will's. I'm kind of wondering if that might have something to do with it. Now that Mark's covering every year instead of skipping a few years here or there, that means we need a lot more stories. It's better, story-wise, to have things wide open with Will instead of having him tied into any one character. The same would go for JJ and John, if they wind up as narrators. I would love to see Gathan narrate another story, but I'm not sure that's a popular viewpoint.

Does this mean we're finally going to see Beau again? I liked the kid- he should be a senior this year, and likely have all this interesting stuff going on. It'd be cool if being an uncle bonds Beau and Wade into being closer again. I could see Riley as the impetus for the Danfield family to try and get together more often.

It was the big upcoming album. I'm sure Wade got his hands on some bootleg MP3's via Napster and burned it onto his CD.

Chapter 42 -When Wade blasts Linkin Park in his car after getting out of a session with Dr. David. "Crawling" by Linkin Park -When Wade finds out that Carl's brother just beat the shit out of MaryEllen. "Bitches Ain't Shit" by Dr. Dre

Mark's been writing constantly for almost four years now, with just a small break he took back in the fall of 2011. It's okay he takes a little longer to post than usual.

I'd been wondering about what happened to Robbie's siblings ever since we got to Man In Motion and they disappeared, so I'm really glad you filled us in. Not that surprising that his brother went religious whacko and his sister went crackhead. It was the 1980's crack epidemic, after all. I was kind of surprised they weren't mentioned during Poor Man's Son, since that had a focus on the Hayes family. (Until Will hijacked Gathan's story. )

- Wade's A-Ho party, where he has some fun with John Carullo.

MGMT(back when they were amateurs in 2003), doing a cover of This Must Be The Place by the Talking Heads. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTiFNQBRwwU They are so stoned that it's hilarious, especially when they get hit with the giggles towards the end. Another Youtube cover by a band called Before You Exit. Here, they're taking on What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction.

Next up... Warm Bodies, by Issac Marion. It's the story of R, a young man with an existential crisis - he's a zombie in a dying world. He shuffles through his day-to-day existence craving for more than just blood and brains.One day, R eats the brains of one of his victims- a 19-year old named Perry. Experiencing his memories, R decides to protect Perry's girlfriend, Julie. Embarking on a strange new friendship with her, R sets in motion a revolution that will change the relationships between the living and the living dead. I mean, it's got a premise that horror purists are probably going to shudder at, but it's actually a pretty touching and well-written novel about what it means to do more than going through the motions in life.