methodwriter85

I don't know, Adele and Foster the People have given me hope...2010-2011 actually had some great music.

In general, music did change after 9/11- I kind of think Pink and Avril Lavigne's '02 rise happened because people were sick of the pretty princess pop trend. Pop definitely seemed to take a hit for a few years after 9/11- I'm thinking that's the reason why hip-hop and crunk really galloped ahead of pop, especially during around '03-'07. Pop really didn't come back in until the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus hit in the late '00s. (You could count the Pussycat Dolls, but they seemed to have more of a hip/hop vibe to them.) Then there was also Alicia Keyes, who was fantastic on her first two albums, but after...meh.

Day 22, February 25th I continued working on Box 5. Today, there was a presentation given by someone who wrote a book called Native Womb, about his journey into learning about his biological family once he got adopted. He talked about his usage of Ancestry.com, which makes me think the usage of genealogy to help people learn about where they come from. That's what the Historical Society helps with a lot- we've had so many people come in wanting to learn about their family history. That's the cool thing about working here- we're preserving the continuity of family knowledge, or at least making it easier to develop a sense of a family narrative.

I was kind of being flippant with the Brad and Robbie remark, to match Mark's remark about leaving JJ in Bulgaria. I could see Will getting pissed off about JJ wanting to go off to Bulgaria instead of being around for his birthday, but then again, he might not. I figure at that point JJ would have been in his 3rd year of figure skating, and the family would be used to it.

Would Brad and Robbie even notice he was gone? I'm actually thinking that JJ would have decided to stay home instead of going out to Bulgaria, because it was close to the beginning of the school year and he'd want to have everything squared away with his 10th grade teachers before taking week-long absences. Plus, it is supposed to be Will's 15th birthday that week, which hits on a Friday, which(in Will's mind) would equal a really fun birthday weekend. And in any event, JJ probably would have figured it would have been better just to do his Junior Grand Prix event in Arizona because it's a hell of a lot closer than Bulgaria.

I know I already posted a Liam Hemsworth picture, but hot damn... Seriously, if that's what Zach is going to look like in his 20's, who the hell cares that he's a sociopath? LOL.

Day 20, February 22nd I finally finished Box 5. It came out to about 130-something items. Day 21, February 24th I started work on Box 3 of the collection. It holds a lot of correspondence that Richard Watson got while being in charge of Camp Hancock in Augusta, Georgia. Some were regarding people who were prisoners for being AWOL, or simply getting drunk and disorderly. One was about a boy who lied about being 18 years old to get into the army, and was therefore getting discharged. I also found a letter about a man who tried to prove that his son was disabled and therefore needed to be discharged, but the army medical board replied that they could not find anything physically wrong with the song. It was interesting- you wonder if the son really was lying, or if he wasn't, and the army was ignoring actual injuries so that they could provide more cannon fodder for the Western front.

I kinda felt like that was the next natural step after Millenium, but Poor Man's Son served as the transition story instead. Although I guess PMS served to flesh out the next generation of the Crampton/Hayes/Schluter kids- we have a firmer grip on who they are as people and how they'll interact going into adulthood. With just 11 years separating CAP time from real time, I don't think Mark intends on having these 5-6 year time jumps like the days of yore...it'll probably be more like 1-3 year time jumps at this point from now. As such, there need to be more stories, which means we have to follow more of these guys' adolescence than we have before- for example, we followed Brad at 17, then at 22, and then at 37. At this point we're following Will at 13 and 14, and I'm betting we're not exactly going to skip to 17 because I don't think 2001 is going to get skipped. 2002, maybe. In order to make it so that Mark can write 8-10 stories for these guys(if he indeed plans on following every year up to say maybe 2010, 2011), he needs to have Generation 4 be a really compelling and strong cast of characters. We have to care about what Will, JJ, John, Zach, etc etc get into because we're following them in what amounts to real time, with more stories than we had for other characters before. It needs to stay fresh, and something we haven't seen before, or else the story will become really repetitive. That's why it's crucial Mark set up the character development and relationships of these kids, with inherent drama in all of them, to carry a 10-year long multi-story arc. That, more than anything, is what Poor Man's Son was likely about. I think Mark hit some snags in the character development there, but he fixed a lot of them, and I'm really liking how Will and JJ are turning out right now. Jury's out on John, but I actually think he's cool. Then again, John's going to grow up to look like Colton Haynes and I have a shameful lust for asshole lacrosse players, so I'm not exactly unbiased. LOL. I wish that we had skipped over to Paternity, or had spent less time with Poor Man's Son, because I'm frankly sick of coming up with music choices for the year 2000(LOL), but I see why we had to do it instead of just go directly in Wade's viewpoint of daddyhood and the 2000 election.

That wouldn't quite work because they'd probably use the family jet, but I could ask Daisy and see if there were any meets or competitions there. If you want to get Robbie and Brad there, the MTV music Awards were held on September 9th, 2001 in New York City, and I could see Robbie scoring tickets, courtesy of Beyonce. I think Wade having a summer internship in D.C. would make the most sense here. It's the summer before Senior year, and seriously- what ambitious guy would say no to what would be a very plum internship that his daddy would set up? Wade may hate his parents, but he's a pragmatic person. Stanford doesn't start their school year until late in September, so Wade could plausibly still be in D.C. during 9/11. Edited to add: I looked at the info on the 2001-2002 season. Here's what they said: Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States Figure Skating Association cancelled the Junior Grand Prix event to be held in Arizona and did not allow their skaters to compete on the Junior Grand Prix for the rest of the season.[1] There was a Junior Grand Prix event held in Bulgaria from September 13-16, so maybe JJ's in Bulgaria when 9/11 happens? Or he's getting ready to go, and the 9/11 panic about flying prevents him from going? In any event, on a career-level, it sounds like 9/11 is going to screw JJ over, as well as screw up Will's 15th birthday plans. (9/11 hits on Tuesday, Will and Riley's birthdays are on Friday.) Daisy, you wanna weigh in on this?

The clue to that would be the part in Millenium, when Brad and Robbie were discussing how the kids should be involved in their wedding. They said that Will would obviously go on Brad's side, Darius would obviously go on Robbie's side, and JJ would go with whoever he wasn't pissed off at the moment. It was a pretty flippant remark, but it showed to me, on some level, that JJ doesn't have a clear, defined paternal bond the way his brothers do. And I think it might be what you're saying- on some level, they felt like JJ didn't want or need their help. And to be honest, I think until Jeanine went around the bend, JJ probably didn't. I think he liked having this thing that no one else in his family could do, instead of always being the brother that can't quite do things as well and as easily as his older brother and younger brother can do. So he built up this world based around figure skating with Jeanine and Tiffany as his two big parental figures, and he was okay with Brad and Robbie not really trying to be part of it, because JJ knew that they'd always have Will and Darius as their respective favorites. In this world, JJ himself was the golden child, and as such it was easier for him to retreat into it, and believe Jeanine's fantasy world until it became impossible to do so. I'm a believer in "show", not "tell" when it comes to stories, and right now I haven't seen any real proof in this story that JJ is close to either Brad or Robbie. It's been shown, since Bloodlines, that JJ is close to Matt, to Jeanine, and to Tiffany, but not to his adoptive fathers. There's certainly love there, but not the kind of father/son bond we've with Brad/JP, Brad/Will, etc etc. And remember the comment Wade made, when he talked about how Brad made the comment to him about the feeling of fatherhood overcoming him? That was for Will's birth. It wasn't for JJ. Maybe he eventually felt that way, but Jeanine was the one who felt that way for JJ going all the way to his birth, while Brad did not. That's the thing though- I really don't think it's out of character. It's something that's been telegraphed for a long time, going back to If It Fits where it was clear that JJ was the stereotypical middle child who couldn't do as much as his brothers could except be really cheerful. He just doesn't really have that much in common with the rest of his family, and as such he's the odd duck that Brad and Robbie can't really relate to. That doesn't mean they don't love him, but father/son bonding hasn't worked as well with JJ as it has for the other brothers.

Chapter 19 -Matt and Wade's sex scene at the beginning. -When we learn about MaryEllen, Wade's evil sister. Come on, Kathryn from Cruel Intentions is soooooo MaryEllen.

40. The ascendency of Justin Timberlake as a solo performer...I kinda wish JC had been the one to do it. He has a much better voice. But I can't deny this was a pretty sick track. I think that's why Justin popped and JC couldn't- Justin just got hooked up with the right producers who were doing the right kind of music for the decade. It's funny all the Youtube comments from people who are insistent that Justin Timberlake is the one, true "Justin" in the music world. 41. , 2002 2002. The Year of Avril. Goddamnit. I loved listening to people who would go on self-righteous rants about how Avril wasn't really punk. Me? I just feel like I'm walking around a circa 2002-2003 Hot Topic watching this video.

Again, I'm not saying they're neglectful. Just that they played favorites, where each child took especially to one of the parents. Darius even said as much, and that it generally worked fine, UNTIL Jeanine went down for the count. So now you have a situation where JJ isn't that particularly well-bonded to either of the dads like the way Darius and Will are, and I frankly find it pretty refreshing. I like the idea that the kind of father/son scenes you see with Brad/Darius, Brad/Will, Robbie/Will wouldn't feel quite so authentic with JJ, and that those scenes would make more sense with Tiffany, Jeanine, and Matt. I also think, given the events of Millenium, JJ would have responded to the chaos of Brad and Robbie's relationship by focusing himself even more into figure skating. Brad didn't even realize that JJ was serious enough about skating that he was considering dropping out of school, or that he was having a lot of trouble with the Mailbu Middle kids. Neither did Robbie. Then through Poor Man's Son, where JJ watched both Brad and Robbie basically fawn themselves over Gathan Hayes(for good reason, but still)...I don't think he would have felt that inclined to really re-engage himself with either of them. At the same time, Jeanine and Tiffany where starting to have trouble during the pregnancies, so he put on his "happy blinders" and let himself buy into the fantasy that his "moms" and their new babies were going to form a happy family with him. Then Will was off onto his sexual adventures with his cousin and older men, which JJ couldn't relate because he's still physically a little boy. Darius went off to college, and now Will doesn't even live in the same house with them- it's next-door, but I still think it's symbolic that JJ got left alone in the house with the feuding lesbian mothers and babies that take up a whole hell lot of a time. I definitely think somewhere along the way, a disconnect between JJ and his family happened, if you really go back over and think about the story. Although it's not a one-way street, either- JJ is in a sport that kills a lot of time, and he can't do things the way Will and Darius can. He can't smoke pot with Darius and Will, because he's subjected to random drug testing. If the family goes on a vacation, he'd only be able to go for a few days before having to go back to the rink. If there's some spontaneous family event being planned, JJ would likely have to turn it down. There isn't that much opportunity for bonding there, because JJ is sacrificing his childhood for a shot at Olympic Gold. It's actually been a pretty good build-up on Mark's part, showing how and why a kid from a usually tight-knit family could wind up slipping through the cracks the way he did.

I've never said that Brad and Robbie don't love JJ. I've just said they're not close to him like they are to Will and Darius, which is true. You can love someone a lot without being close to them. I thought Madison should have been given Gale as her middle name, and Will should have flashbacked to when Tonto died. That would have been a nice moment. But Mark didn't use that idea, so...

It's not so much they're horribly neglectful parents; just that they figured JJ was in good hands with Jeanine and they didn't see any reason to really step in as parents because JJ seemed fine. It worked fine, but I'm not seeing some big tight bond between JJ and his fathers, which isn't tragic but actually pretty realistic. I kind of like the fact that if/when we get around to JJ's view, Mark would have do the types of scenes that he wrote with Brad/JP and Brad/Will with JJ/Tiffany, JJ/Tiffany, maybe JJ and Matt, because I don't think JJ views Brad or Robbie as mentors that he goes to for advice like he would with the aforementioned three. It's actually pretty realistic- some parents just don't really relate to all of their kids. Doesn't mean they don't love them, but they just don't have that kind of bond you see with Darius/Brad or Will/Brad.

See, I liked reading the book because I read it like Gene was madly in love with Finny but couldn't admit it to himself. Dudes came off as so, so gay.

I generally prefer it when the characters drive the plot. I'm a beta reader for two stories, and you can bet that they get ripped if they have a plotline for a character that doesn't feel right for it for the sake of having plot. I think CAP does a good balance of being plot-driven, but at the same time, having characters that feel and react like real people. It's a soap, and by nature it's always going to be plot-driven, but I think Mark has developed the characters to the point where you have a sense of where they'd be if they were real people.

Jesse Eisenberg is better.

Day 18, February 17th I continued working on Box 5. In terms of the different ways that archives can be used, we had one patron who was learning about the house that he was working on. The man was a college landlord, who was dividing up this house into four apartments, and he was interested in learning about the house. The house was once a college female dormitory, and it was a TKE frat house all the up to last semester. It was cool to hear about the history of this house. Kind of makes me think about where I'm from, where the oldest houses were built in the 1950's. And in the college town I did my undergrad in, where they keep tearing down houses to put up new apartment buildings with retail on the first floor. That's one thing I really like about this area- there are so many older houses around, with more character than one could find in the cookie-cutter suburbia of Bear, Delaware. Day 19, February 18th I watched another tour of the museum. It's definitely good practice to see how guides can get the visitors to relate to the material. We had a discussion about some Operation Desert Storm trading cards that had been donated by this very eager young kid who had discovered them in a hobby shop. The problem was that there's always a full set of cards, and the museum doesn't really need them. But how exactly can you turn a donation down? That seems to be a continual problem- with the limitations of space and budget, can or should an archives save everything they're given?

Another JJ/Will childhood reference...All That. (Ran '94 to '05; golden age was the first couple of seasons. I wish I could have gotten the season 1 theme in better quality, but it's better than nothing. "QUIET! PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO STUDY!" Seriously, there are few twentysomethings that don't remember this show. It came on at the same time that the Mickey Mouse Club was on it's way out, and it just seemed to have picked up that hip, edgy '90's vibe in a way that MMC wasn't able to do. It had more of an urban, hip-hop generation sensibility to it. There was enough nostalgia going for this show that Teen Nick started a nostalgic 90's programming block running through the night with the show.

It's interesting seeing this play out. I had the thought in my head that in some ways, in recent years, Tiffany has been more of a father to JJ than Brad and Robbie have been. Which is kind of different- she's been more of a mentor to JJ than he's gotten from anyone else, and without her and Jeanine, he's lost. JJ has dads, but he doesn't really have a strong male role model that he emulates, except for maybe Matt. Does he need one, or will he be fine without that?

It's kind of a shame that Ross Perot sketches are no longer relevant. And god, Josh Server looks great!

I meant WWI. Thanks for pointing out the typo.

Come on dude, you were too young for that stuff. You're only really a 90's kid if you were born from about 1982 to 1989; anyone born in the 90's should consider themselves an '00s kid. J/K. Although it is seriously funny to watch YouTube comments that echo that very sentiment. I won't say I completely disagree with it, but if someone born in 1997 wants to say they were a 90's kid, let 'em. It's almost like there's some kind of flame war deciding who can call themselves a 90's kid and who should call themselves a 2000's kid. It's retarded. I was born in 1985. I should be allowed to call myself a half 80's/half '90's kid. Why not? In any event, the original All That holds up really well in the reruns for the N. It really was a funny show. And Josh Server is still damned attractive, although it's weird to see him with laugh lines. I remember when it kinda got awkward in season 5 and season 6, when he was the only original cast member left, and Josh looked way too old to be around with a bunch of kids. Here's more of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkDe4Vigy58&feature=related I kinda felt bad for the '00s cast members. You can tell no one really cared about them. I wish they had been able to get Danny and Amanda.

For you 90's kids out there.... It's amazing to think that 90's nostalgia convinced the N to take a shot at re-airing the 90's Nickelodeon block. Pretty cool. Lori Beth Denberg's Vital Information and Katrina's Ross Perot were my favorite sketches.