methodwriter85

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.

Yeah. I do think Mark has, through Bloodlines, Millenium, Poor Man's Son, and Paternity, created a pretty good portrait of pre-9/11 America- a booming economy, a budget surplus, bubbly pop music in the air, optimism abounding everywhere(well, except the dot-com bomb that just exploded), a generation of kids who have only really known economic prosperity and peace...it'll be interesting to see what it's like when Will's switching from worrying about the final details of his 15th birthday on Friday to suddenly worrying about whether or not the terrorists are going to try and attack Los Angeles, too. It just kind of feels the United States was at a peak in the waning days of the Clinton Administration, and things were just never that good again. As much as I've whined about Mark fitting in 3 stories in 2000 instead of doing some time jumps, I gotta admit it's been interesting exploring in depth America's last year of innocence before everything changed.

Thanks. Wade was talking about events from 1995, so I wanted to use something that came out close to that era. It was a toss up between either "Ordinary World" or "The World I Know" by Collective Soul. Glad to know I made the right choice.

Day 16, February 14th I continued working on Box 5. I found a couple of pamplets that discussed gas warfare, as well as trench warefare. Those were the two big hallmarks of the Great War, because they were such new ways to fight in a way that still believed in the Romantic Napoleonic way of fighting. I wonder what it must have been like for the soldiers who read these pamplets to get a sense of what they were going to face. I looked up the online orbituary of Colonel Richard W. Watson, the man behind the collection. http://post141indian...p?id=2&number=2 He was born in October 1878, and died in February 1961- living for 82 years. He was in the National Pennsylvania Guard starting with the Spanish American War. Richard Watson had been a laywer, but it looks like after he got discharged he never engaged in an active bar association. His passion had been for military and the American Legion, apparently, which definitely showed. He got married and had his son pretty late in life, which was pretty interesting for the era. In general, Richard Watson came from a lawyer family(law is pretty big because of the county courthouse), and lived a life where he was concerned with civic affairs and the life. Not a big showy life, but that's what I love about public history- learning about hte people who DON'T make the history textbooks, and the stories they tell. 82 years. I could not imagine what it would be like to have been alive for 82 years; the kinds of things you must have seen in such a long life. I guess, fate willing, I'll be able to answer the question Day 17, February 15th I read a letter that Richard Watson had sent to his father from France, dated November 24th, 1918. The copy wasn't that good, so one of the volunteers created a better copy by lightening it up so that you could read the text easier. The letter was fascinating to me. It was written because they had been told that they should write letters to their dads for Christmas.The war was officially over, but they weren't in any way getting sent home- Watson explained to his father that they were still much left to do, such as making sure that the treaty got enforced. When I thought of Armistice Day, I kind of figured that all of the soldiers involved pretty much just got to go home at once. It was surpring to learn that these guys still had a job to do. I could not imagine going to war, seeing an Armistice signed, and still having to stay around to help clean up for weeks or even months afterward. Here's a quote from the letter: "The war is practically over, but peace has not been signed and the conquered territories must be policed and garrisoned for many months in order to enforce our terms, and you may be sure the 28th will do its share of the work. Our hopes ran high for a few days and visions of home, turkey, pumpkin pie and Christmas trees, with all the comforts of civilization, fairly dazzled us and I fear caused many a pang of homesickness throughout the A.E.F.. But our dreams were rudely shattered by actualities and we are resigned to the inevitable." People back then...when they wrote letters, it's amazing the amount of passion they had.

You know, it would have been cool if John and Jeremy Lin had gone to high school together, but of course you insisted that these kids are going to be sent to private school... I'm just giving you shit. Where I live, it's rare anyone actually goes to a public school actually located in their school district. You either go private, choice into a better school, go to a charter, or a magnet. The high school application process was like a mini-version of the college. Getting my acceptance letter into my magnet school was one of the best experiences of my life. Did we ever specify where Jack and Claire live? I wonder if they're actually in the Gunn High School district, or if they live in the Palo Alto. Not that it matters. Mark's sending Marie and John to Menlo.(Not sure about where Ella's going to school.Would it be easy for someone to transfer into Menlo as a senior? I checked HW, and they don't seem that enthused by taking in people past the 10th grade. I'm sure it varies.)

Does anyone else feel like Mark's starting to foreshadow 9/11? There were the New York City trips in Millenium and Poor Man's Son, and then the mention of a Middle Eastern conflict in 1995. We've got eleven months, one week, four days left in pre-9/11 America. God, I'm excited to see how 9/11 is going to hit everyone. So I guess everyone's going to the Southwest Regionals then? Hmm. Should be interesting.

Chapter 18 -When Wade has his date with Sean...that pretty much ends up in the hotel room. "Bohemian Like You" by The Dandy Warhols -When Matt and Wade have a nice quiet moment with the baby. -When Matt learns about Wade's uncle, who was killed in 1995.

He'd probably pick up dance quickly if he tried. I think I have JJ taking dance for his gym requirement.

John Hobart would have been 13 in 2001 until he turns 14 in July, so yes. Mark was vague about exactly how old John is until Poor Man's Son, because he had lee-way with John's age. JJ, Marie, Will, and Courtney were all born "on page", so to speak, so those ages were iron-clad, but John was born between Man In Motion and A Summer Love so there was lee-way. Remember when there used to be multi-year time jumps in CAP, and there could be 5-year old kids showing up that had been born to the characters in the off-time? I miss that. Edited to add: Checked; according to Wiki, there's about a 13-month age different between Jeremy Lin and John Hobart, who we have as having a July 1987 birthday. Jeremy Lin should be the class of 2006, I believe.

Well, I didn't say that JJ wouldn't get into drugs and a downward spiral. I just said he'd look much, much better going through it. Actor Wes Bentley was a heroin addict for much of the past decade and if you look at the films he was in during the time, he still looked damn good. I think if JJ became a drug addict, he'd be one of the kinds that still looked beautiful and functional. JJ does have a family that loves him, even if they don't pay that much attention to him, but he also has a pretty big diva personality, and those kinds of personalities tend to have pretty big high's and low's. I don't think JJ's breakdown will be the last one to happen, especially when he gets further into his career and the pressure starts mounting to make the 2006 Olympics.

And to go on a completely different side here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnrcOzdtp7o This documentary looks interesting as hell. It follows four actors as they try to make it during the late '90s/early '00s. I want to see it. It has Wes Bentley from American Beauty in it...I had such a crush on that guy back in '00. It's a shame that addiction derailed what had been a pretty promising career. It might be cool for Mark to explore the Hollywood Actor scene again to see how it's changed from the 1970's, but I can't really see any of Brad and Robbie's kids encountering an Armand situation. I could see JJ acting, but it'd be stage acting and in New York. He'd be really suited to that, I think. Anyone have any insignt into what the NYC stage acting scene is like as compared to the Los Angeles film one? Anyway, it's kind of interesting to have the American Beauty connection, since that's the big 1999 film that Robbie turned down being part of as part of Carson and Brian's EVIL PLAN.