methodwriter85

There's an invective that Adam Phillips wrote about why JP should have died of AIDS in the 1980's for his callous treatment of Jeff in 1968. It was interesting, to say the least. I don't think JP needs to die, but I do feel like his character has run its course, at least as a lead character. The Box felt like a nice wrap-up for JP and Stefan as the leading characters. Now they work as the gentle patriach characters who give advice out to the younger ones. As for Matt, I see where he's coming from. He's a junior. These are the best years of his life, and things are lined up for him to have a great two years. Matt realizes, on some level, that life will never be as fun and open again as he found it to be in college. Matt thought that he and Wade might have pitched in some money for Tiffany, as well as some babysitting duties, but he did not expect that Wade was going to try to turn them into active parents living together. Matt wants to spend the rest of college having fun and big parties, not spend it changing diapers and chasing after a growing toddler. I can see why he wants to hang out more with his college friends, because Wade's priorities have changed and he can't really relate to it. I don't think Matt's become an asshole, but he has basically reverted back to the self-absorbed Golden Boy he was for most of high school, before he got sick and his friends abandoned him. I don't feel like the way Matt is acting came out of nowhere- he was a guy who was Mr. Golden Boy for most of high school, and then saw it all get wrecked when he got sick. Now he's Golden Boy again, where he's the King of his inner circle, and it went to his head again just like it did in high school. Only this time around, he doesn't have to pretend he's straight or have parents to answer to, so Matt's "wave" is even better this time around. He can't say no to it and become Mr. Supportive Dad to Wade and his kid, at least not yet.

Chapter 6 -When Matt and Wade talk on the way back. -When Matt and Wade go back to their freshman year dorm to chill with the new guys. -When Wade loses it after finding out that Matt told him about what happened with his dad. Just Go by Staind

With the year almost over, what songs did you either like the most, or just could not get out of your head? For me it's... So hilariously bad. Brought some great laughs. Dancing to this at a club called Wolfie's. Always fun. I did not like this song until I saw the video. The video is absolutely hilarious, and made me love the song. Deborah Gibson AND Hanson in the same video? Love. Prolly my second-favorite song of the year. What a fun, chill song to listen to. My favorite song of this year. Just hits the right emotional chord with me.

Am I the only one who's sympathetic to Matt here? He didn't expect Wade was suddenly going to jock hard to turn the four of them into some big happy family when he's simply not ready yet to play "Daddy". They were supposed to be the sperm donations for Tiffany, not the active parents.

The funny thing is, I didn't even know "Tenderness" was from 1985. I thought it originated in the 1995 movie, Clueless. So Wade and Matt would definitely know that song because of the movie. Clueless was one of those "generation-defining movies" that represented the end of the grunge era and the beginning of the 90's economic boom, as seen in the scene where grungy Tai is made over into a Beverly Hills Betty. As well as Cher's constant mocking of Josh, the stereotypical college grunge guy.

Chapter 5 -When Wade and Matt have a little morning love, then fight in the woods. -When Wade almost leaves Matt's ass in the woods.

Darius seemed like a relatively easy child and teenager to raise, but as Brad and Robbie seemed to realize, they were lucky on that front. When you've got a diva personality on one side and a guy who is just as pushy and aggressive as his father is, it's just not going to be easy. They'll be fine, but we'll have to wait until they're in their 20's before we stop wanting to throw things at them. LOL.

Maybe I'm guilty of doing that, but believe me- I'm able to see nuance and things going beyond black and right. I'm just pointing out that there are some specific rhythms that go into the time period in which a person develops, and that even when you have an exceptional family, your peers who grew up at the same time you did are still going to shape you in some way. For example, Brad may have grown up in a family where being gay was acceptable. At the same time, however, Brad grew up in a generation that was still pretty homophobic and did not have that many examples of gay men who were able to do the kinds of things that the Cramptons were. Therefore, Brad was closeted through most of high school. If Brad would have been completely free of the mindset of the time, why would he have been so reluctant to come out? The other interesting thing was when Brad was observing Matt and Gathan in The Box, and how they weren't so quick to peg themselves as gay the way Brad's generation had done- there was only "gay" or "straight" for Brad's generation, which was again reinforced later on when Brad ponders the sexuality of his children and "bisexual" never seemed to come up as a legitimate possibility. My point is that while you may be right that this is an unconventional family and certain "rules" may not fit on them, I still believe that a person's generation influences them on both macro and microscopic levels, and that's something Mark has done continually with the CAP saga. He tries not to just recreate the time period itself though the use of fashion, clothes, and music, but the mindsets of the time. It's been a part of CAP from the very beginning, and it's what has really elevated CAP from just a typical soap. The orginal CAP represented the dual side of early 1960's America- Cheerful and optmistic, but oppressive as well. 1968 represented the divisiveness of the time- Jeff and JP falling apart; and Jeff's descent into the madness of drug use as a representative of the darker side of the anti-war movement, which saw a large amount of drug abuse in the belief that it would cause a person's mind to tune in and turn on the world around them. The Land Whore represented the beginning of a hedonistic 70's gay culture that saw more men coming out of the closet as the homosexuality was no longer defined as a mental illness. This brief time of total sexual freedom would then be silenced at the end of Be Rad, with the arrival of AIDS. Also in Be Rad, you had Claire as the representative of the materialistic 1980's, fitting the stereotypical preppie in her devotion to all things preppy and chic. Though she was given depth after going through the trauma of having an abortion and being given depth, Claire was used to represent a typical 1980's archtype where having money and flaunting it at every moment was considered not just cool, but divinely, given the widespread belief that the spending of money by the rich would "trickle down" to the poor. The loss of the innocence in total sexual freedom was reflected in Man In Motion with the AIDS crisis, and here you would see Robbie and Brad deciding to choose monogamy over promiscuity, a move that would probably save their lives. In Bloodlines, you saw the newly emerging mindset of people Wade and Matt's age- people who were not so quick to slap a label on what they were. Now here in Paternity, we're seeing Will represent an emerging generation of young guys who are coming out at earlier and earlier ages, and who were never "in" the closet because they never had a reason to be. I get that this is an unconventional family and that some rules can't fit, but to say that they should be completely outside of the thinking of the time would be ignoring the way in which time, peer interactions, and history have shaped the series, which has been apparent in every single story. It would be suggesting these characters live in a bubble where only their rules apply, and that hasn't been the case. If it had been, would Andre have died? Would Brad had stayed in the closet for most of high school? Would JP and Stefan have lost past friends and lovers to AIDS? Etc, etc etc. Agreed. Probably not to Nick and Bitty levels, but yeah. Brad, Robbie, and Jeanine did not seem to set up boundaries for Darius, JJ, and Will, and we're already seeing the results of that. They're not bad kids, but they also can't deal very well with hearing the word "no" because their parents never said that to them. This is what I find interesting with Wade and Tiffany. They seem more inclined to take a different kind of parenting style, to try and keep the kid as grounded as possible, which will probably be better in the long run for Riley.

It's not even a rich people thing. This is a generation of American kids who were brought up constantly being told they were special combined with indulgent parenting, and the end result levels of narcissism are pretty astounding. I've heard so many horror stories about how Baby Boomers and Gen Xers are trying to deal the entry of Gen Y into the workplace- not going so pretty. *Waits for Westie to scream at me for about how the Schluters and Cramptons are so avant-garde that generational values don't apply to them at all, even though the CAP saga was actually built on reflecting the mindset of the given period*

I liked that Chris just up and disappeared...though CAP has made it a point to try and save wayward kids, you can't save everyone, and it was really realistic and emphasized how easily those kids slip through cracks. The Will and JJ stuff felt pretty spot-on. Dude finally got over his denial of what's going on with his mother, which had to have been hard for someone being raised in a sport that tells you to deny anything that might not be perfect about you.

Seriously? I grew up with three older sisters, and I thought the nastiness was spot-on. Especially the way JJ and Will interact- I have siblings who are only one year apart, and they used to go at it constantly. They wound up going to different high schools, which helped, but it could still get pretty nasty. There's no one except for a sibling that knows exactly where all of your biggest weaknesses because aside from your parents, no one else has known you for your entire life. Here's one thing that you have to think about- Brad and Robbie's behavior in Millenium had consequences, and I think we've seeing a little bit of it now- Will loves his father, but he doesn't have the respect for Brad that he used to, and Brad is no longer on that pedestal for him. And in Millenium, it was made pretty clear that JJ is not all that close to either Brad or Robbie, so it's easy to see why he's being nasty.

I picked the Yes song because it was in the cold open of a Cold Case episode about a woman who gets killed by a bomb in 1983. Cold Case can REALLY influence the kind of music I picked, especially when we were doing music for the 80's and early '90s. That particular BSB song, for whatever reason, was hard to find on youtube for a good amount of time.

Blue, you posted this in my "How the CAP Saga Should End" thread. I was talking about how I thought Mark should probably skip 2007 and go straight into 2008, because 2007 was more of a quiet year aside from Virginia Tech while '08 was just freakin' insane. The professional surf stuff and Wade waiting until he's about 27 to tackle parenthood were off, but the bit about Matt's sluttiness is coming to pass. Wade is not okay with it anymore.The JJ stuff seems likely as well- I'd love to see JJ finally go off to college in 2007 and go crazy because he no longer has to fit the pristine figure skating image. And he'd be 21. Everyone goes a little crazy at 21. I'd pay to see JJ do his first kegstand. LOL. I just hope JJ's 21st year doesn't have the same outcome that mine did. Ugh. *Meaningful look at Mark* Anyway, I liked this chapter a lot because of how thoroughly 9th grade the chapter was. The bit about Mike Crawford leaving made me remember this girl who started high school with us at Cab Calloway School of the Arts. She only stayed a day or two- girl absolutely hated it. In retrospect, my guess was that the girl figured out the strong diva streak in the school and got out before she had to spend four years of high school dealing with bitchy diva types. And the stuff with Ryan with pretty cute and fun. Before you guys dogpile on JJ, consider being a kid dealing with the fact that the one parent you're close to is going crazy, and the one good friend you have, you can't talk to anymore because you have to remain loyal to your mother. Some kids can be mature and empathetic, but a lot can't. That doesn't excuse his behavior, but it's also understandable why JJ is acting the way he is- he's hurting and freaked out, and he's only 14 and therefore doesn't have the emotional maturity or resources to figure out a better way than lashing out at his brother because he can't bring himself to put the blame on his mother.

Chapter 4 -When Will and JJ bitch at each in the car, Will gets all whiny inside, and Will realizes that he got screwed over by his friend Jason. -When a desperate Will puts aside his dislike of douchey Ryan Grafton, and asks him to be his camping partner for the upcoming 9th grade camping retreat. -When JJ makes the call that his mom needs to go to the hospital. So...I'm wondering...can you guys tell I had poppy punk friends in middle school, with a sister who did rave promotions? LOL.

That's pretty much how I'm reading it. I don't think it's out of character for Matt, because as he's been written Matt's always felt more like a party kid. I mean, he can get the grades and it's not like he completely shirks his responsibilities, but Matt never felt like someone who was in a hurry to grow up the way Wade did. Wade never really was a kid, because of his upbringing, and Wade being more mature than Matt feels consistent. I think that's one of the reasons why I wasn't on-board with Matt becoming a dad- he just didn't seem ready, and I wanted him to enjoy more of his youth first before getting tied down with the responsibility of parenthood. You only get to be in your early 20's and young once. Then you turn 25 and it's all over. LOL. (Nah, I don't really consider myself old at 26- just not all that young, either.) The interesting thing about this is that it reveals a split that I noticed starting around junior year- people either get really into their future, or double down in their efforts to enjoy college because on some level they realize it's almost over. I knew kids who did a 5th year, or did a whole new degree program, purely because they didn't want to leave University of Delaware. Plus junior year there's usually a spike in partying because that's usually when you and your friends are turning 21. Matt and Wade are probably starting to attend more 21st birthday parties during this school year. Anyone ever attempted 21 shots for 21? I couldn't even get close. I think I got somewhere around seven shots, a Mike's hard lemonade, four beers, and a screwdriver. And that's about when I passed out on the bathroom floor of a bar for a few seconds and got kicked out. LOL. You gotta love 21st birthdays.

UD wasn't that obsessed with sports, either. I'm just going with how Mark's been depicting Matt so far, but I gotta admit- you have a damn good point. Why is Matt so obsessed with having a great hockey team if it's just a club and no one really cares anyway? It'd be interesting to see how Mark would tackle a school where sports are everything, like Penn State, USC, or Duke University.

I knew I was right! This is a random iteration, but I always kinda wonder what would have happened had Stef and Greg had been about twenty years younger...if they would have tried having kids. I always kinda figured Stefan and Greg would have been parents who used a surrogate to have a kid if they had been a 30-something couple in the 2000's instead of the 1970's. I mean, I know that happened with JP, but that was also coupled with a straight marriage and because JP wanted to give Ace's son a home. In the 70's, to have a family meant you got married to a woman, not that you got married to a man and either adopted kids or used a surrogate. It's changing, but I've talked to gay men before who want families but have a hard time believing they can do it with another man because they just haven't seen enough of it in their own lives. Which makes me appreciate the fact that I had gay family role models growing up. Tim and Max are practically screaming "future dads" at some point...it'd be cool if they adopted a little baby girl from some foreign country, as a means of reflecting some contemporating trends in the gay community. I remember walking in Rehoboth Beach and seeing these two forty-ish white dads pushing a black baby in her stroller...so cute.

I don't think it's one-dimensional or lame of Matt to be at a place in his life where he just wants to focus on having fun because he's not really sure what he wants to do with his life, or that he realizes on some level that there's only a limited time for him to be able to be irreverent before having to assume the mantle of the responsible adult. *I* was one of those guys, who threw himself as hard as he could into partying junior year because I wanted to get the most out of the college experience as I could because I suddenly realized that I was almost done(actually, turns out I wasn't), and that didn't make me shallow or one-dimensional. From my own perspective, I noticed two certain types in college*- those who got out of sowing their wild oats by the time they got to sophomore year, and those who still needed to be crazy all the way up to their 4th or 5th year. I'm noticing in Matt certain aspects of myself, and of the guys I knew when I was college. Which is why Mark's characters are so engaging- they remind you of people you've known in your lifetime. Everyone has known a Will, everyone's known a JJ, everyone's known a John, everyone has known a Matt. *Before I get screamed at about how there were way more than two types of people and that I shouldn't just assume, I'm just noting two particular types of people, not that they represent everyone I've ever met.

I'm reading it as, Matt's hitting junior year of college. Instead of focusing on what happens next, Matt's immersing himself into everything that he loves about college, the being BMOC as captain of the hockey team. He wants to leave campus a legend, and everything is going into being Mr. Crazy Party Guy. Meanwhile, Wade's already past all of that, and he wants to focus on his future and raising his son. Matt's not yet ready to settle down into domesticity, which is understandable for a 20-year old. But Wade wants more, likely because he wants to provide a stable family environment for his son, and he can't quite get why Matt isn't ready to be the supporting partner yet. Wade's eyes are firmly looking ahead, while Matt's are firmly fixed in the college atmosphere around him that he loves so.

No, I'm pretty sure he did mention having sex with women, at least when he was a teenager. It's kinda interesting that of all the men who've had sex with both men and women, Gathan's the only one that doesn't identify as being gay. Which I like. I hope we'll meet more bisexuals at this point.

I really loved JJ's reaction here- it wasn't pretty but it was realistic that he would focus all of his anger about the situation on Wade, because he can't bring himself to talk to Tiffany and he needs someone to blame that isn't his beloved mother. Blue called it- Matt's slutty ways are coming back to haunt him.

Chapter 3 -When JJ lashes out at the family over the Tiffany and Jeanine situation. I fucking love this song because it nails exactly the kinds of emotions you have when you watch your parents breaking up. I'm tickled pick I was actually able to use it for JJ. Thanks for that scene, Mark. -When we learn that Tiffany's dad was involved in a 1983 plot to blow up the U.S. Senate. And that Tiffany's mother killed herself. "Owner of A Lonely Heart" by Yes -When we learn that an 18-year old Tiffany was involved in a 1994 burgalry incident with Nicole Bobek, and got sold down the river by her friend. -When we learn that all is not well with Matt and Wade. I consider that the video that jumpstarted puberty for me. Due to my pubescent crush on Brian Littrell I'll always have a soft spot for elfin-looking guys.

Story-wise, you've got a legacy character who is growing up in an extremely competitve world with insane expectations about cultivating a pristine image that goes completely against what his family and rearing would indicate. He also has to balance the heavy demands of a top-notch private school against a time-intensive sport. Already you've got enormous pressure and conflict coming at him from all sides. From all accounts, the world of figure skating has all kinds of crazy stuff behind the scenes that would provide a lot of dramatic soapiness. That's not even going into the fact that eventually he'll have to come to terms with the fact that he's actually the bastard son of a 60-year old man who screwed his 25-year old relative and gave her money for crack. For this story itself, you've got a character who's seeing the one true friend and mentor he has leaving the parent he's closest to behind. The storyline potential there is pretty damn good, if we're going with what works for the story. I'm not saying I'm against killing JJ off, but come on- you can clearly see where there's a helluva lot of potential there.

Is it annoying how every time on TV a high school couple has sex, there's ALWAYS a pregnancy scare? Usually seems rooted in some moralistic judgement deal, I think. It'd be interesting if Will had a hetero moment with a girl who developed actual feelings for him. Awkward. I do like that Mark's covered with Will the emotional consequences of sex.

Especially since he's one of Robbie's four sons. I feel like anything that would make Robbie cry would get the pitchforks out. It's especially why I can't see you actually killing off Darius, because Darius is closest to Robbie.