methodwriter85

I think it will be interesting for Mark to write in the hipsters, because appearance-wise they are completely different from the yuppies, which was the personality archtype of his youth in the 1980's. But inwardly, the conformity is still there. Hipsters basically canibalized all the authentic counter-culture movements from the past 50 years, then added a splash of knowing irony and winking inauthenticity. I read online- in L.A. the hipsters seem to be settled around Silver Lake. Is that around a college or something? When did the first fully-formed hipsters start appearing? I think they seem most directly descended from the emo kids- which started off in the mid 90's to early 00's as the Rivers Cuomo look, then morphed in the early to mid-00's into the girl-pants wearing emo kids with gravity defying hair who made the "Myspace photo angle" popular.

I try to keep the music contemporary(which would be about 1997 to 2000 at this point), or the music something that the kids would have grown up with. I'll use older music occasionally, especially if we've got an old man like Robbie talking about his youth in the mid-80's. I used to have a strict rule that I would not use music that didn't come out within three years previous to the year the story is taking place- like for Be Rad, 1977 to 1980. But then I found it was really hard to stick to that, especially once Mark stopped having multi-year skips in the storyline and he started writing stories that went beyond forty-some chapters. I can't only use the music of the era if we've got three stories- Bloodlines, Millenium, and Poor Man's Son that are all taking place within 1998-2000. (The Letter was set in 1999 but was really a 1940's story.) I've been forced to get creative as a result of it- sometimes using old music, repeating music, sometimes using musicals or tv theme, etc etc. The only rule I've stuck to and have been dead-set on is not using music that didn't exist in the year in which the story is taking place. Like, I would really like to start using Alicia Keyes, but I can't because her album didn't come out until 2001. It can get really frustrating, but I think it works. What's frustrating now is that 2000 was such a dry year in pop music. It was a transition year, and there wasn't anything particularly innovative going on. There was Eminem, Moby, and much later in the year Linkin Park, but that was about it. I've noticed a pattern- the first year of a decade tends to see music stall a bit...I noticed that in 1980, in 1990, and now in 2000. And going by my experience, I think 2010 music wasn't as fun as 2011 music, which got a BIG boost because of Adele. I'm looking forward to using this for Will: "Slave 4 U" would have been absolutely perfect for the strip scene, but it wasn't out until 2001, damn it. LOL.

It seems like whenever you have a funky cool place, gentrification sets in and everything goes generic. That happened with ,Main Street at my college town- five years ago, it was mostly Mom and Pop places. Now it's totally switched over. But at 2000, it looks like it would have been the place to be. Maybe Will can get a tattoo, totally freaking his dad out? Everyone ever notice that none of the guys seem to be into body piercings or tattoos? I think Will would look great would minimally guaged earrings. Also, speaking of gentrification, when do hipsters start invading Southern California? They started to appear in Delaware around 2006- they were basically the grown-up Emo and scene kids, as well as some Gen Xers who latched on to the look and style of hipsterdom. So I would guess that hipsters as we know them were starting to appear in Southern California at around 2002-2003, since there's about a 3-year cultural lag between Delaware and emerging pop culture. Was there a period where the Silicon Yuppies, having been destroyed by the 2000 dot-com crash, were all gone but the trust-fund hipsters hadn't arrived yet? I think hipsters were to the 2000's what the yuppies were to the 1980's. Someone even wrote a Hipster Handbook in 2003. Since Western P.A. is on about a ten-year cultural lag, I had to explain to people what a hipster was. LOL. Here's a video that makes fun of Oakland while also making fun of the hipsters that have invaded Oakland after having been priced out of San Francisco: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzkoeyhAAdk I want Marie to be a hipster when she's 25. They are from the Bay Area, which was apparently ground zero for the hipster movement on the West Coast. (Brooklyn seems to be the ground zero for hipsters on the East Coast.) I would imagine that Claire would react with horror to the clothing. LOL.

Thanks. I'm hoping it stays at one boy and one girl. Defacto Triplets/Quadruplets, even with help, seems like a bit too much, especially if Jeanine and Tiffany are supposed to travel around with JJ at his competitions. I mean, my sister just had twins and even with the help she's getting from family it's really difficult for her and her husband to deal with. I imagine it would be exponentially worse to deal with triplets or quadruplets. I can't see Jeanine willingly using a nanny, either, because I think she's still twitching at the way Brad treated her as the help for too long. And then we run into the logistics problem of having three or four characters who are the same age and by the same parents. It could be very limiting in terms of storyline potentional to have that. And of course, Brad really doesn't need another kid. And Cody in general shouldn't come anywhere near parenting. LOL. I wonder if this time around the gang is going to use DNA testing, or just have JP hold the babies in the arms to figure out the dads like he did with Ace. LOL. I vote for them just going "screw it" and all four guys becoming very attentive Uncles with no one actually finding out who the biological dads are. The Uncle role is about what they should all play, in any event. Does it really matter who the biological dads are? Isn't the whole point of CAP that family isn't based on blood but based on nurturing and love?

More videos: Okay, 3rd Street Promenade looks awesome!

Okay, maybe I'm a dork, but I'm feeling particularly full of civic pride right now. I ran across the bid video for my college town, which won the 2011 Great American Main Street Reward. Here's the video: I like to call present-day Newark a Disney Town, USA. LOL. It's gotta a lot more generic over the years, but the tradeoff is that it's doing pretty well. (Thinks about Tet and that lovely little college town he has.) Any people got some nice tourism videos to share of their own hometowns? (I grew up in Bear, which makes me more of a reservist townie than a townie proper. LOL.)

I got involved with Mark's writing team after chapter 2 of CAP was posted, because J.P. mentioned his plans on taking Peter Gordon down to the Delaware beaches. The problem was that at that time, Rehoboth Beach(and the general mid-Atlantic Coast) was totally ripped apart by the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962. I remembered reading about a documentary on the storm, and so I went with Mark about this storm. He incorporated the after-effects of the storm into chapter 3 of CAP, which was pretty neat. It really gave a romantic, isolated setting for the two. One interesting, coincidental fact- there's indeed a strong black community east of Rehoboth Beach, so that barbeque scene was actually pretty realistic for the time and era. My favorite moments... 1. When Robbie and Matt meet for the first time. 2. When Sam sees Robbie standing next to Jeff's El Dorado. 3. When Nathan Hayes confronts his long-lost brother Aaron who's very much not dead at all. (I liked the touch that Frank was just too mad to even see the guy.) 4.When Brad takes a sledgehammer to Robbie's car. (Wow. You do NOT want to have a break-up with Brad.) 5. When Bitty and Brad have a custody battle over Darius and JJ that winds with her ending up dead.

Maybe Will's doing a high-proifle charity event for the BP Oil Spill in Louisiana and he's forced out of the committee after the damning video comes to light? Mark can be pretty good at delayed gratification, so why not wait for the ramifications in 10 years CAP time? (Or likely two years our time.) In terms of story potentional, having Kristin and Gathan settled down at 18 doesn't make sense, unless Mark only really plans on having Gathan as the lead in this one story. Nice, settled relationships are great to have, but not particularly soap-worthy. That's why Brad wasn't given another lead story until it was mid-life crisis time. Speaking of which, if Mark blows up an established couple who had already been given their happy ending- Brad and Robbie- then you have to deal with some angry fans who have lost faith in the integrity of both the character and the relationship you had them invest in as readers. Mark had to spend the rest of the story rebuilding all of that for the readers, and it wasn't easy. So the best way to do this is having this generation of characters play the field for a longer time- introducing potentional lifetime loves along the ways, but not writing the happily ever after ending for them where they're going to marry and settle down. It keeps the possibilities open, generating more potentional stories, without Mark writing himself into a corner. Since Darius is likely never going to get a lead story, you can settle him down with Ella and it works out fine- they're like a Claire and Jack for this generation. But with Gathan, Will, JJ...maybe even Zach if Mark wants to go the anti-hero route, their potentional as lead protagonists makes it a trickier balance. How do you give these guys the kind of "happily with partner" endings that Mark likes to put in, without putting them in a corner where they're settled at 20 and there's not much else you can go with that character? All that said, I can see Gathan, Darius, and Will all settling down at relatively young ages- likely in their early to mid-20's. JJ, I think, will wait until his 30's if he gets married at all. Mark COULD have the story end in 2008 so that we don't see JJ and Will past their early 20's, and Mark could just end it with Will getting married or something. Then the settling down works out fine. Although, hopefully the end won't be 22-year old Will staring at a newborn son that he procured courtesy of experimental sex with a lesbian and declaring his name to be officially "Wade Bradley Stephen John Schluter", with the lesbian declaring how much she likes that. LOL.

I guess you're right. I just lived with a constant reminder in my own family of what it was like for parents to play favorites, and I think it just bothers me in general when that happens. Of course, my parents sucked at parenting for a myriad of reasons besides picking a favorite. It'd be an interesting storyline down the road if Jeanine and Tiffany decide to pack it up and head East to be closer to a well-renounced figure skating coach for JJ, but let's just get these babies here first. LOL. Part of thinks that Matt isn't really ready for fatherhood, but then again he won't really have those responsibilities if he's the surrogate. I do think that it sets up Matt and Wade being able to go to Tiffany circa 2009-ish when they want to start their own family in D.C. or wherever they wind up settling. The drama of Tiffany giving birth to a Danfield, and the inevitablity of Elizabeth Danfield meddling in her life and the baby's life almost seems too good to pass up. As well as subverting the expectation that Matt was going to be the dad.

PMS Chapter 30 -When Will says goodbye to Italy, and to his summer fling. A*Teen. Geez. You've got me really exploring the whole barrel of circa 2000 pop here, Mark. -When Kristin explains the broader reasons for her rebellion against her parents. -For the court scene and the resulting melee. "Cherry Bomb" by the Runaways

Damn. You're right, then. I still can see her giving Tonto a tribute since Maman already got hers with the cousin that never actually gets any lines. Plus we'd can finally have a reason for flashing back to Tonto dying. I think there's a general concenus that Brad doesn't really need another child. LOL. I gotta admit, I don't mind Brad as a parent, but he really soured me on how much he played favorites with Will while the three kids were growing up. Robbie, perhaps because none of his three sons were actually his biological kids, just seemed better with being a little more balanced with the kids. Although in the end, we do have to keep in mind that the actual, full-time parents here would be Tiffany and Jeanine. I think the biological dads would be close, and they'd definitely get consulted, but Tiffany and Jeanine the ones doing the heavy lifting here.

Mark, CAP is a soap opera. Wouldn't it stand to reason that most of your readers would be soap opera fans? It's a shame that soaps are dying in the U.S. I think CAP fufills my need for a fun, campy soap.

I really want Jeanine to have a daughter so that we can have her give the baby Gale(or was it Gail?) as a middle name in tribute to Tonto. I absolutely think that Jeanine would be more than honored to give tribute to Tonto, because of her time taking care of Darius at the Schluter mansion while Bitty went whoring around. Tonto's the reason why Jeanine fell into the family and was able to become a mother to Darius and JJ, and of course met Brad and was able to have Will. It would also be a really good reason for Will to flash back to when Tonto died in 1993-ish so Tonto can finally have the proper sendoff. It's funny to think that the kids will be divived up into two generations - Jeanine's kid would be part of the generation with JJ and Will, while Tiffany's kid would be the start of Generation 5. I count J.P.'s parents as Gen 1, J.P. as Gen 2, Brad as Gen 3, Matt and Will as Gen 4, etc etc.

How about Riley Thompson Danfield? I like that. You know, this feels like when Days of Our Lives ran a contest where people could name Hope Brady's daughter, and Ciara won.

It is pinned.

You know, I thought about that, and then I realized that it's not Brad and the guys coming up with the names, but Tiffany and Jeanine. They may take some input, but in the end they're the ones choosing the names. We don't know them well enough to say they'd be five years ahead of the curve in picking names. And if you go by the track record, the Schluters and Cramptons aren't exactly all that avant-garde in name choosing. Claire and Jack named their kids Marie and John, after Maman and JP. Brad didn't exactly pick a cutting-edge name for his son, either, in 1986. Will ranked 15 that year, and it was a tribute to his adoptive father. Ace picked Courtney, which might have been avart-garde in 1965 but was ranked 17 in 1995. If Tiffany's baby daddy is Wade, I think Wade would ask her to pick something that sounded traditionally Southern, like Hunter. His siblings are named Beaugarde and MaryEllen, likely traditional family names. This is one area in which the family does not tend to be avant-garde. So I think you're wrong that they'd be 5-7 years ahead of the curve. Which, in this case- thank god. I mean, Addison? Being called Addy for the rest of your life? And the Cayden/Jayden stuff makes me twitch. Speaking of name trends... Pippa Leads List for Top 2011 Baby Names Interesting how pop and celeb culture can really infuence names, right? My parents named me Jeremy Richard because they wanted to call me J.R., as in J.R. Ewing from Dallas. (It was 1985. It could have been worse. I could have been named after Blackie from General Hospital.)

Not by 2000, though. The technology was too good at that point for slip ups like that to happen. Especially if you think that they'd have top-notch Cedars Sinai care.

Wasn't it clearly said that Jeanine was having a daughter? I'm against them having what would essentially amount to quadruplets because then you've got four kids who are all siblings and the same exact age. That will be limiting in some ways. As we've seen with Gen 3(or 4), it's good to have the ages spread out and from different parents.

Justin Baldoni for a twenty-fiveish Darius? I think he's Italian, but I could buy this guy as Persian as well. He wouldn't be half-bad as Ace, also. They would both need to have semi-exotic European looks, I think. Which this guy has.

Indeed, Will is, or is going to be... I don't think our Will is going to be a smoker though like his physical model is, though. Sean Faris might not even actually be a smoker. Some photographers just think the look is hot. I like the way his body looks in this picture - very lithe without looking too bulked up. Believable for a guy who surfs but doesn't really lift weights. Anyway, good point about how you're talking about the deviations, Mark. You're seeing that- John is more average for a thirteen year old if somewhat physically advanced, and Darius at 13 seemed more 13. Then you got the outlyers in Will and JJ. Guys like Will who are more physically advanced get interest from older people, and tend to get treated more of an adult. Then you get people like JJ, who are late bloomers, and thus still get treated like children. Creates some interesting tensions. Does anyone here remember the Brooke Shields Clavin Klein ads from the very early '80s? I remember reading once that Brooke said she would have lost her virginity earlier than at 22 if she had felt more comfortable with her body. I mean, that seems crazy, but if you think about, looking like you're in your early twenties at the age of 15 would probably cause a good deal of confusion.

Have a good birthday.

I don't want to say "jealous" because that's a little too pat and simple. I do think that JJ feels left behind, because he's still a little boy and his cousin and his brother have zoomed past that stage. He's curious about sex but definitely not ready or able to experience it just yet. I think JJ's diva act is part insecurity because at the end of the day, everyone always wants to pay more attention to the beautiful, hot cousin and brother he has, while he gets left in the dust for the most part. So he's thrust into this world where he's not only getting attention lavished on him, but he's actually better at it than his brother is. Having grown up in the same grade with Will, I think it's safe to say that WIll's outshone JJ on everything- it's been hinted throughout the books that JJ always tried different things but he never had any particular talent in anything, as opposed to Will who inherited Brad's surfing skills and artistic ability. Or Darius, who can easily read people and has an innate ability to make friends in the way that JJ just isn't wired to do. So he's got this one thing, and he needs to puff it up because without figure skating, he's nothing. That can lead to some very interesting turns down the road. But see, it's that repression that can cause someone to explode. I've met more than a few people who admit to having been tightly wound or repressed in high school, and then going nuts during college because it was the first time they felt free to explore, but wound up overstepping their boundaries because they never really had enough experience to know what their boundaries were. Here's my way of seeing it...you're 20 years old, entering a hedonistic place like the Olympic Village at Torino. You're very inexperienced, and pretty well-sheltered. For the first time in your life, people are paying sexual attention to you, rather than just praising you for your skating prowess. You've got all kinds of people that want to be your friend, and you've never experienced that before. Because you haven't had many friends growing up, you have a hard time being able to tell who really likes you and who just wants to use you. If your new friend suggests trying some new things for fun, are you really going to turn them down? Are you really going to risk losing all the new friends you've made to say "No, this isn't a good idea" like some nerdy little goody-two-shoes? Screw that. You want to be cool. You want to be desirable. For the first time, you've got people around you making you feel that way. For a guy who's never fit in anywhere- not at school, certainly not with his family- I could see it being pretty intoxicating. Peer pressure can get people to do things they never thought they'd do- I remember driving in a car with a guy who had been drinking. When I rasied the issue with my buddies, they said, "You can get out of the car if it bothers you so much.' So I shut up. Not proud of myself for that, but I wanted to fit in.The desire, especially for people who struggle with it, can lead to some pretty dark places. Mark really doesn't even really have to come up with issues for JJ. Just the very nature of him being born to a crack whore who screwed around with her uncle is enough trauma. That's not even going into how JJ pretty much has to disown his family in order to get ahead in figure skating.

Unfortunately it's an 80s show and is likely not under the provenance of the lineup.

Think about Will, though. It doesn't fit his personality. He's not an addictive, thrill-seeking person. He's having fun, but I can't see it becoming something that he can't move on from. If anything, the best candidate for living in the kind of excess you're talking about is JJ. It's a combination of JJ living under the repression of his public image, his insatiable need for attention, and his inability to have close friendships with people that would keep him grounded. I could see him being someone who, when he's 21 and given some freedom to explore, really going off the rails.

Not so much in terms of the sex, but in terms of partying. I think Andy from Cross-Currents is a good example- he was one of those guys who matured physically at fourteen, and his early/mid-teens allowed him a lot of experimentation with drugs and sex. He had a crazy freshmen year, but by sophomore year of college he was pretty much over that phase in his life and was ready to settle down into a serious relationship at 20. I think Will's going to be similiar.