methodwriter85

That essentially takes driving out of the equation for the high school experience. Kinda funny to think that rich kids will have to rely on either chauffers or drivers to do parties in high school, and the kids who need to work are basically screwed.

Freshman year? Damn. That seems crazy; although given the amount of driving California people have to do, it's not that surprising they'd start people off earlier. That would likely mean JJ would take Driver's ed his first two marking periods and get his permit in May 2001, when he's 15 and a half. Will should then take his Driver's Ed during the spring semester of freshman year, recieving his permit in March 2002. (I'm assuming you meant age 15 and a half years.) There's been a move on the East Coast to start rising the driving age because of all the teenaged driver accidents, but these kids get in just before all of that. It'll be funny to watch Will have to be the last of his friends to get his license because of his age. That was pretty true to life for the kids who were on the younger side in their class year. I'm just thinking that JJ, having grown up with Evan Lycasek while training at El Segundo, would side squarely on Evan's side in the rivalry and have nothing but disdain for Johnny Weir. The point that Daisy keeps making, and the point that makes a lot of sense, is if you publically embarrass the figure skating community, you're blacklisted and your chances of doing anything significant in the field afterwards is pretty much nil. Why on earth would JJ, who's been well-versed in P.R. being from two high-profile families, do anything to jepoardize his chances at getting a Gold medal and getting himself on a Wheaties box? This is a kid who spends hours in his room practicing a single stance. I cannot see him risking the wrath of judges and getting low marks so he could become some kind of Beverly Hills party kid socialite. I'm just surprised Tim is being so opinionated about the direction of JJ's career/personal life, since he doesn't even like this character.

Tim, you are clearly interested in a lot of various subjects, and you can offer some very good insight on a lot of them. For example, the writing team here has deferred to you a lot on things like L.A. party culture, rich Coastal families, and the culture of non-religious California private schools. But there are some things that other people have clearly more experience in, like figure skating, and this is why Mark's writing team has chosen to consult with Daisy over that particular subject instead of you. Thank you for your interest, though. Going back to questions about CA...so Will doesn't turn 16 until the start of his junior year. How would that affect him taking Driver's Ed? If I were using my Delaware experience, Will would have taken Driver's Ed during the spring semester of 10th grade year. Then he would have gotten his permit in July 2002, at the age of 15 and 10 months, with a full license in March 2003 when he was 16 and a half. Of course, laws vary, so how would that work here? I'm hoping against hope that Mark's going to skip over 2002 because I'm frankly begging him to give us at least a year jump once we get past the 9/11 story, but in case we don't I'm curious about how it works if we do see Will and JJ's sophomore year of high school

I wanted to be a famous Broadway actor, living in a penthouse in Manhattan.

Yes and no. I realize that these kids won't always fall in line with their peers, but at the same time, part of what Mark is trying to do is reflect the mindset and attitudes of each generation he's portraying. For example, when Mark was doing Be Rad, he had to portray a time when getting Herpes was the worst thing that could ever happen in terms of an STD, and found it hard to get back into that mindset. But he had Brad thinking that, because it was the prevailing mindset in 1980 when "H" was the worst thing you could get because it was the first STD that you couldn't cure. That was a part of how Mark recreated the culture of 1980 America. You can act outside typical generational norms, but at the end of the day, we are shaped by the age in which we grew up in. If everyone is avant-garde and completely outside their era in terms of thought, we lose the historical integrity of the time that's being spotlighted because it's not being true to the then-contemporary mindset. I do agree with you about Will and Gathan not doing it, though. Matt would, though. JJ- I think when he's sexually active he wouldn't really ask too many questions, but I'm not sure he'd knowingly have sex with an HIV guy. Mark could explore the subset of gay men who are actively seeking the HIV virus, which is known as bug chasing. I'm not sure they're old enough to be around guys like that yet, though.Wouldn't it be mostly tweakers and the like?

Word about the strip club, Mari. I'd love to use "Anthem" by Blink 182, but so far I can't because Will has extremely permissive parents and grandparents. It's such a great teenage angst song, but it really doesn't apply to Will because Will doesn't have to hide what he gets into the way most teenagers do.

It's not out of the realm of possibility. This generation of guys lack the hysteria that people had about AIDS, because it was no longer a death sentence. At least, not in developed countries that had access to antiviral drugs. There's going to be a blase attitude about AIDS developing, especially with people Will's age.

It seems like because the Baby Boomer generation is hitting 65 this year, they really seem big on these types of articles.Baby Boomers Re-Defining Age I agree with the article a lot. When I was growing up, I had the image of people in their 50's and 60's as being like the Golden Girls- sitting around their kitchen table eating cheesecake while reminsicing about their past, and living in retirement condos in Florida. But after getting to know people who are that age- there's just a lot of youthful vitality still there, and it's really blown my image of what it means to be middle-aged/on the cusp of retirement. The image of of 65-year olds playing shuffleboard while wearing visors and fanny packs just really doesn't seem to apply to Baby Boomers. I gotta admit, it's made me look forward to aging as well. I've already got this cross-country road trip plan in my head to celebrate my 50th birthday. (Well, it'd be more like 50th summer because I am not doing a cross-country road trip in December.)

Chapter 27 When Will and Berto go surfing. -When Gathan turns down Zach for sex. -When Berto teaches Will how to strip. Among other things.

I think the problem with Marcel was that he was never fully candid as a narrator- something about him always seemed remote, like you could never really get to know him. I talked with an online buddy about it, and as he put, "I feel like I never got to know Marcel, even though he had his own story." The story also only had 14 chapters, which made it harder for Marcel to have character development. Plus, to be honest, it was a little creepy for JP to have a summer love affair with the son of his dead lover, who was about the same age that Jeff was when he died. And the pairing with Max felt pretty forced. Max is a nice guy but he's got zero romantic chemistry with the other characters.

In all honestly, the only change I'd make would be switching the narrator of A Summer Love to Lou instead of Marcel.

I swear to god, he's like the Luthor Vandross of sports. He should be all, "I won three Super Bowls. And I'm gay. Suck it."

Wow. He was doing that as a 14-year old junior? Damn, I'm impressed. We had Live Journal, and we had online discussion boards like FanForum. It's really not that out of whack to imagine Jeremy James having a dedicated message board to him, with people following his every move, in 2000/2001. And by 2003, there's camera cell phones which means if someone took a picture of him doing one stupid thing in public he could find himself out of a sponsor. Yeah. I'm sure JJ wants to emulate his figure skating career on Tonya Harding, who now appears on True TV's "World's Dumbest Criminals" as a tv commenter. Or Johnny Weir, for that example. Who's basically been put out to pasture with little prospects for sponsorships or tours. I think, going by what Daisy is saying, you basically play by the rules. If you don't, you get blacklisted and your future prospects go up in smoke. Since you only have a limited time to compete, it would seem dumb to risk not getting high marks because the judges don't like your off-ice behavior. If you don't get the high marks and have an impressive career overrall, then you don't get prime coaching jobs and the like when you're past your physical prime. Rebels do not seem to get rewarded in this field. It would be really dramatic, and best of all, it would be somewhere we've never gone before. Instead of Will, what about John? He'll be a freshman in college in winter/spring 2006(go, class of 2005!), and with him being a lacrosse player he could provide some interesting commentary on the breaking Duke University Lacrosse case. Maybe he and his teammates dress up like Duke Lacrosse guys as a joke(I knew guys that did that), Marie sees it on Facebook, tells Claire, and Clarie goes APESHIT. Tell me you wouldn't want to be a fly on the wall for that angry phone call.

No. He's forever 35. LOL.

It would be interesting to see a Bizarro CAP universe. I bet Brad is married to Max, Will was never born because Brad was on a revenge streak against Robbie instead f having comfort sex with Jeanine, Robbie is a carpenter living in Dallas, and Jeanine's lesbian partner is Casey's mother. (Remember him?) That would also mean Matt Carrswold is on kidney dialysis in Shaker Heights, as he couldn't find Robbie because no one's ever heard of him.

Okay. His overstuff genunine leather couch handmade and imported from Italy. Point is, I'm just saying he'd be so pissed at JJ he couldn't even speak. LOL.

Wouldn't it be awesome though if the series ended with J.P. waking up in 1963 as a 27-year old, with Jeff using the shower at the Chicago condo and telling him that the past forty or fifty years have been a dream? Brad, Ace, and Robbie are babies, John F. Kennedy is still alive, Claire and Billy are yet to be born, and Stefan is the randy eighteen-year old with a thick French accent.

God, I could just see Brad watching JJ's interview where he refers to him as "Uncle", and talks about how Christian faith got him through the horrors of being raised without loving parents. Brad's knuckles would likely be gripping the arms of his lazy boy, white as day. Glad you like Lucas Till. I'd been looking for two years for a JJ, and Mark turned down each one. Then a mutual online friend mentioned having a crush on Lucas Till, the guy from the new XMen movie, and I thought, "Wow, this guy would make a great JJ." Mark ran with it. You have no idea how happy I was that I finally found the model for JJ. I like that JJ looks like a sweet blond boy-next-door, yet he's actually a major bitch. Kind of like a male Tara Lipinsky. She had a sweetheart persona, yet from all accounts I've heard Tara was a major, major bitch.

Heh. Mark Arbour's secret is actually that Jeff Hayes faked his own death and is secretly living with Aaron in Negros. Jeff was just too ashamed to see Stefan when they visited. Aaron managed to pull off one hell of an acting job, too. Nah, seriously though, it's interesting where we're going with Zach Hayes. He seems like a budding narcissist. With his devilishly good looks Zach should probably be able to find the right con, but first he's got to learn how to read people and make them think he cares about them. It would probably have to be someone outside of the Crampton/Schluter circle because I would imagine this family is pretty wary after the Brian debacle. I think they're going to be less inclined to give people chances. Brent seems like a prime candidate for a future troop in the War on Terror. If his birthday is October 1984, then he should be able to enlist right when the Iraq War starts in March '03. Maybe he could go with Gathan's friend Chord?

I just like that they look like real kids. 90210 and The O.C. conditioned me to think that rich kids all looked absolutely perfect with surgically enhanced bodies and red carpet wardrobes. But the boys in that video have acne and all that stuff that regular kids have...makes it seem much less intimidating.

Thanks Tim. I don't think Will's going to be joining the lacrosse team, though. Anyway, here's another one I found: This is 2009, but with the exception of the red top one girl has on, and the grey dress that another girl is wearing, this is extremely close to how Will and his peers would be dressing in 2004. 2000's fashion for guys, especially, doesn't change much. There's no major shift in how the average guy dresses for the 2000's as opposed to the switch from bright late '80's neon to early/mid-90's grunge. The emo and hipster look comes in, but not every guy is doing it. For the most part its basically jeans, t-shirts, tank-tops, hoodies; maybe cargo shorts. Jeans start becoming less baggy around 2006, and in 2007 flannel shirts and bright sneakers come back in, but a guy from 2000 wouldn't look that out of place in 2011. As opposed to if you stuck a guy from 1986 into 1997. This is a good video because I think the car the guys are driving is pretty typical for upper-middle class/upper class kids. SUV's were/are big because you could take a whole bunch of friends around and have a lot of tricked out features like DVD players and the like. The clothes are pretty close as well- the only thing off would be the flannel shirts, which were not popular when I and therefore JJ and Will were in high school. And the haircuts are pretty dead-on...guys tend to ditch the sculptured, spiked look around 2003, and go more natural. They don't have guys with feathered hair, though- that look actually does make a comeback around '03. Finally, is there some West Coast tradition about promoting school dances with videos? Gunn High School did these kind of videos, too.

I didn't come up with that. It was purely Mark. And it's actually pretty accurate- Kristin was born in 1983, and this was the decade where individualized spellings came in vogue. I knew a Kiel once. Yes, it was completely ridiculous. Mark and I actually do a lot of research on names- guy's names tend to lean more toward classic, but girl's names can be much more dated. I like that there's been multiple teenaged"Ashley's" throughout CAP, which is really accurate. Now we just need to add some Jessicas. I'm trying to think of a popular male name from the 1980's that Mark hasn't hit yet, and I'm stumped. Daddy, I remember getting at Mark once about having a "Barry" and "Harry" as young teenagers in the story, because you just don't really come across names like that. But then I thought about it, and it made sense that Nick Schluter would give his kids old-fashioned names. So it totally worked. Finally, I loved Zach getting burned by Gathan Is "burn" popular yet in California? I knew people who picked up saying "burn" from That 70's Show, so I'm wondering if "ooh, burn" was a popular 70's phrase that was brought back because of the show, or if they just made that one up. Zach really needs to learn how to fake being nice if he really wants to manipulate people into getting him things.

If you add JJ into the picture, I think they would really play up the fact that JJ is an orphan. I could've SWORN they did that with Oksana Baiul, or some other skater. Then they could go with the angle of JJ being adopted by a kind, benovolent uncle(they'd probably have him stop calling Brad 'Dad'), and a nice nanny that became a surrogate mother to him. It'd win sympathy points, but by going "my parents are dead", JJ might be able to deflect probing into his background. And the press could dub him as Little Orphan Jeremy, with Brad in the role of a much, much hotter Daddy Warbucks. That when if/when public scrutiny on the Schluters hits, JJ can basically say, "Well, I'm adopted. I'm not like them at all." I mean, he'd be a complete and total dick for doing it, but it's a lesser thing compared to what some people are willing to do in order to win an Olympic Gold Medal. *cough* Tonya Harding *cough* So basically, with the exception of wealth and charitable works, JJ essentially has to live the complete OPPOSITE of the way in which the Cramptons/Schluters like to conduct themselves. He can't even smoke pot, because pot will show up in a drug test for a year. This is JJ's face: Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's going to attract a fair share of stalkers. He's got that perfect "non-threatening" cuteness that little girls like in their teen idols. It'd be funny for Mark to write the ways in which JJ tries to elude the crazy fans that want to know more about him and his family. I imagine he'll start taking to wearing oversized Louis Vuitton sunglasses whenever he shows up to big famly functions.

God, I loved Zach getting burned. The little narcissist really needs to learn how to mimic human emotions and concerns if he's ever going to be able to successfully manipulate people to get what he wants.

Chapter 26 -When Will and Berto start hooking up. -When Kristen admits that she chose being with Gathan over living with her parents. "Most Girls" by Pink Yes! I was finally able to get some Pink in here. God, I can't wait 'til I have an opportunity to use "Just Like A Pill". -When Zach gets burned. Badly. Way to go, Gathan.