methodwriter85

Wade Danflield, Matt Carrswold's current beau, will likely go back to live there once done with college for his political career...I think D.C. has some cool things going for it. Mark could send JJ to Boston University. I think he'd like it there. And in any event- as long as JJ had a car, from Delaware he could get to Philadelphia in 45 minutes, to Baltimore and DC in 2 and half hours, to the beaches in 90 minutes, and to New York City in 3 hours. That's the nice thing about the East Coast- everything's closer together.

I randomly ran into this on Youtube. Someone who was born in 1963 posted this compilation of tv themes from shows that aired during their childhood. I instantly thought of Mark Arbour, our resident 63er. I figured they and anyone about his age on here would get a kick out of this. Which ones do you remember? Born Around 1963? A Few TV Shows You May Remember... I'm guessing Mark was a Hart-To-Hart guy for some reason, as well as Dallas. Not sure about Alan. I used to watch reruns of Chips and Charlie's Angels as a child, and I loved the themes. Here are some themes from some other 70's shows I remember loving as a child: All in the Family Wonder Woman "Da plane, boss! Da plane!" I really wish I make that reference without getting confused looks. LOL.

Is it really that hard for you guys to let just one of the CAP saga family members go off on their own and leave the state of CA for the Rockies or the East Coast? I'll give you Darius and Will staying there, but I still don't see why it'd be imperative for JJ to stay. Let the kid go off and find his own way in a new state. LOL. He's a Sagittarius, which means he wouldn't want to spend his entire life in one state anyway. JJ likes snow and ice. He's a middle child overshadowed by his two brothers. He's not a beach bunny. He likes new experiences. The colleges with the top figure skating programs are located East. Is it really that much of a stretch for him to want to leave the state he grew up in for something new when he grows up? It's almost like you guys are acting affronted that I'd like for Mark to send at least one character out of state for college.

I gotta say, Hoskins, stuff like this is why I'm proud to be part of Mark Arbour's writing team, because he's got loyal fans that do things like this. It's pretty great.

Right. You're giving us hints, without setting in stone what they're like. JJ might totally burn out on figure skating and find something else. Darius might really buckle down in college and get himself into Harvard Law. Will could get maimed in a shark attack and never surf again, or he could become a totally snobby jerk. Still, I think there are some traits that are pretty evident in people at a young age and never quite go away. The ones I see so far is that JJ is a fun-loving, cheerful guy who tries to remain optimistic, and likes to be playful. (Although the skating has taken away some of that playfulness.) Darius is a total smooth-talker who can argue his way into anything. Will's a bit more shy, and a little more serious than either of his brothers. Those traits have been pretty evident ever since the kids could start to talk in the series, I think. It's like how even as Brad, Ace, and Claire have changed and evolved ever since Be Rad, there are still some things evident. Brad and Ace are still hot-headed, although they've mellowed out somewhat with age. Ace still tends to be the reactive one who jumps the gun and is still somewhat judgemental. Claire remains the glue that holds the siblings together. You've given your characters some traits that remain evident throughout their lives, but you haven't set their personalities into stone. That's a great way to keep your characters from becoming stagnant while also creating some good character integrity.

I'm kinda excited to know what your decision is for Darius. (I'm assuming decisions about where you're sending JJ and Will are still off in the distance, 'cause again, we don't know how these kids are going to develop as they hit high school. Well, YOU might, but as you already know, characters have a funny way of taking different directions than you planned to take them.) I've appreciated learning about the schools as well. One thing I like is that it seems a lot less elitist and status-obsessed than where you sent Matt Carrswold and the Be Rad crowd. I like that the kids are growing up in a more laidback environment, and I like knowing that Will is indeed going to have a relatively okay time being openly gay at high school, as opposed to Matt's deal with the University School, where he knew it would have been social suicide. It's also nice to know that the school is more politically involved than Gunn or US were, which will provide a nice background for when we roll around to the '04 election year.

Not necessarily. As long as JJ took the necessary standardized testing and got his GED, he should generally be fine with getting in. He has his activity covered with the figure skating thing. I know homeschool kids who went to UD...I'm sure he'd get in somewhere. Something tells me that JJ would be the type of guy who'd really want to strike out on his own, start somewhere new, and relish being in a totally different area. (JJ's similiar to me, personality-wise, kinda like how Brad is similiar to Mark, personality-wise.) And someone who likes spending that much time on ice...I could see totally diggin' a New England winter or something. Or, again, Colorado. (Yes, I'm aware the NorCal and the ski areas get snow. I'm just sayin'.) I'm sure Mark's going, 'I'm not getting around to 2004 in the story for a while. Why are we talking about this already?" LOL.

And so he could snort coke off a strippers ass at some lacrosse party in the spring of '06 while the guys keep muttering stuff about American Psycho. Duke IS a fine school, though. And it's in North Carolina, so you'd still have access to the beach, although I don't think that'd be as big of a deal for JJ. Will would like Duke, too, and he could have some fun with those upstanding Duke lacrosse boys as well.

I'm sure that's going to happen- but again, JJ and Will are currently in middle school/junior high. I don't think anyone really wants to read about the sexual exploits of a bunch of 7th graders, so Mark's easing them into the story as background characters until they're old enough to really take part in the story. That would be about when CAP saga hits around 2004 and they're about 17/18 years old. Mark's done a good job at portending what the characters will be dealing with as they get older- JJ's going to have the stress of the competitve figure skating world, as well as eventually finding out the truth about his paternity and how he was concieved. Will's going to have to balance his academic interests and surfing interests, and his angst will be more about that kind of stuff than having to deal with the coming-out issues that Brad faced in high school. They're going to witness some interesting things as they come-of-age in the 2000's- Bush vs. Gore, 9/11, the Iraq War, gay marriage in Massachusetts, John Kerry vs. Bush, the Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the Virginia Tech massacre(this is one that is going to hit them hard, I think), the financial meltdown, and Obama's election. We've also gotten some good hints about how this group of kids will be different from the Be Rad crowd. They're not going to be as whitebread preppy, and they're going to be going to parties in high school were the only thing playing will be hip-hop. Will's a little more impulsive than Brad is, and he's not a clotheshorse. Darius, JJ, and Will have a much tighter bond than Brad, Ace, and Billy did, and I think it'd take a lot for them to having a falling out like what happened to Brad and Billy in Be Rad. And I don't think Will's going to have his own corresponding Hayes boy because I think that might be a bit creepy for him. LOL. Which is a good thing. I wouldn't mind seeing some echoes of Be Rad, and the boys having some things in common with their fathers, but I'd hate for Malibu High Circa 2004 to be just a re-tread of Gunn High School circa 1980. I really like how Mark's making sure that when it's their turn, we're not going to see a Be Rad, Redux.

Hey, it's not so bad. The East Coast is pretty cool. You could always send him to Duke University or something.

Right, but El Segundo isn't actually a college program. JJ's actually going to train at El Segundo, but eh...I was trying to think of ways for Mark to get the characters OUT of California- make it a little-less West Coast-based. University of Delaware has a top-ranked figure skating program, and so do some schools out in Colorado and the East Coast. I think JJ would go for a college that had a top-ranked figure skating club, and that would suggest going out to either Colorado or the East Coast. I think at least one of their kids should go East to school or something. It would make the family less West-Coast and Mid-west based and a little more Continental. Out of all of the current kids in the CAP saga, JJ seems the least Californian-like. Like he's not really into surfing or anything like that. I could picture him on the East Coast the most. It does feel like Mark is giving the CAP-saga, mostly based in Ohio and California, some East Coast ties. You guys have done a good job of showing why Darius and Will might not leave California, but I think it's at least plausible that the second kid, JJ, would actually have an incentive to live on the East Coast.

Aww, Will suffered his first teenaged heartbreak. It kinda stood to reason they wouldn't last- most high school/middle school relationships I remember seeing never worked out well. I liked Robbie and Brad acknowledging that Will and JJ are going to be much, much harder to raise than Darius. I like that Will has apparently been taken under Wade's wing. So Matt has taken to JJ, while Wade has taken to Will. Cute as hell, don't you think?

Chapter 39 -When the gang go to Jackie's infamous Hollywood parties, roll on X, and Robbie has a bad trip. "Don't Stop" (Club Remix) by ATB -When Brad and Robbie pledge to go back to monogamy, and admit that meeting each other back in the Claremont Festival in 1980 was the best thing that ever happened to them. "Leather and Lace" by Stevie Nicks http://www.youtube.c...next=1&index=23 -When Brad comforts Will, who's just had his first teenage heartbreak. "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" by Britney Spears

I guess you've got a point. I kinda wanted Will to run into either the Duke Lacrosse boys or eye-witness the Virginia Tech massacre, though. I do think Will is likely to end up some kind of engineer(I think he's got that logical, engineer-type mind), and it'd be nice if he did indeed go Ivy League for at least grad school. It'd be weird if out of all the kids in Generation 4, Matt is the only one who is Ivy-League caliber. Out of the three brothers, JJ seems the most likely to head out to the East Coast for college. I've checked ,and the best figure skating programs are either in Colorado or the East Coast. I'd like for Mark to send JJ to my alma mater, University of Delaware, which does have a top-notch figure skating program. We're so getting way ahead of ourselves, though. Will and JJ are only in the seventh grade. LOL.

Darius is a straight character. He'd be going for the Asian chicks, not guys. He's the party kid graduating from Malibu High School in 2000 with the 3.1. Will's the gay character I'm talking about who graduates from Malibu High School in 2005. He'll be a surfer kid AND an academic, which could be interesting. I'm sure he'll have a 4.0 or close to it. We're not really debating colleges yet for him, because the year is currently very late 1999 in Mark Arbour's Chronicles of An Adademic Predator saga. I kinda like the idea of him going to Virginia Tech or Duke University, though.

You found us, Blue! Glad to have you here. I agree with you on the military thing....I don't think Darius, Will, and JJ are going to have a TON of friends in the military, but they will have a few. And right now I'm going with Darius gets rejected from Berkeley, waitlisted at UCLA, accepted by UC Irvine, and accepted by UC Davis. That way, Darius could run into the girls of MTV's Sorority Life.

Male Uggs. God, I remember those. So a surfer boy from Malibu would have a pair of Uggs circa 2005? (We're thinking in terms of 2005.) He'd own a pair of Vans, likely those Adidas white throwback sneakers with the black stripes, and Etnies. I think he'd wear beanie hats and a lot of basketball shorts as well. Is that it for a standard surfer boy uniform? A preppier kid in my parts would have had their standard uniform as a pair of pre-distressed designer jeans(likely Diesel), a Lacoste Polo shirt over a long-sleeved shirt with the collar popped, and a pair of flip-flops or Birkenstock sandals. Is that true for SoCal, or no? I remember after the O.C. came out A LOT of people started dressing like the characters- with the t-shirts layered over longer shirts and the girls wearing peasant skirts. One of things that Mark likes to do in his stories is describe how his characters dress so that we get a feel for the era and place. So I appreciate the feedback!

That's not really an 18th century term, I don't think, but Mark's not really trying too hard to keep to 18th century English, I don't think.

Well, it's got to be true, though. Texas is the state that's big on high school football. California seems bigger on basketball and water polo. Hey, I have to wonder- do people in SoCal wear Northface jackets, or is that strictly an East Coast deal? I know Uggs are/were worn there, so it doesn't seem like the weather would really restrict the clothing that much. Since about 2005, I seriously haven't walked around a college campus in the fall without seeing at least one person wearing Northface.

Mark updated us on "Derek", his blue-collar friend that introduced him to sex. Derek died in the late 1980's from AIDS. The last time Mark saw him, Derek was a bum who was sick and living on the streets. I don't think Mark "needs" to do anything, and knowing how painful it was for Mark to write those sentences about what happened to Derek basically just makes me hate it when people get pushy about wanting the writers to update their chapters.

Mark Arbour wrote "On The Mark", this great autobiographical story, but he never finished. John Walsh wrote the autographical "Fraternity Memoirs", and he never finished either. Both of them stopped because emotionally, they couldn't handle reliving their past through the story. Mark went on four years later to start his epic CAP saga, and JW just moved on with his life and never wrote again. I really don't think we should chatise authors for not finishing their stories. Sometimes they don't have the time. Sometimes they don't have the imaginative juice left to finish. Sometimes an author gets sick or they need to take care of someone who is sick. And sometimes the story is taking them emotionally into places that they just don't want to go into. One to thing to remember is that, unless you're going for the premenium, these authors are doing a free service. There's an expectation that they'll finish the story, but they are under no obligation to do so considering these stories are free of charge. Like someone said, here at GA you'll know whether a story is finished or not. I don't see what the big deal is.

Because one of the things Arbour likes to do is hit on the major issues of the day, and the Iraq War is one of them. Having one of the characters have a friend or something there is a way to tie that in personally. So I guess it's not "likely", but it's not particulary unlikely, either. It's got plausibility, especially if the person is the type of guy with a really wide social circle. Thanks for your take! So riding the bench? Football or basketball? I'm guessing basketball. That sport is bigger in CA, it seems.

So then a kid from there WOULD likely have one friend in Iraq- not a ton of friends, but one or two. That makes sense. The OTHER character(class of '05 gay kid, not the party kid class of '00 one) we're talking about is a mix of an academic AND a surfer, so I wonder if UCSB would be a fit for him, or he'd forsake the surfing break to go to a more prestigious school. I don't think he'd really be that into a party school.

Sending Will to Virginia Tech? That's a pretty good idea!

I don't think Darius could get into NYU.