methodwriter85

Geez, who's writing these stories? Horny straight frat boys?

How much sway is Max really going to have at UCLA? He's only worked there since about 1995, right? That's only about four or five years. Does he even have tenure yet? I like the idea, though. I could see Darius, being of middle Eastern descent, wanting to join the military to 'prove' something in the face of rising anti-middle Eastern sentiment. JP would absolutely hit the wall, which makes it even better. So Blue thinks Berkeley. I'm thinking UC Irvine or Arizona State. Mike thinks UCLA for a few semesters, then the school of military. Any other guesses?

You're right. It's a manifestation of the Gary Stu deal that writers of gay fiction go for.

Right. I don't think the Sorbonne is in Darius's cards. I think he'll go for whatever school will take him, and has the best parties. I mean, he WILL get into schools- it just won't be anywhere really prestigious. Oooh, maybe Arizona State University. That sounds like a practically ideal place for a dude like Darius, and it's only the next state over.

Well, it's Mark writing the story. I'm a history grad student just doing the anecdotal research to help him out, and because I'm curious about other cultures. And thanks for the trivia bit! Mark Arbour is a writer of historical fiction. One thing Mark tries to do in his writing is accurate reflect the attitudes, trends, and minute details of the time and place he's writing about. He did a great job with Be Rad, and what made the story pop was the fact that you felt as if Mark knew exactly the setting he was writing about- Gunn High School in Palo Alto, CA during the 1980-1981 school year. When Mark wrote Bloodlines, which was about an 18-year old guy in 1998 going to college, Mark consulted with a guy who was a contemporary to get a feel for the slang that would be used by 18-year olds in 1998. Mark should eventually get around to circa 2004-2005 Malibu High- prolly not for awhile, but at some point, and I figured I'd be a pal and start this topic for him to flesh out an understanding of the culture and attitudes that make up the school.

I figured Brad before this story would have blown a gasket at letting Darius go to Pepperdine, but I think it would be okay with him because it's a university setting. I still don't think Brad would have ever let his kids go to Catholic high schools, though. The other thing is...a 3.5's a lot different than a 3.1 or 3.2, you know? And I'm betting you also had a lot of volunteer work under your belt, which doesn't seem to be something Darius pursued in high school. This would suggest that Darius won't end up Berkeley or UCLA like he wants, or at the schools I listed...so now you got me curious about where he ends up. I know Stanford or the alma maters of his two daddies has to be out of the cards because Darius is not an Ivy Leaguer. It'd be interesting if you sent him somewhere we didn't expect- like school in Texas or something. One of the things that I've noticed about CAP is that everyone easily gets into whatever top college they want to go to. It makes sense considering it IS an powerful, academic family, plus college was easier to get into during the '80's. But what I hope to see getting reflected is the increasing academic pressure on this generation of kids. College gets harder to get into, kids take on doing extracurriculars and volunteer work, valedictorians get rejected from first AND second choices, Adderall becomes the drug of choice, etc etc etc. It's a kind of drama you haven't really tapped into yet, Mark, and one that will be really interesting to explore when you get around to about 2004 in the story. I get that you're not going to go THAT into this because Darius isn't a main character, but when the narrative switches over to the kids...yeah. It would be something cool and different to do. I think, anyway. I mean, if Will's not really going to be angsty about coming out since he already did it at 13, he's got to be angsty about other stuff, right? College apps makes sense as one of the things to be angsty about, especially for Will and JJ's demographic where horror stories of 4.0 valedictorians getting rejected from top schools abound.

Performers have the special ability, even among the Artisans, to delight those around them with their warmth, their good humor, and with their often extraordinary skills in music, comedy, and drama. Whether on the job, with friends, or with their families, Performers are exciting and full of fun, and their great social interest lies in stimulating those around them to take a break from work and worry, to lighten up and enjoy life. Performers are plentiful, something over ten percent of the population, and this is fortunate, because they bring pleasure to so many of us. Performers are the people for whom it can truly be said "all the world's a stage." Born entertainers, they love the excitement of playing to an audience, and will quickly become the center of attention wherever they are. Performers aren't comfortable being alone, and seek the company of others whenever possible-which they usually find, for they make wonderful playmates. Performers are smooth, talkative, and witty; they always seem to know the latest jokes and stories, and are quick with wisecracks and wordplay-nothing is so serious or sacred that it can't be made fun of. Performers also like to live in the fast lane, and seem up on the latest fashions of dress, food, drink, and music. Lively and uninhibited, Performers are the life of the party, always trying to create in those around them a mood of eat, drink, and be merry. The Performers' talent for enjoying life is healthy for the most part, though it also makes them more subject to temptations than the other types. Pleasure seems to be an end in itself for them, and variety is the spice of life. And so Performers are open to trying almost anything that promises them a good time, not always giving enough thought to the consequences. Like the other Artisans, Performers are incurably optimistic - "Always look on the bright side," is their motto - and they will avoid worries and troubles by ignoring them as long as possible. They are also the most generous of all the types, and second only to the Composer Artisans [iSFPs] in kindness. Performers haven't a mean or stingy bone in their body-what's theirs is yours-and they seem to have little idea of saving or conserving. They give what they have to one and all without expectation of reward, just as they love freely, and without expecting anything in return. In so many ways, Performers view life as an eternal cornucopia from which flows an endless supply of pleasures. Elizabeth Taylor, John Goodman, Marylin Monroe, Judy Garland, Magic Johnson, Pablo Picasso, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Elvis, and Leonard Bernstein are examples of Performer Artisans. *** I'm not really good with the rapid-fire wit, but I'd say this comes pretty close to describing how I view my own personality.

You know- you got a point- there DO seem to be a lot of pre-law and pre-med majors in gay college stories. I always kinda figure that it was because in this country, becoming a lawyer or becoming a doctor was seen as the best way to find to become stable upper middle-class/affluent. Mothers used to prod daughters to become married to doctors or lawyers. It's not so true now, but you can still see remants of that. Maybe this is one of them. If the stories were true to my own experience, the guy characters would be more likely in engineering, computer science, business & marketing, or exercise/nutrition science.

Remember when we discussed Darius and his college application deal? In another thread, where I ask people who are familiar with the Malibu High students, poster Tommy B wrote this take: This view is in direct contradiction with Blue's interpretation. Of course, you've got to temper it with the fact that this person is currently a high school student and we're looking at what the process was 10 years ago, but it's always good to get another view. If in 2010 a student needs a 4.1 to get into UCLA, is it plausible that just ten years earlier a party kid like Darius with so-so grades, a good SAT score, and seemingly no volunteer/extracurricular work besides chasing the ladies really could get into the school? So is it really plausible for Darius to get into Berkeley, or even UCLA? I kinda wonder. I know that he's just a character, but one of the things I like about Mark's writing is his willingess to inject plausibility into the storylines. Here's what I could see happening: Darius gets rejected by Berkeley, waitlisted by UCLA, and accepted by UC Irvine(third choice) and Pepperdine University(fourth choice).

I appreciate your take. It goes with the caveat that there's a 10-year difference your college application era (I'm assuming it's this year or next year with you being 17) and the college application era of 1999-2000, but I'm going to say frankly that I had a really, really hard time believing that a party kid like Darius would get into Berkeley, even in 2000. I know Mark's used the George Bush-going-to-Yale example, but that was in the ''60s and the Ivies have the legacy deal to contend with. I'm assuming legacy didn't matter as much to places like California, especially by the late 1990's. And none of his relatives there are actually alumni of Berkeley anyway. I think another option for someone like Darius might be Pepperdine University- it doesn't look that competitive. I don't know if the guy is smoking some medicinal weed, but he, for what it's worth, got accepted to UC Santa Barbara on a 3.5 GPA in 2002, so who knows? a 3.1 IS a lot different from a 3.5, though. The other question I'm wondering about- is there any kind of significant military prescence in Santa Monica/Malibu? Is it unusual to see a guy walking around in military shirts, etc etc? Does Malibu High or high schools in the surrounding area have any Iraq War veterans? In my experience that was true- I did know A LOT of guys who went into the military, but I'm also from the East Coast and my state has a large airforce base. I've told Mark I think characters from the class of 2005 would have at least one friend who is in Iraq, but now I wonder if the Iraq War had any effect on people from the Malibu/Santa Monica area. Did it? Or did the area exist as a total bubble where none of the kids had any friends who were in the military? My experience was that there was a massive build-up of the military in the United States after 9/11 so I knew an increasing amount of people in the military, but that might not be true for contemporaries who grew up in the Santa Monica/Malibu area. One of the things I've always appreciated about Mark Arbour's writing is his ability to capture the milleu of the place and time he's writing about, so that's why I, as his research assistant, am asking these questions. LOL. Mark has written Darius as being a party kid, so he figured he'd go to party schools like UCLA or something. From what you're saying, Berkeley and even UCLA would be out of the cards for this character.

Yeah, Brad had an image of Robbie dressed up like June Cleaver. It was pretty funny. I remember her for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIbOy4REaQk "Oh, my god! Well, I'd make out with a chick for that kind of dough!" LOL. RIP June Cleaver.

See, I'm asking this, because Mark has a minor character named Darius in one of his stories. He's a Malibu High student, class of 2000, and he has a good SAT score, so-so grades(I'm guessing somewhere in the low 3's), and didn't seem to do much in high school except chase girls and party. The character was pretty much, "Eh, I think I'll just go to Berkely or UCLA", since he knew that he didn't have a shot at getting into places like NYU or Brown. I was frankly pretty shocked that the character was THAT laidback about the college application process, because I went through it in 2004-2005, and it was much closer to what you're describing- knowing kids who had perfect GPA's and tons of volunteer work getting rejected from first AND second choices. We gotten some mixed info on this. A guy from SoCal, who would have been class of '02, offered this take on someone like Darius getting into Berkeley or UCLA: Blue made it sound easy as hell to get into school in California if you're not going for Stanford. I wonder if that was true in 2000, and UC Berkely and UCLA got just that much more competitive in one decade. Well, like I said before, it's going to be much, much tougher for Will and JJ when it's their turn circa 2004-2005. The big factor in this was the fact that starting in the mid/late 1980's, there was a mini-baby boom in the United States, which did not level off until about the mid-'90s. That translates to more people being college-aged in the mid/late 2000's, which has allowed more colleges to be selective about who they left in. It started to get harder in the late '90's, and by the mid-2000's the college application process was absolutely insane. Mark, if I didn't already know just how many loose ends you already have to tie up with Millenium, I would have suggested that you had Darius get rejected from Berkely, waitlisted by UCLA, and accepted into UC Irvine. I think that might have been more realistic, and then we could have had some fun JP shenanigans as he tried to get Darius off the waitlist. But eh, I know you've got WAY too much going on with Millenium to add that stuff in, and I figure you can get around to the college application stuff more in-depth when we get over to '04 in CAP world.

Yeah, it's essentially impossible these days to be able to do porn and not have anyone know about it. If you want to be some sort of public figure, or you'd like to work with children, it's pretty much a career killer.

That makes sense. Do the Bev Hill circles run on the conservative side, or would they be totally cool with two openly gay dads raising kids with their lesbian partner as long as they were rich? Curious about that. I don't know entirely if these dads would belong to those clubs despite being ultra-rich. As for Social groups, say you have a Colony kid who's also a skater/surfer. What are his social groups going to look like, especially if he's a floater type that manages to get along with everyone? Is he avoiding the snooty group, or actively a part of it? It sounds like he'd definitely hang at least somewhat with the stoner kids. Are the Malibu kids pretty competitive about trying to get into college, or is it all laidback because it's apparently easy as hell to get into the UC system? Some guy from that area told me that the college application process in California is MUCH more laidback than it is on the East Coast, where I rountinely knew people who got rejected from their first and second choices despite being stellar students who had massive volunteer hours. 'Cause there was this character in Mark's story who has what I'm guessing is like a 3.1 or something, no discernible extra credit hours, and he's sure he's going to go to UCLA or UC Berkely. I was like, "It's THAT easy to get in? Geez." I felt kinda jealous, to be honest. LOL.

have a good one!

I looked into this for Mark, and I basically came up with the conclusion that Brad and Robbie would indeed send their kids to Malibu High. Our Lady of Malibu is only k-8, and there isn't a chance in hell Brad would willingly send his kids to Catholic school. Which would also rule out Loyola High School and Saint Monica. (Marymount is all-girls.) He could send them to Harvard Westlake, The Brentwood School, or Crossroads, but none of them are actually in Malibu, and are kind of a drive. The other schools that are actually in Malibu are for special needs or religious-based. Brad and Robbie had a good experience with public schools, and Malibu High is pretty well-ranked, so I figured they'd be fine with sending them there. The Carrswold are more the type to send their kids to private schools, not really with the Cramptons or the Schluters. It's pretty different from Delaware, though. Here, if you can afford it, you send your kids to private school. Or you pray that your kid will get into a magnet school or charter school. Of the top of my head, in the little county I'm from, I can think of private schools like St. Elizabeth, St. Mark's, Tower Hill School, Ursuline, Padua, Salesianum, Red Lion Christian, Caravel, Tatnall, and Friends. This is all for just an area of 500,000 people. Pretty crazy, right?

See, I'm not entirely sure that's really going to be the case with these guys. They're in an immensely wealthy area, but Brad and Robbie did send their kids to public school. I consulted a guy who knows the area, and while Malibu High School IS affluent, it's not as status-concious or obsessed with flaunting wealth as we saw with Gunn High School or the Univerisity School. It's a lot more laidback. I looked at footage of a Malibu High School graduation, and most the kids were wearing flip-flops and cargos underneath their graduation gowns! I don't really think Will is going to be like Brad in terms of wanting to wear Rolexes or really expensive clothing. I know Surfer guys from his era- and this is more likely how he's going to dress- 1. A Quicksilver t-shirt, maybe a hoodie 2. A pair of Dickies or some sort of cargo shorts 3. A pair of Etnies or Vans 4. Maybe a beanie. JJ will probably be preppier than that, but not quite to the level that Brad and Claire were at the same age. I'm seeing JJ's standard high school uniform as a pair of cargos or pre-distressed Diesel jeans, a Lacoste polo(those come back in circa 2003) over a long-sleeved shirt, and a pair of flip-flops or Birkenstocks. Preppy in the '00s was different from preppy in the 80's- Claire's going to be absolutely horrified at the way these kids dress. LOL.

Will and JJ won't be on the roads until about 2002. And if I remember correctly, these kids aren't going to be asking for Ferraris. I think they'll be more likely wanting either a Lexus, a Hummer, a Ford SUV fully tricked with tv's, or maybe a BMW. I think JJ would want a BMW, and Will and Darius would go for fully tricked SUV's that could fit a lot of their friends. Plus, Will would want something that would fit his surfboard- I can't see the guy in a little sports car. Darius maybe would go for one, but not Will. I remember the first time I was inside one of those monster SUV's that had televisions that had VCR's/DVD's, and I was so impressed by it. The coming tech meltdown...it's going to be interesting to see how that goes. Really is.

Bevery Hills isn't that close to Malibu though, I thought?

Yeah, I guess there's that, too! LOL.

Here's a slide show by author Jeff Speck about what are the worst things to deal with when it comes to living in the suburbs.The Ten Worst Things About Suburbs Man. I hate suburban sprawl and the way it destroys our environment so damn much. Aside from the lost land, they cause higher waste, excerbate our dependence on oil, and a homogenization of the American cultural landscape. One good thing about this Recession was that it slowed down surbuban sprawl in my home state, which has basically been turned into one big suburb for Philadelphia and D.C. When I'm in my 30's, I hope to live in a condo in a nice, funky, medium-sized city where I can walk everywhere and won't need a car. I want to be able to walk to my favorite bars, resturants, art galleries, mom & pop stores, etc. I'm staying as far away from suburban life as possible. Are there any people here who managed to escape from the suburbs and found their quality of life was much better?

Well, see, I like seeing gay guys settle down and starting families. I'm not seeing that for myself, but I do like that it does happen. It's nice seeing gay men trump the stereotype that they can't settle down and they all want to be Circuit Bois. And Max and Tim seem so clearly the type of guys that are meant to be settled and in families. I don't think that's for Cody and Kevin, or Marcel and Lou. I could see Matt and Wade starting a family, but not until they're in their late 20's or something. I do think if Stefan and Greg had been Brad's age, they would have considered having kids. They clearly like them. I think they would have made a good parents. But for Stefan's generation, that wasn't really an option unless you tried to fake being straight and married a woman. It wouldn't have even crossed Stefan's mind when he was 30 in 1975. But I'm betting it will cross Wade''s mind when he is 30 in 2010. As for JJ and figure skating, yeah. I mean Sarah Hughes won that year at 16, but it seems like women hit their peaks earlier. It seems like every male figure skater who got the metal was either in their late teens or 20's. I'd like to see JJ make it to '02, do okay, but get really pissed that he didn't get gold, and really push himself for '06. There's a lot of inherent drama in being in the competitive sports world, which is why I'm excited as hell for when Mark switches the story over to Brad's kids. That's not for at least another two or three stories, though.

After JJ's conversation with Brad, I'm choosing to fanwank that JJ isn't raging at Brad and Robbie for their behavior because he's too busy ducking fists at school. I think JJ's getting on the "leave school to train for '02 Olympics" idea partly because he's getting bullied, and he's too headstrong to ask his brothers or his family for help. Darius and Will can't be EVERYWHERE at school to help him out, and I bet the bullying is not the overt kind that immediately draws attention, but the covert kind that stings. That would actually add some depth to his backstory, and be a reasonable explaination as to why JJ doesn't seem to care about the events of November. And it'd be true as to the absolute hell that is middle school- I think the only people who ever liked middle school were the popular ones. The cruelty of 13-year old kids...ugh. The other thing I'm thinking of...if JJ does make it to the '02 Olympics, it'd be interesting to see if he does well or if he totally choked. 'Cause he's 16 in '02, which puts him on the young side for male figure skaters...it seems like the best male figure skaters hit their peak around their early/mid-20's. I think it'd be a lot more interesting if JJ comes into Salt Lake City expecting gold, and winds up placing 8th or something. Max and Tim. They just seem right. I'm glad Max finally has someone who could really commit to him in the way he's obviously needed it. I'm seeing a white picket fenced house somewhere in the Valley with kids running around at some point.

Chapter 38 -When Brad starts his day talking to Stefan about the plan to take down Omega, and his renewed relationship with Robbie. "Brand New Day" by Sting -When Brad overhears Robbie turn down Justin, and then realizes that Robbie deleted his Cancun pictures with Carson. Then they talk on the way to the Mission. "Wishing" (If I Had A Photograph) by Flock Of Seagulls http://www.youtube.c...h?v=cME4or8z2wE -When Brad and Max talk about his happiness with Father Tim. "Hey, Leonardo" by Blessid Union of Souls The Flock of Seagulls song is a recent favorite of mine. I can't stop listening to it. It's much better, in my opinion, than the one they're famous for.

So my friend Steve commented, when I posted this article on my Facebook, said that I need to get my head outta Delaware or I'll always be stuck here. He said the same thing when I posted another article about some renovation project at UD that I'm against. I think I can move on from UD but still care about what goes on there...but I can't help but think he might have a point. Am I clinging on too hard at something I'm no longer really part of anymore? Am I just being a proud alumni who just cares about the school he spent 3 years at, or am I just refusing to move on and fully embrace my present? It's just...I've wanted to go to University of Delaware since I was fourteen years old and walked around the campus the day before I started 8th grade. UD pride and all that...it's been part of me for a very long time, and while IUP isn't bad...I dunno. It's starting to feel like home here, but it hasn't really entered my heart yet like the way UD has been inexplicably tangled up in mine for the past ten years. So does Steve have a point? Should I get my mind out of Delaware? Kinda wondering about that now...