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There's a running theory that Mark Scott was another "collaborator" with Dean Corll; hence why he asked to just be shot because he knew what he was in for. Rustle talked on another blog I did about how he knew David Owen Brooks socially- in his case, he spent his summers in Portland instead of Houston, which just might have saved his life.

Awhile back, I wrote a story about a scary occurrence that happened to my friend Jack. You can read about that here. Anyway, the story has been read by Unit 522, a YouTuber who specializes in reading creepy stories. He did it in a collaboration with HauntingStories. Check it out here: (the story starts at the 5:24 mark) I think he did a great job with it. Such a crazy, creepy tale.

Brie Larson, the current Best Actress Oscar winner, was once a failed Disney teen pop star. Oh my god, I'm laughing my ass off. This is basically the synthesis of every early/mid-2000's teen pop video. I'm pretty sure this could have appeared in an Amanda Bynes teen movie from 2005.

I meant like fashion-wise, including architecture and vehicle designs. People might have had more money, but it wasn't like Dynasty where you wearing furs and eating cavier, etc etc. The 90's were all about minimalism. As Mark said, he had Stefan update his jet because we're headed into a more ostentatious era. The real estate market is riding high, and people were cashing in on this. Have you seen The Big Short yet? It's a really good look at the mindset of the pre-Great Recession era:

She did write a follow-up response...I think she's still got stars in her eyes but we'll see how it goes for her. I do agree with her that you shouldn't be barred from exploring and growing in a place you want to be at because you don't make enough relative to the cost of living- it shouldn't be that way. I get her viewpoint, and I also get that she's still in for a very rude awakening as well. It sucks that this is the way the world is, and that a beautiful place like San Francisco has become out of reach for anyone who doesn't make close to 6 figures, but it's just the reality. If San Francisco would loosen up on zoning laws and allow more high-rise apartment buildings, rent would actually fall, but they would rather keep things the way they are. (D.C. has a similar issue going on.) I remember watching the movie Brooklyn, which shows Saoirse Ronan as an Irish immigrant who moves to Brooklyn in the early 1950's. She gets a job working at a department store, gets a room at a boarding hourse, and takes night courses at the local college. That is basically impossible now for someone to be able to show up to Brooklyn like that and set up a life like that on a retail job. And it made me sad to think that. Anyway, Philadelphia has one big advantage that a lot of the high-cost-of-living cities don't have- for an East Coast city- it's pretty big. (152 square miles.) It's also not afraid to build high-rise apartments, or turn old buildings into apartments. It also really doesn't have the whole tech thing going for it right now. (Comcast is trying to change that, but for now, the big white collar job for that city would be education and medical.) I might try to wind up there, but honestly...I kind of think it would be cool to go to Detroit. Something about it speaks to me. I also really loved Chattanooga.

So this week, in Los Angeles news... Metro Expo Line to Begin Service to Santa Monica This reminded me of Private Tim's post about how his grandmother used to be able to ride the train down to Santa Monica as a young lass. Anyway, as a fan of mass transit who hates driving in traffic, I'm glad for this. (I honestly really liked my SEPTA experiences...not so sure of the LIRR, though.) Blue (where ARE you, anyway?) should be pretty thrilled. And in San Francisco news... Former Yelp Employee Complains About Her Minimum Wage Job, Gets Fired A young woman, known as Talia Jane, wrote a lengthy diatribe to her company's CEO about how her minimum wage job made it impossible for her to live comfortably in the Bay Area. She was promptly fired, and the post has prompted both outpouring support and outrage. It does raise the question of why it's so expensive to live in San Francisco. Efforts to try and improve affordability, such as adding in tall apartment skyscrapers, have been fought tooth and nail. I do think it's untenable- at some point, something has to be done. Aren't people like resorting to moving to Oakland now or something?

So, this Yelp employee named Talia Jane complained about her salary on a blog post. Then she got fired. Stefanie Williams, a writer and fellow Millennial with about 5 extra years of life experience, ripped into her with this invective. To add on to this dogpile, a Gen Xer with 7 years of extra life experience ripped on Stefanie Williams for her own sense of entitlement and jumping to conclusions about someone's life. Here it is: 36-year Old Gen Xer DESTROYS 29-Year Old Millennial Who "Ripped" A 25-Year Old Former Yelp Employee by Sara Lynn Michener It's an interesting debate- what is a living wage, and why do so many people who are college-educated and employee with big companies having to struggle with making ends meet? Should companies have the responsibility to pay their entry-level workers enough money to live in cities that have cost-of-living? Another question I have- what happens to San Francisco (and other cities like it) if young people can even afford to live there?

You're pretty much right.The thing to remember is that in the earlier books, years would pass by. CAP (1962-63), 1968 (self-explanatory), The Land Whore (1973), Be Rad (1980), Man In Motion (1985), A Summer Love (1991), If It Fits (1995), and Bloodlines (1998.) (There's a reason why I thought JJ and I would both be in our 20's at least once!) Every book had a very specific historical event going- CAP had Kennedy's assassination, 1968 had too many count as in real life but specifically the Parisian student riots, The Land Whore had the oil embargo, Be Rad had John Lennon's killing, Man in Motion had the AIDS crisis and also the Challenger explosion, A Summer Love had the fall of the Soviet Union (as well as Jeffrey Dahmer), If It Fits had the O.J. Simpson trial going on, and Bloodlines had the Matthew Shepherd murder. But then Mark decided that, with only about 10 or 12 years of history left, he'd slow things way down, and he'd focus more on developing the next generation. Now that we don't seem to skip any years since 1998, it'd get gratuitous if every single story was pinned around a historical event, especially in years that were pretty quiet, like 2000. (Which had three stories.) I think it works better as backdrop, although I do also really like the historical stuff, especially now that we're in the era where I hit my late teens/early 20's. And hey, there's a lot of great upcoming events for the characters to react to that would make sense for them to react to- gay marriage in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, etc etc. One thing I like is how Mark is subtlety showing us how we're moving on from the pared down feeling of the 90's, with Stefan updating his jet and showing that we're headed into a more ostentatious time period, and JJ noting how pastels seem to be "in", fashion-wise. Welcome to the Bush II years, guys! I do think one thing that would really make sense to cover would be the start of the subprime mortgage crisis, because this family does have some dealing in California real estate. (Although the Bay Area doesn't seem like it was hit as hard as the Los Angeles region, specifically the Inland Empire and the O.C.) I also think there's strong chance we'll see Matt deal with the banking crisis of 2008, since it seems like he'll be headed for finance. (He himself will be fine with his Google stock, but his co-workers probably won't be so lucky)

I always thought that Man In Motion was in some ways Mark's little love letter to the mid-1980's. They were his college years of course. I always pictured that Mark then went off to live some version of the movie Wall Street after being a preppy 80's college kid before quitting the corporate world to live the life of a professor. It'd be funny to pictures those preppies from Pretty in Pink becoming yuppies, then growing up to have kids who become hipsters.

1. Andre was a pretty cool character. BTW, Mark wrote that he was supposed to look like Bernardo in West Side Story. 2. I'm pretty sure Mark has kept in the "snaugh" thing. I could've sworn that he wrote people observing Matt Carrswold and Zach Hayes as "snaughing." And it's interesting to think about how the loss of Jeff still reverberates throughout this story. 3. I always thought it was kind of interesting that as a teenager, Stefan was having sex with both sexes, but after he hit his twenties, he pretty much settled into being a flamingly gay guy. Thank god Mark didn't give Stefan some long-lost kid that he conceived in the 1960's when he was still having sex with women. I'm glad he gave that to Robbie instead, because I really did love Bloodlines. 4. Brad's backstory is pretty fucked up right from his birth. It's a wonder he's even functional as a person. LOL. I did enjoy the Alexandera Billings Carmichael storyline from Millennium- her transferring her resentment of Brad's biological father onto him. 5. Simply put, this is a story of gay/bi men, and as a straight guy, Ace right off the bat isn't going to be more than a supporting character. And as a character, the more we got to know him, the less likable he seemed. Superficially, he's like Darius in having been the fun party guy. But he's honestly not a very nice guy, and he's pretty judgmental. And we have both Jack and Darius as the supportive straight male family members/friends. There's just not that much need for Ace in the story, especially as we've shifted perspective to the younger generation. Will seems like he can barely stand the guy. 6. When Mark started writing CAP, he sped through a lot of it. He would get through a lot of it in a few weeks, or a few months. Once we got to about Millennium, Mark started taking his time with a story, and the writing's gotten a lot stronger.

The classic John Hughes film Pretty in Pink is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month, and I got to see a revival of it on the big screen last week. It's not as good as The Breakfast Club, but the soundtrack just can't be denied. Anyway, some of my favorite tunes from that film: "Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" by the Smiths As for my personal thoughts on the movie...it's weird, but I actually feel like I got more out of it when I re-watched it. I think the characters could have been much better written (Blaine and the school Mean Girl Benny were especially cardboard cut-outs), but I loved all the wonderful little nods to 1980's New Wave culture (which was going to fade out pretty soon after the mid-80's), and who can't help but root for Molly Ringwald's character? I feel like her character arc was about not staying complacent, either with letting the rich kids treat her like crap or with her father's refusal to move on with his life. It kind of felt like, at this point where she's almost at the finish line, there are things that Andie needs to confront about herself and the people around her before she can really move on to that next stage of her life. Now that 18/19 is pretty far behind me, I can appreciate that aspect of them movie more than I did when high school was a recent memory, I think. I also think I appreciate Iona more...I'm closer to her age now than I am to Andie's age, and I got her speech about prom and the envy you can sometimes have of someone that age. I feel like I "got" that character more than I did when I watched this movie as a teenager or a little kid. (TBS used to run it pretty consistently.) Of course, it's mainly about getting with the cute guy, but whatever. I do think it's funny that they basically had to reshoot the ending because nobody realized while they were filming the movie that Andie and Duckie had the chemistry of a brother and a sister, not a couple that doesn't realize they're a couple just yet. Apparently Molly had really, really wanted Robert Downey Jr. in the part of Duckie, and believed she could have had that chemistry with him, but just couldn't have mustered up that chemistry with Jon Cryer. The movie was basically remade a year later with the genders flipped and called Some Kind of Wonderful. I honestly can't stand that movie, except that Eric Stoltz had hit peak attractiveness at that point and he and Mary Stuart Masterson had really wonderful chemistry together. Anyway, did anyone else get a chance to catch the revival?

I was HEAVILY into 1980's nostalgia when I was a teenager before anyone else was really doing it, so I pretty grabbed every 80's soundtrack or compilation I could get my hands on and downloaded it to my computer. I think I dressed up as someone from the 80's for Halloween at least four separate times during my teens and twenties. I even have a vintage blue Members Only Jacket from the 80's. I had a coach that got annoyed at me for this and said something to the effect of, "Jeremy, you were born in 1985, practically in 1986 Why are you talking like you're an 80's kid like me?" (He was born in 1978.) I now understand his annoyance when someone born in the mid/late 1990's talks about being a kid of the 90's. No, you're not. LOL. But eh, I'll admit I have a couple of 1980's time travel fantasies. I want to visit circa 1984 New York City and also 1986 Los Angeles Sunset Strip. It'd also be cool to shop at the Sherman Oaks Galleria as it looked like when it was the backdrop for Fast Times At Ridgemont High. The 80's just looked and seemed like such a fun time!

I'm steeped in mid-1980's nostalgia right now because I got to watch the Pretty In Pink revival on the big screen (can you believe that movie came out THIRTY years ago? God, I'm old), so I thought it'd be fun to review my Man in Motion music choices. I had a blast working with that era, and got to use a lot of really fun music. I also understand that a lot of you have started re-reading old stories in the absence of new chapters, so this felt apropos. Man In Motion Playlist 1.) "Man In Motion" by John Parr The opening title 2.) "Material Girl" by Madonna Brad, deep in thought, on a plane ride back to California. Chapter 1. 3.) "Souvenir" by OMD Brad drives back to the East Coast, after hugging Robbie just a touch too long. Chapter 1. 4.) "Let the Music Play" by Shannon At the Valentine's Party, where Brad meets Max. Chapter 2. 5.) "The Ghost in You" by The Psychedelic Furs When Brad and Robbie make love, and Robbie admits that he's run up huge debt to impress Neil. Chapter 2. 6.) "Wouldn't It Be Good?" by Nik Kershaw When Tonto visits Brad, and is accompanied by Robbie. Chapter 3. 7.) "In-Between Days" by The Cure When Brad and Robbie are on the beach, and Brad reads Robbie his break-up letter that he carries around with him. They then have angry sex. Chapter 4. 8.) "Self-Control" by Laura Branigan When Neil tries to seduce Brad, gets turned down, and then Brad has sex with Robbie. Chapter 5. 9.) "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves When Brad and Robbie meet in New York City. Chapter 6. 10.) "Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister When Brad and Robbie talk about what just happened with Neil, and Brad gets Robbie ready for his graduation ceremony. Chapter 7. *By the way, this is the official answer to "What was number 1 on the day you were born?" question for me. I have to admit I have to like it because of that. 11.) "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran When Brad and Robbie have their good-bye sex, and Brad walks in on Ace and Bianca yet again. Chapter 8. 12.) "Lover Girl" by Tina Marie When Brad visits his ex-stepfather in St. Louis and finds him railing Jake the Boy Toy in the garage while his oblivious wife is in the house. Chapter 9. 13.) "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush When Roger is buried, dead from AIDS, and the family celebrates his life. Chapter 10. 14.) "Alive and Kicking" by The Simple Minds When JP announces at the family dinner that he's HIV-positive, Mouse announces he's positive as well, and Claire announces her engagement to Jack Hobart. Chapter 11. 15.) "Pretty in Pink" by The Psychedelic Furs (1981 Version) When Brad and Bitty talk about her baby, to be born in February 1986, and she refuses to name the father. Chapter 12. 16.) "Crazy for You" by Madonna Claire and Jack's wedding. Chapter 13. 17.) "I'm Still Standing" by Elton John When J.P. announces that it was a false positive, and nevertheless assures Mouse that they'll stay together. Chapter 15. 18.) "Our House" by Madness When JP announces at the Escorial family dinner that he's HIV-negative, and Claire announces that she's having JP's first grandchild. Chapter 16. 19.) "Eyes Without A Face" by Billy Idol When Brad gets really drunk, has sex with Robbie...only to be confused when Robbie comes in and seems really pissed off. Chapter 16. 20.) "Time" by The Culture Club When Brad confronts Robbie on his bitchy behavior, and learns about how Bitty gave birth to her son prematurely. Chapter 19. 21.) "Don't Come Around" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers When Brad beats up Neil, who has secretly been in Paris. (I think? It's been a long time.) Chapter 19. 22.) "All Through the Night" by Cyndi Lauper When Brad and Robbie have sex, while Robbie's out on bail after being arrested for Neil's murder. Mouse gets to watch. Chapter 21. 23.) "White Lines" by Grandmaster Flash When Brad finds Bitty in a crack house, shortly after she gives birth to her premature son. Chapter 22. 24.) "I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigner When Robbie admits to Brad and his own psychiatrist, now that he's freed, that he really did kill Neil. Chapter 24. I still remember Mark saying something about how played out this whole song is, to the point that it makes him still kind of cringe. LOL. Me? I remember it from the episode of Quantum Leap, where Sam leaps into a reporter in San Francisco in 1985, and he falls in love with an Asian woman psychic. This was their love song montage. 25.) "Leather and Lace" by Stevie Knicks and Don Henley When Brad proposes to Robbie. Chapter 24. 26.) "Once in A Lifetime" by Talking Heads When the happy couple discover that Stefan and Greg bought them a house in Malibu, right next to theirs. Chapter 24. 27.) "Left of Center" by Suzanne Vega When Brad and Robbie discuss Jeanine's pregnancy, and Robbie decides that he can be okay with having Jeanine in their lives as Brad's baby mama. Chapter 26. 28.) "If You Leave" by OMD When the gang leaves Claremont, this time for good. Chapter 27. 29.) "Modern Love" by David Bowie When Brad, Robbie, and Jeanine show up with Darius and JJ at their new house, a family now. Chapter 27. Aside: It's kind of sad to think that the whole family dynamic they tried to set up back in 1986 basically blew up in their faces in 1999-2000, and then permanently ended by 2001.; Also, R.I.P. David Bowie. Anyone else remember this tune? It was used rather brilliantly in the 2013 indie film Frances Ha. 30.) "But Not Tonight" by Depeche Mode When Brad and Robbie celebrate Robbie's official HIV-negative status, and make love. 31.) "The Neverending Story" by Limahl When William John Steven Schluter is born on September 14, 1986. *** I had no clue, back in 2009, how fucking right that choice was going to be. I honestly thought that by now, CAP would be finished out because we were going to hit present time by like 2011 or something, and we'd be on to something different. It's still kind of weird for me that I'm 30 and JJ is still 17 even though we share the same birthdate. Man, I'm like his portrait in the attic or something. LOL. I did have to laugh at this comment that I wrote all the way back in 2009: Yeah, that was before I had any clue that Matthew Carrswold was going to exist. LOL. He and Wade really did kind of serve as "the bridge" to Will's cohort. It also saddens me that Jeanine, who seemed so damn cool when we first met her, turned into a crazy stage mother before dying before the age of 40. There should be a PSA about not being the baby mother to a Schluter man. LOL.

Tonto? I can totally picture Tonto giving the speech that Kathy Bates did in Titanic where she slammed everybody on the lifeboat for not turning around and rescuing people.

When I was 11 years old, in 1997, I discovered a stash of my father's gay porn mags. You see, he apparently had some weird side business of selling photo copies of porn, and he put some magazines in a briefcase, which my mom took from him when he moved out in 1995. (Yeah, imagine the surprise when the locksmith opened it up!) I started sneaking them when I was 11 and I realized that I liked boys...a realization that was made Crystal-clear when I saw the Backstreet Boys gyrating shirtless in the rain: My "gay life" in the 90's was essentially just that last year of the 90's in 1999, when I started going on the internet. I discovered Nifty Archive at 13 years old...which I honestly think gave me what I call the "Gay Man's Cinderella Complex". I grew up basically thinking that at some point that I'd bump into the love of my life on the campus squad. He'd be a hawt previously str8 jock stud; there'd be drama and a possible gay-bashing, but everything would work out in the end. None of that happened, but I did really enjoy reading slash fiction. Nifty Archive had a whole boyband section going on- remember reading a lot of BSB, N'Sync, and 98 Degrees fanfictions as we headed into the Y2K era. I also really liked reading X-Files (Mulder and Krycek) and Buffy (Xander and Angel) slashfic. On T.V., we had Will and Grace- although sadly Will didn't do much. We also had Jack McPhee on Dawson's Creek, who would finally kiss a guy on-screen in 2000 after coming out as gay in 1999. There was also Queer as Folk circa 2000-2001, which pretty much was my impression of gay life- you'd have to live in a city, be a hot twink, and live for raves and drugs and hook-ups. During the early 2000's tail-end of the 90's, AOL chatrooms were a big thing for me. Meeting and chatting with other people that were gay was a pretty big deal, and engaging in phone sex or cyber with people that I talked to online as a teenaged guy was a good outlet for my feelings. (Interestingly, I WOULD go on to cruising in the mid-00's, even though that had fallen out of favor because of the internet.) I remember the AOL profiles, and how they basically looked like precursors to the Myspace pages, and how exciting it was if you thought someone wanted to hook up with you. I did wind up having one very weird and awkward hook-up with a man I met online in 2001..after that, I backed away from trying to hook up with guys I met online and just stuck to chatting. Luckily, I wound up going to a school that was very gay-friendly and it basically normalized being gay for me.

I was born in very late 1985. At most we're two years apart, but more likely about a year and a half. I got held back, so everyone I graduated with was born in 1986/1987. I kind of miss the internet being somewhat obscure.

Ah, trusty old Buzzfeed. 45 Signs You're An Old Millennial This is INCREDIBLY tailored to those who had their childhood in the early/mid-90's, their middle school years in the late 90's, their high school years in the early 2000's, and their college years in the mid-2000's. Honestly, I thought it was pretty dead-on. At least for a general American middle-class upbringing. I did kind of LOL at the comment about not wanting to be lumped in with people born in the 1990's. Honestly, I don't find people born circa 1992-1993 to being THAT different from me, and I'd classify them as 90's kids. (Very late 90's kids, but 90's kids nonetheless.They at least hit elementary school before the end of the decade.) But when you get to kids born in the mid/late 90's, I just feel like it's an entirely different generation. (Like in the reverse direction, I tend to find people born in the mid/late 1970's as being a different generation, while people born in the early 80's feel kind of "in-betweener" to me.)

Yeah, but you're from New England, where New Balance originated. I do think we're hitting the time period where they became pretty popular, but I'm talking East Coast hit. Although the author of The Best 4 Years of Adam Becker, which takes place in the South, also said they hit over there, so it might have been a national thing.

Riley Van Den Boss Danfield at age 9 (CIrca 2009)? Mark hasn't been that specific about what Riley looks like, other than him having blue eyes like Wade. I kind of picture Riley as ending up this incredibly adorable and precocious, though. And this kid is obviously intelligent. (Although not Will-level precocious. I figure that Tiffany would verbally slap the shit out of him before she ever allowed him to get away with the kind of stuff that Will did.) Anyone see Room? It is a pretty good film. And again, Jacob Tremblay is friggin' adorable. He almost makes me want to have children. Almost. I hope to god that Disney/Hollywood doesn't get their mitts on him.

The trailer for Me Before You just dropped...it's pretty good. If you're not familiar with the story, it's based on a book written by JoJo Moyes. It focuses on a young woman from a small town who becomes a hired caregiver to a recently-disabled man. It stars Emilia Clarke (Games of Thrones) and Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games). Here's the trailer: I read the book once for a library book club...it was a pretty engrossing read. The set-up seems like an insipid romantic dramedy, but it manages to be much better than that. Punched me to the gut, I'll say.

Were suede New Balance sneakers just an East Coast thing, or did they hit California too? I remember these were hitting HARD circa 2004-2005. Birkenstocks (but paired with Hollister preppy gear) also should hit pretty soon: I can tooootttttalllly see Will into wearing Birks with comfortable distressed jeans and a baggy striped polo shirt.

I definitely went in pretty blind back in 2005. Again, if I had it to do all over again, my first two years of college would have been at a community college, but I desperately wanted the liberal arts college experience and living away from home. It is what it is, though. At the same time, I would be a completely different person if I had taken that path, and I'm glad I did have the opportunities I had with higher education.

In a time when high student loans and a shaky economy have made it harder for borrowers to pay them off, some Millennials have found a solution...flee to Europe and never live in the U.S. again! The article below talks about the young Americans who are making their life overseas in the hopes of being free of their student loans. Meet the Americans Who Moved To Europe to Bail on their Students Loans Honestly, it's a definite fantasy of mine...escaping my student loans. I have fantasized about faking my own death, and then moving to Canada to live a debt-free life as a bohemian actor named Justin Baroque in Toronto. I also have dreams of traveling back in time to 2005, and convincing Young Jeremy that it's not really worth it to live on campus at a 4-year college, and that he'd be better off going to community college and living at home for two years before transferring to UD. That part of me finds these people pretty cool, and with a lot of chutzpah to be able to chuck it all and live a new life somewhere else, free of the burdens of their old life. The other part of me thinks it's pretty irresponsible, and that a big part of being a grown-up is living up to your responsibilities. When you took out those loans, you said you'd pay them back. In my case, I've focused on paying back the private student loans...haven't really touched the federal ones yet. I originally owed about 5k to Wells Fargo, spread over four loans. I'm now down to one loan totaling about $1,883. I mean, 3k is nothing, really, but I'm pretty proud of it regardless, especially given how spotty my employment has been. I'm hoping that I can get my loans forgiven a couple of decades down the line, but I'll definitely try my best to honor my commitment here. I mean, really, it's the only commitment I have in my life. If I can't handle one, I don't think I'd be able to handle all the other ones that you're supposed to take on as a mark of adulthood (marriage, house, etc etc) so I figure it's character-building. So, do you think it's okay for people to escape their student loans by fleeing the country? Is it something that you would do, or something you'd encourage your kids to do? Sound off below!

"It's A Heartache" by Bonnie Tyler:

Late 2013 to early 2015 just took a lot out of me. It really did. It's nice to realize though that I have finally recovered from it.