methodwriter85

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.

So, I'm stuck in this blizzard hitting the East Coast right now. I'm alone in the house, as my mother is staying at the nursing home she works at. I've got some beef stew roasting, thoughts of brownie-making in the future, and a belief that I will likely chase some shots of rum with hard cider while I watch some movies. Alone with my thoughts, I thought I'd go over where I'm at right now, as a newly-minted 30-nothing, and where I want to be, and the general confusion I still have. First of all, I feel closer to myself than I have in a long time. I got hit with such devastatingly depressing things in a very short time period- unable to get a job for all of 2013, my very close friend dying at the end of 2013, the humiliation of my failed internship in summer 2014, the turmoil of the weekend where I went to my friend's memorial in August 2014, and watching a hospice get set up in my house while my mother's elderly live-in boyfriend died of cancer at the beginning of 2015. (And then watching as my mother realized that he left absolutely nothing for her and didn't do anything to help her get past it.) That took A LOT out of me. I'm still not the happy-go-lucky, cheerful guy thrilled at all the new life experiences that I used to be, but I'm getting a lot closer to him than I was for a solid year and a half of my life. I joke around again. I'm able to be silly again. And though I still get these little grief attacks, when I get sad thinking about lost friends and lost opportunities, I'm able to get past it after a few hours as opposed to just staying in my house refusing to go out or live. I feel so much more like me than I have in a long time- a little wiser, a little more weary- but still me. It's a relief after feeling like Pod Jeremy for the past year or two. As for my current state of life, working in a movie theater retail job kind of sucks. I'm being bossed around by teenaged managers, and when I'm cleaning up some garbage spill, I just think to myself, "I'm using my 80k education for THIS?" On the other hand, it is steady work, and I'm keeping up with my bills. It's also kind of fun, in some ways, to be around so many young people. I get a kick out of being the "old guy" to a bunch of those whippersnappers who were born in the mid/late 1990's, and I love getting to see so many movies for free. I also think it's been great "social training", because on some days you have to deal with a big mass of people and you need to make pretty quick judgements about reading their mannerisms and facial expressions in case one might be a bit testy. I'm making some tentative plans for employment that actually fits a grown-up, but eh. I don't know. That's where my confusion is. I still really want to work in a museum, but I know that in order to do that, I need to leave Delaware. And I'm thinking a lot about what alternative plans I might be able to make. Right now, I'm thinking about two paths- either finally deciding to go for the PhD in history and going on the professor track, or perhaps considering a career in something like urban planning, a topic that has always interested me. I don't think I can bring myself to go for another bachelor's degree- it'll be either a master degree or finally going for that PhD. I'm just not sure yet. And I feel like I should have this figured out at 30, but I don't. I look at my old high school and college friends who are settled down, with careers and families and houses and mortgages...I don't know. Some ways I envy that, but in other ways, I'm glad that my life path is still kind of a big unknown at this point. Sometimes I feel like a dried up, old man who is stuck in some dead-end life because of so many things that he screwed up, but other times, I feel like a young man still with a lot of his life ahead of him, even though his 20's are now in his past. A little while back, I had this really great conversation with a random stranger at the bar who basically told me, "You don't know what you want to do with your life yet, but you're young and that's okay. At 45, you won't be, but for now, you're still young and you've got a lot ahead of you." I do know the life I want for myself- I'd love to live in some efficiency apartment in some city, maybe a microcondo, I actually love the idea of living in something like the Arcade in Providence: Not sure what else...I just know that I'm not really jonsing for some kind of happy suburban existence with a husband and 2 kids and a dog. Not really my bag. I want something difference...just not sure yet. I think it's okay that I'm not sure yet, despite a lot of people who tell me that I need to have a "real job" and "real life" now that I'm 30. I'll figure it out. I think, anyway. In the meantime, I just want to enjoy where I'm at and do what I can, in little ways, to prepare for whatever's next. I've got a whole new decade ahead of, you know?

Yeah, University of Delaware houses did NOT have the kind of budget for that. It's kind of amazing when I see schools that have a much bigger frat life there- IUP's frat row was huge.

Mark, it's late 2003 now. We should be seeing trucker hats and Uggs now: The important thing to remember about the trucker hats is that they weren't usually worn backwards, like baseball caps. You might see it tipped to the side, but for the most part, they were worn facing forward. I can see JJ being willing to wear male Uggs. I didn't see guys wearing them until 2005, but as Private Tim likes to point out, I'm from the DL, not the OC.

Jason Mraz interview from 2003: He's basically how I imagine most Californian dudes. Although he's actually a transplant. Anyway, the aesthetic he's rocking is dead-on for what I used to call the Guitar God in my List of 99 Percent of the People You Will Meet At University of Delaware: Was not surprised that Jason Mraz started in a San Diego coffee shop. Not at all. San Diego sounds like a great place to live- people say it's very laidback and friendly. Unless you're Betty Broderick or that crazy rapist cop. In any event, John Mayer was bigger back in '03, but I feel like Jason has had better staying power. Also, he's got fucking cute feet. As a guy who likes feet, I feel fortunate that my college years coincided with when every guy was basically wearing flip-flops like everywhere.

The only kind of fraternity I could see Will joining would be something that wasn't a social frat, but like an honor frat like APO or something, with a pretty limited initiation process that made them do like volunteer work or something. And yeah, I've heard frat and sorority people talk about how they get around the hazing rules with things like scavenger hunts, which Will would still think is stupid. If John doesn't do lacrosse in college I can pretty much see him as a frat boy, probably in whatever frat his father was in during college. (As long as it's not TKE. The UD chapter of it allegedly murdered a girl back in the late 90's or circa Y2K and they've been off campus ever since.) Finally, JJ can't stand drinking, rowdiness, or uncouth behavior and I think he'd last about 5 minutes at a keggar before leaving. I can see him mayybeee liking the artistic hipster crowd, which he should start running into if he's going to attend high school (and beyond?) in Brooklyn. He'd probably think that their fashion sense is hideous but he'd like that they're edgy.

Because of that story, I've always walked past frat houses and wondered just how much gay sex has occurred in there along with the straight encounters, LOL. I've always wished that John would update the story, but from what I understand, it was heading towards when he got outed, which at a conservative university in the mid-1990's wasn't very pretty. (He never specified the college, but I always figured it was some conservative, preppy college somewhere on the East Coast. Maybe Penn State?) To bring it back to CAP...I love that Darius joined a frat. It's just so him. I can't see that with either Will or JJ when their college years hit. (Zach being in sports basically takes the place of a frat.) Will would never put up with being told what to do during the initiation process, and JJ at his core is basically a loner.

If I had know this tune was 1981 and not 1982 like I thought, I totally would've used it for Be Rad: Such a great tune. The U.K. was sooooo ahead of American music circa 1979-1982.

I've been waiting about 12 years to find out what happens when John finally gets fucked by Kevin in Fraternity Memoirs.

Dude, it's Del. or DE. Geez. DL is a slang term for black males who live straight lives but secretly have sex with other men. LOL. Philadelphia fandom is pretty crazy, but there's also a sense of humor to it. Pittsburgh people, however, are pretty damn serious. Geez. Anyway, I hope this pays off for Los Angeles. Also, that St. Louis gets another team to fill their stadium.

Do you think that there's going to be support for the team now, or not? I mean, again, aside from college football, California really does seem like a basketball state. Is there really going to be demand for an NFL Los Angeles team? As for St. Louis, it's just kind of sad given what they did to get the team, and the fact that it was only successful for a very short period, but they still showed a lot of support for it. Also, that St. Louis is a struggling rust belt city. That's always sad. (Although Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are doing pretty nicely right now!)

Isn't your county still massively wealthy from the real estate boom that Mark lovingly detailed in The Land Whore? In any event, it sounds like the Raiders are trying to jump ship back to LA, too. It just seems kind of dumb to spend that much to lure back some mediocre teams that the city didn't seem to appreciate to begin with, especially when you're a city dealing with a major historic drought, a cockamine plan to turn your concrete ditch into river real estate, and other things Blue has talked about that seems like there's some shakiness to the L.A. economy.

The L.A. Rams Are Back! I know our author is a long-suffering fan of them, so I thought that might be of interest. I wonder if L.A. people are going to be really that into it, because the impression I've been continually given is that this is a basketball state, save for the fans of college football. (And I guess 49ers fans in NorCal?) Was there ever considerable support for the Rams back when it was a Los Angeles team? Do you see the city giving its support to the team again? I do feel bad for St Louis.