methodwriter85

This story's been making the rounds and it's pretty neat. IMG Models just signed their first plus-size male model: Meet Zach Miko, IMG Model's First Male Plus-Size Model It's pretty cool to see some added diversity in the modeling world!

Wow, it's good to "see" you. Sounds like life is good. Tom Explores LA actually did an episode around a neighborhood that's emptying out because of the planned LAX expansion, called Manchester Square: It's really interesting to see a "ghost" neighborhood in L.A., because you don't really associate the region as having large swaths of abandoned houses, like Detroit or St. Louis.

The one I really liked that the bit about Matt making fun of Mark for saying a car is "bad"- which would later be used in Be Rad, where Brad says Robbie's 1968 El Dorado is "bad" and Robbie wonders what's wrong with it. Anyway, this bit from chapter 9 made me smile because gee, does this sound familiar or what? The only thing missing are violet blue eyes, but otherwise you get the general Hayes look. It kind of reminds me of what people say about "imprinting", and how the kind of people that you were into when you were an adolescent will still get you going as you get older. I mean, I'll admit- there's still a part of me that will drool over a tall, lanky cute college guy wearing flip-flops, cargo shorts, and a polo shirt. Or tall lanky skater boys who had that late 90's Eric Balfour or Josh Hartnett thing going on. God, skater boys. I was still kind of upset about Mark not really including skater boys in CAP, which seemed off for circa 1998-2002, but whatever. It's pretty clear that Mark's heart rests with the alpha male jocks, which is why they've featured so much in CAP, I think.

It really does give you insight into how Mark would eventually develop CAP. The pot-smoking. The beefy, blond jock that's like a teddy bear. The straight boy who confuses the protagonist. The bad boy. The precociously sexually mature 14/15-year old. The occasional sexual roleplay. The important friendship with a female. (Who the gay/bi guy may or may not have had sex with.) And most importantly, the plotline of the affluent trying to help the less unfortunate. If Mark's parents are still alive, I really, really hoped they manage to hold on to their house in the hills at least to the 2000's. An updated mid-century modern house in the hills of the Bay Area complete with a lap pool has to be worth a LOT! But in any event, I do get why Mark had to stop. This really was intensely personal.

I actually linked each chapter under the title, but here it is: On The Mark by Mark Arbour He wrote this back in 2004 but decidedly ultimately that he didn't want to finish it, for very personal reasons that I won't go into because it's not my story to tell. I do have to hand it to Adam Phillips for being willing to go to the finish line with Cross-Currents, even though it took him 10 years, because he went to some VERY ugly places in that story that I can't imagine wanting to relive. The interesting thing about this now is that it's set 40 years ago now. (It takes place from 1976 to 1980, I believe.) The attitudes and the world that Mark writes about here is largely vanished- nowadays, you have openly gay and trans MIDDLE school kids. And the whole cruising thing that Mark writes about is pretty much extinct, except maybe with older guys. It's just not worth it with the internet, and the possibility of ending up on Megan's List. I do imagine that the house that Mark grew up in is either worth millions now, or someone bought it and demolished it with something else and it's also worth (many) more millions. The area that Mark grew up in doesn't sound cheap these days. Hell, isn't even Oakland starting to get pricey?

This is 6 years later, but Mark was a 6'3" guy with a swimmer's build who grew up in an upper-middle class neighborhood and was pretty good-looking in that preppie way with auburn hair and hazel eyes he "enhanced" with contacts to make them a vivid green. Of COURSE he got a fair amount of action, save for his depressive senior year. It would be like wondering why "Andy" in Cross-Currents managed to get so much tail as a six-foot tall good looking joCK with solid abs and a rather big endowment. LOL. It's funny to think about how cruising played a big part in the last chapter of the story, but it's pretty much extinct now. Grindr and stuff like that pretty much rendered it irrelevant, But in any event, you really do see where some elements of the CAP series came from in Mark's early life. Darryl, Van, and Matt seem like they all sort of came together to create the Hayes archtype.

In this episode of React, teens react to more 90's music: I always get a kick out of this stuff. It's funny to see what remains, and what has slipped out of the consciousness. (Not surprised at the staying power of the Spice Girls- I've met people in their early 20's who know them.) It was funny to see nobody knew The Impression That I Get- I remember being in love with that song during the summer of 1997: 1997 was a great year for music, in my opinion.

If Mark wants to start researching the mid-2000's (which we're getting close to), I found this photo on Reddit that is pretty DEAD-ON for how college-aged guys dressed circa 2004-2006: It's perfect. Right down to the knock-off Livestrong bracelet and the vertical-striped button down. You can't see their feet, but I'm betting they're wearing flip-flops. And you can see with the hairstyles that we were getting away from the short and spiky look that was so popular at the start of the decade- guys were going for a more natural look with their hair, mostly. And they were growing their hair out longer in a look that was reminiscent of the early 1980's. UNLESS they were emo. But we didn't really hit peak emo until circa 2006.

Damn, Daniel. You know, watching it, it really does remind me of the plausibility that Will could look 16-17 when he was 14. That kid is pretty big for his age:

Apropos of nothing, but I had a math teacher who was your age. Picture a former baseball jock-turned-teacher with a pot belly, who wore clothes entirely too tight for him because somewhere in his mind, he's still the hot shit jock that he was back in the late 80's. Right before I graduated, I said something to the effect of, "Hey, isn't it funny that the seniors this year were mostly born in 1987, which is when you graduated, Mr. Baker?" He looked pissed and joked back, "Aren't you graduated yet?" Another person your age, who called himself Mark Logan, wrote a pretty good story called By the Way. It's set in his high school and college years, and there's a decent dose of 80's nostalgia there. (The hair in the late 80's may have been hideous, but you gotta love the tight clothes, which Logan does write about.) The story was unfinished (there was a great deal of drama as to why which I'm not going to go into), but it's worth a look.

I wrote this story awhile back, but decided to revise it and clean it up a little. Tell me what you guys think! **** I have this friend, Greg. One day, he talked to me about a curious encounter with someone that still gives him the creeps. When Greg was a young boy in his teens, he went to high school in the South. Greg had this friend Barry. Barry was this really hot guy, so much so that, "The sidewalks just sizzled under his feet." As a popular guy, Barry would throw parties that all kinds of people went to. This was how Greg got to know David. David was a cute guy with long blond hair that came just off his shoulders. David seemed nice enough, but was also led pretty easily by other people. He was friends with Barry, so Greg would see him a lot socially at various parties that were being thrown at various houses. Both David and Greg had long hair. According to Greg, having long hair back then meant you were into smoking pot, or you were at least sympathetic to those that did. Greg didn't smoke at that particular time (he had a couple years earlier), but David did, and they both had a few things in common that led to small talk while they partied. Nothing too heavy or serious. Greg just remembers David would bale out of the parties at one point to take care of some business, whatever that was. He never seemed to stay late, and always excused himself to leave for something. Hanging out with David was always pretty normal and followed that same pattern- small talk about life, David lighting up a joint while Greg drank, and then David leaving for whatever it was that he did. Except one night during a lull in conversation, Greg noticed David staring at him intensely. You know that instinct thing? Well, Greg described the feeling as being there. He had that feeling once before- Greg was hitching a ride, and the guy who picked him up kept talking about going to a party. The whole thing kept getting weirder and weirder, so he excused himself when they hit a stoplight. That feeling was back in full force when Greg noticed David staring at him. It gave him the creeps, and that's when Greg decided that it would be for the best that he didn't get too close to David. Anyway, Greg didn't spend his summers in Houston, where he lived at the time. Instead, he spent them in Portland with his godfather. So late one summer up in Portland, who does Greg see on his t.v. but his casual party buddy, David Owen Brooks. He and another teenager, Elmer Wayne Henley, had assisted a local Houston man named Dean Corll in raping and murdering up to two dozen young boys over the past couple years. Their M.O. was to invite boys over to a "party", overpower them, chain them to a board, and torture them before killing them. One night in August 1973, Elmer Wayne Henley finally put an end to it and shot Dean Corll, and everything unraveled after that as they helped the police begin to dig up the bodies. It made national news, and every night another detail, another victim was revealed. They mostly buried their victims under a boat shed, or in various beaches around the area. Forty years later, they're still trying to identify victims, and it's believed that the true victim count is much higher than 28. Before you ask, Barry wasn't a victim, and Greg never met Corll or Henley. Brooks insisted that he only watched the murders but never participated. Didn't help him that much- he's still serving time in jail, likely for the rest of his life. Greg said of this this period of his life, "In some ways, it's better to not be drop-dead attractive. Any more attention from the guy, I coulda been in that boat shed." I don't think Greg gives himself enough credit though- I think Greg had strong "instinct", whatever that is, and that David likely knew that about him, which is why he never targeted him. In any event, Greg was lucky as hell that he was never invited to a private party with that particular trio of people. Thank god David was never more than his casual acquaintance.

I would love to watch Mark Arbour read Talia Jane's open letter to the YELP Ceo, and just see how much of it he can stomach. (I don't think it's all that bad and she has some good points, but she's apparently being held up as the archetypal "whiny Millennial.") Glad to hear you're doing well, Westie. As for Mike, I always thought the M in MMike1969 stood for Marine Mike, born in 1969. Heh. Okay.

Nah, he's a former marine. I figured he had that former military daddy vibe, like dkstories does.

You've got an interesting point, but the thing is, Mark has set a lot of these characters into new territory, and he's focusing a lot more on the new generation. I still wonder if maybe a leap forward of like a year or two (say we skip after this story to when Will is a sophomore in college in 2005) might be a good way to get the juices flowing. One thing I really liked about the multiple-year leaps was that it "rebooted" the story, in a sense, and Mark was able to explain about how the characters had changed and grown (or not) in the years since we'd last seen them. We pretty much lost that when every single year since 1998 is getting covered in CAP. I mean, I get why we can't have these people suddenly waking up in 2010, but it might be cool if we skipped over a year or two, I'm just saying. You know, I'd get angry at you, but honestly I picture you as a beefy hot former military Daddy, so I just can't.

Oh, bite me. Anyway, take your time. I'm just sick of people wondering if you're still living. LOL,

We had a doctor consult on us with that story. The medical stuff was unlikely but not impossible.

The life of a busy professor. Eh.

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)