methodwriter85

So I thought I'd try something a little different than my "music playlist" stuff. I thought it might be interesting to highlight a particular song that brings back a very vivid memory. So first up... "Sweet Jane" by the Cowboy Junkies It's mid-March, 2012. I'm 26 years old. I'm in some non-descript, beat up car from the 1990's(I think blue, maybe black), traveling with two or three other guys as we were coming back from our Spring Break. We had spent the week in Tennessee, building trails in the Appalachia mountains, while staying at some lodge in some backwater place called Soddy-Daisy, close to Chattanooga. It was a great week. Probably one of the best weeks in my life- Chattanooga was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful, I was falling in love with the "Hunger Games" book, which was enhanced by actually being kinda isolated in the middle of nowhere, and I was getting over my fear of heights by working on this trail in the mountains. I had even managed to come close to the edge of a cliff to take a group picture with friends. Our lodge was filled of cool, interesting people from all over the country. And we basically flouted the "no drinking" rule, because our particular group was not held as strictly to the rules as the other groups were. (The Boston University kids actually had some 35-year old babysitter/faculty member.) The year previous, someone had crashed a school-owned van during a trip to New Orleans, so our chapter of Alternative Spring Break did not use school vans that year, which meant that we did not have to follow the same rules as we did last year. The girls from our own group got to have their own cabin, which meant that we basically got to throw parties almost every night. It basically felt to me that I was getting the sleepaway summer camp experience, which I had never had. The theme from Salute Your Shorts kept playing in my head. Not everything was perfect- I had this bad earache the first day or two, some of the kids I didn't get along with, and I didn't really get to do as much as I wanted to because they had too many people working on the trail, but still. It was fantastic. Wednesday night, we were in Chattanooga and walked the pedestrian bridge over the Tennessee river...it was an absolutely beautiful, clear night, and the lights of the city and the sound of the river below was just beautiful. I felt really lucky to be alive and part of the world that night. Of course, all good things have to come to an end, and this week did.The song came on the radio on our way back up....I had never heard of it before. I asked my driver about it, and he said that it was a tune from the movie Natural Born Killers...I had seen it when I was little, but I didn't really remember the soundtrack. I loved the tune. It was just the right kind of mellow and reflective...a perfect song to come down to while leaving an amazing vacation and coming back to the grind of school, my job, and my internship. We were flowing along the road close to the Virginia Tech as we went towards West Virginia...which was pretty much open country, strikingly different from the heavily-developed scenery that I'm used to seeing on the East Coast along 95. It matched the general feeling that I had- I felt real, and earthy. I didn't feel like some mallrat from suburbia, which is how I grew up seeing myself. I wasn't surrounded by the airy artificiality and conformity and congestion of where I had grown up. There was just this all this wide open country around me, and this song lulling me to a wistful, reflective state. I was happy/confused/sad/accomplished/scared etc about what came next...grad school was getting ready to end, and they were the best years of my life. But at that moment, I felt wide open and hopeful, and loved that I had gotten to experience things I had never done before, like standing on a mountain or checking out the coolness that was Chattanooga. I have never felt more free or full of possibility than I did at that moment. I think that above anything else is why I consider that the best week of my life. I hope I have other, better years/times/weeks than that one, but for now, three years later, this moment still sticks to me.

Not surprisingly, San Francisco invented the whole "parklet" craze about a decade ago. It's hitting Philadelphia right now and trickling down to Newark and Wilmington, DE as well. (They did a display of the concept at a community day event here in Newark last summer, and apparently did a temp one in Wilmington.) Have you seen the parklets in Los Angeles, Blue? I think it's kinda cool, but I'd also be terrified of someone running me over while I'm sitting down on some park bench. For those of you who haven't seen them, it's basically when a parallel parking spot in front of a business gets turned into a mini-park:

Oooh, two Daddies slapping me around for the price of one! One former Marine Daddy and a Daddy from Australia This just keeps getting better! If you're both bearded Daddy bears, even better! Okay, in all seriousness...let's move on. Where do you guys see the story going? Did De La Salle already have their high school football championship? It'd be nice to see that one.

*pictures being slapped by a forty-something former marine type* Please Daddy, may I have another? No, in all seriousness, I get that it's annoying and stupid but sometimes you get some really neat portmanteaus. Nuke (Luke and Noah of As the World Turns) and Kish (Kyle Lewis and Oliver Fish on One Life to Live) are two of my favorites. Just saying that at about this time period in the story, people started using that. Before that, 'ships on fan message boards were given names that weren't smash-ups or just Person/Person. Which made it really annoying that an episode of the Carrie Diaries, set in 1985, had people trying to say a couple portmanteu nickname. That was such a jarringly anachronistic moment- no one in the mid-1980's talked like that, and it wasn't being done until Bennifer came around in 2002. Anyway, I'll admit certain things will set my teeth on edge. I can't STAND "totes" (totally), "adorbs" (adorable) or "jelly" (jealous). Although that was inflicted on us by TetRefine's cohort, not mine. Yolo surprisingly doesn't bother me that much, though. And I'm down with #Hashtag.

So while we wait for the story to resume...I thought we could have some interesting conversations about the popular culture of the time period this is set in. It's late 2002/early 2003, which means we're at the height of Bennifer. (Ben Affleck and J-Lo.) That portmanteau popularized the use of such things, so it makes me wonder...what would you use for our favorite CAP couples? Will and Zach...Zill? Wach? Zwill? Alex and JJ...Jalex? Jander? I kinda like Jalex. Brad and Robbie...Brobbie? Claire and Jack...Jaire? It's kind of funny when you think there was a time when such things were never heard of.

Someone told me that apparently Patogonia is really popular with the college kids these days, and have apparently usurped Northface:

There's this MLB prospect for the Blue Jays, Daniel Norris, who likes to rock a lumbersexual beard during the off-season: Pretty impressive beard for a 21-year old. It even got a Twitter account. I usually tend to prefer guys with just stubble as opposed to a full-on bushy beard, but this guy rocks the hell out of it.

I came across this pretty neat story about a Blue Jays prospect, who despite having a 2 million dollar signing bonus, lives in a van at a Florida Wal-Mart and leads a spartan lifestyle by choice. The Man in the Van by Eli Saslow I really do admire people who live such free, minimalist lifestyles like that. I find the guy a throwback to the 1970's, when some people rejected the materialism of American society and went off to try and live off the land in nature. He's not quite doing that, but I do think Daniel is practicing a lot of those same values- being self-sufficient, not having much beyond the bare minimum, and a lot of self-reflection. Whether or not the guy gets into the Major Leagues or not, he's already won at life because he's figured out the way to lead a life that makes him happy. Way too much about the life we're told we should have is about acquiring stuff. I like that Daniel Norris decided that it was not the life for him, and he's gone for it despite his teammates who probably think he's absolutely off his rocker. I'm glad he's being celebrated for his eccentricity, rather than being mocked for it. I also have to admit, I have this fantasy of what it might be like to lead that kind of lifestyle...living in a van (probably more like a Winnebago), traveling around the United States, and being a free-spirit with nothing tying him down. I don't actually think I could do it, but more power to this guy for being able to do so.

Well, PrivateTim, if you're offering....I'm sure Mark would take it.

Philadelphia magazine just wrote an article about what they're calling Philly's New Boom: Philadelphia New Boom It really is exciting to see all the changes that are happening. I'll be interested in seeing whether or not they can FINALLY make the Gallery at Market East more than just a 1980's food court and a handful of discount stores. I also think it's pretty cool they want to add Times Square-like advertising to certain parts of town. Pretty cool. Finally...Kensington as a neighborhood everyone wants to move to. Man, that'll be interesting if that actually happens, because I still hear Kensington and think, "Crack epidemic."

Hey, for those of you that were interesting in following the story about my friend Tim who got arrested during an Unfortunate Sidetrack, I talked to him on Facebook recently. Tim is generally doing okay. He told me that Nassau County (New York) is still dragging their feet on giving him a plea bargain so he can avoid being charged with a misdemeanor, but he can put things off for awhile now. Tim's still hopeful they'll give him the plea bargain, and he doesn't think this will go to trial- most likely to a hearing. I did hope this would have been resolved by now, but eh, the system can be a pretty lengthy process. I do hope he can get the no contest plea bargain or something, but at the very least, he doesn't have to worry about a felony.

Well, it's leveled off and his Twitter followers are now down to about 711k. As an update, he's apparently quit his Target job and will pursue acting and/or singing. It'll be interesting to see what this guy is like at 25. Seriously, how can you possibly go back to being a normal guy living a normal life after the whirlwind he got? He'll be chasing that for the rest of his life.

So this is more 1978 than 2000,but check out this really cool/funny picture of Cali rock climbers from the 1970's: It's currently trending on Reddit's OldSchoolCool. Check out the shorts! I really do love looking at photos from that depict bygone eras and times. I love imagining what it might have been like to live in those times. According to people in the thread, they're guessing that these are Yosemite climbers from the 1970's.

I don't personally get it, but I can totally see JJ getting into the whole Benedict Cumberbatch thing: A Brief Guide to Benedict Cumberbatch Hysteria JJ likes his guys (and probably women) to seem posh and refined. I can totally see JJ getting into it. It's still pretty funny that such a weird-looking guy is a sex symbol, but then eh...whatever floats your boat, Cumberbitches. There's actually a teenage boy who got all these Chinese Followers on social media just for looking like him. I also think JJ will be an early adopter of skinny jeans sometime around 2005-2006 (They seemed to go mainstream around 2007-2008.) He's not going to go near the hipster look, though.That's probably going to be for Marie.

My high school principal was a lesbian raising kids with her wife, so it's not that out of my experience.

Well, the interesting thing about this is that it's taking "Rust Belt" brownfield makeover ideas and applying it to areas where the industry is still there. That should have some interesting consequences. They're trying to force it into becoming a brownfield, rather than happening organically. Interesting bit about the cost of living downtown. I know in Philly, there are lots of young people taking over, but Philly is also a city that was built for 2 million people and lost about 500k people. There's going to be lots of empty lots and housing for them, which probably keeps pricing down.

Well, I was kind of being in jest with the first comment. That's why I included the smiley. I don't necessarily agree that it was a huge loss. Interesting bit about the Millennials. I didn't realize Downtown had to be that expensive. I mean, I thought they were trying to revitalize it, which suggested that it can't be that expensive.

The Campus Door loans started off at around 9 or 10 percent, though by the time they got over to Wells Fargo, they were 5 to 7 percent.

Consider yourself lucky you didn't take out any private loans. People in my generation got burned hard by that.

I've now paid off two of the four private student loans I took out from a Lehman's Brothers-based company called Campus Door (which eventually got bought out by Wells Fargo)...many more federal loans to go after that, but it's always a small little victory when I see a loan balance of zero. I made the decision to make postponements on my federal loans so I could focus on the private ones because they often have a higher interest rate and they are able to make rules that federal one can't. Namely, three months before I graduated, I was told I didn't have a grace period because the amount of times I changed school bit into that. I'm just glad I didn't take out from Sallie Mae. Yeesh.

Well, yeah, but the bridge could've been the next High Line, which is pretty cool and about as hip as you can get. I do think Los Angeles, like most cities of the early 21st century, seems to be in the middle of a identity makeover. New York City is seeing Brooklyn and even Staten Island becoming rich, hipster enclaves while the foreign investors are buying up Manhattan and making insanely rich residential towers there. Philadelphia, long known as a rough and scruff blue-collar town with a massive crack cocaine epidemic, is seeing this influx of young, urban professionals that are making places like Fishtown desirable places to live and sparking all this residential and commercial construction around Center City. Meanwhile, it seems like Los Angeles has a lot of competing ideas going on about how to go forward in their future, and what to define themselves as. This guy represents the whole "let's get the Millennial with their bikes and quirky ideals about urbanism to move into Downtown!" viewpoint, I think.

You're still annoyed with Tom for making his plea that Piggyback Yard needs to be turned into a park for the L.A. River, aren't you? I think his videos are cool and beautifully shot, but a lot of them come with a clear slant. He's an L.A. transplant hipster, trying to find odd and historical little bits of fabric pertaining to L.A., with the idea of encouraging more people to take ownership of their town and pushing for the kinds of things that he finds important like historic preservation and parks. Which would probably be annoying to people that have generations of family there.

Yeah. Los Angeles doesn't seem that big on historical preservation of their old buildings. Here's another video from Tom Explores Los Angeles, where he talks about the tearing down of the historic Riverside Figueroa Bridge: Pretty sad. Someone said that San Diego and San Francisco are more proactive about protecting their historical buildings because they tend to have more "core" founding families there, whereas Los Angeles tends towards being a bunch of transplants that doesn't mind tearing things down to make way for the new. That would have been a really cool idea to do something like the Highline in New York City with the bridge. Oh, well. My little hometown doesn't really care that much about saving historic buildings, either. They'll tear stuff down and that make buildings that try to look old. The end result is that our Main Street looks like Disney Town, U.S.A..

Alright... 4. JJ quits figure skating and goes back to Harvard-Westlake for 11th grade.

Yeah, the idea is Emma Woodhouse is a party planner and lifestyle guru who is doing a documentary about her greatness, with Alex Knightly as her business partner. Basically, it's a vanity project set up by her unseen father. It's a very long series that starts off pretty slow, but it managed to get really good in the end. It's not as good as the Lizzie Bennett Diaries (done by the same people), which imagines Lizzie Bennett as a twenty-something grad student vlogging about her life, but I really liked the chemistry between Emma and Alex. Brent Bailey is pretty attractive in that "every man Jim Halpert" kind of way. In a broader sense, it's pretty cool that California is seeing as these alternative web series being made. They have YouTube studios there now, which probably contributes a lot to that. The production values on this stuff is way up from LonelyGirl15, that's for sure. I did have a classmate who moved out to Los Angeles who tried the whole "let's update a classic into the 21st century through a series of vlogs" idea, but of course she didn't have the backing to make something an epic series like The Lizzie Bennett Diaries or Emma Approved. I think she's an accountant now or something. As for the skyline...well, at this point, isn't Los Angeles pretty much built out? There aren't too many places left to expand to. I did have an e-friend from there tell me once that there was a real estate boom going on in the Inland Empire, which was set to be the next big suburban area of Los Angeles, but then the economy bust in '08 so that pretty much got shelved. They've got to start building up at this point.