#fronteir house

[erahouse]

Frontier House Update: Mark Glenn

Hello followers! I just received the below submission from Mark Glenn himself. I’ll update the main “Where Are They Now” post and many thanks to Mark for reaching out.

Mark’s message:

I have been living in Crete, Greece since 2011, teaching and writing a dissertation on illegal immigration pathways to Europe after working in forensics since 2006. I felt the project was a valuable one and feel honored to have been a part of it.

Mark M. Glenn 

[erahouse]

We had a comment from Kristen Brooks! Thank you so much for visiting this blog.

The full link to her teleconference event is here.

[erahouse]

Where are they now: Frontier House

All of this was found using Google and publicly available information. In most cases, you could find more than what I’m posting but the goal here is a general look at where they are now. The...

Just added a few more updates! Thanks for all the comments.

[erahouse]

Where are they now: Frontier House

All of this was found using Google and publicly available information. In most cases, you could find more than what I'm posting but the goal here is a general look at where they are now.

The Brooks

Still married and awesome. Nate & Kristen have a bevy of amazing, curly haired children and appear to be traipsing across South Asia. I wonder if their Frontier House skills are helping them live minimally! Kristen seems to frequently respond to Frontier House fans and has expressed curiosity of what the show would be like if they did it today with their children (WNET- GET ON THIS NOW). Find more on their official Facebook fan page (run by Kristen).

Rudy's still around too:

The Glenns

Our controversial Karen looks amazing and appears to be pretty happy. Also, she apparently goes to Bonnaroo and LARPs with her son.

Her son, Logan, is in the Air Force.

Her daughter, Erinn, is gorgeous and seems pretty normal. No sign of what she's up to otherwise, but I hope she still loves animals.

Mark Glenn went back to homestead in Montana after the show. Per a message sent from him to this blog in December 2015, Mark moved to Crete in 2011 to teach as well as write a dissertation on illegal immigration pathways to Europe.

The Clunes

Sadly, the first Google result for the Clunes is a five page court document detailing Adrienne's request for more spousal support.

Adrienne reunited with her makeup after the show and is now a chef.

Gordon's Google Image search is amazing because it has his classic Frontier look mixed in with pictures at high-profile social events looking like a Bond villain. He now has a Vietnamese entrepreneurial wife.

There wasn't too much on the Clune children publicly available, but here is what they look like now:

Aine has broken up with her black eyeliner. She is now an artist.

Justin travels to Asia frequently.

Conor looks like your typical Hollywood wannabe-DJ.

Tracy Clune looks incredibly happy and has beautiful twin boys.

UPDATES TO THIS POST:

Jan 15, 2014: Thanks to the commenters, an update on Tracy Clune has been found. She looks incredibly happy and has beautiful twin boys.

May 7, 2014: Conor really is a DJ: https://instagram.com/undisc1osed/ Here's a recent shot of the Clune siblings:

December 6, 2015: Mark Glenn reached out with the following message: “I have been living in Crete, Greece since 2011, teaching and writing a dissertation on illegal immigration pathways to Europe after working in forensics since 2006. I felt the project was a valuable one and feel honored to have been a part of it.”

[erahouse]

Episode 1: The American Dream

I tried to remember my perceptions of the Frontier House cast from when I watched it in high school. To me, this was the breakdown:

The Clunes, who were my favorite, had strong personalities and broke the rules.

The Glenns, were pretty scary and Karen seemed evil.

The Brooks, who got married there and didn't have much screen time otherwise.

Rewatching as an "adult" (since I am not adult enough to feel comfortable not using quotes around the word), I cannot believe that I ever liked the Clunes. They come across as so one-percent-y. I probably loved Aine and Tracy because they were the cool girls from my 13-year-old eyes.

Karen Glenn is intense right off the bat. I think she is the personification of Sarah Palin's "hockey mom/lipstick/pitbull" joke. But rather than hate her, I actually feel sorry for her because in many cases I can understand where she is coming from and see she's just a poor communicator. I also know what is coming up for her marriage and that just casts a cloud over their scenes.

Hellooo Nate Brooks. How could anyone not fall in love with Rudy and him? They have all the aspects of a great TV: father/son bonding, finding true love, building a house for your wife BEFORE ANYONE EVEN KNEW ABOUT "THE NOTEBOOK," and general likability and common sense.

The producers struck gold with their casting, and they had more than 5,000 families to choose from! Producer Mark Saben said:

As you might expect, the applications were many and varied, from women willing to conceive and give birth on the frontier to teenagers applying alone because their parents were "too boring" to consider being involved in such an adventure. The more mature applicants were also well represented, with a good number coming in from men and women in their seventies and eighties. Applications came in all manner of different guises: within miniature replica log cabins, on parchment, and more. We even had one made out of chocolate bar wrappers! People were keen to display their skills, attaching samples of their handiwork, woodcraft, freshly tanned hides, rendered lard, homemade soap and candles. People's motivations for participating on the project were fascinating. We had countless applications from people who felt that they were born in the wrong century. Many felt that the pace of modern-day life was dizzyingly fast and impersonal; they saw this as an opportunity to slow down, get out of the rat race, and try to discover what we might have lost along the way.

There are shadows of the personality dynamics during the sensitive discussions about reproductive related issues: Karen is game enough to demonstrate the menstruation belt, but immediately gets defensive during the contraception meeting. Doesn't anyone else remember Kristen is coming to the frontier for her honeymoon?! I find it odd no comments arise on that.

Other thoughts:

The Clunes put on a good act of "surrendering" their makeup considering they are caught with a great deal more contraband items throughout the show.

I am too afraid to Google "Rawhide Johnson" at work

The horses try to kill all the Clunes immediately upon leaving

Conor's total meltdown about the dogs while Tracy just rolls her eyes and carries him away

Conor basically wins at quote this episode:

"And then he just went bazako!"

"I fell out a wagon, I lost my worm without even having a bite, I was attacked by a vicious dog without my leg being bitten off..."

[erahouse]

Revisiting "Frontier House"

Background: Wikipedia Entry | Original PBS Site

Frontier House originally aired in the United States from April 29 to May 3, 2002. At the time, I was a high school freshman and reality TV was still relatively new considering the Survivor boom took place just two years prior.

The concept was simple and appealing to my nerdy sensibilities: three families agree to experience what life was like on the frontier around the time of the Oregon Trail. In fact, it was like getting to see what happened to my dysentery-ridden families from the computer game of the same name after they traveled the grueling journey with meager rations and asked "Now what?" upon arrival.

An excerpt from the original PBS website for Frontier House explains more:

Homesteading was a way of life created, in effect, by the U.S. government. The Homestead Act, passed by Congress on May 20, 1862, declared that any citizen of the United States could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. After payment of a nominal filing fee, homesteaders were to "improve" their land by living on it, building a dwelling, and planting crops. If the settlers fulfilled these requirements, and remained on their homestead for a period of five years, the land became their property. Via the Homestead Act, vast amounts of the public domain -- 270 million acres, or 10% of the continental United States -- were opened up to private citizens.

However, as the three modern day families would soon discover, it was not as easy as it seemed:

The Act's minimal and seemingly lenient requirements proved insurmountable for many would-be homesteaders. Many homesteaders took claims with little or no farming experience, and growing crops in the harsh conditions of the West was a difficult task for even the most seasoned farmers. Many homesteads in the arid plains were too small to yield a profitable crop, and the cost of irrigation far exceeded the value of the land. Over the 124-year history of the Act, more than 2 million individuals filed claims. Of these, only 783,000 -- less than half -- ultimately obtained the deeds for their homesteads.

Could three modern day families, ostensibly from a kinder and more comfortable pre-9/11 world, prepare themselves to survive the winter in 1883? Would they even survive the preparation process? Join me as I revisit Frontier House.