Category Archives: Popular culture

Something else women would never think of

This week, we’re going to be celebrating the particular genius of the human male — why he is special and essential, as wonderful as women may be. I mean, as wonderful as they are.

I’ll explain why later.

Here’s something else (in addition to the subject of this earlier post) a woman would never think of.

Seriously. First of all, it’s hard to get most of them even to care about video games. You may have noticed this. But to think of inserting Bo Jackson into Super Mario Brothers to run the board? That is something that only the male of the species, with his uncanny willingness to sit and think about stuff like this for hours on end, could possible conceive. And to actually spend the time turning the idea into reality? Well, you have to have that extra bone in your head that the male is blessed with to achieve it.

Watch the video, and bask in the brilliance of the concept, even if the execution is a bit lacking (obviously, Bo should have been bigger, so you could see him better — but that leaves room for the next generation of guys to improve the concept, so it’s all good).

Politico promises “The Draperization of Romney,” but totally dodges the subject

42 Replies

The Politico piece (which ran last month, but Nu Wexler just called my attention to) started out with an intriguing premise:

The Draperizing of Mitt Romney is under way.

He may not drink or cheat, and he lacks the fictional ad-maker’s charisma, but Democrats, despite the potential perils of such a strategy, remain determined to paint Romney as a throwback to the “Mad Men” era — a hopelessly retro figure who, on policy and in his personal life, is living in the past…

But it really sort of fell flat.

I thought it was going to go deeper. For instance, the central conflict regarding Don Draper (at least in the early seasons) is that he’s not who he says he is. Now that would be a pretty meaty thing to throw at the famously mutable Romney. You can easily see Don Draper donning any political mantle required to get his way with a client, or a woman, or anyone — because he just doesn’t care about that stuff. Ditto with Mitt. He just wants to be president; he doesn’t give a rat’s posterior about the stuff that the True Believers in his party get all cranked up about.

But the Politico piece completely dodged the subject, instead citing some tired chestnuts about how the 50s and early 60s were awful because moms stayed home with the kids. (Although I admit I’d rather hear that oldie than more of the tiresome “war on women” meme.)

And then… it goes into this interminable discussion of that stupid flap over what some Democrat said about Ann Romney several weeks ago. It goes on and on. I guess that was fresh when it was written, but what does that have to do with the advertised subject? Not much.

Hello!?!?! This is supposed to be about how Mitt Romney is like Don Draper! Neither of them is a woman! Can we stick to the subject? Don’t make me think you’re going to talk about guy stuff and then not even touch on that area… It’s enough to make a guy want to go off with those idiots who get together in sweat lodges and beat tom-toms and talk about how tough it is to be a guy. Almost. OK, not even close. But don’t bill something as being about guy stuff when it’s going to be yet another rehash of chick stuff.

As for Don… I’m worried about the guy. This week’s episode ended with him putting “Revolver” on the turntable (is it 1966 already?) at the behest of his young wife, who’s trying to clue him in on what the late ’60s will be about. He briefly listens alone (his wife is off taking acting lessons, leaving him behind in more ways than one) in his Hugh Hefner dream pad, and the contrast between him and “Tomorrow Never Knows” could not possibly be more stark.

The early 60s — say, round about 1962, which Gene Sculatti‘s brilliant Catalog of Cool termed “The Last Good Year” — was his time, the time he was created for, and which was created for him. He is going to be so lost going forward.

Idea for my band: “These go to three”

22 Replies

Just had an inspiration for how to make my band a success, at least on the local level. By “my band,” of course, I refer to the one that I’m going to start just as soon as I come up with a name, and finalize the playlist. I’ve been working on this for more than 40 years, and I’m making good progress. Don’t rush me.

Back when I was young and impatient, I briefly tried rushing it, and it didn’t work out. Some of the lads and I tried forming a band in Hawaii, and it only had one rehearsal, at Steve Clark’s house on Hickam Air Force Base. Burl Burlingame was there with his harmonicas, which proved it was a serious effort (he probably doesn’t remember, it was such a tiny blip on his music career). I was the front man, and thought I was the next Mick Jagger. But you see, we hadn’t settled on the name, or on our playlist — although we had written one song, called “Grilled Beaver Blues,” which we tentatively rehearsed that day — so the whole thing was just half-baked and premature.

Now, I’m going about it in a more organized and sedate manner.

And today, I had an inspiration for how to make some moderate money on the local level.

Last night I was at a business open-house kind of reception, and there was a band playing. And you couldn’t carry on a normal conversation when the band was playing, because the amps were turned to a point that would be useful for reaching the higher seats in Williams-Brice Stadium. As the organizer said to me in a LinkedIN message this morning, “Glad you were able to stop in last night — it was LOUD!!!”

Yes, it was. But not unusually so.

Have you noticed how very often this is the case? In fact, it seems to always be the case. Take the afterparty at the 100th episode of Pub Politics at Jake’s. Rep. James Smith’s latest band was playing, and no one could hear each other. I remember having what might have been a pretty interesting conversation with Trey Walker about working for the governor, and now for USC, except that it was conducted entirely by taking turns shouting into each other’s ears at a distance of about an inch.

Yeah, boys, I know you shelled out money for the amps and all, but do they really have to be turned to 11? Wouldn’t it be nice to put them at a volume where each note can be heard quite distinctly by people who are not talking, but which would allow those who DO need to talk to do so in normal tones?

I think a band that did that would really be in demand for almost any kind of event involving grownups — pretty much anything short of the latter hours of a wedding reception where everyone’s had too much to drink. I know what you’re going to say: “If it’s too loud, you’re too old.” Well, wake up and look around you — everybody is old. The Baby Boom hasn’t been 16 for some time.

I think that if a band could promise not to hurt the ears of attendees, it could name its price. And no one would care what its name was, or what it played, as long as it wasn’t too discordant. You could probably get away with playing Sex Pistols stuff at a Chamber event, as long as people could talk over it.

My sales pitch to event organizers would involve showing a specially modified amplifier. See? I would say. “These go to three.”

I want to bite that hand so badly

3 Replies

Anybody see “Mad Men” this week?

If so, what do you think?

Is it all over for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce?

The firm has had enough trouble clawing its way back, and now this…

Don Draper, who created a sensation last season by biting the hand that fed his agency — Lucky Strike — with an anti-tobacco letter published in the NYT, seems to have been vindicated. He’s to get an award for taking a courageous stand, and captains of industry will be there to see him get it. Roger Sterling goes along to the banquet and is happy as a clam passing out his business cards in that target-rich environment. (By the way, I’m sort of the Roger Sterling at ADCO, because that’s the sort of thing I do. Fortunately, dropping acid is optional.)

But then, in a calculatingly offhand manner, the guy from Dow Corning confides to Don that sure, all those people will give him awards, but none of them will ever work with him, because his letter demonstrated that no client could ever trust him. And then asks him if he’d like another drink. Yes, as it turns out.

The episode ends with Draper sitting back at his table at the banquet looking like he just got hit by a stun gun. (Everyone else at the table looks the same way, for differing reasons.)

So was the guy from Dow just blowing smoke? Was he just saying Dow will never work with SCDP? Or was he delivering a message on behalf of the other fat cats? Or was he just speculating? And will Don share what he’s learned with his partners (I’m guessing not)? Or will Roger, his mind having been expanded, figure it out?

I don’t know, but I wish I could have found a clip of my favorite line of the episode. It’s when Roger shares yet another “brilliant” insight with Don, and Don tells him that even some people who have not experienced LSD know that…

Suddenly, Obama appears in Afghanistan…

29 Replies

I was just this minute repeating to one of my ADCO colleagues my oft-state theory about how Bush was Sonny Corleone, and Obama is Michael. Bush was the blusterer who telegraphed his moves and failed to get his enemies. Michael’s the nice, reasonable, I-want-to-negotiate, blood-is-a-big-expense guy who turns out actually to be far more aggressive than his predecessor. Just when you think he’s totally absorbed in domestic policy (the equivalent of the old Don puttering about in his tomato garden), WHAM!, he whacks some guy in a country where you didn’t even know the U.S. was operating. No seeking permission from the U.N. No paving the way rhetorically. Just bada-BING! and we get another terrorist’s brains all over our nice Ivy League suit.

Anyway, I had just been saying all that, and my iPhone buzzed, and I got this headline:

Obama in Afghanistan to sign security pact

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In an unannounced trip, President Barack Obama has arrived in Afghanistan to sign an agreement cementing the U.S. role in the country after the war ends in 2014….

He’s like the Spanish Inquisition! Nobody expects him; he just turns up!

Right now, he’s probably sitting down with some Taliban leader who think’s he’s safe because his bodyguard is a police captain, and the Taliban guy is saying, “Try the veal; it’s the best in Kandahar.” And Obama is excusing himself to go to the men’s room, where they’ve got one of those old-fashioned toilets — you know, the kind with the chain…

‘It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift…’

73 Replies

This is a question for Phillip Bush (or maybe Burl, or pretty much anyone who knows more about music than I do, which is a large set)…

After I posted that item about “Sulky Girl” and “So Like Candy” and other Elvis Costello songs that have an appeal to me that is mysterious, elemental and profound, I got to thinking about something else I’d heard in the last couple of days that had an equally mystifying appeal.

I had been watching the film noir comic-book movie “Watchmen,” and there was a scene that was utterly transformed by Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” So I went to YouTube (the one place you can find practically any piece of music you want to hear immediately and for free) and listened to several versions, and tried to plumb why it completely kicked my brain, my being, into another state as reliably as peyote did for Carlos Castaneda (although perhaps a tad less dramatically).

I have no idea. Is the secret revealed in this lyric?

It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth

The minor fall and the major lift

Are those particular changes where the magic happens? For that matter, do those words even describe what is happening in the music as I hear that line? I’ve looked up the guitar chords, and I see that they go like this:

It goes like this — C
the fourth — F
the fifth — E
the minor fall– Am
the major lift — F

Or, in another version, I see it’s G, C, D, Em, C…

Are those even the right chords? I expected them to be something more exotic, with “sus4” or something after them.

Is it even the music, or is it the lyrics, with their mixing of the transcendent divine with the transcendent sexual? No. I mean, yes, they’re evocative, and work as poetry (to my unsophisticated ear, they strike a literary note somewhere near that of the Song of Solomon), but they aren’t the secret. I remember when I first heard the song — the cover version used in “Shrek” — I was deeply impressed with the music without hearing the words beyond “Hallelujah.” (Yeah, I’m that uncool. I’m sufficiently unfamiliar with Leonard Cohen that I first remember hearing it watching “Shrek.”)

And how about the fact that it is used in such incongruous contexts as “Shrek” and “Scrubs” (which I discovered from Pandora), and works?

Speaking of Pandora (which I just did, parenthetically), it was little help. I tried creating a “Hallelujah” station, to see if it would give me other songs with that special something. And once or twice, it has moved in that direction — “Let it Be” and “Maybe I’m Amazed” do have something of that essence — but it’s played Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Over the Rainbow” so many times that it’s rapidly losing its charm for me. And “I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight,” and “The Times They Are a-Changin'”? I don’t think so. “The Sound of Silence”? Maybe. But I’m not sure.

Help me out, those of you who understand music. What is it?

Has anyone read “Men Against The Sea”?

12 Replies

And if so, how was it?

I just finished reading Mutiny on the Bounty, for the first time — I think. I initially had this vague idea that I had read it as a child. Yet most of it seemed fresh to me. Of course, I knew at ever step of the way what was to happen next. Who doesn’t know the general outline of the story? Who hasn’t seen at least one of the Hollywood versions? But the actual words seemed fresh as I read them, and certain things about it — such as the fact that, bizarrely, the English sailors refer to the people of Tahiti as “Indians” throughout — seemed totally unfamiliar.

In any case, I’m certain I’ve never read either of the sequels, Men Against the Sea or Pitcairn Island. That is to say, I’ve never read the “chapter book” versions. I have a clear memory of reading the Classics Illustrated version of Men Against the Sea. What sticks out in my mind is the desperate men in the open boat managing to kill a seagull, and Captain Bligh rigidly serving out portions of its blood to the neediest men on board. (Or do I remember Charles Laughton doing that in the 1935 film?)

Anyway, now that I’ve finished the first book, I’m wondering whether it’s worth my while to read the second. I know what happened — Bligh, a tyrant of a captain but an extraordinary seaman, manages to get himself and 17 others safely to Timor, 3,500 miles away, in an open boat with practically no provisions. It stands as one of the most extraordinary feats of seafaring history.

But I’ve got to think it’s not much fun to read. It’s a tale of horrific suffering, day after day. And the main protagonist is a guy who’s hard to like. I mean, Mutiny on the Bounty had gorgeous topless Tahitian girls. (No pictures, but still…) What’s this got to recommend it?

Perhaps the fact that it’s told mainly through the experience of Thomas Ledward, acting surgeon, helps you root for these guys a bit more than you otherwise might. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to read it in Bligh’s voice.

Anyway, has anyone out there read it? Did you like it? And if so, why?

And now, another Sulky Girl is heard from…

2 Replies

I had just posted the item about our governor’s latest bout of petulance, and was driving home with disc 1 of “The Very Best of Elvis Costello” in the CD player, and this came on. Hearing that at such a moment may not have been fraught with meaning, but it was enjoyable:

I think you’d better hold your tongue
Although you’ve never been that strong
I’m sorry to say that I knew all along
You’re no match for that sulky girl

It put a nice finish on the day.

I had forgotten how amazing it was. It’s not one of the usual suspects, like “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding” — the quintessential Elvis song which, ironically, was not written by him. Or “High Fidelity” or “Lipstick Vogue” or “Radio, Radio.” Just one of those gems that you aren’t seeking out, and there it is, putting a whole new texture on your day.

And then, right after it, there’s “So Like Candy,” which he co-wrote with Paul McCartney. Another unexpected bit of delight, showing the depth and breadth of Declan Patrick McManus.

That’s a great compilation, by the way. If I have a complaint, it’s that “The Invisible Man” isn’t included:

I was committed to life and then commuted to the outskirts
With all the love in the world
Living for thirty minutes at a time with a break in the middle for adverts…

But with Elvis, you can’t possibly include everything that is great, even in a two-disc set. I mean, “Green Shirt” is on there, so they knew what they were about…

In pop music, was 1965-1975 unique?

35 Replies

On a previous thread, young Kathryn scoffed at people my age, suggesting that we think the music that was popular when we were in high school (and I would add, college) was great just because it came along when we were young.

I think people of any age are going to have a special feeling for music that was played when their hormones were raging at their peak. But while I hesitate to invoke an “objective” standard, I think you can demonstrate with some degree of detachment that the period in question for, say, Burl and me (roughly 1965-1975) was one of extraordinary creativity on many popular fronts.

There were so many genres just exploding:

British pop groups and their American imitators (what everyone thinks of first). And I’m not going to bother splitting this into its many sub-genres.
Folk, evolving from acoustic to electric, in numerous directions (Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel are very different)
Varieties of soul, from Motown to Memphis
Burt Bacharach — He gets his own category. If you want to create a 60s feel in a movie, you’re as likely to turn to Bacharach as the Beatles — if not more so
Latin (Spanish variety), spanning a broad spectrum from Herb Alpert to Trini Lopez to Jose Feliciano (Alpert is as essential as Bacharach to a 60s soundtrack)
Latin (Brazilian variety), from Girl from Ipanema through Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66
Old folks/Rat Pack-style — Dean Martin and others reached broadest audiences ever on TV
Crossover country — spanning a wide spectrum from Glen Campbell to Johnny Cash, enjoying wide popularity not seen before or since
West coast beach music (surf music) — Yes, it came along earlier, but there was still a lot going on in the early part of this period (“Wipeout,” the later Beach Boys stuff
East coast beach music — This movement started in the 40s, but some of the big hits came along in the early part of this period (“Can’t Help Myself”)
Even Broadway show tunes — Almost every show tune I’m familiar with was sung repeatedly on the 60s TV variety shows
White blues — big overlap with British groups here (The Animals, Cream, early Led Zeppelin), but Paul Butterfield and others sort of stand alone

Then there are all those bands and individuals that can’t be easily categorized — Warren Zevon, Randy Newman (late in the process), David Bowie, The Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Linda Ronstadt, Elton John, Blood, Sweat and Tears…

I just can’t think of a time when so many kinds of music were so huge, and reaching such a diverse audience (in the pre-cable age, everyone was exposed to pretty much the same cultural influences — if it got on TV, the audience was immense), with so much energy and creativity exploding out of every one of them.

Can you?

It wasn't just about guitar groups -- not by a long shot.

Well, it happened: Levon’s gone now

2 Replies

We only heard how bad off he was yesterday, and now comes this:

Levon Helm came to fame in a rootsy rock group that featured three extraordinary voices. But you could always tell which was his: It was the sound of the lusty wildcat, the stern Southern preacher, the depleted Confederate soldier, the dirt farmer at the end of his day.

Helm, 71, who as a drummer backed a pair of legendary musicians and then became a star himself with The Band and as a solo artist, died today from throat cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

“Thank you, fans and music lovers, who have made his life so filled with joy and celebration,” said his daughter, Amy, and wife, Sandy, in a statement released Tuesday before he died. “He has loved nothing more than to play, to fill the room up with music, lay down the back beat and make the people dance! He did it every time he took the stage.”…

You know, that first graf is some fine writing, even if it does appear in USA Today. That’s a very solid description of his voice.

Reading that statement from his daughter reminds me of something that has stuck in my memory from a piece about The Band in TIME magazine in 1970 — the cover piece that first interested me in them, and caused me to go out and buy one of their albums. I forget which of the guys was quoted, but he said that while it was all the rage in those days to be alienated from one’s parents, the Band members were not — they all stayed close to their families and were comfortable with them.

That impressed me. Of course now with this generation, “family” has gone from being just about parents and siblings to being about spouses, children and grandchildren. But the importance of the relationships, the power of the continuity of life, continues with the timelessness of The Band’s songs, which seemed so deeply rooted in a time other than the ’60s and ’70s.

Dick Clark’s dead, and Levon Helm’s dying

33 Replies

And to channel Lewis Grizzard, I suppose I should say I don’t feel so good myself.

I was sad this morning to read that Levon Helm is in the last stages of cancer. Virgil Caine himself! Not only am I a huge fan of The Band (I saw them live with Bob Dylan in ’74!), but he’s the most awesome, naturalistic actor I’ve ever seen. Remember him as the coal miner himself in “Coal Miner’s Daughter”? You’d have thought they had dragged him right out of the mine, he was so real.

My favorite role was the flight engineer Jack Ridley, Chuck Yeager’s best buddy in “The Right Stuff.” Sample down-home dialogue:

Chuck Yeager: Hey, Ridley… you got any Beeman’s?

Jack Ridley: I might have me a stick.

Yeager: Well loan me some, would ya? I’ll pay ya back later.

Ridley: Fair enough.

Yeager: I think I see a plane over here with my name on it.

Ridley: Now you’re talkin’…

He was also the narrator, because he came closest to having that aw-shucks Yeager quality that the job required:

There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound barrier.

And now, this afternoon, I hear this:

Dick Clark, the music industry maverick, longtime TV host and powerhouse producer who changed the way we listened to pop music with “American Bandstand,” and whose trademark “Rockin’ Eve” became a fixture of New Year’s celebrations, died today at the age of 82.

Clark’s agent Paul Shefrin said in statement that the veteran host died this morning following a “massive heart attack.”…

Clark landed a gig as a DJ at WFIL in Philadelphia in 1952, spinning records for a show he called “Dick Clark’s Caravan of Music.” There he broke into the big time, hosting Bandstand, an afternoon dance show for teenagers…

I first saw “Bandstand” on local TV in Philadelphia. I lived across the river in Woodbury, N.J., in 1960-61, and used to watch all those “big kids” talking about which songs had a good beat and were easy to dance to.

All these years, and he never got old… but time eventually took its toll.

A song from the deepest early memories

17 Replies

I had an unexpected bit of pleasure this morning. In a desperate bid to get away from the ETV Radio pledge drive, I accidentally pressed button 3 on my radio, forgetting that the format had changed a while back to country.

And I heard “Singin’ the Blues,” which struck deep chords of early-childhood memory for me. I couldn’t have told you the words, and I mistakenly assumed it was a Hank Williams song — it seemed to have that sort of universal appeal. But the tune was as familiar, as wired into every cell in my brain, as if it had been sung to me as a lullaby.

All I knew about the song was that I really, really liked it. As though I was MADE to like it; it was part of my early formation.

Unfortunately, the radio didn’t tell me who was singing it (which should be a violation of FCC regulations). Fortunately, there’s Google and Wikipedia.

I quickly learned that the song was written by one Melvin Endsley, and first recorded successfully by Guy Mitchell. But I’m pretty sure that what I heard this morning was the Marty Robbins version.

Whichever, I loved hearing it. Next thing you know, I’ll hear “Volare” on the radio one morning (to cite another song that made a deep impression on me before I was old enough to worry about what was cool and what wasn’t, and able to just respond to music on its own terms)…

Who’s your fave Republican celeb?

11 Replies

How’d you like that Teen Beat-style headline?

I figured that was what a silly feature like this deserved. But after following a Wonkette link to this Zimbio feature, I must confess I clicked through all the lonely Hollywood conservatives to see who was on the list. Most are usual suspects: Ah-nold, Ted Nugent, Clint Eastwood…

One surprise was Vince Vaughn. I wonder if that’s accurate?

My biggest disappointment was that my favorite Hollywood conservative, avid Tweeter Adam Baldwin, was missing.

Santorum could beat Obama — at bowling. Can Romney say the same?

4 Replies

Mitt Romney has, from the start, based his candidacy for the nomination on the claim that he’s the guy who could beat Obama, if anyone can.

But now we have proof that Santorum could easily beat the president at one thing — bowling.

The ex-senator has been putting in time in some bowling alleys lately. The only actual score I’ve f0und was a 152, which Bloomberg calls “respectable.” Which it is. That’s all it is, but it is that. A guy who can’t go out and roll a 150 basically shouldn’t bowl in front of cameras. That’s about what my average was when I was in a league in high school in Tampa.

“Respectable” is not a term anyone would use to describe the president’s skills at this game. So Santorum should have really played this up from the start.

Here’s video of him rolling a turkey. And if you don’t know what a turkey is, you shouldn’t bowl for money against Santorum. Or me, even though I haven’t bowled seriously in more than 40 years.

According to The New York Times, Santorum even managed to work in a communitarian theme while at the alley:

In an interview about his bowling background, Mr. Santorum referred to the famous book about bowling as a thread in the fabric of small-town America, “Bowling Alone,” by Robert D. Putnam, a professor of history at Harvard.

“ ‘Bowling Alone’ is about the breakdown of social capital in this country,” he said. “People used to come together in leagues and groups. Bowling is a social sport. You talk and eat and drink and are together. It’s a commitment to go every week. My dad bowled in a league, and I went with him. He was a lefty. We went on league night, it was part of my childhood.”

I had to laugh at this site, though, which breathlessly stated that “He even has his own bowling ball.” Oh, yeah? So do I. Doesn’t everybody? And in my younger days I had my own two-piece pool cue. Didn’t make me Minnesota Fats.

Anybody want to talk Mad Men?

14 Replies

I called AT&T (and be sure to check out the ad at right) on Saturday to upgrade my TV options so that I could see the season premiere of “Mad Men” Sunday night. In HD.

I even went to see Dreher High School’s production of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” — twice — over the weekend to help get me in the mood. (Quick, what is the most direct connection between that play — and I’m thinking the original Broadway production — and “Mad Men”? There’s a hint in the photo above.)

And it was all that I had expected it to be.

So I come in to work at my own ad agency Monday morning, and we usually spend a few minutes batting the breeze at the start of the traffic meeting, but… no one but me watches “Mad Men”! So there was no one to discuss it with.

Anybody want to talk about it? Here, I’ll start…

My favorite story line wasn’t Don’s relationship with his hot new wife, or Lane’s dilemma over the picture he found in a wallet. It was the one that went (SPOILER ALERT):

Young white twerps at competing agency, tired of hearing civil rights marchers outside their window, start dropping water bombs on them — which makes news.
Our protagonists at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce decide (in their own white-twerpy fashion) to add to the competitors’ discomfiture by running a help-wanted display ad declaring that they are “an equal opportunity employer.”
Joan (my very favorite Mad Man, even though “Man” fits her less well than it does anyone else on television), who is on maternity leave, thinks the agency is hiring someone to replace her, and charges into the office with her baby to demand explanations.
A reception-room full of earnest young black applicants, quite naturally taking the ad at face value, show up to apply for the job. NOW what are our wiseguys going to do — say there IS no job, and risk getting as big a black eye as the rival agency did?

Suddenly, our “heroes” are entangled in the mid-60s, and they have to figure out how to cope with it. And it’s deftly and realistically handled, if a bit larger than life.

Talkin’ about the man…

40 Replies

Speaking of people who’s general tone I don’t like, Paul Krugman is to me a sort of buttoned-down version of Bill Maher (in terms of the incessant tone of disdain toward anyone foolish enough to disagree with him). But rather than launch a debate about that, let me say that today I’m here to praise him.

Well, actually not him necessarily, but whoever wrote the headline on this piece:

Lobbyists, Guns and Money

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 25, 2012

Florida’s now-infamous Stand Your Ground law, which lets you shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution, sounds crazy — and it is. And it’s tempting to dismiss this law as the work of ignorant yahoos. But similar laws have been pushed across the nation, not by ignorant yahoos but by big corporations…

And so forth and so on. To save your time, I’ll tell you that it’s another piece labeling the American Legislative Exchange Council as the root of all legislative evil. In case you hadn’t heard that one before.

Anyone who invokes Warren Zevon in general, and that album in particular, gets at least a thumbs-up from me.

Krugman, however, concerned as he seems to be about guns, probably would not approve of the fact that the next thought in my mind after “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” is “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner:”

Roland searched the continent for the man who'd done him in
He found him in Mombassa, in a barroom drinking gin
Roland aimed his Thompson gun, he didn't say a word
But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg

Roland the headless Thompson gunner
Roland the headless Thompson gunner
Roland the headless Thompson gunner, talking about the man
Roland the headless Thompson gunner

The eternal Thompson gunner
Still wand'ring through the night
Now it's ten years later, but he still keeps up the fight
In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine and Berkeley
Patty Hearst heard the burst
Of Roland's Thompson gun and bought it

Great stuff for excitable boys. Can’t be beat.

Getting in the mood for ‘Mad Men’

12 Replies

Slate has put up a really interesting photo slide show invoking the “Mad Men” era, to help us all get psyched up for the season premiere coming Sunday.

This is but one. I urge you to go view the whole package. And check out other excellent archival images from Magnum Photos.

Oh, and in case you wondered, fans — working at an ad agency is just like that. Only without the smoke.

Saving Private Obama

6 Replies

The thing that grabbed me was that this campaign video is narrated by Tom Hanks. Hence the headline.

Beyond that, this video is interesting on two levels:

It gives us a taste of how the president is going to sell his record for re-election purposes.
It’s a new wrinkle to me — a trailer for a campaign ad. Sort of like the trailer for the Ferris Bueller ad ahead of the Super Bowl. It goes (I think) where no candidate marketing has gone before…

More info, from Politico:

The Obama campaign has released the trailer to director Davis Guggenheim’s 17 minute film about President Obama’s first term in office.

The film is narrated by Tom Hanks and the trailer includes interview clips of Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, David Axelrod, Austan Goolsbee, and Elizabeth Warren among others.

According to the campaign, the film will be released next week at support events around the country.

The flip-floppers of ‘Lost’

11 Replies

John Locke at his most obsessed. Trust him, or not?

If you’ve never watched “Lost,” and intend to someday, don’t read this, because I’m going to give some stuff away.

I didn’t watch it when it was on, maybe because I had seen bits of it, and it made no sense, or so I inferred.

Now, I have almost finished watching all six seasons on Netflix, and I know for sure — without having to infer — that it makes no sense. I would have finished watching all of it by now, except that I turn it off and look for something else when my wife enters the room. Not because I’m sensitive to what she wants to see, but because I don’t want to be scoffed at. Because I know it’s silly, but I’m determined to see it to the end. NOT because I have any expectation of the ending being satisfying, but because I can’t help myself.

I thought it was a flawed show before I watched it, and now I know just how flawed it is, in great detail. And the greatest flaw, the greatest sin against storytelling, is its inconsistency.

I’m reminded of this by something Kathryn shared with me via email. It’s this piece, on a subject I addressed last week (“Let’s hear it for the flip-floppers — compared to the rigid ideologues, they are a breath of fresh air,” Feb. 28). It from NPR, and it says in part:

But we have lots of brain circuits that are making predictions about all kinds of things, every second of every day. And the brain pays special attention to other people, Linden says.

“We’re extremely attuned to the veracity, and the predictability, and the group spirit and the motivations of those around us,” he says

That’s probably from thousands of years living in groups. To stay alive, we had to know if the person who helped us yesterday might hurt us tomorrow.

Prediction is so important that our brains actually give us a chemical reward when we do it well, Linden says.

“We are intrinsically wired to take pleasure from our predictions that come true,” he says.

Get it right and you get a burst of pleasure-inducing dopamine or a related brain chemical. Get it wrong and dopamine levels dip, Linden says.

All that training makes us extremely sensitive to the consistency and predictability of people we depend on, Linden says.

“If we have a sense that there is a mismatch between our prediction and their actions, that is something that sets off neural alarm bells,” he says. And if we think they have been inconsistent about something fundamental, he says, we will feel betrayed.

“When we feel deeply betrayed, either by a leader, or by someone in our social circle, or by our beloved, that pain really is similar to physical pain,” Linden says.

In other words, we’re hard-wired to suffer from the inconsistency of flip-floppers. No wonder we don’t like them.

Well, maybe. And that would help to explain why I don’t like the central flaw in “Lost:” You can’t rely on the characters to be consistent.

Take John Locke, for instance:

First, you like him. You’re cheering for him because you’re glad he can walk again. And you like that his knowledge of outdoor lore (which I guess he got from books or something) — tracking, knife-throwing, boar-killing, etc. — can be useful to the castaways. He’s a reassuring presence, an avuncular figure who befriends the boy with the dog and makes a cradle for Clair’s baby.
Then, you start to wonder about him, as he starts talking about what “the island” wants and demands, and obsessing about “the Hatch.”
Then, you’re SURE he’s nuts, as he makes a religion out of pushing the button.
Then, you find out he was RIGHT, because not pushing the button was what crashed their plane to begin with. And leads to a catastrophic mess when it happens again.
Then, you find out about his miserable life before the island, and you really sympathize with him.
Then, he dies.
Then, he turns up alive after his body is brought back to the island.
Then, it turns out he’s dead after all, and the “Locke” we see is really the Smoke Monster.
Then, character A trusts him anyway, and tries to do his bidding, while Character B fights him as hard as possible.
Then, Character B trusts him completely, and Character A strives to frustrate him.

And… well that’s as far as I’ve gotten.

There are a couple of character arcs that are a little more consistent, but still jarring. Such as the steady degradation of Jack from Boy Scout Everyone Can Rely On to nervous, neurotic wreck who might do anything. Meanwhile, Sawyer goes from the guy you can’t trust to a fairly heroic figure, more or less.

Other characters will switch back and forth, sometimes more than once in an episode, from bad to good, trustworthy to untrustworthy. Note how many times we are led to believe that it’s a good idea to trust Ben Linus, only to find out, yet again, that it is not?

Beyond the characters, there’s the fact that the Explanation of What is Going On keeps changing. Something is revealed, then we learn that that is an illusion, and it’s deeper than that, on and on down the rabbit hole. (Speaking of rabbits, the occasional allusion is fun. Such as when a lab rabbit is referred to by name as “Angstrom.” Or the characters named for philosophers.)

“Lost” isn’t the worst in this regard. The worst case of this I’ve ever seen in a TV series was another cultish series, “24.” Within the bounds of a single episode, a character who we are led to believe we can all trust our lives to turns out to be the incarnation of evil, and then switches back. Which is made even more outrageous when we consider that this is all supposedly happening within one hour’s time.

I felt so manipulated and abused by that series that I gave up after two seasons.

So why am I still watching “Lost”? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the scenery. In any case, I don’t have far to go now…

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits