(Yes, we're back to Mad Men recaps. Patience, we don't have many to go.) Don Draper's arc is beginning to look like Tony Soprano's, and I don't expect a better end for him. Tony had some glimpses of a better way that he turned out unable to benefit from (I still recall him contemplating nature and being grateful for life while Paulie was breaking some guy's leg); Don gets so many messages from the great beyond that I expect William Burroughs to start talking to him, yet he doesn't seem to get anywhere either.
The flashbacks to Rachel Katz and (implicitly) Midge Daniels make sense in the same way that Don's season-6-ending whorehouse monologue made sense: Don is too intelligent not to contemplate the past (his past, anyway), but not enlightened enough to react to it in a constructive way. But that Hershey meeting flash-bang is really beginning to look like a misdirection, not to say a con. Is Don really just a charming zilch? So far in the interrupted season 7 we've seen him act slightly nicer than previously to the people he loves, but everyone else he seems puzzled by. (He reacts to Cosgrove's monologue with the same bewildered expression he gave Cosgrove's tap-dance in "The Crash.") It's getting so the sordid sequelae of his sexcapades are just another of Mad Men's guilty pleasures -- fun to see the coupling, fun also to see the regret and/or horror afterwards. As regret/horror go, Rachel's sister at shiva and the waitress really delivered. But what's any of this ever going to make Don feel except sad, and do except drink? For a guy who reads Dante at the beach, Don's not really a heavy thinker.
I realize season premieres, or half-season premieres, are mostly set-up, so there's no reason to be disappointed by the lack of significant action in this episode. The most interesting thing to me about Cosgrove is that, delicious as his vengeance is ("Shit" -- Pete Campbell), it also means he's not going to write that novel. And Peggy's drunk date is charming because she's charming, and it's nice to see this poor messed-up Draperstein's Monster relax a little, and her date isn't (or hasn't yet been revealed as) a programmatic Mad Men sexist scumbag -- unlike the McCann creeps in the Peggy-Joan meeting whose hair-raising misogyny is dialed up so high I thought it might be a dream sequence, or that Allen Funt would jump in to pull the plug. Joan's reaction to that scene -- bitterness toward Peggy, and highly unsatisfying retail therapy -- is, given what we've learned about Joan, no less depressingly expected than the Don reactions I've been complaining about. But thanks in large part to the brilliant Christina Hendricks, whose elevator scene bears watching without dialogue, I now find Joan more interesting.
Christ. Evidently all I need to do to rake in the spondulix is become a fucking homophobe.
ReplyDeleteNot that I WOULD, mind you, but compared to sleeping in a car..
We bogged down on Mad Men sometime in season 4? I think. It was totally brilliant and fascinating but so dreary, at the same time--especially as we got closer to my own memories of this era. I also find the people they are exploring so shallow compared to my parent's generation who were a different crowd (though Mr. Aimai's father was, in fact, in advertising in one of these big ad agencies, albeit one that employed jews). I wish Don's "big secret" hadn't turned out to be so pedestrian, or rather, that it wasn't revealed until the end, rosebud like.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to think up a good grift to run on them, then reveal to them that it was all a scam, just to teach them a lesson. But I find I'm not lacking enough in decency to think one up.
ReplyDeleteNot that I haven't thought the same occasionally.
ReplyDeleteGreat minds and all that.
This is all great, but how does it support a conservative weltanshauung?
ReplyDeleteHey, Pere! Good to see you back. Was worried about you for a while!
ReplyDeleteHugs n' all, but it's touch-and-go as it is right now.
ReplyDeleteSuffice to say things are not going as I would want, New York is proving less liberal than I remembered, and I'm looking for someone with an (R) after their name to take it out on.
If the College Republicans didn't teach them how their owners grift off them, nothing will. But I think the sensible thing to do is to create an infinite number of these gofundme pleas, based on absolutely nothing, and force Dana Loesch et al to continuously explain in public why the one they are touting is not the "fake."
ReplyDeleteI'd suggest Andrew Cuomo
ReplyDeleteWTF happened to New York? Where the fuck did all this asshole bureaucracy come from? (Never mind, I know, and THEY have (D) after THEIR names.)
ReplyDeleteCase in point - I have to fulfill a work requirement for DSS. The policies state that half the applications I submit have to be "in-person"; you know, the fucking paper applications nobody fucking uses anymore. Even the corporate assholes contracted by DSS to run the program don't understand that one. And who's going to give me a job when I walk in with an hour of sleep, smelling of piss and cat litter (I share the car with three cats), unshaved and a week out from my last shower?
BTW, sorry for clogging up threads with my horror stories.
ReplyDeleteIf you can't share here, where can you share?
ReplyDeleteThis sounds horrible.
ReplyDeleteGeez, I don't know whether to vote this up or down. As Aimai says, that's terrible and I can't adequately express how sympathetic I am to your plight.
ReplyDeleteWhat can I do to help you?
ReplyDeleteI downloaded & watched a couple of seasons. The last MM show I saw ended with them starting a new ad agency. I just didn't care what happened afterward- the people just weren't interesting. Fashions were cool, though.
ReplyDeleteI was reading a fascinating blog about MM for a while (Tom and Lorenzo?) in which the two bloggers analyzed the fashion choices the director/designers made for each character and how the framing and the clothing,the shots and the colors, are all meant to signal stuff to the viewer. That made a lot of sense and made watching it very rich and layered. On the whole, except for the casting of the execrable child of the director as the creepy boy neighbor, they really put a ton of thought into everything, from the hats to the shoes to the colors and the patterns.
ReplyDeleteHere here! What can this community do to help one of its members?
ReplyDeleteSo now AMC "gifts" us with another episode, as if they were shitting out a Faberge egg. And you can bet AMC doesn't let us forget it. How about another hemline/cigarette debate, which is not currently an issue in real life?
ReplyDeleteSirius Cybernetics. there you get to both share and enjoy!
ReplyDeleteHuh. Well, from this article to the FSM's noodly auditory apparatus but I don't believe it. I mean--I do believe that Ted Cruz is running for the bleachers so far out that he is in danger of vanishing off the edge and falling into the turtles (to mix my metaphors) but I'm not sure this will end anything for the Republican party. For one thing I think the big money backers,rather like the ones who backed Hitler, always think they can control the demagogues they send out to get the actual votes. So Cruz could win the nomination. And if he does the next round will go right back to lying and winking and in that they will be abetted by the press which simply can never admit that there is no sane wing of the republican party anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe party will have to either embrace its looniest ideas publicly, from top bottom, or explore a different approach to politics for the first time in a generation.
ReplyDeleteGiven what we know and can observe of the modern Republican Party, this is merely wishful thinking. Republicans have already publicly and happily embraced all of the party's looniest ideas--look at Joni Ernst babbling about Agenda 21, or any of the multitudes of Tea Party people elected to Congress and to state-level offices.
And the sad fact is that more than a few prominent Republicans have already come out explicitly and publicly advocating armed sedition--look at Rick Perry calling for Texas to secede, or Sharon Angle calling for Second Amendment remedies, or any of the Tea Party officials calling for armed insurrection against the hated federal government.
No, I think Republicans will continue their current approach to politics because even though it doesn't win them the White House, it does win them control of Congress, control of the majority of state legislatures, and control of the majority of governorships. They have no incentive to rethink this strategy, and every incentive to keeping ramping it up.
the big money backers,rather like the ones who backed Hitler, always think they can control the demagogues they send out to get the actual votes.
ReplyDeleteNo need to control the demagogue when the demagogue makes certain that the titanic government contracts keep coming your way and your workers aren't able to exercise any rights. Recall that Hitler lavished contracts on Krupps, I.G. Farben, the Todt Organization, and hundreds of other defense contractors large and small. Recall also that he first crushed, then outlawed labor unions and strikes. Finally, remember that nearly all the companies that benefitted from Hitler survived the war and continue to be major players in the world market today.
That,too. I guess the only question for the big money guys is 1) who can win over the mouth breathers and 2) who can be more easily controlled. I do agree that Cruz is the winner in the "most likely to please the lunatics" but I think Rand Paul has demonstrated that he is so utterly fake and opportunistic that he doesn't even have any ideals to betray.
ReplyDeleteRand Paul has demonstrated that he is so utterly fake and opportunistic that he doesn't even have any ideals to betray.
ReplyDeleteWish I could fit this on a bumper sticker!
Rand Paul: Not Even The Man You Don't Think He Is.
ReplyDeleteI want to slap this comment on the ass
ReplyDeleteof my giant SUV.
Oh! Behave!
ReplyDeleteI'm just very, very relieved the show will end before we see Don Draper in tartan bell bottoms.
ReplyDeleteIf you have a Pay Pal account I can contribute to it.
ReplyDeleteTry not to be embarrassed! Its a horrible situation.
I'd like to help every and anyone in such a jam, but I can't. I CAN lend you a hand.
I have no idea, guys.
ReplyDeleteCan you email a shower?
Paypal = gmccammon5@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteIt's one of those where you really want to upvote it because of sympathy, but the "like" aspect has creepy connotations.
ReplyDeleteDSS continues to be fun - I failed my work requirement, so the job center drone tol me to go to DSS and talk to them - The first window at DSS, rather than saying "Oh, you need to go to one of the other windows" futzed and flailed for ten minutes or so, and I then went to the other line, where I stood for almost an hour for a little slip of paper with an email address which I undoubtedly could have been given at the job center.
Fuck 'em. Major depression counts as a disability, I have the time with Vocational Rehab in SC to prove it, and I'm taking a mental health out.
Here is the demagogue making the case. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpsZODtYuPc
ReplyDeleteIt lets them play "Sabotage", which is all they're really concerned about doing these days anyway.
ReplyDeleteNo offense, but everything makes me feel like I shouldn't share. The baggage that comes with this makes you feel like you don't want to mention anything.
ReplyDeleteWhich, you know, is a really good point for mentioning it. There's too many stereotypes out there (THANK you, conservatives) .
Huh. Maybe this is the impetus I need to start blogging again.
Or a Mohawk...
ReplyDeleteYo, your fundraising page seems to be down. I have a couple of shekels to send your way.
ReplyDeleteTry theese: https://www.youcaring.com/other/it-s-a-leaning-time/299835
ReplyDeleteHuge sideburns, a white guy Afro and a skeevy mustache!
ReplyDeleteThe saddest part - the agencies supposedly out there don't seem to be set up to deal with our situation ("family" = mother & grown son, pets involved) so we're slipping through a lot of cracks.
ReplyDeleteAnd charity just don't cut it anymore; if you think social services organizations are stretched thin, just look at charities.
I feel kind of like Jurgis Rudkus in The Jungle, where all the bullshit he suffers turns him Socialist. There HAS to be systemic changes.
I totally had the blond 'fro when I was younger.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Get through this. One of these days, you need to be in a situation that allows you to drive downstate for a beer.
ReplyDeleteMuch thanks to you as well, and I do look forward to the day I can drive down and claim that brew.
ReplyDeleteDealing with the bureaucracy sounds Kafaesque... Vor dem Gesetz and all that.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago, I briefly lived at "87 Chevy Drive", while waiting for the closing on a house that a friend of mine was buying- I had an apartment in it lined up. It wasn't fun, but I relied on friends and family (lot of "couch surfing") to get through.
Side zip, pleather platform boots...
ReplyDeleteAs the dude who would regularly bike to his office job, a bottle of rubbing alcohol works wonders as a "shower in a can". I like to infuse it-- I currently have a bottle of it with some clementine peels marinating in it. About a month ago, I had an epiphany- save the damn peels, dry them out. I have yet to make tangerine beef, but it's in the cards.
ReplyDeleteAlso, do the rest stops near the Thruway have showers for the long-haul truckers?
Gangster whitewalls, TV antenna in the back
ReplyDeleteFebreeze can make clothes smell fresh without washing. I don't know about spraying on your person
ReplyDeleterather like the ones who backed HitlerI'll stop bringing up Nazi references when the GOP stops treating Godwin's Law like a dare.
ReplyDeleteThat so amazing
ReplyDelete__________________
Tour du lich Han Quoc
Don't you think that if the big money guys could control Cruz they would have done so by now? It's gotten to the point where you have GOP "moderates" like Kathleen Parker and David Brooks rolling their eyes in exasperation and wishing publicly that Ted could be a BIT more reasonable, while the Iowa Caucuses, which, on the Pug side, seem to reward the looniest of the religious fringe, are coming up first, which Cruz needs to win so that he can claim a victory right out of the gate. I don't see Cruz being controlled at any point, but I also think he'll flame out pretty quickly.
ReplyDeletehttp://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/44495_In_Which_Talk_Show_Host_Michael_Savage_Goes_Full_White_Supremacist
ReplyDeleteListen to this Michael Savage rant and I dare you to not think of 1930's Germany.
The other Republicans are all various flavors of Koch but not Rand, Rand is different, Rand is Pepsi.
ReplyDeleteI don't know--I guess it depends on what time of day it is whether I believe that the big money people in general think differently than the biggest money guys who expect to be kissed up to every minute. I think there was an article that I didn't read about how the various candidates did at some koch brothers/adelson style summit and there you definitely got the sense that they were being paraded for their appearance and style in the swimsuit competition and how bootlicky they were definitely mattered. But I think there are a lot more money people out there who are used to buying up politicians after they are in power and I think they are probably foolishly confident that, in the end, they can do business even with Ted Cruz. They will certainly try if he gets the nomination. They won't swing behind HRC or the Democrat just because they think Cruz is a nutcase.
ReplyDeleteHmm... if I remember my WWII history, the German army was, oh, about %110 white. And what color does Savage think Russians are? Savage is the Josef Goebbels of 2015, happy to incite mobs to bloodshed while holding their coats.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe Dis-Pepsi.
ReplyDeleteCruz is nuts, but not in a way like we've seen before. He doesn't have pinwheels behind his eyes like Michelle Bachmann; he doesn't have a brain with a slipping clutch like Rick Perry; he apparently doesn't have skeletons in his closet like Herman Cain; he's not in it for the major grift like Newt. He's not ashamed of his distain for those he views as not conservative enough, and he's proud of his hatred for moochers and the 47%.
ReplyDeleteSo Cruz could very well come to dominate the primaries and end up the nominee. He's terribly exciting to the Talibangelicals, and to the Teahadists, and to the "we wish liberals would die" wing of the party, and to all the other subgroups that thrive of fear and hatred--you know, the base of the Republican Party. So I'm not so sure he'll flame out quickly, or even slowly.
He's rapidly becoming the only male lead on the show without a skeevy mustache.
ReplyDeleteAnd now you're walkin'....just like you're ten foot taaaaalllll!
ReplyDeleteYou know, I never thought about that. There's a truck stop by the Days Inn we stayed at for one night, when the sleeping in cars thing started.
ReplyDeleteWell, with the money you guys have sent (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU), I can get some actual real paper money out of an ATM and find a laundromat.
ReplyDeleteIt gets even better.
ReplyDeleteI can't use the email address I had to wait in line for an hour for, because the mail server is rejecting the email address. WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE THINKING
What... no love for Rick Santorum? He was the Cruz of 2012; disdainful of anyone less conservative and Christofascist to to the core, who did well in a few selected markets but didn't have broad appeal. I've often wondered, as have may people, why it is that the Pugs pander to their extremist base, while establishment Dems treat even mild progressives like shit. I think it's because not too far beneath the surface, many Americans, at least the ones who vote, actually identify with "conservative values". You know: "We're a proud warrior nation who uses its power for good, not empire; We're an up-by-our-bootstraps kinda can-do bunch, limited only by how hard we're willing to work; We're a nation of immigrants... the hard-working kind who will cut our lawns and look after our old people while keeping their mouths shut and their heads down"; to name just a few. Progressivism can be attractive when people are content and things are going well, but in a climate of fear, which conservatives excel at creating and stoking, people and media start conflating it with airy-fairy idealism which is anathema to hard-nosed conservative realists who know for a fact that ISIS is going to come here and kill us all, that every black person hates white folks and wants to kill them, that illegal aliens are taking our jobs away... you get the idea. 2016 may be the last gasp of progressivism, and it'll take a real fighter to make the progressive case.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the majority of people really subscribe to the conservative message, but hard times (due to dumbass GOP policies) definitely make it resonate more.
ReplyDeleteSeventy-plus years of concerted anti-Progressive propaganda by business interests hasn't made it any better, either.
no love for Rick Santorum?
ReplyDeleteSantorum is such a colossal dick that even his own party can't stand him.
I've often wondered, as have may people, why it is that the Pugs pander to their extremist base, while establishment Dems treat even mild progressives like shit.
The biggest piece of this is the ongoing media narrative. Republicans are expected to be rightwing, and they are expected to keep moving ever more right. Thus even the most extreme rightwing lunacy becomes mainstream and acceptable.
Democrats, on the other hand, have been beaten repeatedly by the media narrative that anything--ANYTHING Democrats advocate is by definition ultra-extreme leftism. Thus the need to constantly rebuke anyone to mentions tax increases or infrastructure investment or jobs programs. The media demands (and gets) an endless stream of Sistah Souljah moments from the Democrats.
Progressivism can be attractive when people are content and things are going well, . . .
I'd argue just the opposite--progressivism only becomes attractive when people are so economically crushed that wholesale changes to society are the only possible answer. Just be prepared for an extremely long fight--labor activism began in the 1870s and did not win widespread acceptance until the Great Depression; environmental activism began in the 1880s and did not win government sanction until 1972.
Southern and Far Eastern Russians are kind of dusky and Asiatic, respectively.
ReplyDeleteBut, yeah, your point stands.
Saw the "Mad Men" show at the Museum of the Moving Image last week, and the level of detail they go to is astounding. They have Don's driver's license, all the iterations of his business cards (as well as Roger's), faded family photos, clothes, Betty & Don's kitchen (complete with tacky ceramic figurines and period Revere Ware pots), hand-written notes from Sally (in a truly childish scrawl on three-hole punched notebook paper) --- it was actually creepy, almost voyeuristic.
ReplyDeleteThat's my fascination with the show. I don't care about any of the characters, I don't feel the need to see any episodes again (unlike "Breaking Bad", for example), but the "frozen-in-time" quality of the whole thing is hypnotic, like watching a car crash in slow motion.
I hesitate to mention I haven't seen it, but do you think it's a factor of the era it's set in that gives it that quality?
ReplyDeleteI don't understand this comment even a little bit.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone contrasted Don's treatment of the nameless models in/from his fur show and the McCann-Ericksen treatment of Joan and Peggy?
ReplyDeleteBecause I haven't.
I'm glad it will end soon,
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that is good in this show is the period everything is involved!
__________________
Jose
He may never write the novel, but I'm secretly hoping that Ken Cosgrove will be revealed to be the stand-in for Jerry Della Femina.
ReplyDeleteJames Meek at the LRB points out that, in real life, Draper's office (and all offices and homes) would consist of moderne contempo stuff but also stuff from the 50's and even 40's. The effect of MM's (over- ?) scrupulous period detail is not one of authenticity, but artificiality.
ReplyDeleteMM fans will find this interesting:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n07/james-meek/the-shock-of-the-pretty
A week late, but the first graf of Derelict's comment is pure gold. ("disdain," not "distain.") I was going to ask, Is Cruz nuts, or rather ruthless and dishonest? I keep wanting to reject "nuts" because it mitigates--slightly--his evil. But to the extent that his religious views are like his father's, he IS nuts, as are dad's parisioners. Which doesn't, now that I think of it, mitigate any fucking thing. He's evil, too.
ReplyDelete