Every decade marks a changing of the guard. The previous generation finally reaches the peak and holds on for dear life as the upstarts claw and climb their way up and over, usually ignoring how their predecessors carved a path. It’s a maddening exercise for all parties as the old guys aren’t ready to pack it in, which infuriates the youngsters. And yet this ritual is as unavoidable as that in which the sun and moon partake every day.

When a young Cassius Clay won a gold medal in the 1960 Olympics he was nothing more than a talented fighter with a flair for dramatics. Nobody knew then that he would revolutionize boxing and stand as a figure for a new kind of politics, a new kind of pride, a new kind of attitude … nobody knew he would be The Greatest and use that stature to change the way people thought about race, the war, and justice. No, in 1965 the newly renamed Muhammad Ali was an upstart who taunted and teased his way into a fight against “the unbeatable” Sonny Liston.

Continue reading Mad Men – The Suitcase →

I often have the same thought when watching war films, especially those that strive to make the horror of war as realistic as possible: How does anyone return from that and conduct a normal life? I’m often reminded of when I went to see The Memphis Belle with my grandfather, himself a retired Air Force man who was a B-17 turret gunner over North Africa. He told me how hard one scene in particular was for him to watch. The squadron encountered German fighter planes and the crew of the Belle watched as planes around them were cut in half by flak, machine gun bullets and crashing German planes that refused to go down alone. These were bombers that carried their friends. My grandpa lived through the exact same experience and saw that very thing happen to his friends. And yet, somehow he was able to go on with his life. It couldn’t have been easy and it certainly isn’t easy for Roger Sterling.

It’s March 1965 and the Japanese surrender is nearly 20 years in the past but for Roger the war is still too close, still too vivid and still too painful for him to simply shake hands and do business with people he was trained to kill and who so many of his friends died fighting. Life goes on and business is part of life but when Pete arranges a meeting with Honda motorcycle company, a company looking to expand to automobiles in the very near future, Roger is simply not ready.

Continue reading Mad Men – The Chrysanthemum and the Sword →

It was a pivotal year, 1965. The initial shock and euphoria of the Beatles landing on our shores hadn’t yet faded but we were all getting used to basking in it. Our year of mourning over the Kennedy assassination was officially over even if the ramifications of that deep, deep wound were yet to be fully realized. It was a point when people of a certain generation had to make choices and had to decide who they were, where they were going, and what they stood for. It was also when the first cracks of the generation gap were truly being felt, and it was more than just in musical tastes. One generation was struggling to define itself while another was struggling just to get a foothold before the whole shithouse went up in flames.

Because I am in marketing and advertising, I love the scenes that involve the business of being a Mad Man…er, that is…an ad man. Don and Roger are caught on an excruciating call with their top client, Lucky Strike’s Lee Garner Jr., and trying like hell to get off the phone. But this is what you do when the majority of your business is with one client: you treat him like the king he is. Lee knows his importance to Sterling Cooper Price & Draper and is probably calling them on a daily basis to cry about the latest tobacco legislation or advertising restrictions on “sin” products. Agencies are more than service providers for clients, they’re often whipping boys, psychiatrists, and shoulders to cry on. Client services are rarely limited to what’s on your rate card.

Continue reading Mad Men – The Rejected →