Archive for Media commentary
The (Real) Story on “Mad Men”
Posted by: | CommentsFirst, let me make this clear: I’m a big fan of the Emmy-winning AMC series Mad Men.
That said, I go through a veritable buffet of reactions during each episode – fear, loathing, fear AND loathing, and occasionally PTSD. The PTSD and the fear/loathing are inextricably intertwined, due to the fact that I started my sojourn in the workforce in the mid-70s, when the captains of industry exemplified by Sterling, Cooper, Draper, and the rest of the boyz were running the show.
On Madison Ave., Main St., and everywhere else.
Being an XX in an XY world – the ’70s – meant dealing with behavior exactly like what was on display in last Sunday’s episode of Mad Men. All my bosses back in the day presumed that I was in the workforce to land a husband. And they assumed that my presence in their world meant that I was a perfect candidate for Bedroom Romper Room as pre-marital training.
I was still in college, working a part-time job, when a boss cornered me in the supply shelves and told me to put out, or get fired. Had he been less Aldo Ray and more Henry Fonda, I might have gone for it. He wasn’t. I was fired, and overjoyed about it.
The early days of the sexual revolution essentially amounted to guys assuming they had a right to hear “yes”, but grrlz had no right to say “no”. Starting in the late ’60s, and going up to – and through – the Age of AIDS, it was a never ending grope-fest. Seriously.
I was working in an ad sales division of a major broadcasting network by the late ’70s, serving a sentence as a secretary in exchange for NYU Film School tuition. (A rockingly fair deal.) The sentence-serving piece came from most of the guys in the office, who clearly believed that we office grrlz were there for their amusement, delectation…and occasional dictation.
I thought about that as Don groped Allison, his secretary, on Sunday night. I found myself wondering when Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex & The Single Girl came out – 1962, so I was right to hear an echo.
This past Sunday’s dark Christmas party Mad Men took me back to the Christmas party the network sales division threw in ’79, where I was forcefully propositioned by no fewer than 7 execs, all married, all drunk, all entitled. I managed to evade their desired result, but still felt like Allison did when Don handed her two crisp $50 bills – a whore.
I was putting up with bad behavior in exchange for a paycheck. Not a lot of alternatives at the time, more now but still not utopia.
I watch Mad Men with a strong sense of history, and that PTSD I mentioned before. Joan, Peggy, and Sally are the most interesting characters in the show, as far as I’m concerned. I worry about all of them, because I know what marriage for the sake of marriage does, what it feels like to sacrifice a personal life to a career, and how childhood hurts can morph into very bizarre behavior.
I’ll keep watching. And I’ll keep worrying. And I’ll hope that Joan becomes an account exec, that Peggy starts her own agency, and that Sally grows past her dark side…
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it…
Are Afghan Papers the 21st Century’s Pentagon Papers?
Posted by: | CommentsDaily Beast’s lead story today reveals that the Justice Dept. and the Pentagon have expanded their investigation of Bradley Manning, the US Army analyst who handed over what I’m calling the Afghan Papers to Wikileaks.
As someone who is, um, experienced enough to remember the Pentagon Papers dust-up in 1967 when the war in Vietnam was ramping up, and the DoD and White House were – to call a spade a spade – flat-out lying to the American people about the US military expansion and operations in southeast Asia, I feel compelled to make this observation:
Democracy requires truth. Truth is the enemy of politics. Those forces will be forever set in opposition, which means that, from time to time, the blood – or freedom – of patriots must be sacrificed on the altar of that truth.
Nothing I have read about Manning gives me the impression that he was looking for any kind of recognition or compensation from leaking the Afghan Papers. According to his friends, this kid – and he is a kid, under 25 years old (Ellsberg was 35 when he leaked the Pentagon Papers) – was hugely conflicted about what he observed on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what he saw reported further up the chain.
As our adventure in the sand continues in Afghanistan and Iraq, in aid of a purpose that I don’t think anyone has a clear grip on, I find myself thinking that Bradley Manning has more cojones – and courage – than anyone in the Pentagon.
One of his fellow soldiers, posting anonymously on Daily Beast, tellingly says that the Afghan campaign is called The Ocho (inspired by one of my favorite movies, Dodge Ball) by troops on the ground, and is thought to be an exercise in futility – whose futility is being hidden from Congress and the White House via smoke-and-mirrors PowerPoint presentations by DoD officials.
I’m calling bullshit on the whole military operation – not the boots on the ground, but the suits who sent ‘em there – and saluting Bradley Manning for taking the risk he did. He’s likely sacrificed his freedom (he’s currently in the brig in Kuwait) for at least a decade to put some truth on the table.
Now it’s time for us – Americans all – to take a hard look at what’s on that table. And make some decisions about how we can drive some meaningful action, and change.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.
The Story on the Whole Jobs Thing (at Least AFAIC…)
Posted by: | CommentsJobs numbers have, to quote Forbes Magazine, fallen “off the table”.
Everyone knows at least a dozen people who are un-, or at least under, employed. And several more who are decidedly nervous about their continued employment.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking for quite a long time now: jobs are dead. Long live daily individual value delivery.
This is a multi-channel challenge. I can hear the benefits administrators of the world saying, “oh, HELL no!”
I can hear the education system, in this country and many others, protesting that they’re teaching to the test already (pumping out potential employees), and if they have to start teaching critical thinking again…well, things could get ugly.
I can hear the legions of job-holders around the world winding up their best roundhouse kick to knock my block off.
Change happens. If you’ve been on the employee train for a long time, trying to wrap your mind around not finding another job when you lose the one you’ve got can be downright scary. Just ask Paul Nawrocki, who lost his in February 2008 when the toy company he worked for went under.
Nawrocki has become both internet, and news-network, famous, thanks to his self-propelled mobile advertising (f/k/a “sandwich board”) – what a great opportunity to recast himself as a buzz marketer!
I’m kidding. But not really.
What times like the present call for is a change in thinking, for all of us.
The job may not be dead, but it is on life support. Start thinking like a consultant, a freelancer, a solopreneur, even if you toil alongside thousands of co-workers at a Fortune 100.
If you don’t bring it – “it”, in this instance, being that daily value delivery I mentioned above – the out-of-work sword will constantly dangle just above your cranium.
Don’t hug that job. It’s unlikely to hug you back for very long, and it’s highly likely to be unfaithful.
And don’t ever neglect your daily value delivery requirement.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it….
The Ego Has Landed – What a Shock. Not.
Posted by: | CommentsBack in early '07 (prehistory, in the current Prez race), John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announced that her breast cancer had come back. Incurable, but treatable, was the statement. Edwards said he would not halt his campaign. At the time, that seemed to be a mutual decision.
In light of recent revelations it would seem that perhaps Edwards' ego (and other, more fleshy parts) might have been driving the bus on that decision.
Elliott "was Ness, now Mess" Spitzer's flame-out was less of a surprise – relentless scolds are less likely to live lives above reproach.
Neither, it would appear, do egos with hairdos. I really wanted to think better of Edwards.
The Ego has landed. Right on his carefully styled head. Directly into the sewer. And with Jay McInerney's old squeeze, no less. Ouch.
It appears Ms. Hunter didn't care for Elizabeth Edwards. I'm shocked. Shocked.
I'm still waiting for a national-scale female politician to slip on the sex-scandal banana peel. I think I'll be waiting a while.
That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it…
Enterprise’s Honors Boldly Goes…Overboard
Posted by: Mighty Casey | Comments (2)How very ironic that the just-relieved-of-command USS Enterprise skipper‘s last name is Honors, particularly since the end of his career in the US Navy (trust me, kids – he’s through) demonstrates a singular lack of honor, and of common sense.
If you haven’t been paying attention, here are the basic facts:
I bring all this up not because I have family connections to six Naval Academy classes going back to 1916, including my dad (’44), my grandfather (’16), my brother (’85) and my cousin (a classmate of Capt. Honors ’83), and the fact that I was born in the USNA hospital on Hospital Point. Although that does give me a dog in this fight.
This is a perfect example of the dangers of diving into social media without some kind of social-media-SCUBA-gear. Or what could just be called brains.
If you shoot it, and post it ANYWHERE, even on a “secure” site, someone will watch it. And if they have access, they can download it.
If even ONE of those people is unhappy with you for any reason, they can fire off a video heard (and seen) ’round the world, and wipe out your career with one “play video” click.
If you shoot it on federal government equipment, and it resides on federal computers for any time at all, you’re double-screwed.
Want to spread a powerful message? Social media can be an outstanding tool for making that happen. Want to blow up your life, leaving collateral damage all over the map? Social media can help you there, too.
It’s up to you to decide which side of that line you want to wind up on. Act accordingly.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it…