In Which It Is Exactly Like Drinking A Hundred Bottles Of Whiskey

The Least Important Most Important Thing

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Freelancing sucks. Richard Morgan's "Seven Years As A Freelance Writer" explains everything. In sum, it's impossible to get paid. The bigger the name brand corporation the more emails you will have to send meekly begging to be compensated for work you already completed. Add to that the fact that all creatives are deeply afraid someone will find out they are fakes, that they have been Ferris Buellering their way through life on a cloud of smoke and mirrors they are fairly sure could dissipate at any second. We all suffer from optimism bias and depressive realism. And need money.

Speaking of misdirection, professional liar Don Draper sure didn't like getting lied to by freelance junkie (and all junkies are liars) Midge. Nothing like getting roped into a desperate dope den when you think you're just heading into the Village for a quick blowjob from an ex-girlfriend. Is Dr. Faye onto Megan? It certainly seems like she knows what the fuck is up. She was like "tell your sideline ho that she is a sideline ho."

Desperation was one of the big themes of this episode. Don was desperate not to appear desperate to clients (the endless Land O'Lakes lady/Catch 22 of desperation). My own Land O'Lakes lady brain breaker was the Eames' Powers Of Ten. When Glen told Sally that he wished she hadn't told him about infinity, I thought of how Aaron Sorkin wished The New Yorker hadn't told him that Mark Zuckerberg was a big West Wing fan (emphasis on was). Web-savvy or not, there's no escaping the matrix, Sorkin!

Positive illusions are useful to a point but they can be destructive too. Giving one person total control over your feelings gives them a power that isn't really even fair to them. This is something most of us still end up learning the hard way, and then vowing to never let happen again. Second best is never enough. Define yourself through relationships and risk having your identity destroyed when those relationships end. Who else is grossed out by Katy Perry singing about how Russell Brand is the missing puzzle piece that makes her feel complete? Bitch be your own puzzle piece.

I direct you as well to Natasha VC's post about Don Draper's charismatic leadership. A rainmaker is only as good as the last rain they made. Don, used to making it rain on schedule, doesn't have the stomach for setbacks like Ted Chaugh's humiliating phone call from Mayor Quimby. Taking out that big ad in The New York Times was a real Kenny Powers move, although of course Kenny Powers would never humiliate the American South in such an egregious manner. Parallels between Eastbound and Mad Men as always. This week was "tits vs. ass" and "ketchup vs. beans." Binary opposition.

The problem with Don's form of leadership is that it privileges Don's needs over anyone else's. Does leadership have to be singular? The crux of my review of The Social Network is that you don't co-direct or co-write because you don't co-fuck. Of course you can co-fuck, but the more people get involved the messier it gets. See: Pavement's onstage rebreakup during Matador 21. (Steve Malkmus:Don Draper::Spiral Stairs:Pete Campbell? Bob Nastanovich is Bert Cooper, keeping the time on a cowbell.)

Peggy calls shenanigans on Don, and that is the number one reason why Don loves Peggy. She always calls shenanigans on him. There is a nothing a powerful man secretly loves more than a woman who will call him out for his shenanigans. That is why they end up getting bored of betas. Who wants to be worshipped all the time? Especially if like Don, you have done a lot to deserve not being worshipped.

When you get dumped publicly, as SCDP did, your ego goes into overdrive doing damage control. With the advent of the internet it can be argued that all relationships are slightly semi-public. It's just another thing that makes getting into any relationship so terrifying and permanent-seeming that more Americans are single than ever. 

I've been facebook engaged to my friend Barbara since I joined Facebook. We just celebrated our wooden anniversary. I look forward to never changing my status, and to never discussing my personal life on this blog. Consider yourself incepted, Zuckerberg!

Was it feminist or misogynist that Don was offended by Marlboro comparing them to a "good" girlfriend who shuts up and does what she's told? Is Don going to become a feminist in the late sixties? Is he going to grow his hair long and run through a field just to bring you my LOLs? Was I the only one who though Don might ring in the mid-sixties with a smack-fueled MMF threesome? Or was I just dreaming out loud?

Is Don going to change? He showed an extremely high level of self-awareness, both in trashing the embarrassing old pages in his diary (thank god), and talking about how repeating destructive behavior patterns is a miserable experience. He didn't quit smoking, but he acknowledged that fulfilling short-term desires (as to smoke a cigarette) can genuinely fuck up your long-term desires (the desire to keep living).

Dr. Edna is a goddess. Why are all the redheads on this show wonderful goddesses (or dominatrix hookers)? Sally is getting chiller and so is Betty, it seems. Although Betty didn't like the idea of seeing an adult therapist, because they don't even let you play with toys during your sessions. Why does everyone think creeper Glen Bishop is going to molest Sally? Pretty sure she'd kick him in the dick and that would be the end of it. 

Branding is everything. All it takes to rebrand is one hit (sounds easy right). Everyone talked shit on The Social Network until it came out (me included), same to Avatar. Aaron Sorkin was coming off a huge flop, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, that everyone had expected to beat little upstart traditional sitcom 30 Rock (now in its fifth season!)

Nobody listened to me when I told them to watch the Mad Men pilot, because it was on AMC. And now they are all licking AMC's tits, which has built itself into a respected brand with Mad Men and Breaking Bad (Rubicon, I'll need to see you in my office now.)

Everyone believed in big tobacco and nobody believed in the internet as a viable artistic medium, and look at us now! The real generational divide is our willingness to put unprecedented amounts of personal information out in the open. Why didn't The Social Network address Make Out Club? Remember when just posting a picture of yourself on the net was totally taboo? Paradigms shift, but I still can't eat prestige. 

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording and the Academy Award losing writer of A Few Good Men. She directed the video for "Vogue" and tumbls and twitters.

"Fiya" - tUne-YarDs (mp3)

"Safety" - tUne-YarDs (mp3)

"News" - tUne-YarDs (mp3)

In Which This Is Why Donald Draper Can Never Have Anything Nice

Sterling's Gold

by MOLLY LAMBERT

"RUN AWAY FROM ME BABY, RUN AWAY" - Don Draper

This hour of Mad Men was dedicated to the jerkoffs who never take work off. This season is also women themed like that one year of the Oscars. This past year's Oscars were way more woman themed in that a woman won best director for the first time in history, but also because of the sadistically evil media treatment of Sandra Bullock's surprise win for best actress and simultaneous marital cuckolding. You can't win.

Just like Roger Sterling, Bill Clinton always made his accountability into a joke. Politically liberal men with bad personal gender politics are the worst (hate u Bill Maher). President Obama makes Bill Clinton look the outdated dinosaur he always was. Not every man in a position of power needs to subjugate women to maintain power. There is not a direct correlation between one and the other. How about that!

Anyone who constantly requires outside validation, especially sexual validation, is obviously insecure, in direct opposition to the image of super strength that endless new sexual partners is supposed to reinforce. What's cool is that Jon Hamm is actually nothing like Don Draper in terms of his personal sexual politics. He is a total feminist with absolutely no interest in macho posturing (don't hurt that he's super handsome).

It's crazy that it's so radical for Obama and Jon Hamm to talk about genuinely respecting their partners, but it's awesome that they do. They present the radical alternative possibility that you can be a powerful alpha male with no desire to sexually exploit women, that you can address the fact that the bar is so low for how men are expected to treat women and discuss it in a productive way without anger or blame.

Joan had the all too common experience of having to reject somebody you would once have killed to be with. Dr. Faye rightly called Don a scrub for trying to use her to help save his suddenly flailing career in a way that could totally damage hers. It's a two way street Don, not a one way mirror! Shaking my head at u Don (Willow Smith remix). The stylistic device brought out in this episode seemed to be extreme closeups. Roger muting the phone to fake a call, Peggy's hand on her new boyfriend's back. 

Stan made the mistake of thinking that just because Peggy was horny she must be horny for him. Peggy was so Liz Lemon in this episode, from her man's reaction to her room ("you're a slob!") to the confident I just had sex glow that she was radiating in the early scenes that made her suddenly seem super desirable to the boys in creative, which was literally the plot of this past week's episode of 30 Rock (INCEPTED!)

Peggy is finally discovering her real sexual power, and it has everything to do with her confidence in her intelligence. It also has to do with her new boyfriend Abe, who perceives her the way she has always imagined she should be treated. It is a kind of sexuality that has nothing to do with the way a girl feels dressed up in "sexy adult woman" drag. That is, it's not about straight male perception of Peggy's exterior.

It is about a sex appeal that transcends physical looks. A kind of sex appeal that is assigned to men constantly; to comedians who are hideous but funny, men who are ugly but charismatic, or average looking but so talented it makes them attractive.

Sexual attraction is as subjective as anything else. For all of the cultural emphasis on women's appearances, personality is actually weighted equally (if not more heavily) towards attractiveness. Over on Jersey Shore, DJ Pauly D has been self-professedly "locked down" by a girl who is not even exceptionally hot, just cute and funny.

That is why Stan is in love with Peggy, even though he is too dumb or indoctrinated with traditional gender roles to realize that he can be attracted to a woman because of her personality even more than her looks. Of course something good never happens without something bad happening, as Peggy puts it. She nails her presentation without realizing she has lipstick on her teeth (also very Liz Lemon/Elaine Benes of her). 

Peggy's innate coolness and smartness is what makes Abe remarkably nervous seeming around her, even as he tells her admiringly that she is "unbelievable." He made the mistake a lot of guys make trying to impress smart girls, which was to try and prove he was smart enough to hang with Peg by writing an essay. Of course that is not the move because smart girls hate being turned into passive audiences. If we want to hang with you we obviously think you are smart and cool enough to hang.

Roger Sterling is kind of like Chevy Chase in that he spent the early bulk of his life being a rich handsome dick to everyone who is hilarious but mostly at other people's expense, and then when it began to catch up with him as his looks and youth and power faded he had no idea how to deal with the loss of the privileges he was probably too ignorant to realize paved his entire way in life. That sad thin little book.

Roger's attempt to get Joan back was totally pathetic. Joan's attempt to deflect attention from her hotness was to wear her pajamas again, but doesn't she realize she's even hotter in pajamas? If she had worn the glasses too it would have been like she was just mocking him. Roger made his own myth and now he has to die in it.

Bert Cooper tells Roger that nobody takes him seriously because he never took himself seriously, and he is right. The children of the wealthy are hobbled by expectation, but they are also gifted beyond measure with the powers of privilege and nepotism.

The scene with Roger and Jane on the couch of their mansion was spectacular. It was like a Scorsese film, although actually it packed more atmosphere than all of the Boardwalk Empire pilot. Easy exit is never that easy, Rog. I need a combined mega-edit of the recorded memoirs of Jack Donaghy, Roger Sterling, and Kenny Powers. 

Ken Cosgrove is engaged to Alex Mack! But be careful Kenny, because her father is Laura Palmer's father Leland and you seriously do not want to fuck with that guy. Also probably don't fuck with Alex Mack, since she is an amorphous blob of quicksilver. 

As for Megan the secretary, well fuck. Because Matthew Weiner is a genius, the characters are all somewhat three-dimensional. As much as I wanted to hate Megan, she was kind of interesting. She is worshipful of Don but just as much because she envies him professionally as because she wants to toot it and boot it.

I also totally didn't believe Megan (an artistic type from Montreal) that she's not going to get weird, because nobody fucks Don Draper without catching feelings. Nobody! I mean, did you see the way she kissed him on her way out? She is doomed! Also I do think they are probably going to get married when she said she has dabbled in acting. I don't know why, but that cinched it for me. Prove me wrong, Weiner!

That you sympathize with both Dr. Faye and Megan, and every once in a while Don, is the crux of a good love triangle. It sucks realizing that your romantic rivals are not very different from you. In fact if you like and attract the same person, you probably have all kinds of things in common as much as it nauseates you to consider. That is why Betty and Veronica are best friends, and also why Archie is kind of a total dick.

Two quick Clueless things: Stan's awkward come-on to Peggy (with the closing the door and locking it, jesus) totally reminded me of Elton coming onto Cher in the car. The noise Cher makes when she realizes what is happening is the noise I make when I'm really disappointed. And god this is so harsh, but Megan is kind of a Monet.

Pete Campbell struggles with his life/work balance. As per usual he is the most female friendly of the Mad Men men, and Vincent Kartheiser's acting is always incredible. He conveyed exactly the flash of elation followed by intense regret as he finds out that he missed his daughter's birth because he was in an emergency SCDP meeting.

Men are traditionally told to value autonomy above all else, but then they get super sad when they end up having nobody left to talk about their real feelings with. It is a tale as old as Philip Roth. It is also the Jack Nicholson story, Kenny Powers is struggling with it, and Kanye West grapples with it in his music and life.

Even superstar supersluts of the seventies like Michael Douglas and Warren Beatty actually wanted real romantic intimacy in the long run. Apparently getting cancer has made Michael Douglas realize that he cares way more about spending time with his kids than he cares about burnishing his legacy as a movie star.

Don sucks at emotional intimacy, but he is awesome at lying! Seriously, when he saw Dr. Faye in the hallway right after he just banged Megan on the office couch? I would have dropped my keys for sure but he was all smooooooth sailing (to be fair, he had just gotten laid). How would Don Draper deal with text messages?

As is now routine I felt hella sympathy for Dr. Faye, whose keen intuition betrayed her this episode when she didn't even try to do a Riskay on Don. How come he didn't smell like cheap French-Canadian perfume? Is Don going to pull a Ross Geller on Faye and be all "we were on a break!" when she does find out?

Life is full of logical gaps, and we create fantasy narratives in our head to explain them. Stan created a narrative that Peggy had to be harboring a secret crush on him just because he had one on her. Roger created a narrative that Joan would comfort and baby him for his weakness rather than be disgusted with his breach of ethics.

That one horse meat lady from last season had a narrative that she and Roger were soulmates, which Roger dispelled. But Joan finally dispelled Roger's emphatic notion that he and Joan are soulmates. Roger had a fantasy narrative involved believing that their intellectual and sexual connection with Joan, which he abused and took advantage of so many times, could withstand all his betrayals without wavering. I would like to direct Roger Sterling to a little R. Kelly song called "When A Woman's Fed Up."

Matt Weiner likes to do a false lead (SEE: JOAN ISN'T PREGNANT, DUH), so the whole set-up to make it seem like Dr. Faye was going to dump Don in a Dear Don letter totally tricked me. But no, presumably against her better judgment Dr. Faye tried to compromise, because women are always told to compromise. Women are told to make it work and men are told to cut and run, when it's really a lot more complex.

The truth is Dr. Faye was right the first time, when she walked the fuck out of Don's big fancy office. But no matter how smart you are, no matter how logically sound or convincing your arguments against it, sometimes there's no way to stop yourself from caring too much about somebody who doesn't care enough about you.

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording and star of the popular comedic radio program Fibber McGee & Molly. She is on tumblr and twitter. 

"The Morning Fog" - Kate Bush (mp3)

"Hello Earth" - Kate Bush (mp3)

"Jig of Life" - Kate Bush (mp3)

In Which I Never Was Much Of A Romantic Couldn't Take The Intimacy

Don't Worry About The Government

by MOLLY LAMBERT

What is the difference between success and failure? Time (and ideally, talent). What is the difference between Don Draper and Kenny Powers? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Although it turns out Kenny P has a way healthier ability to self examine than Don D does. Would that we all had a Dick Whitman or Stevie The Cockfighter to blame all our indiscretions and bad decisions and moments of most extreme weakness on.

Seriously though, Eastbound & Down came back and it was so thematically similar to Mad Men that I'm still not a hundred percent sure which one featured its protagonist jerking off to a faculty photo in a yearbook. Volume 5 of my Eastbound & Down mix is coming (fucking) soon so keep watching this space. Hope you like rock flute!

If Don does end up making a break for it to escape his problems now that he's been forced to deal with them again, let's hope he makes a run for the border and ends up cockfighting with Kenny like a couple of cable TV character hobos. When the going gets tough, just bail on your life! There's no way that could possibly not work out for the best! Sorry Don, there's no witness protection program for assholes!

Cool panic attack Don. I am well versed in anxiety attacks. That is my dark secret, and I just revealed it on a blog, for all the world to see! Interview me now Department Of Defense I have nothing to hide! I haven't actually had a panic attack in a few years since I decided to buckle down and deal with it, but believe me I tried to avoid it for as long as humanly possible. Even Kenny Powers knows that avoidance never works.

Don's shirt-rippping panic attack was also a backdoor audition for Jon Hamm for the role of every superhero ever, which uh, THE PART IS ALL YOURS. Whatever superhero Jon Hamm likes, let him play it. Actually, superhero movies generally suck, so maybe let's keep him away from the embarrassing hair and costume styling that has already befallen his ex-wife Bets. Please cast Vincent Kartheiser as a supervillain though.

What has been this season's best costume? Joan's pajamas and glasses ensemble? Trudy's sexy mod pregnancy lingerie? Lane's steak belt? Peggy's birthday suit? Don Draper's blowjob face? Don's BJ face looks like this : D and this week we found out about its evil other half, Don's "please stop trying to make me be emotionally intimate with you" face, which it turns out looks exactly like this sideways face emoticon : /

Dr. Faye's romantic plotline with Don embodies the other theme of this season, that people tell us who they really are and we ignore them. First impressions are usually telling, but we still get disappointed when people's actions live up to our immediate preconceptions. Finding out you were right the first time is hardly satisfying.

Joan was T.C.B., Taking Care of 'Bortions. Peggy was nowhere to be found, most likely because she would have died by death from eye-rolling if she had witnessed any of the old boys' shenanigans. The oldest boy of all, Lane Pryce's evil British father, pimp caned the fuck out of Lane for his impropriety. Lane, progressive that he is or wants to be, still could not shake it off by the end. I cheered when he semi-promoted Joan. 

Roger is getting old, yall. It's not just his increasing public tenderness towards Joan, which is starting to border on embarrassing. A child of privilege, he is headed into the senior home kicking and screaming. You can't be at the height of your powers forever Rog, sad but true. There's an inevitable decline. Just be glad you didn't peak earlier.

Also embarrassing, Don's boner for Megan the secretary. No Don, don't do it! Danger danger! I know she's brunette but she's an idiot child like Roger's anorexic wife! It's Dr. Faye you want! People are so easily fooled by hair color. As a ginger it's not like I ever really had a choice in life about whether I wanted to be perceived as feisty.

I like how they're trying out a different new stylistic device every week, and then abandoning them. It's super sixties cool of them, because it's very French New Wave. This week was Roger dropping the f-bomb, and sort of breaking the Mad Men 4th wall in that drawing attention to sound editing draws attention to means of production. Do you think it'll be uncensored on the DVD? Can we get an all Roger voiceover season?

Keeping with the sado-masochistic theme of the season Donald Draper took what seemed like a big step towards opening up by telling Dr. Faye his real deal, and then put up a big psychic blockade between them the next day. Is that what keeps Don's relationship flames burning? His own inner mysteriousness? Is Matt Weiner determined to punish us, the masochistic viewer, for wanting to see Don emotionally mature?

As Tess Lynch, the author of 500 Days Of Hat put it: "Don can't love because he's not real. Only Dick is real. He can only love when he ACCEPTS Dick. He gets panic attacks when he's confronting it so he ran, because he can only stay Don as long as he's with someone who reflects Don back to Don! Especially since Faye is so insightful, it's like she can strip him away and when she does he throws up like, REJECTING HIS INSIDES."

Man did I ever think those Beatles tickets weren't gonna come through. I'll bet Sally's favorite Beatle is John Lennon because he is brooding and handsome and tortured and a genius and a hilarious dick and seems like he could secretly become a feminist if the right Japanese fluxus artist were to come along and teach him how to love again.

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls and twitters.

"The Fight" - Sia (mp3)

"Clap Your Hands" - Sia (mp3)

"You've Changed" - Sia (mp3)