In Which School's Out Forever, School's Been Blown To Pieces

September Song (or, Twenty Years Of Schooling & They Put You On The Day Shift)

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Here comes September to cut into the sweaty, humid, unemployed, depressed cake that was August before it weeps any more pink frosting onto the dirty kitchen floor!

I grew up fetishizing cold weather, because it was not a thing we really have in Los Angeles. Years of exposure to books set in prep schools or written by Johns Updike and Cheever cultivated in me the strong Jewish/Catholic lust for east coast WASPs and their culture. I especially fetishized fall, with its scarves and coats and coziness.

Fall is when school starts, it's when the new TV season traditionally begins, and summer popcorn movies are replaced by Oscar-bait movies. Magazines get thick again (or they used to) and all of the new products are suddenly "pumpkin" or "plum." 

September for me has always meant my birthday, which talk about your buildup to a non life-changing event. Nothing changes on your birthday. Nothing especially changes on New Year's. So why do we expect so much from our Septembers?

Well for one, September is when kids go back to school, which implies the return of structure to where there was none. Even if you went to camp or worked all summer break, August was about the antsiness building up for something new to happen.

We spend the bulk of our youths, a ridiculously long amount of our lives, on a strict calendar whose organizing principle is school starting in the early fall. It is not hard to imagine that vestigially we still feel like we are going back to school every September.

Until I lived on the east coast during college, I had no idea that scarves served an actual function (keeping your neck warm). I also knew nothing about the secret undertow of autumn's nostalgia, which is DREAD. The trade-off for the beautiful natural spectacle of New England autumn is that it becomes New England winter.

In California the fall crispness is just a prelude to more of the same during winter, but in most other places it acts as foreshadowing that within a couple of months it'll be too cold to keep your eyes open outside. Fall nostalgia has a morbid undercurrent. The leaves are beautiful but they are dying. Back to school's second self is Halloween.

It's like we subconsciously internalize the seasonal change. Studies have shown that external stimulants like sounds and smells have a huge impact on influencing human behavior. Is that why everyone freaks the fuck out at the end of summer even though they are no longer going back to school? Something about seeing all those pencils and backpacks just triggers the deep desire we all have to hit the reset button on our lives.

Most of the people I know are freelancers in one sense or another, and their career paths involve amorphous to-do lists and shitty day jobs or erratic work. Because I have nothing else to compare it to, it is hard for me to feel like being in your twenties right now is any different than being in your twenties at any point during the last century. 

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both. And so the flip side of anticipation is dread.

You can anticipate good things happening with the seasonal change, but because you absolutely cannot predict in advance them there is also endless dread of worst case scenarios, even though the chance of every situation playing out nightmarishly is low. 

You might not have a decent job or an apartment or whatever right now, but that doesn't make you the kind of person who is incapable of having those things. It just makes you someone who doesn't happen to have all of them right now, which is most people at most points in most of their lives. It's not a comment on your true self.

The thing about external factors beyond your control (like the horrible economy and its many attendant trickle-down woes) is that they do change unexpectedly and in a way that is impossible to always predict accurately, much like the weather. 

In the meantime all you can do is stay as positive as possible, keep putting in work, and maybe eat some pumpkin bread in a scarf and coat by a duck pond around dusk. 

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

"Nobody's Hero" - Stiff Little Fingers (mp3)

"Straw Dogs" - Stiff Little Fingers (mp3)

"No Change" - Stiff Little Fingers (mp3)

In Which Life Is Like A Bowl Of Life Cereal

Let's Get Liberated

by MOLLY LAMBERT

In a totally premeditated ballsy move, this week's Mad Men was about the CLIO awards and aired the same night as the Emmys. Matthew Weiner definitely cares about winning awards, so if this episode was his attempt to defuse industry gossip that he is an insane egomaniacal credit-hungry Pete Campbell of a showrunner, it didn't work. 

But if there's anything we know about Mad Men, it's that Pete Campbell is the secret (male) hero of the show. The only thing younger people envy about older people is their jadedness, and you don't even know that's what you are envious of until you get there, by which point you don't give a fuck whatsoever because you are jaded too.

What was the craziest backstory revelation from this episode? That Don was just some schmuck working in a fur coat shop when he met Roger? That Joan and Roger's fuckmance predates Don and Roger's bromance? That Peggy Olson can control rogue boners with her mind like Matilda? That Sookie Stackhouse is a human-fairy hybrid?

This episode had some of the best reaction shots in Mad Men history. I demand GIFs of the following: Don's face after he falls asleep while getting blown and then wakes up next up to the ugly waitress. Pete Campbell's face when Lane tells him they're going to bring Ken Cosgrove (ACCOUNTS) on. Don's wasted lean in to smell Dr. Faye's neck.

The hand holding. Peggy's face when that douchebag congratulates her on winning the smuggest bitch in the world award. Pete's face when he tries to stop Don from drunk pitching the LIFE cereal people. Don's entire drunk pitch to the LIFE cereal people.

Speaking of Don's drunk pitch, seriously, it's like they just can't not let Jon Hamm be funny anymore. Sure Don Draper's unfuckable coolness quotient has been nullified through silliness but who cares? Mad Men has been considerably slap-happy this season and it just leads to me dying of laughter several times each episode.

Jon Hamm's portrayal of Don Draper this season has occasionally reminded me of (his BFF) Paul Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer. Just the ways in which straight male peacocking can be hilariously flamboyant and veer into behaving like a petulant child.

Don's attempt to hit on Dr. Faye was so cartoonish and basically completely accurate. There's nothing like a swing and a miss rooted in misplaced beaming drunk confidence. It's a thin line between attractive self-assurance and arrogant buffonery.

The big twist tonight was learning that Don Draper bluffed his way into Sterling-Cooper and then Buellered his way through the rest of the late fifties/early sixties. When Alex Carnevale found me and I got him drunk and hired myself for This Recording I was more or less working at a fur shop (oF thE MIND, INcePTioN!) 

Don's ancient secretary is beginning to remind me of the rotating secretaries on Murphy Brown. I know a lot of people hate her hijinks and find it too hacky and broad, but I'm sure she'll be disposed of with a riding lawnmower in the near future.

Peggy's daughterly relationship to Don is being ruined by the fact that Don is a pretty fucking terrible dad. He likes the praise that comes from bestowing favors and the occasional compliment, but he will never show up for your proverbial recital. He might even have some real sounding excuse but it won't make you feel any better.

Peggy is also starting to resent that part of the reason she is generally tolerated by her male peers is because they are so totally unthreatened by her sexuality. The flip side of this of course is Joan Holloway Harris, who is praised and noted constantly for her sex appeal and appearance but never for her impeccable workwomanship.

There's an old saw about telling smart girls they're hot and hot girls they're smart, but the real point Peggy was making was that women getting compartmentalized into those categories, which are always enforced by the likes of Douchebag Art Director Guy, has absolutely nothing to do with what they are really like as human beings.

Unfortunately it seemed like Peggy's attempt to demonstrate that the Madonna/whore construct is a falsehood/duality didn't exactly go over/make a dent in that guy's thick skull beyond giving him a confused and unattended to erection. Let's just say that sometimes it's hard to have arguments about serious things with total idiots.

Peggy is getting increasingly sick of the glass ceiling, the corporate ladder, and all the bullshit associated with both. She is starting to realize that Don's approval is not worth what she once thought it was. Like Roger she is sick of doing Don's below the line work for him and then not getting any credit. She is sick of not being recognized.

Roger knows he inadvertently created a monster, even if he doesn't realize that he is also a monster (and a child). The chapter on Roger's childhood keeps getting bigger as he keeps getting older and weirder. The theme of aging as return to the pure id expression of childhood came up a lot towards the end of The Sopranos.

I love Roger's memoirs. I would like to see some webisodes just based around Roger dictating his memoirs. He and Kenny Powers are the two fictional characters whose autobiographical audiobooks I would actually really like to listen to. Yo and how about when Joan and Roger and Don almost did the Human Centipede under the table.

I certainly can't complain about the idea that we'll be getting to see more of Ken Cosgrove, magnificent flaxen haired prince of the people, in the future. You just know he's going to slam dunk the fuck out of the Mountain Dew account (and my heart).

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

"The Needle and the Damage Done (Neil Young cover)" - Laura Marling (mp3)

"Ohio" - Neil Young (mp3)

"My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" - Neil Young (mp3)

In Which I Don't Know What This Room Is For

SALLY'S PSYCHIATRIST CALLED

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Who knew all it would take is divorce for the Drapers to finally develop onscreen chemistry? It's a real screwball comedy figuring out who's to blame for Sally's masturbation mishap. I've never enjoyed Jon Hamm and January Jones in an episode so much as I did in this one. They're a regular Ross and Rachel now! Too bad for Don that Henry Francis is kind of that dude. The dude who is normally that dude, Roger Sterling, was very much not that dude this episode. He was more like Walter Sobchak. 

You know who else is that dude? Pete Campbell! Man I know he's a rapist and always acts like a snitch but he is kind of killing it on the regs this season! When he invoked his paternal responsibilities I gave him a LOL high five through the TV. Wouldn't it be cool if Pete ended up being like an awesome dad? I'm kind of thinking he will be. He's always been the most feminine friendly and forward thinking of the Mad Men men.

It's never not going to be slightly clumsy setting up new villains and love interests in an already established universe, but Mad Men is doing its damndest. I'm really starting to cotton to Focus Group Faye, who is clearly going to be Don's next romantic Donquest, especially once I realized she was the former Mrs. Christopher Moltisanti.

Cara Buono didn't get to do too much on The Sopranos, but that character never had a chance in hell following Adriana La Cerva. However, Dr. Faye might have some good odds on Rachel Menken, who let's face it wasn't even THAT great, we just think of her fondly in comparison to Bobbie Barrett and the grade school teacher.

Can't we just shut up and enjoy the sparks between Faye and Don? I mean, she's hot and smart and has a heavy New York accent and is obviously supposed to be his equal. They haven't even kissed yet, but they had a lot of heat sake bombing together. Just let it play out, okay? You know it's all going to go to hell sooner or later.

The new villain, Ted Shaw, is clearly a foil for Don meant to remind us of the "old" Don from the "old" Sterling-Cooper, the Don we are used to, the Don some people have been bemoaning the demise of this season. Brilliantly, by parodying what was annoying or has become rote about the "idea" of Don Draper the character, Shaw makes us no longer want to see Don be that guy. He's the Cy Tolliver to Don's Al Swearengen.

If anything, we now want Don to change even more because we are realizing that his greatest strength is that ability to change. No longer chained to being "Don Draper, Sixties Alpha Male" could be ultimately liberating for him, just like it will be liberating when Joan and Betty realize what Peggy already instinctively knows, that it's not that much fun to be Mrs. anybody compared to how nice it is to just be yourself.

What was more tone-deaf, those Clorox bleach ads that suggest using Clorox to get your mistress's lipstick off your collar (UR MISSING THE POINT) or the AMC in-house promos for Jerry Bruckheimer's Pearl Harbor? Who is more tone-deaf about Pearl Harbor, Jerry Bruckheimer or Roger Sterling? Wasn't Don's date with Bethenny Anna Newlin Van Nuys the best Benihana date scene since The Forty Year Old Virgin?

I can't believe Roger was such a racist dick in that Honda account meeting. It was obviously not just about Pete Campbell's chip or whatever. We know from his blackface exploits that Roger can be a racist dick but I thought he was just going to say something racist but wry (wrycist?) like "Japanese girls. Beautiful. Sideways vaginas." 

Sally overshadows Bobby, but Meadow Soprano was also always more central to Sopranos plotlines than A.J., although I loved in the last seasons when A.J. came to the forefront and whiffed spectacularly at being the kind of man Tony Soprano is.

Real Talk though, what was Sally getting off to watching "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."? That one of the dudes kind of looked like Don? Or that they were tied up together? Is she into gay slash fic? Or was it just run of the mill masturbation out of boredom and horniness? I mean her friend was ASLEEP. It's not like she was masturbating ON her. 

I enjoyed the whole Honda plot where they incepted the other ad dudes. I reference Inception so much lately that my friend tells me my references have no meaning. That's when I say "yeah exactly maaaaaaaaaaan" and hit the bong knowingly. 

Actually I spent most of Inception trying to figure out what Leonardo DiCaprio's character's name was (Dom? Tom? Thom? Rob? Bob?) much like I spent this Mad Men trying to figure out what Don's new nemesis's last name is (Chaw? Shaw? Schaw?)

The song they played at the end was "I Enjoy Being A Girl" from Flower Drum Song, a song that figures heavily into my own personal mythology since I protested having to sing it in probably 4th grade on the basis that it was sexist. I got in trouble a lot in elementary school for arguing about radical gender politics (nothing has changed).

The important thing is, Don's going to get horizontal on a couch with somebody other than the whore who slaps him around. Soon Don will be forced to talk to a therapist about himself. And you know what? It will probably be good for him.

There is no change without acknowledgement. Maybe even Don is ready to admit that the "old" Don Draper, which was Dick Whitman's conception of a sort of ideal man, kind of fucking sucks. Since that life phase is over anyway, why not let go of it completely so that a better more zen Don Draper might emerge? It's like Inception.

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

"About a Girl (acoustic)" - Nirvana (mp3)

"Bad Girls" - Donna Summer (mp3)

"I Enjoy Being a Girl" - Tiny Tim (mp3)