Today we are honored to have a Guest Blogger joining 5 Blogs Before Lunch. Derek Gordon, senior marketing executive and currently the Interim President & CEO of Engage.com has graciously allowed us to share a recent post from his blog: Daily Casserole. Today's Special: Mad Men and Grandpa: Martinis, Cigarettes, Philandering...
There's a lot to love about AMC's Mad Men, the fab basic cable dramatic series that just got a slew of Emmy nods.
For those not in the know, the show is about an ad agency circa 1960 in New York City. It shows the industry for what it was: male-dominated, choked with cigarette smoke, drowning in martinis, and tainted by plenty of extra-marital sexual shenanigans. So: what's not to love?
Perhaps one of the reasons why I appreciate this series so much is that it could have been based on my own beloved and now deceased grandfather -- an ad man in San Francisco and Los Angeles throughout the late 50's, 60's and 70's. I have some great old snapshots of him in skinny, almost shiny suits, wearing equally skinny ties, and thick black-framed glasses, always flashing that big, gregarious grin of his. It is his DNA, I think, that is the foundation of my lifelong passion for writing, marketing and all things media (including my current passions around social media and social networking.)
He used to love to tell stories after his retirement from the business about Tadich Grill in San Francisco's Financial District, where he and the guys would go for long lunches over martinis and grilled steaks. Back then, of course, you could smoke a pack of cigarettes during a two-hour lunch without ever having to leave your seat. He and his buddies flirted with the women working at Tadich's or eating lunch at nearby tables, and talked about the best ways in which to sell whatever it was they were working on at the time.
What he never spoke of to me, but a fact whispered among family members throughout my life, was his scandalous philandering -- he was married to my grandmother for decades, but throughout his physically vital years, there's was apparently always some girl or other on the side.
Mad Men captures all of this with extraordinary impact. The planets have aligned for this series, as it enjoys great writing, wonderful performances by a terrific cast of actors, and absolutely perfect art direction. It's as if they reached into my mind's eye and plucked out the very visions I conjured listening to my grandfather's stories or looking at those old, old photographs.
I should note, before I get too romantic about a bygone era, that my grandfather's health later in life suffered from all those cocktails, steaks and cigarettes. I'll never forget, however, very near the end of his life, visiting with him after a third surgery for a multiple heart bypass. We decided to go out for lunch to take advantage of a rare burst of energy he was experiencing. After being seated, the young, beautiful waitress asked if she could bring us anything to drink; my mind went to the fresh lemonade I saw at an adjacent table, but my grandfather asked for a double martini, up, with a twist, and then he winked and smiled somewhat seductively at the young woman. In solidarity, I ordered the same. (The waitress, to her credit, smiled benignly and pretended not to be horrified by the flirting.)
Grandpa then started telling his stories about the old days, about the guys he worked with and the client accounts they loved most, and those faraway lunches at Tadich Grill. The martinis came and his was gone in two swallows. While I nursed mine, he order a second, but skipped the steak. He had long since given up smokes. After reminiscing a moment, he turned to me, a fellow marketer now, and said: so, tell me what you're working on. He took a small sip of that second cocktail and sat back, settling in to hear all about it. One ad man to another.
It was a great two-martini lunch.
