In Which I Have A Texas Belt Buckle And I'm Going To See Gamera

Dick + Anna '64 

by MOLLY LAMBERT

"Is that what you want? Or is that what people expect of you?" Mad Men's back in the motherfuckin' house pointing out the giant distinction between those two things. There's the person everybody thinks you are and the person you really are, and the latter is impossible to keep track of. Especially these days as the signifiers traditionally used to describe and define the former fade ever steadily out of American life.

Even if you figure out who it is you're supposed to be, who it is you're going to let people think you are, the whole world can shift out from underneath you as it inevitably will anyway with the passage of time. All the things that once defined you as cool can start working against you, because aging makes LOLs of us all.

Either you wait it out until the pendulum swings back and you are rewarded for having stayed the same, or you make a hamstrung effort to change and generally get served. Even Bob Dylan got served (by Jesus no less) when he listened to his critics, the ones who started declaring him "over" the second they finished anointing him.

Don's side trip to California is also the return of Deus Ex Machin-Anna Draper, a character whose lack of interior function belies a severe bone cancer eating her polio riddled fictional bones from the inside. Seriously, what is the deal with Anna Draper? Why does she pimp out Don/Dick to her stupid proto-hippie niece so hard? What exactly does she get out of being so selflessly mothering to Don? A shitty paint job?

Why doesn't Anna Draper want to fuck Dick Whitman? He clearly owes it to her. Is she gay? I mean, I know she is a Californian, and since Californians on Mad Men fulfill all the cliches of Californians (free-spirited, potheads, kind of dumb and sexy, like to paint the interiors of their houses weird bright colors) it would only make sense. 

Like her manic pixie dream aunt, the Berkeley student serves as an avatar for meaningful statements like "Nobody knows what's wrong with themselves. Everyone else can see it right away" which is a couple of mixtapes over from Elizabethtown.

Luckily, as has been the trend this season, Dick/Don gets negged by the annoying Blake Lively/Kate Hudson hybrid undergrad from South Pasadena. Granted, "you're so beautiful and young" is the worst pick-up line ever. Dick Whitman has always been a way for Mad Men to have it both ways, for Don Draper to be an all-powerful misogynist jerk as well as a good guy who truly respects women underneath.

Anna Draper, lesbian who enjoys watching Don paint her living room in his shorts, also thinks she has seen UFOs. Although not telling somebody they have terminal cancer is a total bitch move, who can really blame Dick/Don for wanting to get the hell out of there after the crazy high lady starts talking about aliens and you've just been humiliated trying to put the moves on a girl you knew before she had front teeth. 

Don Draper was always everyone's fantasy about what a powerful alpha male should be like in the early sixties, including Dick Whitman's. A big component of the fantasy was the idea that you could somehow avoid all vulnerability if you were just cool enough. In the past, Don was always that cool, but divorce has fucked up his game.

Former Übermensch Don Draper was always able to seal the deal with women without any problems, as if it it were possible to eliminate the awkward moment that happens when you lean in to kiss someone for the first time, where you open the window for them to reject you but must feign bravado in order to even go through with it at all. 

That you could somehow completely avoid any such awkward moments was illusory. Real life is about being raw red nerves vulnerable while covering for it outwardly all the time. Watching Don get rejected is both satisfying and super secondhand embarrassing, because we've all been there. At the start of 1965 Don Draper is more confused than ever about who "Don Draper" is, let alone Dick Whitman. 

The episode takes the familiar crazy last act turn into another kind of Mad Men episode, the buddy comedy/double date. Usually these plots revolve about Don and Roger, but Roger is sadly and mysteriously absent in this episode (as is, mercifully, Bets). This time it's Lane and Don, new divorced guy BFFs acting out the plot of every major comedy of the last ten years. In the Roger role, Lane gets all the best lines.

Isn't it funny how Don's awful apartment comes pre-furnished because bachelors don't want to spend any time furnishing their apartments? All the bachelors I know LOVE furnishing their apartments, more than anything else in the world. You cannot stop those dudes from buying stuff for their places. It's all they wanna fucking do. 

Peggy's reverence for Joan's "perfect marriage" is hilarious, as is Lane's love for Joan only blossoming after he sees her belittle somebody in the office. Joan's powerful feminine façade is every bit the lie that Don Draper's masculine front was. Now that Joan is trapped in her fantasy life, her own code won't let her complain about it.

Nobody wants to be topped more than a strong top. That's why Joan's attracted to Dr. Rapist, who turns down her meals and insists on stitching up her finger himself, and may be fucking a nurse or six on the side judging from his lack of desire for Joan so close to his deployment. Or what if Dr. Rapist is struggling with his own masculinity and like many embarrassed dudes just doesn't have that intense of a libido?

If somebody paid me twenty five dollars to go out with Don Draper I'd consider it the best day of my life and probably have to commit suicide afterwards because what the hell is going to top that. Before Don's suit just hid the existential dread of a person trapped in a bad marriage, now it hides the shame of a guy who sleeps on his bare mattress. Why they didn't take the escorts to see Gamera I'll never know. Anyone who goes to a stand-up show on purpose deserves everything they get. 

Because Matthew Weiner is a sadist, we don't get to see Don fuck the fake-Joan hooker this time, since Mad Men's sex scenes only exist to impart fear and dread. Even when it goes well, it never really goes that well. Last year Sal got his first handjob of life, and look what happened to him. Likewise it is likely that Joan fakes her orgasms in addition to faking her hair color, and we now know Don Draper is nothing without the idea of "Don Draper." How do you separate the person from the idea of the person?

I certainly don't know, but I do know this. Y'all ain't never going to Catalina for Easter.

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She tumbls here and twitters here. You can find last week's Mad Men review here.

"Technocrat" - The Finkielkrauts (mp3)

"Writing a Song" - The Finkielkrauts (mp3)

"Lover Song" - The Finkielkrauts (mp3)

In Which Pete May or May Not Get Another Chip 'N' Dip

Love The Way You Lie Glen

by ALMIE ROSE
 
Season 4 of Mad Men just started. Let the predictions begin.
 
Don will say, "What do you want me to say?" at least twice before the season's end.
 
Duck Phillips will host a swinging beach party and Annette Funicello will show up and get drunk, but this will be referred to and not shown, because Mad Men is all about the great 60s references that make old people feel young again. And young people feel old in a fresh, hip, Urban Outfitters furniture-kind-of-way.
 
Don will say, "What do you want me to think?" at least twice before the season's end.

Betty will purse her lips and say something shrewd.

Henry Francis will be followed by a horde of villagers chanting "IMHOTEP!"
 
Glen will hide in the Drapers home's basement. He will emerge only at night, to play beautiful music on the family piano. Sally Draper will be enchanted. Then in a bizarre s'mores mishap, Glen will accidentally burn the house down. Sally will get blamed.

Don will crash his car again and chuckle about it later.
 
Harry will continue to lose weight and look like Buddy Holly by the season's end.
 
Something will happen and Peggy will not be amused by it. No, sir.

Hey remember when Pete raped someone?
 
Roger will ask Joan if she'll pee on him. Joan will ponder it in a voice over using puns like, "Urine Hot Water Now" and "If MGMT thinks it's time to pretend, is it time for me to pee-tend? Or should I control myself?"
 
Several episodes will end with a sobering image of something serious while a happy 60s tune plays in juxtaposition.
 
Colin Hanks will stay on Fox.
 
Black people will continue to be mysteriously absent.

Someone will say, "We can't lose this account!" They will then lose the account.
 
We'll be treated to another Don Draper/Dick Whitman/Grapes of Wrath flashback that will tell us everything we already know; that Don had a difficult childhood, that hobos are just honest folk trying to get by, and that this show is more than stylish outfits. The next scene will feature Betty in a stylish outfit, because we've had enough doom and gloom, and the Great Depression is just yucky.
 
Sally Draper will stab someone with a pair of scissors.
 
The Draper dog will run away and/or commit suicide.

Don will want Betty even more now that she's not his wife.
 
That guy that you've seen several times before, oh God he was in that movie with that guy, and I think he was in that TV show too, and wasn't he in that indie with Mark Ruffalo? will make a cameo.
 
Someone will say earnestly, "The times are changing, Don." It will probably be Roger. He will probably be smoking and/or drinking when he says it.

Sal will show up and make a great pop culture reference and everyone will laugh except for Pete.
 
Seriously, Pete raped that au pair. Remember?

Don will arrive at a party where some girl with long straight hair is singing a song in French. He will make a face.
 
Pete will accidentally shoot himself in the foot in the middle of a meeting. Literally. Don will tell him that his actions almost cost them the big account. Pete will cry, not for his foot, but for disappointing Don.

Betty will make a simple, yet loaded statement like, "It's all so beautiful" and we will all suddenly understand what her character is really about.
 
Nothing will happen and yet everything will change.

Paul Kinsey will be arrested for public nudity. Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce will hear about it and laugh. Don will remark, "When you want ham...don't settle for turkey." Everyone will laugh but not really understand his joke. There will be an awkward silence. Pete will try to break it by saying, "I guess he should have ordered a side of hash browns." No one will understand that either. The silence will become even more awkward. Roger will say, "This is more awkward than the time I vomited everywhere." Everyone will understand that and will laugh and feel relieved. This is the precise moment when Don plots to murder Roger.
 
Someone will cry at their desk and it won’t be who we think it is! Unless it is.

Everyone will die. It will be okay though because they will all meet up in heaven and "move on" together. It will not make sense. It will come out of nowhere. Nothing will be explained.

Don and Roger will take on Playboy as an account. It will be a smashing success. They will be invited to a party at Huge Hefner's. Don will hit on a Bunny. She'll surprise him and say, "I'm sorry Mr. Draper, but I'm not that kind of girl." Don will realize that appearances are not always what they seem. He will apoologize take her to a real steak dinner and not even try to feel her up. She'll say, "Maybe there's hope for you yet, Mr. Draper" with a smile. He'll say, "Maybe there is" and cock his head and grin. Meanwhile Roger will learn the true meaning of Christmas.

Almie Rose is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She twitters here and blogs here. She last wrote in these pages about the Backstreet Boys.

"Juveniles" - The Walkmen (mp3)

"All My Great Designs" - The Walkmen (mp3)

"While I Shovel the Snow" - The Walkmen (mp3)

In Which I Don’t Hate Christmas, I Just Hate This Christmas

Thank You For Bringing My Keys

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Mad Men

Season 4, Episode 2

"Christmas Comes But Once A Year"

You know when you get out of a long relationship and you're thrust back out into the real world all fucked up on a heady cocktail of hormones and adrenaline, only to find out that you have no longer have any game whatsoever? And even though you're not terrible looking and are considered charming by many you now melt into an awkward puddle at even the simplest social interactions, talking way too much or not at all?

When you were unavailable people flirted with you all the time, practically threw themselves at you. Now you're free and suddenly your phone hardly rings and you break a sweat at the thought of trying to make smalltalk with one more uninterested idiot. It happens to the best of us. Why wouldn't it also happen to Don Draper?

During this freefall period it's conventional to make really terrible decisions, which is why Don ends up turning down an invitation to a party full of nurses (WTF Don), bobbles flirting with the hot HR rep (who's totally right about Don being married again in a year) and then zipless fucks his pathetic secretary Allison in the least sexy sex scene in the history of Mad Men (until Peggy and Mark's at the episode's close). 

Remember in season one when Joan talked about how Don never fucks anyone from the office because he knows better than that? Well, things change. It's like they realized Jon Hamm is too funny to be stuck playing a serious character all the time and decided to put Don Draper in embarrassing situations that make us laugh awkwardly so as not to cringe. He's stuck in the handsome bubble. 

In many ways Don resembles the protagonist of the other best show on television, Louis C.K.'s Louie. They are sad bachelors, illustrating the flipside of the lonely spinster cliché that so outrages Peggy when Freddy Rumsen springs it on her. Don's dingy new lifestyle and its attendant trappings are a balled up shirt's throw away from C.K. eating his slice of pizza over a garbage can during Louie's opening credits. 

Vibes between exes were also running high this episode, as they are anytime Pete and Peggy or Roger and Joan have scenes together. How did the magical samba line future office of 1964 become the soul killing cubicle farm of today? Does it have to do with the concurrent drop in social acceptance of getting totally loaded at work?

Peggy managed to find somebody to date with an even worse haircut than she has, and he finally spoke out against her reign of hand-jobs. All that "who we want to be" vs. "who we really are" stuff was demonstrated by Peggy's beau's Mark's clueless attempts to bully his girlfriend into doing him after assuming she's still a virgin (LOL). 

A Don Draper with no swag is a Don Draper that's a hell of a lot easier to root for. Desperation is never a good look, but "divorced loser Don" is certainly more relatable than "absurdly suave Don." Who among us hasn't passive aggressively done something incredibly hurtful to somebody we didn't really mean to hook up with?

You know who has mad game though? Glen Bishop. Breaking into your crush's house so her stupid new stepdad will want to move? Sheer brilliance. Glen is a little baller, even if he's only trying to get into Sally's pants as a pathway back to her mom's scalp.

Was this episode especially great because January Jones was barely in it? Who can say.

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She twitters here and tumbls here. You can find past recaps of Mad Men here.

"Get Low" - Sun Araw (mp3)

"The Message" - Sun Araw (mp3)

"Hustle and Bustle" - Sun Araw (mp3)