Trump's Locker Rooms: Bastions of the Entitled

At first I thought the locker rooms Donald Trump had in mind in explaining his crude comments about women were those used by sports teams. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to think so, as numerous professional athletes and sports journalists rejected Trump’s contention of such offensive locker-room banter (http://nyti.ms/2dQbaUX).

Then it hit me. The locker rooms Trump had in mind were those at the ritzy, exclusive golf clubs he owns where powerful corporate titans feel empowered to say what they want about women, where their exploits—real and imagined—make them feel superior.

It is in the locker rooms of the entitled where high testosterone men strut their conquests, alleged and real. Trump is a modern day incarnate of Don Draper and his Mad Men cohorts of the 1950s and 1960s, where account executives like Pete could essentially rape and impregnate secretaries like Peggy without consequence. 

Until now, most women who were assaulted by such baseless men reacted as Peggy did. They hid their predicament. If there is any silver lining to Trump’s exposure it is that women are stepping forward to uncover his chronic, abusive behavior (http://nyti.ms/2dYsUQ7). 

Perhaps they will be examples to women in all walks of life who have had to live with systemic sexual assaults.

Trump has denied all alleged sexual assaults, but as with his denial of support for the invasion of Iraq, a tape from Howard Stern’s radio show trips him up. In 2006, during a  lengthy interview, he did not object when Stern sidekick Robin Quivers called him a “sexual predator.” 

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders in confirmation. All this while daughter Ivanka and son Donald Jr. sat next to him (https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomgara/heres-trumps-response-to-being-called-a-sexual-predator?utm_term=.sb8ZlQlbN#.cwEMpNpBw).

False Equivalency: I reject the notion of equal guilt associated with the gutter-level discourse of the presidential campaign.

I’m tired of equal distribution of guilt for the quality and tenor of the campaign. Let’s look at the primary campaigns of both parties: Democrats engaged in dialogue on issues worthy of would-be party nominees. Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley didn’t insult each other. They debated policy. They argued about gun control. Trade policy. Health care. Income inequality. Support for student debt and college tuition.

Meanwhile, almost entirely egged on by Trump, Republicans argued about the size of hands and sex organs. Trump labeled his adversaries as “lyin,” “little” and “low energy,” while hardly ever discussing policy differences. For their part they called him a pathological liar, a sniveling coward, the biggest narcissist in American history, a con artist, uninformed, scary, a jerk, a clown, disgusting, a cancer and a barking carnival act, to name just a handful of epithets cast Trump’s way.

The name calling, and worse, have carried over to the main campaign. “Crooked, lyin’ Hillary,” Trump calls her. He’s intimated she should be stopped by gun toting members of the NRA. At last Sunday’s debate he said he wanted her jailed. 

He’s maligned veterans suffering from PTSD. He’s verbally attacked a former Miss Universe. Hillary has characterized his demeanor and temperament as unfit for the presidency. Yet, she has not labeled him with defamatory appellations, as his fellow party members have.

Any attempt to assess equal blame for the sleazy level of discourse in the run to the White House is wrong, misguided and in a very real sense another form of sexual assault on a woman whose only guilty of wanting to break the ultimate glass ceiling. 

Equal Time, Arresting Walks, Front Lines

Before we embark on today’s missive an aside:

Do you think Republican presidential hopefuls will demand equal media time for all the TV and radio mentions of the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York? After all, as showman George M. Cohan observed some 100 years ago, “I don’t care what you say about me, as long as you say something about me, and as long as you spell my name right,” Hillary Clinton is enjoying daily impressions of her surname since two convicted killers escaped from the Donnemora, NY, facility. Moreover, if Mad Men taught the public anything it is that repeated mentions of a product’s name (in this case a presidential candidate) helps secure consumer acceptance.

Just wondering …

And while we are on the subject of incarceration, do you know the difference between prison and jail? Prison is where you go for any sentence exceeding one year and a day. Less than that and you’re confined to jail where you also sojourn pending your trial. Just thought you’d like to know. (And there’s no difference between prison and a penitentiary.)

I thought Gilda and I lived in a rather ordinary, common suburban neighborhood, if you accept the argument that a neighborhood encompasses your walking surroundings even if you cross the border into another community, as we do living just two blocks from Scarsdale. My fantasy world has been shattered two times.

Twice in the last six months or so police have arrested the residents of homes we frequently walk by in the evening (both are in Scarsdale, I hasten to say). The first arrest was of a woman allegedly running a marijuana mill in Queens. She was renting a rather stately, newly constructed home off of Saxon Woods Road just inside the Scarsdale line. Last week a Manhattan doctor and his office manager wife were arrested for allegedly running a “pill mill,” selling about $77 million worth of black market oxycodone prescriptions over a six year period. In their unremarkable second home along Black Birch Road in Scarsdale (they also have residences in Hawaii and Florida and are building a house in The Philippines), police found $600,000 in cash. One of the more fascinating aspects of the doctor and his wife’s story is their age. He is 77, she 79. 

Who knew drug dealing was a senior citizen activity? I always thought as you age you wind up taking, not dispensing, drugs. 

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And now a word from our sponsor, so to speak. Our second ConEd bill since we went solar arrived. For May it came to $19.78. Last year it was $231.49. After paying the monthly $92.97 fee to SolarCity, we saved $118.74 for the month. Two months’ savings: $210.09, and some 2,000 ConEd kilowatt hours. 

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Front lines everywhere: Recently, President Obama said the 450 support troops he is sending back to Iraq won’t proactively engage the enemy. They will not be on the front lines. 

If the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything it is that the “front lines” of today’s conflicts are fluid. They can be anywhere. Anywhere the enemy is, which is everywhere. Everywhere U.S. troops are. 

So let’s not pretend our soldiers will be shielded from harm. Our enemies have amply and repeatedly demonstrated—going back to Vietnam to Lebanon to the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen—that non traditional combat foes can strike even the most fortified and presumed secure locations, inflicting dozens, even hundreds, of casualties.

Nepotism and Consumer Facts

The last episode of this season’s Mad Men ended with Don Draper employing nepotism to secure his wife a featured spot in a television shoe commercial. During my tenure as an editor and publisher I practiced nepotism four times, placing Dan when he was three years old in a Pac-Man sweatshirt for a picture accompanying a story we did on licensed merchandise, a second time 10 months later later dressing Dan and 13-month-old Ellie in kids’ overalls for an article on childrenswear, a third time five months later posing Ellie in a stretchie for an advertising supplement for Gerber baby products, and the last time enlisting Gilda’s sister’s family for an advertising supplement on activewear.

That last bit of nepotism turned out to be part of a cruel exchange of modeling time for a few pieces of apparel. The supplement was going to run in early spring, so we needed to shoot in January. Outdoors. By the ocean. Barbara’s family at the time lived in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn. We agreed to photograph them one sunny day. 

Sunny it was. But with the wind chill it was below 20 degrees on the beach. The activewear tops and bottoms provided scant protection to the biting cold for Barbara, her husband and their three children, ages 5, 10 and 12. I know because I was out there on the beach as well. Bundled up in my winter coat, hat, earmuffs and gloves. Freezing my bejeezus off. We had to stop shooting after about 45 minutes. The photographer’s camera froze. 

As long as we’re talking media and advertising, here are some interesting “facts” culled from several press releases and articles:

According to Buyology, Inc., a market research firm that studies “the deeper, non-conscious, 85% of human decision-making that drives customer preference for brands,” the political differences between Democrats and Republicans extend to the consumer brands they prefer. For example, in the category of most desired coffee shop, Democrats favor Starbucks; Republicans savor Dunkin’ Donuts. 

Among the 200 brands studied by Buyology, here’s how the parties split on seven other categories: 

Most desired car—Jeep for Dems, BMW for GOP

Most desired insurance—Progressive for Dems (could they have been influenced by the name?), Allstate for GOP

Most desired electronics—Sony for Democrats, Sharp for GOP

Most desired TV channel—Animal Planet for Dems, History Channel for GOP (figures)

Most desired restaurant—Wendy’s for Dems, Subway for GOP

Most desired gaming system—Wii for Dems, Xbox for GOP

Democrats and Republicans found common ground on the following: Coca-Cola as their favorite beverage, Visa their most desired financial service, Google their most desired Internet brand, Apple the most desired technology and Olay the most desired beauty brand.

Here’s what passes as startling news these days: A survey by Harris Interactive of 2,212 U.S. adults ages 18 and older, done on behalf of CouponCabin.com, found nearly three-in-four (72%) would be more likely to buy organic food items if they were less expensive than regular grocery items. 

Duh! How’s that for discovering consumers would buy something if it cost less?

By the way, according to Grocery Headquarters magazine, 52% of dads say they are the primary food shopper in their households. I’ve been part of that majority for years, even before retirement.

With Father’s Day approaching this Sunday, another coupon Web site, RetailMeNot.com, is out with a survey claiming 77% of adults feel moms receive more attention on Mother’s Day than dads do on Father’s Day. Moreover, just 54% of the 1,005 adults surveyed jointly with Ipsos Public Affairs typically purchase a gift for dad, compared with 71% of survey respondents who tend to buy Mother's Day gifts for mom. 

The numbers sound reasonable to me. The preferred Father’s Day gift, said 40% of the men surveyed, was quality time with the family, such as an outing or dinner. I guess I’m normal—when Gilda asked me earlier today what I wanted to do on Father’s Day I suggested eating out. And that’s from someone fortunate enough to be married to a gourmet cook.

  

News from the Weekend

One of the recurring themes of this year’s presidential election is the effort to portray Mitt Romney and family as being more than slightly different than the average Joe, Jane and their children. The Romneys do, after all, have a net worth in the $220 million range.

Nonetheless, I have no doubt Mitt and Ann can identify with coupon-cutting families across the country. Of course, the coupons Mitt and Ann are clipping are from zero coupon bonds, but what the heck, they have to cut along the dotted lines, as well, to get their money. 

Chilly enough for you (at least those of you in the northeast)? With temperatures barely in the 60’s, with the skies mostly overcast, I think I may have jinxed the weather for everyone by removing our heated mattress pad on Saturday for a summer hiatus. Who knew the weather gods would react so quickly? Please, accept my apologies.

The weather cooperated over the weekend, first for a Prospect Park picnic Saturday in honor of soon-to-be-son-in-law Donny’s 30th birthday (Ellie cooked delicious fried chicken with several homemade salads) and then on Sunday for Ellie’s bridal shower at our friend Linda’s house. The rains held off until the ladies had retired from the tented garden patio to the comfort of the living room to open presents and eat some scrumptious desserts.

I did the unthinkable Friday night—I switched from watching a NY Yankees game to a NY Mets telecast.

The Yankees had bulletined Johan Santana’s bid for a no-hitter had entered the ninth inning. How could any baseball fan resist being a witness to history? I must say, I was emotionally involved when Santana ended the no-hitter with a flourish, the way it should always end, with a strikeout. 

Santana’s exploits notwithstanding, I’m not ready to abandon the Yankees. But it was heartwarming, for one night, to share in the joy of the “faithful,” long-suffering Mets fan. 

One of the last decisions I pondered while at Chain Store Age in 2009 was to cut the frequency of our monthly magazine down to nine times a year. I bring this up because of an article in today’s NY Times about the choices several daily newspapers have made to trim publication down to several times a week (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/business/media/as-newspapers-cut-analysts-ask-if-readers-will-remain.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=business).

As it was for me, the decisions tried to balance reduced advertising revenue with the need to cultivate and inform readers on a consistent basis. Ultimately, my management team determined we could not provide monthly publication frequency. I retired before the cuts could be implemented the following year. 

Another Times article caught my eye over the weekend. It too involved my former employer and “gaydar,” the ability to detect someone’s sexual orientation by merely looking at them (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/opinion/sunday/the-science-of-gaydar.html?_r=1).  

In the early 1980s one of the vice presidents of our company thought I needed an executive editor. He brought a woman candidate to my cubicle for an interview. She was very experienced, but not really interested in business journalism. I enjoyed hearing her background, but we agreed it would not be a great match.

After she left the vice president settled into my office to ascertain my reaction. These were semi-"Mad Men" days, so you’ll pardon his crude choice of words when he asked “if she and I could get into bed together” (possibly in his defense, keep in mind that publications are “put to bed” when they are printed).  

Anyway, I responded “I don’t think so, besides, she’s a lesbian.” How did I know that?, he asked incredulously. Simple, she told me, including the fact she had a relationship with Betty Friedan. 

That was the last time he ever recommended any candidate to me.

Don Draper and I Wore Madras Plaid

For devotees of Mad Men, one of the more amusing scenes during Sunday’s last episode was the appearance of Don Draper at a suburban dinner party wearing a Madras plaid sports jacket, made all the more humorous by its tight, perhaps too tight, fit. I can’t relate to the tightness factor (as a youthful stick-of-a-man, most clothing draped me in excess), but I can identify with the Madras sports coat.

As a high school graduation present my parents sent their 17-year-old son on a six week trip to Israel, followed by two weeks in Italy and France. My brother Bernie initiated this gift of passage with a teen cruise to Israel after his graduation four years earlier. Instead of a similar trip two years later, my sister chose to spend her college sophomore year in Israel, which she talked our parents into extending to her junior year. Now it was my turn to venture to the Promised Land, only I would be more of a freelancer, spending time with Lee and with various family friends and relatives rather than an organized tour.

It was early July 1966 (about a year after the Mad Men episode). I’d like to say I was mature for my age, but I wasn’t. I was a gawky, painfully thin, horn-rimmed bespectacled young man. When the El Al plane landed in Israel in the midday sun, debarkation was by landing stairs rolled up to the aircraft. My sister waited behind a fence off the tarmac, a few hundred yards away. She had no difficulty recognizing me. She cringed at the sight of her younger brother decked out in a red, white and blue Madras sports jacket. Though Madras might have been au courant fashion for men in the United States, how absurd was it to be wearing a Madras sports jacket in 100 degree Israeli weather? Maybe our father would have felt the need to bring along a sports jacket, but why would a teenager? Lee wasted no time in telling me how funny I looked. Needless to say, the jacket never graced my shoulders again for the next six weeks.


Apology Time: I’m lazy about many things but usually not about my writing. Sunday I was under pressure to conclude my blog before going to meet friends for dinner so I didn’t fact check the filing deadline for this year’s taxes. In the back of my mind I thought I remembered hearing the deadline as Tuesday at midnight, but I didn’t check. Instead I wrote that because April 15 fell on a Sunday there was another day before tax returns were due. Oops. It’s tonight. Sorry about that.


Zimmerman’s Side: Sunday’s post also contained a remark that we haven’t heard George Zimmerman’s version of events that led to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. I was reminded by a reader that Zimmerman’s father had told Fox News his son shot Martin after the youth attacked him, breaking his nose and repeatedly hitting his head (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/29/george-zimmermans-father-claims-trayvon-martin-beat-his-son-threatened-his-life/?cmpid=cmty_%7BlinkBack%7D_George_Zimmerman's_father_claims_Trayvon_Martin_beat_his_son%2C_threatened_his_life

Of course, all that is hearsay, which many discount because police videos of Zimmerman entering custody that night show no bruising. Even assuming he cleaned up before the video at the police station, I would expect police would have taken pictures of his battered head when they first questioned him. Absent those pictures, I assume the special prosecutor did not find sufficient reason to believe his father’s version.


Could sex be the reason ABC’s Good Morning America ended the Today show’s reign as the most watched morning news show after 16 years? NBC News executives are probably too polite to imply the relationship, but I’m not bound by their prudence.

Consider: After 852 weeks, GMA overtook Today by some 13,000 viewers for the week of April 9-13, according to Nielsen, the tracking agency. Isn’t it strange that on April 12, cable viewers in Colorado Springs and Pueblo, Colo., had their GMA telecast pre-empted by several seconds of hard-core porn, mistakenly transmitted by their cable provider (http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/television/colorado-tv-station-krdo-airs-porn-good-morning-america-article-1.1061350?localLinksEnabled=false)?

Could those over-the-top 13,000 GMA watchers merely have been cable subscribers hoping for repeat exposure to nudes, not news, of the day? I know it’s far-fetched, but then, there still are some people out there who believe Sarah Palin is qualified to lead our country.

Magic City Memories

Tonight, as family and friends sit around our Seder table, a nostalgic look at Miami Beach in 1959 airs on the Starz network. “Magic City” is a typical TV depiction of a bygone era, with beautiful people populating the picture.

I've been to Miami Beach many, many times, the first trip in January 1958. On doctor’s advice, my mother took my sister and me to the warmth of Florida. Ten-year-old Lee and our mother had just recovered from whooping cough, I from the flu.

It was Lee’s and my first time flying. We flew Eastern Airlines, a four-engine propeller plane. During the flight a stewardess allowed us to enter the cockpit and observe the pilot and crew. When we returned to our seats she pinned wings on my shirt.

In Miami Beach we stayed in South Beach on Collins Avenue, at the Surfside, an art deco hotel next to its twin, the Seaside (not sure of that second hotel’s name). The hotels served as sentinels flanking a shared pool, with the ocean a few steps down from the elevated pool area. My father’s friend Beno and his son Oscar ran the hotel’s food service, so we ate well. Except that eight-year-old Murray was a finicky eater, meaning my diet basically consisted of hamburgers and French fries, or anything else greasy. Every meal. Midway through our two week stay I developed a skin rash on my chest. The doctor informed my mother the rash was a reaction to all the fried food and grease I was eating. He counseled a change of diet. Knowing her pencil-thin son would surely vanish into thin air if she enforced this suggested regimen, she merely thanked him and relied on my discretion to not eat as many fries with each meal.

We did all the touristy things you’re supposed to do. We ate in Wolfie’s deli. We stopped at the Nosh-a-Rye, famous for its ice cream desserts. We gaped at the Fontainebleau Hotel. We saw a show at the aquarium, as well as at the Parrot Jungle. One day, I went with Oscar’s 12-year-old son to fish off the piers. This was my first time fishing, and I even caught a bone fish, a slim fish about a foot long with sharp teeth. But what I most remember about the fishing expedition was the return bus trip to the hotel. I’d been taking Brooklyn city buses for the better part of three years to and from school. However, I had never encountered a bus like the one in Miami Beach. To exit the back door, you had to wait for a green light to appear above the door and then you pushed the door out. My first embarrassment was just standing there in the stairwell, waiting for the bus driver to open the door. After being told I had to push the door open, my next, more devastating embarrassment ensued. Try as I might, I lacked the might to push the door open. How humiliating! Oscar’s son managed to thrust his arm above my head and push open the door. My excitement at catching the bone fish exited with us as we stepped onto the curb.

Lee and I agree our stay in Miami Beach was not too memorable, though I was a little ahead of the curve when push-door buses came to New York shortly thereafter. I wisely never lined up as the first one seeking to get off the bus. I’m recording “Magic City.” I don’t expect it to be as good as “Mad Men” as a period piece, but I’m sure I will feel a certain bit of pride and identification that I was there when it all began.

Enough Already

I don’t mean to jinx everyone, but I’ve decided it’s time to store away the snow blower. Enough already.

Though there’s still a remnant of snow on the shaded part of my front lawn, and weather forecasts for later this week hint at possible flurries, I don’t care. It’s seven weeks since Groundhog Day, since Punxsutawney Phil and Staten Island Chuck both were said to have failed to see their shadows, thus predicting an early spring.

Ha! Had they seen their shadows, it would have meant six more weeks of winter. Well, those six weeks expired last Wednesday, yet the water in the birdbath outside remains frozen. Enough already!

I ran the snow blower this afternoon until all the gas was used up. I rolled it into the shed on the side yard. I moved Gilda’s plant cart from the shed to the garage. I’m mentally prepared for spring. But just in case, I left the snow shovels in the garage for easy access.


Spring means the start of the baseball season. Of all the non-stories wafting their way up north from Florida, the one surrounding Derek Jeter’s spot in the NY Yankees batting order ranks as #1.

The Yanks have won championships with Jeter batting first or second. So why should we care where he hits? As long as he hits like his old self and not like last year. Just sit back, relax and if you really want to fret about anything (if you’re a Yankee fan), pray our pitching holds up.

For the record, in case you haven’t heard, Jeter will bat second this year behind Brett Gardner.


Draperless: More fretful is news that Don Draper and Mad Men company will not be seen this summer. Word today from AMC network that Mad Men will not air again until 2012.

Hard to say how people under 40 will respond. My cohorts, at least, can reflect back on life in the 1960s, though I must admit, I knew no one like red-headed office manager Joan Harris.


Not Since Taft: Is President Obama growing a mustache? Check out his upper lip in this interview Tuesday with CBS News’ Erica Hill: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7361181n&tag=contentBody;featuredPost-PE. Though the rest of his face is clean-shaven there clearly is a shadow under his nose.

If he goes all the way and joins the facial hair crowd, Obama will be the first president since William Howard Taft 100 years ago to sport a mustache. It’s up to him, and no doubt Michelle, how he wants to look, but he should keep in mind that a president with the middle name of Hussein, who already is less than appealing to some 40% of the country, should be careful not to reinforce stereotypes. If there’s one region where despotic leaders, and everyday citizens, come attired with mustaches it is the Arabic Muslim world.


Would you spend $2 million to fight a $7,000 fine from OSHA? If you were Walmart you would because the retailer doesn’t want restrictions placed on how it conducts Black Friday and other massive sales events.

Some background: in 2008 a Walmart employee was trampled to death when crowds overwhelmed security and orderliness as doors opened at a Valley Stream, NY, store at 5 am on the day after Thanksgiving. Walmart appealed the $7,000 fine the Occupational Safety and Health Administration levied against it. OSHA also issued guidelines retailers should follow to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy. Last week a judge ruled against Walmart (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/business/26osha.html?scp=3&sq=damour&st=cse). Walmart is considering a further appeal.

Though Walmart has taken the lead, the retail industry, at least the big chain stores, are mostly behind its stand. And that is unfortunate. Unfortunate because it demonstrates a callousness toward both their employees and their customers.

I’ve said it before (even while head of a retail industry publication) and I’ll say it again—crack of dawn Black Friday sales are demeaning and unsafe. They represent the worst of a get-it-at-all-costs consumer mentality. Each year numerous people, customers and workers, are injured in melees that ensue when customers who’ve waited hours in the cold are unleashed to scramble for a few prized products at “door-busting” prices. Indeed, the doors busted when 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was overrun in the Walmart store.

OSHA is proposing a more civilized way. Shame on Walmart and its supporters for caring more about their sales than the people who work and shop in their stores. How fitting the ruling against Walmart came down on the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that ultimately led to OSHA’s creation to protect workers.

A Mad Men World

For the foreseeable future, Sunday nights will be a little less interesting now that Mad Men has finished its fourth season. Series creator Matthew Weiner talked with the NY Times about the show. You might have read the article in today’s paper. Here’s a more elaborate version posted on the paper’s web site: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/matthew-weiner-closes-the-books-on-season-4-of-mad-men/

I bring this to your attention because of a section deep down in the interview. Here it is:

Q. We’re now well into 1965 on the show, and there are no major black characters, no characters who are any kind of racial minority.

A. Do Jews count as racial minorities? Because there have been a lot of Jews on the show.

Q. I don’t think so. But is that its own commentary on the reality of the world these characters occupy?

A.That is the world they move in. It’s like saying, well, you’re telling a story about baseball, where’s Jackie Robinson? I’m like, Jackie Robinson is Jackie Robinson because he was one person, and this story is not taking place in that other universe. I’ve tried to show, obviously, as time goes on, this is going to change. By the way, it changes socially. It does not change in advertising. It still has not changed. And I will go to the mat on this thing. I defy any of these companies outside of their corporate retreat photos to show me people of color in positions of power. And those people who are out there, who have positions of power, who are of color, I have been in contact with and none of them think there should be more black faces in that office.

What was true for the early to mid 1960s remains true in the first decade of the 21st century, not just in the advertising field but in most consumer goods and retail companies. Walk any retail trade show or conference and you will be startled by the blandness, the white-bread sameness of the participants, both on the supplier and retailer sides. If not for foreign delegates, you easily might not see a person of color, a sorrowful reality in an industry where so many of its workers are minorities.

About 10 years ago, during the conference my magazine produced, I was asked, softly in an aside, by a first timer attendee, a PR flak of one of our exhibitors, why there were but a handful of blacks among the 1,200 attendees. I could not provide a cogent response.

I still could not.

TV of the 60s

Mad Men, the AMC TV series centered around an early 1960s Madison Avenue advertising agency, is widely praised for its spot-on depiction of the era’s mores, current and changing. The show’s attention to detail, at least for those of us who lived through that time, is uncanny. Aside from being old enough to enjoy that perspective, I can personally validate the sartorial eye of costume designer Janie Bryant’s selections, at least for the male cast members.

It went by in a flash during Sunday night’s episode about the ad agency’s Christmas party. Buxom redhead Joan walked into the party. I immediately hit the pause and rewind buttons. There, unable to take his eyes off her, was the agency’s young art director wearing a burgundy tuxedo jacket with vertical and horizontal black stripes. That was my Bar-Mitzvah jacket!

How did Janie Bryant find that jacket? Did she secretly visit my house and look through my Bar-Mitzvah album? Of course she didn’t. Besides, my album is in black and white. How would she have known the jacket was burgundy?

Just one more reason I am a big fan of Mad Men...


Federal Offense: Mitch Miller died Saturday. He was 99, considered by many a genius of music, and by others an old fogy of music (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/arts/music/03miller.html?_r=1&hpw). I will always remember him as the cause of one of my biggest arguments with my brother and father.

Sing Along with Mitch aired on NBC between 1961 and 1964. My father and older brother Bernie really enjoyed that show. I, on the other hand, preferred ABC’s counter-programming—The Untouchables. Since we had but one TV in our pre-VCR or DVR home, someone was going to be disappointed each week.

One particular week I was not to be denied. I screamed and yelled and cried (hey, I wasn’t even a teenager at the time of this story, so cut me some slack, willya). I made enough noise to drown out any hopes Bernie and our father had to enjoy the gang singing along with Mitch. Of course, by the time they finally gave in, Eliot Ness was already deep into his crime-fighting episode. Frank Nitti could have already been arrested, or better yet, machine gunned, by the time I was able to switch the TV to Channel 7.

Our confrontations lasted through The Untouchables’ last season in 1963. After that, we all watched the bouncing ball above the words on the screen and sang along with Mitch. Who knew Mitch was training a generation of karaoke singers?


Mom Says It Best: In this case, it’s Finley’s mother, Allison.

“Fathers, Lock Up Your Daughters, Because Finley’s on the Move,” she reported in a weekend post of her blog, Http://findingfinley.blogspot.com. Our 8-1/2 month old grandson is officially crawling. Here’s proof: http://findingfinley.blogspot.com/2010/08/and-away-he-goes.html.