'Mad Men' Marathon this Sunday!

Can life get any better than this? A '90210' Marathon all day on TV Tropicana (channel 57) Monday and tomorrow a screening of the first seven episodes of my current fave show, 'Mad Men' on AMC - that's channel 55 on your television dial.

I ask you - is there a more perfect way to mark the end of summer than spending the day indoors watching television?

Now, I know for a fact that most regular readers of this blog once had more than a healthy relationship with 'Beverly Hills 90210' but I suppose there is a chance that not everyone has seen 'Mad Men' - what with it being a U.S. cable 'original' series. You can tell that it's AMC's (American Movie Classics) 'prestige' show because they promote the hell out of it. If you've tuned into any movie on AMC in the past two months you'll know what a mean. It's like they're trying to sell cigarettes or something.

Sonny was so impressed with the show, that he did something he rarely does as the Pop Culture columnist for 'Artscape Magazine' - he wrote about something that is not only from this decade - but from this YEAR.

Ain't picked the new 'ish up yet, have you?
Well, in that case - allow me to enlighten you - because I would hate for you to miss all the fun of tomorrow's marathon screening without being properly prepared ...

... Occassionally people will accuse me of living in the past. They say that I don't know of any cultural event post-'The Andy Griffith Show.' That when it comes to Pop Culture, I am Yesterday's Man.

Well, pooh on them.

Because I do keep current on what's hip, what's happening, what's cutting-edge and NOW in the world of television. Case in point - here's a review of 'Mad Men,' the most talked-about new show of recent weeks.

By mere coincidence, it just happens to be set in 1960 - my favorite year. And in Manhattan at the height of all its post-war glory. And in a Madison Avenue advertising agency where they are in the business of promoting The Great American Dream and a future soon to be promised by J.F.K. and 'The Jetsons.' Man, I love that kind of stuff.

In fact, much of the show's appeal is in its obsessive attention to period detail. From the matching Arne Jacobsen chairs in the board room to the Russell Wright dinnerware on the suburban kitchen tables to those huge bronze monstrous sculptures that people hung on the wall behind the couch back then - it's all there. In fact, in one episode I saw the same floor lamp that is now standing in the living room of my own space-age bachelor pad. The show is s delight for lovers of interior design and the retro mid-century modern look. I get aroused just thinking about it.

Although the real stars of the show are the set design people, there are also actors and a plot with characters and an on-going story arc to keep you thinking while admiring all that gorgeous eye-candy.

A typical episode will revolve around the office politics going on behind the scenes at the Stirling-Cooper Agency. Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm, is the creative-director. Everyone below him wants his job. As one character notes - career success is all about knowing whose ass to kiss and when to start kicking it.

Draper himself is a bit of a mystery man. Seemingly a man with no past. Every other episode drops a clue or two that he's not the man he claims to be. It's all very Gatsby-like and I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out he once killed a man. As one character says, "Draper? Who knows anything about that guy - he could be Batman for all we know." It all makes for the perfect metaphor for this kind of show. Draper has re-invented and packaged himself as a person just as he does with the myths he creates to sell soap and tobacco.

But even if ends up being true that Draper once killed a man, in the superficial world of big-league advertising and the con-men who work there, the only thing worse for his career would be if his colleagues found out that he actually had a brain, or talent - or heaven forbid, a Soul. Or if he was a former Ivy League socialist. Or a 'serious' writer. As Draper himself puts it, "Sterling-Cooper has more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich."

No doubt about it, the man has a way with words and is a REAL writer. He's clever and witty and has a poet's economy of words. He just happens to work in the medium of combining visual images with smart concise copy. His work gets published in the full-page ads of Life magazine and on billboards instead of by Scribners or The New Yorker. And is enjoyed by more people.

His ad campaign for Gillette's new revolutionary product - the first spray-on deodorant for men - was aimed at the wives who were the actual purchasers of all such household hygiene supples. "What do women want?" he asked. "Any excuse to get closer." Now, I don't care what anyone says, that's brilliant.

Equally interesting as the set and wardrobe design is the way the producers capture the era's attitudes - particularly when it comes to smoking, recreational and on-the-job drinking and women.

Women of that world had two career choices - wife or secretary. For both, their priority was to tend to their bosses' every need. There's more than a nod to 'The Stepford Wives' in any episode of 'Mad Men.'

They weren't taken seriously, as you can see from this joke one Madison Ave. man tells at a suburban cocktail party - "Your wife and your lawyer are both drowning. You have a choice to make - do you go to lunch or a movie?"

'Mad Men' is created and produced by Matthew Weiner, a writer/producer from 'The Sopranos.' When 'Mad Men' eventually concludes, I don't expect it to suddenly fade to black and a scrambled TV-signal while some song by Journey is played.

I'm predicting they'll go out with something by Bobby Darin.