The Dao of Don Draper

While I don't watch much ordinary American TV, (and virtually never when it is actually being aired) I have been caught up with Mad Men, since the beginning (although frustrated because I like to watch things back-to-back, to their conclusion, like working through a long novel on a long weekend.)   Korean dramas give you vastly more content in one sitting.  Over the past six or eight months I have watched The West Wing and Frasier, the way I watch one of my beloved 24- or 63- or  81-episode Korean dramas. Watching a series back-to-back without commercial interruption on Netflix gets it out of your system.

Mad Men appeals to me because: 1) I grew up in that era, albeit as the not-so-unruly daughter of an honorable WWII father (not of the Korean war), who vaguely resembled Don Draper; 2) I have close friends who worked in a major New York ad agency in the late '60s and early '70s, one as a media buyer and another in creative; 3) I have media background myself, and actually covered stories of the period that were related to racial unrest and civil rights, Vietnam, counter-culture activities, and very ordinary mundane things like weddings and Kiwanis meetings; and 4) the costumes, sets and general ambiance are so palpably familiar.

I was a little disappointed as this sixth season has developed...until the last episode.  And I had the insight about something I always vow not to do: consider "the Dao of Don Draper."  Generally when something is presented as the "Dao of" I run the other way.  But there are some lessons here.

What a strange and selfish character he is.  Dapper Draper, impeccable and despicable. All story and no substance. All fiction and image. An invention of the self.  A perfect ad man. A magician. A wizard.  Until he begins to confront his own real story, long repressed.  Will he be redeemed?  Will he just continue that free-fall from the opening credits? One or the other. I hope for redemption, but a splat on the sidewalk somehow seems just as likely. Or suffering from lung cancer and cirrhosis, rejected and pitied by his family and colleagues, unable to get veterans' benefits for treatment in a VA hospital (where Dr. Gregory House is "interested" in his case). Who knows? Infinite possibilities.

But now I have to wait another season to find out.  While having plenty of time to review the series, back-to-back, ironically sans commercials, to look at the clues.

HARDLY WORTH COUNTING
If Nielsen diaries are manually tabulated by a real person, like piecework, whoever counts my 15-minute increments of broadcast or cable television viewing will move three diaries through in record time. Two of the three don't count at all; one TV was never turned on and the other discarded just before the survey period but after the diaries were issued. Regarding the third, only one hour and 45 minutes in one week by one viewer will need to be counted or scored or whatever they do. And that was a couple of times when CNN news was on in the background while I was brushing my teeth and looking for clean underwear. The other two times, which actually might count as "watching," more like rubbernecking, were pondering the offerings of the Falun Dafa network, one of which currently is a Korean drama (The Great Queen Seondeok) with Mandarin audio and English subtitles. My limited viewing period also featured a behind-the-scenes production story of Shen Yun; subscription solicitiations (advertising) to The Epoch Times and a lot of odd health and wellness promotions. Still, much of it was in Chinese and thus a language learning opportunity. (My Chinese painting teacher has been learning English through Bible study.)

Not that the big new 50" plasma TV hasn't been used. Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber is a veritable travelogue of Wudang, but watching personal DVDs or Netflix doesn't count in Nielsen's rating eyes. (This was verified through at least two phone conversations from representatives of the company, making sure I was doing the diaries correctly. "Don't forget to mail them on Thursday," I was reminded.) Too bad. Personally selected and controlled viewing might be a statistic that would be useful.

COMPARE & CONTRAST :
The Sword and the Scalpel
(Morning after Autumnal Equinox)

Now I remember why I gave up on network television. Watching an interesting program with commercial interruptions is like walking through a gallery that assaults you with advertising billboards between the fine art. Distracting and shameless.

While watching the season opener of House, I began to have a wild feeling, like Chu Zhaonan (Vincent Zhao Wen Zhou), caressing the hilt of his sword and trying to restrain himself from unleashing its power:

I'm going to have to figure out where to download House sans advertising, or wait until the DVDs come out.

So House is in and out of the institution, where he confronts the concept of compromise with the system to get his own life in order. And don't we all.

It's the same conflict in Seven Swordsmen: Chu/ZWZ kills all the people he was trying to save from the evil establishment and destroys his own self in the process. It's hubris, stuff of tragedy. House and Chu are both trying to overcome it. I have yet to see who really succeeds. (I think we already know hardly anyone really does, as seen in Greek tragedy,the Bible and Shakespeare.)

Last night I left Chu at the Buddhist Temple where he is trying to come to grips with what he did (while the girl whose love for him was unrequited is arriving with a sword to avenge her father, who was accidentally killed when Dad fell on Chu's blade. But of course in these things -- soap operas, really --no one learns the truth until too late, if ever.) I have a feeling House will be back at Mayfield at some point; it seemed too simple last night (or it was the commercial interruptions). I have yet two more commercial free episodes with the Swordsmen; I'll watch them tonight; unfortunately I know what happens. There is more hope, for House.

And yes, there was blood spurting out of mouths in both shows.

THE REALITY OF TV

Reviewing the current "line-up" of available "Standard Service" channels in the updated brochure that came with my new cable converter, I see that in addition to the usual networks, shopping channels, news channels, sports channels, weather channels, science channels, soap channels, and history channels (all Hitler, all the time), we have The Pentagon Channel. What could that possibly be? Maybe something IS on.

No CIA, NSA, or NRO channel, though. Now there's a premium package that might be worth it! Think of the potential for reality TV.

You can learn a lot about American values by reviewing a list of available television. No CCTV though. But I sorta wish. They probably have a kung fu/wu xia channel. Now that I think of it, every time I turned on the TV in China the past couple years--all of four or five times in Hong Kong, Beijing or Xian hotels--there was some swordplay drama in progress, with commercials advertising TCM --and I don't mean Turner Classic Movies. Or the bizarre Chinese Idol program called "Dancing With Wolves." And a morning business news program about capitalism with socialist characteristics with reports about environmentally responsible packaging of mooncakes, scandals in the quantity labeling of instant noodles, and new

universal zoning regulations (land reform, again?). The commentator closed with the ambiguous remark to viewers, "Thank you for your company."

As an aside here, I share my view of the big new CCTV headquarters, the strange yin/yang engineering marvel/disaster as it was going up in Beijing in '07 (at right), completed just after the '08 Olympics.

I'm old enough to remember TV when we got only two channels (a yin and a yang), colloquially referred to not by their call letters, the number on the dial, or their network affiliation. One, the CBS outlet, was known by the name of the local bourgeois dynasty that owned it, "Gable's," the family who also owned a radio station and the local department store (and perhaps today, Gable's Cable). Probably just as well: the call letters, WFBG (the initials of the dynasty's patriarch), were interpreted by juvenile delinquents as an obscene acronym which I won't explain here. (Needless to say, WFBG radio was not the one that played rock and roll.) The other channel, an NBC station (WJAC), was identified by its city of origin, Johnstown (of flood infamy), but you needed more than rabbit ears to get that one from my hometown. Deprivation was knowing that the Saturday cartoons you really wanted to watch were on Johnstown, not Gable's, but they came in fuzzy and Dad was still sleeping so couldn't fiddle with the antenna. It was a really revolutionary thing, in so many ways, even more than color, when we finally had access to a third channel, the "educational" station out of State College/Penn State University.

Now you just have to pay a cable bill or install a satellite dish to extend your television viewing options. I see reading the finer print it's not completely clear that I actually get the Pentagon Channel. I'll have to tune in just to find out. And, I really do want to see exactly who the sponsors are!