Mad About Men

I can’t stop watching that television show about the Madison Avenue advertising agency. You know, the one based in the 60s that chronicles Don Draper’s sorry life.

The harder they come, the harder they fall, and this bird fell late.  Season 6 marks my first year of indentured servitude on Sunday nights.

Did you hear that song on Mad Men?  What song, you ask.  Any song.  Think about it, what song do you remember hearing on Mad Men? I’ve dissected away the draw of scenes where folks smoke and drink ad lib. What remains are a few nice suits and some darn good songs. They’ve hooked me with the songs. It’s acoustic memory central.

I just finished Season 1, and “My Special Angel,” (written by Bobby Helms but made known to me in the late 60s by the Pennsylvania group the Vogues) stands out as the most tongue-in-cheek song selection of the whole season. After learning that the neighbor threatened to kill the Draper dog if it attacks another one of his birds, we see Mrs. Draper in a pink peignoir, coiffed and manicured, of course, shooting the neighbor’s birds out of the sky with a shotgun while we listen to Bobbie Vinton sing “My Special Angel.”  

I can hardly wait for the Season 6 finale tomorrow night.  I don’t care what Don Draper does.  I’m just in it for the songs.

You are my special angel/

Right from paradise/

I know that you’re an angel/

Heaven is in your eyes

“My Special Angel”

--Bobby Helms

She Came in Through the Bathroom Window

A bird flew into my bathroom this morning.  She gave me a quite a start when I entered the room and heard her fluttering about. The bird brain thought about nesting in my drying lingerie before trying to escape through a skylight.

I'd carelessly left the window open after taking some photos of pink blossoms. But really the mistake was all hers.

The moral of the story is don't fly into every open window, especially when the beauty of the tree outside trumps the beauty of the woman inside with the broom.

She came in through the bathroom window/
Protected by a silver spoon/
But now she sucks her thumb and wanders/
By the banks of her own lagoon

"She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"
--J. Lennon, P. McCartney

Naked Eye

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?  Don’t think about this too long.  The worst you’ve ever seen.

Now, is that image worse or better than the image of a child who has been shot at close range with a semi-automatic weapon?

Michael Moore’s suggestion that photos of the Sandy Hook victims should be released is being criticized, and Fox News, of course, is stating that the Sandy Hook parents object.  But we know that may not be uniformly true because one mother took the governor by the hand and led him to her son’s casket. Fox couldn't reach that parent.

When I saw victims of drunk drivers at the state medical examiner’s office in Louisville, and when I sat at my microscope at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center diagnosing lung cancer, I often thought, if only everybody could see this. Seeing is believing there should be a change. Seeing firsthand is sensing the gravity of the problem, sensing it right down to your curling toes. 

If legislators could see victims of mass slayings with a naked eye, would they be more inclined to ban assault weapons?  That’s an interesting question that Veronique Pozner posed before Michael Moore.  But given the averted massacre at the University of Central Florida this week, it’s a question I hope we can answer sooner rather than later.

With my naked eye/

I saw all if I said it all/

I could see

“Naked Eye,” Jill Cunniff

Let It Grow

I’ve just been advised I can have a 22 X 22 foot plot of land on Franklin & Marshall's property.  The only stipulation is keep it organic.

This prospect of land for a garden has given me spring fever, even though there’s still snow on my front lawn.

Lancaster soil is fabled to be among the most fertile in the country.  Yet my beautiful pine and linden and oak trees won’t let in enough sun for a proper yard to kitchen garden.  The promise of this plot of land has my wheels spinning.

What to cultivate?  How to choose?  Part of me says be utilitarian and consider what you purchase at Central Market. Part of me says be sentimental and select symbolic plantings (like wildflowers for my dear state of Texas or a rose bush for my sweet grandmother, Rose Farmer, or mint for my Kentucky Derby juleps).

As with anything in life, half the fun will surely be in the plotting and scheming.

So many decisions….

Standing at the crossroads, trying to read the signs/

To tell me which way I should go to find the answer/

And all the time I know,/

Plant your love and let it grow.

“Let It Grow,” Eric Clapton

Check out the Hofmann Family Blues Experience (no relation) covering Clapton’s tune.

The Morning After the Smokeout

This isn't a review of Up in Smoke or the sequel to Richard Linklater's Slacker.  This is advice for moving beyond the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout if you're a smoker.

Today you won't have the rest of the country to support you as you quit.  But you can have the power of music to fortify you.

Instead of stepping outside into the cold (if you're in Philly) or putting yourself at risk in the sun's rays (if you're in Phoenix), try taking five with a song instead of smoking.

The Industry powerfully equips the cigarette with chemicals to stimulate and chemicals to relax.  (Boy, did they think of everything to hook you.)  It's time to load some tunes into your iPod to plan a counterinsurgency.

You'll need songs to make you wanna set the world on fire, and songs to rock you to sleep.  I suggest you try some new songs for your new life without the old addiction.  Of course, don't include any you associate with smoking.  If that means moving down the dial to the kids' station, it may be time to "get to Sesame Street."

Here are suggestions to start your song list if you want to stop smoking.

Songs to Get You Moving:

"Start Me Up" (M. Jagger, K. Richards)

"Ain't No Mountain Higher" (N. Ashford, V. Simpson)

"Hercules" (E. John, B. Taupin)

"A Little Bit of Soul" (J. Carter, K. Lewis)

"Living in the U.S.A." (S. Miller)

Songs to Help You Unwind:

"Lenny" (S.R. Vaughan)

"Melissa" (G. Allman)

"Miracles" (M. Balin)

"Winterlong" (N. Young)

Oh, we're gonna make it baby/

Oh, we're going to shake it, baby/

Oh, don't break it!

"Living in the U.S.A."

-S. Miller

Pink

According to the American Association of Cancer Research, half of women who could get mammograms don’t get them. 

If mammogram anxiety is keeping you or someone you love from getting a mammogram, here are some tips to share with women who are eligible for the screening.

• Schedule your mammogram for the first two weeks of your menstrual cycle when your breasts are less tender. The compression during the exam will be less uncomfortable that way.

• When you call to make the appointment, get the mailing address in case you need to send any previous mammograms in advance of your appointment. Find out the exact physical location of the building and ask where to park.

• Plan a fun activity to follow the mammogram, but make sure that it is one with a flexible start time since you won’t be able to control how much time your visit to the radiology department will take.

• The night before the exam, pack your insurance card into your purse and review your breast health history, including all procedures and screening exams since you will be filling out a history sheet in the office before your mammogram. Also, check your calendar and write down the date of your last menstrual period—you will be asked for it.

• Plan to wear a shirt that won't wrinkle when it's folded into a plastic bag and left there for a couple hours.  

• Pack your deodorant into your purse the night before your mammogram.  This way you won’t risk applying it out of habit before your appointment and it will be in your possession after your appointment when you are getting dressed the second time that day.

• Eat breakfast the morning of your mammogram. Even if you're scheduled for eight o’clock and think you’ll be at the bagel shop by nine o’clock, eat at home.  You never know what delays could occur or what additional tests could be performed over the course of the morning.  Stress plus an empty stomach is a recipe for a bad experience.

• Take a portable music player. I say this for two reasons.  One, you will make yourself unavailable for chitchat with well-meaning people who will try to strike up a conversation with you but who may only stress you out more with their own story.  Two, you will be able to drown out the audio of the TV in the waiting room that may be blaring something that could zap your positive attitude.

• Take your own reading material. I once flipped through a waiting room magazine and found an ad memorializing a breast cancer victim; the ad only made me worry more.

• When your visit in radiology is over, be certain that you completely understand when you are supposed to return to the clinic for your next appointment.   Mark that date on your calendar as soon as you return home. 

Pink.

It’s not even a question.

“Pink” 

-Tyler, Supa, Ballard

There's a First Time for Everything

Four hundred and twenty blackbirds just flew into the trees outside my window. I ran to the sunroom and opened the door to hear the cry of the birds accompanied by the sound of displaced acorns falling on the patio.

I’ve never seen this before.

“There’s a first time for everything.”  Remember when someone said this to you as a kid? The context was never good.  You had left your guitar at home and Sister Juanita was mad at you.  You had just been bit by Hot Diggity Dog and blood was seeping through your shirt.  You had gotten your first B from Ms. Pica in typing class and you saw your GPA plummeting for a business course your mom said you had to take but Madame Danzig said should have been sacrificed for German.

You’ve stayed up all night before.  It’s preferably with a lover and preferably not with a sick child who wants you to read The Guest Who Threw Tomatoes over and over until dawn.  This week I stayed up all night with a dog, only to take her to the ER at six in the morning.  A first.  There’s a first time for everything.

There is a first time for everything. Just sometimes though, there will come that first time for something that will be glorious.  It will be splendid.  And if it happens at a certain age when you think first times will not send you, you will be doubly blessed.

I’ve had some notable first times recently.  One came last night.

I was in my office, editing, when an e came in at nine-thirty from my son.  The subject line was “wrote this for english” (sic). It was a poem, his first. 

My son, how did you know which words to capitalize?  My son, how did you know about structure?  My son, where do these deep thoughts reside when you are walking through the house shuffling a deck of cards with a blank look on your face?

To my son, who used to tell children, “My mom is a writer but I can’t write”: You were wrong.  But don’t worry, there’s a first time for everything.  And I hope that in the balance, most of them are splendid.

All your life/

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

“Blackbird”

Lennon-McCartney