Star Men on a Mad Trek

I think I've figured out why I've liked the AMC television series Mad Men since it started in 2007.

At first, I thought it was the setting: I grew up in the '60s and '70s and remember a world much like that inhabited by Don and Betty Draper, including the smoking (I don't remember the drinking, but I assume there was a lot of that, too). The clothes and the furnishings took me right back to my parents' homes of that era.

Next, I decided it was the characters: They're all very complex, much more like real people than the average cardboard cutout TV characters. This can give the series a surreal quality, since we're watching people who seem to have real emotions and motivations living in an imaginary - though accurately-recreated - world. It's like I'm having a dream that's set in the time just before I was really aware of the world and it's populated by people I've known throughout my life.

The other day, I figured out the real reason. Not surprisingly, it has to do with Star Trek.

I'll have to address my philosophical obsession with Star Trek - the so-called Original Series - in another post. Suffice it to say right now that I can often see parallels to real life in those well-remembered 79 episodes from 1966 through 1969.

So anyway, I decided Mad Men is essentially Star Trek reimagined for an early '60s advertising agency rather than a quasi-military intergalactic expeditionary force. (Incidentally - perhaps not coincidentally - Star Trek was a reimagining of an earlier TV series, Wagon Train.)

In my interpretation, the following character parallels apply:

Don Draper = Captain Kirk
The leader; really the only one of the "crew" with guts. The guy who sees to the heart of the matter instinctively and understands where everyone else is coming from, except for those closest to him. He has a sketchy past, but has benefited from the mentorship of men he's worked for. Women love him.

Peggy Olson = Mr. Spock
Completely disconnected from emotion; rejects those who really care, but sometimes pursues someone with whom a relationship is impossible. The "brains" of the outfit on whom the leader depends for insight, support, and dedication to the job at hand. The person the leader most takes for granted.

Roger Sterling = Dr. McCoy
Completely ruled by emotion; often lashes out at those closest to him, but the crew can count on him to back them up. Prone to displaying human weakness, but has his own form of genius. The second most important person on the crew in the leader's view, but the one to whom the leader is closest personally.

Joan Harris = Scotty
Red is the dominant color for this fiery personality who keeps everything running for the leader. Another member of the crew who is taken for granted, but who is still willing to step forward to fix problems or take the lead in an emergency.

There are probably a lot of other similarities, including the parallel between the two pictures in this post. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

"Are you talking to me?"

If I were making a top five albums of all time list, I think William Shatner's Has Been from 2007 would be on it.

There are too many great moments on this album to enumerate. My absolute favorite "song" (Shatner doesn't sing, he recites, but the music is exquisite) is "That's Me Trying," which is written by Nick Hornby, with music by Ben Folds. The song is about a man trying to reconnect with his daughter after years apart.

After years of self-analysis, I've concluded that a large part of what makes me a Shatner fan is that he reminds me of my Dad. He's about the same age as my Dad, and they have other things in common, including thinning hair, thickening other parts, and a good sense of humor. In my imagination, the story Shatner tells in "That's Me Trying" is a story that could be about my Dad. It's not that bad, but there are parallels. And he's trying.

Other highlights on the album include "Together," a psychedelic tour de force with minimalist lyrics, and a cover of Pulp's "Common People," which sounds even more militant when recited by Shatner and sung by guest vocalist Joe Jackson.

Producer Ben Folds brings his melodic mastery to all the songs, making this a beautiful collaboration that I only wish could be rekindled. As it is, this is the penultimate moment of Shatner's stellar career. And yes, I know what "penultimate" means: It's a great moment just before he's done.

Companions in Adventure

With nothing else to do one night in the winter of 2010, I turned on Masterpiece to watch an updated version of Sherlock Holmes starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and was immediately hooked.

I'd never had much interest in the Victorian detective before, but something about this 21st-century interpretation intrigued me. Part of it was that I knew the creators of this series had also worked on Doctor Who. In fact, Cumberbatch was considered for the part of the 11th Doctor.

Although I really knew little about the character of Holmes, either from the stories or the numerous screen adaptations, I was impressed with Cumberbatch's approach. It was also interesting that Dr. Watson was portrayed as a British Army physician who had served in Afghanistan, linking him directly to the Arthur Conan Doyle character.

Anyway, I watched the three episodes of the series on three successive nights (on the web), and then went searching for more. Within the next three months, I read all of Doyle's works featuring Holmes.

For me, it was easy to get comfortable at 221b Baker Street. What I enjoyed most was the camaraderie of Holmes and Watson. I probably imagined myself sitting in a well-used chair by the fire, smoking, reading, and always having someone with whom to discuss an idea. Someone who expected nothing from you but integrity and consistency.

Next, I may track down the previous BBC adventures featuring Jeremy Brett. I'm also somewhat intrigued now by the Robert Downey, Jr.-Jude Law movie, which I hadn't been previously. In addition, I now see the connection to the TV show House: House/Holmes; Wilson/Watson - they even live together sometimes! Although he never played Holmes (that I know of), Hugh Laurie had a long career on British TV before House. And that leads me back to another connection: Doctor Who. Like Holmes, the Doctor is always the smartest guy in the room, and he needs a companion in his adventures, even if he can never really show that companion how much he cares.

There are probably a lot of other examples out there - I'll keep looking!

I've written reviews of all the books, including a summation of my thoughts on Holmes, on my site at LibraryThing.

Bow Ties are Cool.

I know I don't entirely get Doctor Who. There's a British quality to it that doesn't completely come across to Americans. But that's probably also one of the things I like about it.

I stumbled upon the Doctor while channel surfing one day and was intrigued. I'd been dimly aware of the series back in the '80s when a few people I knew were into it. But I was a Trekkie and an American comics fan - I didn't need anything else to make me geeky.

Now take a ride on the TARDIS with me and arrive in the year 2010. I had no idea the series had been revived, but I have an hour to kill, so I watch an episode. It happened to be "Fear Her," with David Tennant as the Doctor and Billie Piper as his companion, Rose.

If you're a Doctor Who fan, those names probably mean the world to you. To me, they were just a couple of Brits.

Still, I like SF, and I liked the dynamic between the Doctor and Rose. And I was startled to learn that the Doctor is called "the Doctor," not "Doctor Who." This last thing may have been what really fueled my obsession.

Slowly, I learned the whole back story of Doctor Who. Over the next few weeks, I learned about and followed the Doctor on BBC America, in the process meeting the new Doctor, Matt Smith, pictured above. I also got hold of all the "series" or seasons of the revived Doctor Who. And I fell in love. I was in love with Rose (just like the Doctor was, even though that's a bit of a taboo subject for serious fans, I understand), and I cried when he lost her. I also cried when the Ninth Doctor transformed into the Tenth, and the Tenth transformed into the Eleventh.

And I love the Doctor. I've also begun to watch episodes of Doctor Who Confidential, the "backstage" series that has been on BBC since the revival. In one of these, Russell T Davies, who was the prime mover behind the revival said the key thing, I think: We love the Doctor because he makes us better people. His personality doesn't always make us love him: Christopher Eccleston was a bit brooding and could be harsh; David Tennant came off a bit manic-depressive sometimes; Matt Smith is quite the absent-minded professor, more concerned about his gadgets than the lives he affects. But the Doctor always shows the people around him that they can do better, and even that they can be great.

One thing I love is how the Doctor is always fascinated with humans. He sees us as overflowing with potential. We mess up a lot. A lot. But we have an uncanny ability to fix our mistakes. A point that has been made more than once in this revived series is that an average human being is the most important thing in the universe. If that's the overall message of almost 50 years of Doctor Who, it's a good one.

What's Wrong with Baseball

To me, Johnny Damon is the poster boy for everything that is wrong with Major League baseball.

I'm a lifelong Detroit Tigers fan and I'm disgusted that they signed Damon for the 2010 season.

Damon may not be a cheater in the way Mark McGwire or Barry Bonds is, but to me, he is the symbol of the conditions in Major League baseball that led to the steroid controversy.

In a 15-year career, Damon has played for the Royals, Athletics, Red Sox, Yankees, and now the Tigers. This isn't a rant about players switching teams or free agency, this is about the way Damon did it.

In 2004, Damon was part of what could be the most dramatic World Series championship in history. As a member of the Red Sox, Damon was a key part of the League Championship Series victory over the team's arch-rival, the Yankees. You probably know the story: The Red Sox had not won the World Series since 1918, which was the year the Red Sox sold the contract of Babe Ruth to the Yankees. In the intervening years, the Yankees had won 26 World Series titles. The Red Sox were down three games to none in the best-of-seven Championship Series and mounted an historic comeback that will live in baseball lore as long as the "Curse of the Bambino" has.

The mythic proportions of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry are not lost on any baseball fan, and even modern players recognize it, and Damon is no exception to that. But when his contract was up in 2006 - one season after the miraculous defeat of the Yankees - Damon signed with the Red Sox's bitter rival.

When Willie Mays' career was winding down with the San Francisco Giants, he was offered a contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He said he couldn't sign with the Giants' biggest rival after trying so hard to beat them all those years.

"It's just business," is the rational answer to my objections, but Major League baseball isn't a business to fans. It's a game, an inspiration, a tradition, a passion, and more.

So now Damon is on the Tigers. It really makes it hard to watch.

Hating the Whos

I've had a theory for a few years that Dr. Seuss intended How the Grinch Stole Christmas (published in 1957) to be an allegory of the Holocaust.

Now that I've written that out, it seems really stupid.

Anyway, the Grinch lives up on Mt. Crumpit looking down on Whoville and hating the Whos. A large part of the tragedy of World War II had to do with Germans hating the Jews.

Now here's where my theory completely falls apart (I know, it falls apart pretty near the beginning). The Whos love Christmas, and of course the Jews don't (traditionally speaking). Of course the Germans - generally speaking - would love Christmas, being a predominantly Christian country (Klaus is a common German first name, based on a shortening of Nicholas). So I guess what happened is Dr. Seuss turned the whole thing around to turn the book into an panegyric on Christianity. The Grinch hates the Whos like the Germans hated the Jews, if the Germans had held onto their Christian beliefs, they would have loved their fellow beings, just as the Grinch learns to love the Whos by accepting the magic of Christmas. Far-fetched as this is, there is a book called The Parables of Dr. Seuss that proposes many of his stories, including that of the Grinch, contain a Christian message.

Completing this entry makes me think it would be a bad idea to write - as I was planning to - on the connection between J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books and William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch.

Warm and Fuzzy Commercials

I used to work in advertising, so I guess I have some cred when it comes to commercials. TV is a huge part of the arts, and TV advertising sometimes takes on the status of poetry (let's not get carried away!). For me, a case in point is the series of commercials from Liberty Mutual Insurance on the theme of "responsibility."

I'm the last one to give insurance companies credit for anything remotely altruistic, and as advertising messages, these commercials ring hollow. But as short films, I love them.

Like me, you may have seen the commercials and not realized what they were advertising: They're all a series of extremely short vignettes where somebody does something nice for somebody else: opening a door, picking up something dropped, etc. Another character in the scene sees this and then we see that character doing something nice for somebody else, and so on. That's it. Logo, slogan, website, the end.

I guess the idea is that Liberty Mutual is more responsible than other insurance companies (OK, but the field isn't very hard to beat on that!). But the idea itself - that little things we do every day out of politeness or empathy can really make a difference in the world - is quite beautiful.

You can see the commercials on Liberty Mutual's YouTube site: http://www.youtube.com/user/LibertyMutualAds

The campaign is part of Liberty Mutual's "Responsibility Project," which seems to have a lot of interesting ideas attached to it. There are also several short films on the theme of responsibility on this site: http://www.responsibilityproject.com/

Of course I'm not endorsing Liberty Mutual, or the insurance industry in general, but I like these commercials.