Ah, the apple trees!

You would think since I've been in advertising for 43 years, more people would ask me what I think of Mad Men. But they don't. So, I'll give my opinion anyway. First of all, in the late 60s, when I was at an important agency in Boston (never worked on Madison Avenue) female creatives were treated the same as men. I never knew a single executive to have a open bar in his office, though lots had hidden liquor. People did drink at lunch and often came back smashed. Most writers and directors were wildly overpaid and, to my mind, with few exceptions, not all that brilliant. It was rare to find a writer who actually wrote something other than ads. The least talented had the biggest egos. Sadly, there wasn't that much intramural sex, but there were always a few open affairs. Unlike the Mad Men agency, being gay was no big deal. Lunch, however, was a very big deal and the part of the job I always liked most. I notice on Mad Men that Peggy nor any writer has to write much body copy. We wrote reams of it, including lots of rejected radio spots. (The writing, by the way, was much more literate then.) In fact my best work (and others, I am sure) was never produced. Clients generally approved the less brilliant idea and Account Executives rarely had any fight in them. Often the minions who drew the storyboards for TV and pasted up the mechanical for print were far more talented than the art directors and writers who often copied ideas from the piles of award-winning ad books in their offices. Creatives thought that what they did was valuable; I thought of everything as fabulous today, forgotten tomorrow. The most real character to me on Mad Men is Joan. It seems like every agency I worked for had one. She was either loved or despised, and often ever bit as voluptuous as Joan. Do I love the show? Of course. It wonderful. Does it ring true to me. Mostly. But then I didn't work in New York, just Boston and Miami. What do I consider the most ironic part of my career? Easy. That there were so many Peter Principle clients who didn't recognize good work when they saw it and worried over every comma or inflicted their personal neuroses into every campaign. On the other hand, when I worked in Miami, there was one female client who wasn't a nitpicker, trusted the agency and—because she made so few changes in my copy—was my favorite client of all, though I only met her a few times: Leona Helmsley. That's all I can think or right now. I will probably add more later.