Mad Men: My Farewell Critique

After watching Mad Men for 8 seasons, I felt compelled to weigh in on the series finale and where the main characters ended up. It’s not going to offer the deep criticism of some other pundits. Rather, in broad strokes, this will be about the impression I was left with, or stuck with, as someone who’s appreciated this show for as long as I have, as we have.

I didn’t have the same compulsion to write something like this for my beloved Breaking Bad, but then again, I thought that show was not only stronger in many ways. It certainly had a better, more fitting, and perhaps more convincing finale overall. It didn’t need excessive punditry because the show capped itself off well enough on its own. Also while BB had a decidedly artful, “down” wrap-up, MM’s was decidedly “up” finale all-around. Most or all of the characters’ end-beats seemed a little forced after enduring so much of the show’s darkness, ambiguity and mystery. The feel-good shift in tone and abruptness of loose ends and messy lives being tidied up so quickly felt like a bit of a betrayal of sorts at best, cheap and lazy TV at worst. 

But that’s not to say the finale, and the series overall, was lacking in bright spots. There’s light and dark in all great art—and highs and lows in any great TV series—and this was no exception.

Don Draper, suave but tortured

Let’s start with where Don Draper ends up. It was nice for him, and nice for us that he ended up in a nice place, at least for that moment. But this season and so many of the last spent so much screen time on his affairs and self-destructive behavior without him really hitting bottom or mining the kind of intense dramatic possibilities of his past, his flaws, and identity crisis, all of which are of course intertwined. By his last moment of the show, Don is a rich man who’s essentially been freed of family obligations, a job, and even guilt, it seems.

Things seemed to be going in the right direction in the last few episodes, when he stripped himself of his job, his car, and even his sense of place by leaving New York and his apartment. It’s worth noting that Don voluntarily gave these things away instead of them being taken from him, as they were when he was demoted last season. 

What if Don hadn’t just been demoted from the partnership, but fired, and he spent this last season re-discovering who he was without money, or being forced to become a more responsible parent or adult, especially when faced with his wife having cancer (Sorry, I always liked Betty’s character and thought this trope felt especially lazy and soap-operish)?

What if he got thrown in prison for taking Don Draper’s name, his past finally catching up to him? I feel like the show gave him a pass on many fronts by not making him suffer more, which would have simply made for better television. It feels like his finding peace as a rich unemployed person on the freewheeling left coast, however temporarily, felt almost like some soft of bachelor fantasy that failed to evolve his character beyond reaching a crisis point that had been built up over eight years and resolved in 50 some minutes. 

I would have been more convinced if Don had run away to Canada, or even upstate New York, to write the Great American novel, to provide one potential alternate scenerio. Don’s creative integrity and deep aesthetic soulfulness had always been hinted at in the show with shots of him reading, his guilt and regrets, his creative genius, his ability and apparent satisfaction with being alone, and in his powers of perception about the true nature of the world—at least as he sees it. 

Aside from relating to a complete stranger’s confession about feeling invisible and unloved, none of this depth was realized in a way that authentically integrated or expressed Don’s character. And even that scene failed to convince me as there didn’t seem to be any real connection between this man’s feeling invisible and Don’s feeling like an empty shell or phony. 

The whole series teased us with Don’s impending destruction in a very real way, in a way that would force him to face his fractured sense of self before he could put himself back together. This search for identity—along with the pitfalls, crises, and growth that come with it—is a fairly common journey in truly great movies, and depicted in less than 100 minutes, let alone 8 seasons. It seems like the internet water cooler would disagree, but I’m going to chalk up where we were left on Don’s character arc and redemption as not necessarily a terrible failure, but rather a somewhat unconvincing and sterile letdown overall, at least dramatically.

Roger Sterling, Mad Men's comic relief

Roger Sterling: His scenes with his new French wife were cute and seemed true to his character. After this, I can see him actually drifting away from the ad business, and perhaps business in general, to do something different and more genuine and satisfying for him. As adventurous, sharp, and funny as Roger is—and with his military background—I think he’ll end up driving his wife crazy checking certain things off his bucket list before having a heart attack while skiing in the Alps, dying on his back with a smile on his face. Or something like that. 

Roger’s final scenes with Megan’s mom seemed about as realistic as any marriage we’ve seen on TV or real life. He’s always wanted to have a good time and doesn’t take himself or all of it too seriously. As such, his end beats were more consistent with his character and convincing to me than the other characters’ end beats. In many ways, he’s always seemed like one of the happiest characters on the show, however one might define that. It’s fitting he leaves us this way.

This was an iconic shot and yet I can't see Peggy doing this.

Peggy Olson: Full disclosure, I have to say I’ve never been terribly interested in Peggy’s character even though, like Don, she’s a fellow writer. She was too mousy for too long, and too brassy too quickly. Since she got promoted, other characters have been telling us how great/promising she is—including Don, Joan and Pete, and even Roger (!). Aside from a nice pitch or two, have we really seen this? Her development from office wallflower to assertive powerhouse seems more convincing than this often told-not-shown perception of her as a creative genius, let alone her role as Don's protege. Her presence on the show, right down to her affair with Pete Campbell, never quite added up for me—and I qualify this by saying that I've always thought Elizabeth Moss is a very good and appealing actress. I just never feel like Peggy really needed a spotlight or fit on the show in a way I found to be super-convincing or interesting. 

I don’t think there’s too much to say about Peggy and Stan’s hurried, romcom get-together that hasn’t already been said, or that’s not totally obvious. I can’t see a cool guy like Stan, with his self-image as an artiste, getting romantically involved with someone as driven and sometimes people-clumsy as Peggy. Plus, as other pundits have pointed out, it undermined their formerly platonic, often funny office relationship—one in which they seemed to see through each other’s self-image in ways that should have ultimately driven them apart, which is where I thought that last scene could have gone. Hear me out here.

Stan’s fear of Peggy taking Joan’s offer and the prospect of her leaving his work life seemed much more true to me than leaving him romantically, let alone his confessing his love for her in such a sappy manner. They should have stopped at Stan trying to get her to stay in his work life, with us knowing that eventually won’t happen, either through Peggy’s promotion at the agency or leaving it altogether. Peggy has always been trying to actualize herself in a way that will leave Stan behind, which would have been sadder for both of them, and of course, for us. Just seeing Stan be vulnerable like that, and Peggy responding to it with her mask and defenses down, however briefly, would have set that trajectory in motion in a way that could have been so much more satisfying.

Joan Holloway: a bombshell who's all business

Joan: I don’t have much to say about Joan. Christina Hendricks is a wonderful actress playing a very well drawn and well written character. She looks and plays the part and and epitomises the show’s notions of feminism in ways that seems very real and convincing. In many ways, I’ve always felt like the show’s creator seems to know her character—how she reacts, her motivations—best. The show, and maybe its viewers, have become increasingly invested in Joan over time. The temptation of a leisurely life with a pretty cool guy, and her turning it down, convinced me.

My favorite character, Pete Campbell

Pete Campell: I’ll admit that Pete has always been my favorite character on the show, with Don and Roger close seconds. He’s easy for me to relate to in certain ways, but it has more to do with Vincent Kartheiser’s portrayal of him and the humor and pathos he brings to the role.

Throughout the series, Pete is an essentially unhappy and sometimes morally challenged character. He’s a classic small man who wants to be bigger and has always been relentless and ruthless in his pursuit of that. He feels less-than, maligned, entitled, upstanding, judgemental, angry at the results of his own moral failings, and smug—sometimes all in the same episode. Some of the show’s biggest laughs come from his raging that the world isn’t rewarding him for his importance as he simultaneously doubts it. He’s a Napoleon complex with a heart. In many ways, I’ve always seen him as the show’s most brutally honest expression of its cynicism, humor and existentialism—especially when he’s stymied, which is often.

I personally thought Pete’s reconciliation with Trudy in the show’s second-to-last episode was one of the show’s most touching and memorable scenes in its history, maybe even TV history. It took an alcoholic headhunter’s flattery and an even better job offer to make him feel big enough to realize and admit his mistakes, and that it wasn’t too late to rectify them. I like to think he and Trudy (played by the wonderful Alison Brie) will be happy for the rest of their lives, because Pete’s smart and experienced enough not to blow it again. I loved where the show left him and wish them well. I will miss them both as fixtures in my TV fantasy life.

Poor, misunderstood Betty. I'll always be a fan.

Betty Draper: I never understood why a certain set of the audience hated this character. She’s always seemed the most self-aware and pragmatic of all—clear-headed and decisive in a sea of flawed men. It doesn’t hurt that January Jones is a beautiful and superb actress whom I hope will enjoy a long career (she’s been a welcome addition to The Last Man on Earth). I wish Betty’s end hadn’t come on in such a cliche manner, but giving her cancer gave her a chance to shine and put on full display what I think are her defining, admirable qualities. 

During her phone conversation with Don, I like to think he said something like, “I screwed up. I always loved you and I always will.” To which she replied on-camera, “I know.” It was a beautiful, touching scene I’ll never forget. 

RIP Betty, you cold-hearted but noble ice queen smokeshow.

The eyepatch is a lost piece of Ken's soul.

Ken Cosgrove: I always liked Ken. He was a normal, nice person swimming in a sea of sharks. Early in the show’s run, he got a story published in the New Yorker, which back in the day was akin to getting on the launch pad for a serious literary career. I liked that his character naturally got figuratively chewed up in the ad game to the point of getting overrun by roughneck clients and getting shot in the face. The eyepatch was a nice cinematic symbol for this, carrying into the last season. 

Ken truly became someone who lost a part of himself, including his true calling and peaceful nature. Instead we saw him descend into prideful revenge and spite by his staying in the ad game and taunting Pete and partners with potential business he knew he’d never grant. The real tragedy is that he could have been happy writing the Great American Novel in that farmhouse his wife tried to sell him on. 

I didn’t think the show really gave Ken an ending or beginning, if you will, the way it did the other characters, which is too bad considering his arc from nice guy to embittered prick played out nicely and convincingly. I like to think that at some point after the series finale, after he finally gets over getting let go, his wife can talk him into his pursuing his true calling once again. 

But... maybe by now he’s lost too much, and that can happen. And that’s just as tragic as never being able to regain it again—especially since, more than any other character, Ken had the potential to realize and be at peace with himself by the End, meaning the end of his life. How many of us can truly say that? (< deep thought)

Stephanie calls the Don Draper hotline (collect).

Anna Draper's niece, Stephanie: Too much screen time for this character... Also seemed like the wrong device or character to pull Don into the hippie den and have that blissful moment at the end. 

What about the real Don Draper’s wife? Could her ghost have haunted him instead? Could the police have caught up to Don’s ruse instead? We haven’t seen or been invested enough in Anna’s story or relationship to Don for me to feel like this was the best impetus for his personal crisis, which really should have come about a long time ago. 

A key component of any great storytelling is integration. Things come full-circle, the world stays within itself, relationships and events follow a natural order specific to the characters’ motivations and the show’s world-building. Stephanie just seemed like an outlier, a dramatic deux a machina that didn’t work and stymied Don’s ending and the episode as a whole.

I loved Mad Men. I always thought of it as a soap opera that transcended that genre by becoming art—ironically when it seemed to be trying least to do so. For me, it worked best when it was less about Don and more about work and business, and how people projected their self-image, ambitions and fantasy in the communal, hierarchical workplace. The Office, especially the American version, intrigued me for those same reasons. What better venue to put on display and contrast a character’s true nature against their private life than the workplace? 

Not surprisingly, much of the show’s running time outside the office or a business context—as necessary as it was—was often the least interesting to me, dramatically or otherwise. When was Roger most interesting than when he was told he’d be losing Hilton’s business? Or Don than when he took that huge risk by crashing a reluctant client’s office to make a pitch? Or Pete when bitching in his office about others, his life outside the office, his wants just out of his reach?

There’s so much I will miss about the show. It’s artfulness, it’s depth, mystery and darkness. The time it took in developing its characters. The business machinations that led us to the partnership leading to their selling out to McCann. 

Sure, the show has always been hamstrung by a certain inconsistency in quality and even tone, along with writing that was at times much too writerly and clearly influenced by a playwriting style of writing: longish monologues, static locations, bonds formed over meals, forced situations (Peggy and Roger's final scene together coming to mind, where again, he tells her how great she is and will be), on-the-nose dialogue. 

Sadly, the last episode especially seemed to succumb to these weaknesses, maybe because of overinvolvement from Weiner and his writing the last episode (...and I say this with all due respect). It seemed more soap-opera-ish and suffered from more conventional TV "wrap-up" tropes than ever.

Ending the final episode on the classic ‘70s Coke ad, in my view, was a mistake. From as early on as the weekly opening credits sequence, the show had always been a character study of those spiraling past the illusions they peddled and chased after for themselves. At the end of the sequence, the silhouette of a man we presume to be Don remains in his office, an illusion himself puffing on a cigarette, perhaps still contemplating or feeling that suicide attempt.

The Coke ad is a ridiculous kumbaya spot that hinges on an insipid song that cynically positions mass-produced bottles of sugar water as an elixir that gets the whole world—people of every color, every walk of life, every age—singing together in harmony.

Maybe it was simply used as a device to show us where the ad world and show ended up along its trajectory of America history and ad culture. 

Pundits seem to assume or suggest that Don himself went on to create this ad. Perhaps it’s the kind of the touchy-feely, cloying, populist, cynical dreck he goes on to specialize in. 

As the series’ final images, this commercial seemed to say little about the characters’ journey, who they were, or what they became, and what they wanted or thought they wanted. I feel like if Don were going to get back into the game and create a new spot in the ‘70s, it would be something more artful and lasting (at least to industry types like me), like Ridley Scott’s classic “1984” ad for Apple. Something that showed him as someone who realized his own emptiness, and thus at least evolved into someone who strove to “create something of lasting value”—a goal of Peggy’s he recently “shit on,” as she put it. After all, why else would Don read novels? Surely he’d at least see those as something of lasting value, even if he wasn’t capable of seeing his own children in that way.

Maybe I’m just projecting, wanting to think he’s—that we’re—better than that. 

Addendum 5/21, one day after writing the above post:

Matthew Weiner confirms Don Draper wrote the Coke ad. 

He says:

"I did hear rumblings of people talking about the ad being corny. It's a little bit disturbing to me, that cynicism," Weiner said. "I'm not saying advertising's not corny, but I'm saying that the people who find that ad corny, they're probably experiencing a lot of life that way, and they're missing out on something. Five years before that, black people and white people couldn't even be in an ad together. ... That ad in particular is so much of its time, so beautiful and, and I don't think, [is] as... villainous as the snark of today."

I still think it's just a bad/corny ad, and as such not a good way to end/begin Don's story and the series.*

I found this interview and quote with a legendary McCann art director somewhat validating:

"The ads they come up with at Sterling Cooper are pretty crappy. There’s no way Draper did the Coke commercial."

- Greg Birbil was an art director and executive at McCann Erickson [for four decades], the giant ad agency that dominates the last episodes of Mad Men.

(100% agree. That's what I said above yesterday*.)

*But hey, I'm not Matt Weiner.

Related articles of interest:

'Mad Men' finale delivers 'dramatic and appropriate' end

“Why Did Don Stop Running?”, Slate

Recommended Reading:

Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad

Get Social:

Listen to my new song, "Bigfoot's an Alien," on Bandcamp

My Facebook page (let's be friends)

Twitter

Bigfoot's an Alien

Just before the birth of my son, Noah, a song started to bubble up for the first time in years. I hummed bits and pieces into my iPhone, then it was time to write the song on guitar.

Fortunately I'd been taking guitar lessons for about five months, so getting into the groove on my writing instrument wasn't that much of a strain. I demoed it in GarageBand, rehearsed on drums and guitar a few times, then found a great local producer, Scott Llamas, and knocked it out in two four-hour sessions. 

"Bigfoot's an Alien" was born. You can take a listen or free-download the track (or donate) on Bandcamp here.

At some point, I definitely need to write more about where this song came from. Suffice it to say for now I've had a lifelong fascination with Bigfoot, but after years of research as both a kid and adult, I'm still hard-pressed to reach some sort of definitive conclusion about what Bigfoot is. 

I'm not making any assertions that Bigfoot is an alien, but I don't know what to think anymore. So take a listen, look into the legend, and decide for yourself. 

Other sites in the BF community have been nice enough to post the song, so go on over to those links and leave some nice likes and comments, if you're so inclined (below). Thanks for listening!

- Rich

Bigfootevidence.com

Though I don't agree with the basic premise of the song, I do love anything bigfooty. Enjoy this free song from Rich Turgeon:https://richardturgeon.bandcamp.com/track/bigfoots-an-alien
Posted by Cliff Barackman on Saturday, March 28, 2015

An Open Letter to Apple

Dear Apple,

I've been a loyal user since the late '90s. However—and it pains me to say this—some things just suck lately. I need to tell you that the hate-filled rants I see on social media from other loyalists are making me think it's not just me.

But let's lead with the positive: the hardware.

The MacBook Air is simply the best laptop I've ever used. It's beautiful. It's light. Typing on the backlit keyboard makes my fingers happy. The battery life is unparalleled. It's infinitely faster than the MacBook Pro I just sold. I run Photoshop, Illustrator, and other graphics software that require heavy processing power, and it handles everything I throw at it without slowing down. 

The greatest laptop ever invented. The same can't be said for the software.

I can honestly say that having a laptop with these advantages, especially as a multitasking power user and creative professional, has made me more productive in my work and personal life.

My iPhone 5 and iPad also have special places reserved in my heart, except for the inability to control my content on them (apps, music and photos), and the sheer size of and bugs that come with every new iOS bloatware. 

Which brings us to what needs improvement. Like, immediately: the software. 

When you have your own cultist community—and I'd count myself as a member—turning against you in droves, there's a problem. I'm not just talking about fellow acolytes and bloggers. I'm talking about friends and family who I've always known to be loyal. I'm talking about my wife and mother using curse words in the same sentence as 'Apple.' 

So let's get started.

iTunes - The interface is a complete mess. The UX sucks and it's overly complex. It gives me little to no control over what songs are on my devices. iTunes Match is on sometimes, other times its off. Tracks stutter and skip during playback. There's a new version every week and even then, it still blows.

I've begun to associate this logo with pain, misery, and heart palpitations.

Recommendation: Start over. Keep it simple—strip out all the weird options for showing thumbnails, resizing windows, etc. Just make it a clean, simple interface to play and manage music on iTunes match, my hard drive, and my iPhone and iPad, period. Oh, and please for the love of god, make it easy to switch music libraries.

Safari - Crashes way too much. It's the delicate flower of browsers. I shouldn't have to keep Chrome in my dock because I can't depend on Safari to run and stay open when I'm using it, or when I need to play Flash (cock-blocking Adobe on Safari was one of those petty moves by Jobs that made no sense. Why not just let Flash work and then introduce a superior technology, which would realize the justification for the move in the first place? Still hasn't happened to my knowledge).

iCloud - This is just one big hot mess. Years after the rollout, iCloud still lacks an integrated, cohesive experience. Commit to being a competent, functional cloud provider or get out of the game. Be in it to win it. Right now I don't get the value beyond being a place to store my Photo Streams. Speaking of which...

iPhoto - iPhoto needs an overhaul. On even slightly older Macs, it's incredibly slow to the point of not even being functional. 

And what. The F. Is up with Photo Stream. Like iTunes, iPhoto doesn't serve offer a viable way to manage what photos are on my device vs. what's in the stream vs. what's in my library. This is incredibly frustrating as the Stream takes up a ton of memory on my devices, compounded each new bloated OS release that my now stuffed device can't even accommodate. 

And hell no, I'm not buying a new iPhone and iPad once a year to accommodate the bloatware or inability to properly manage songs and photos on my devices.  

iOS, Yosemite — I haven't even installed Yosemite on my Air, iPhone or iPad. IT folks, plus the internet, tell me not to do that on my Air yet because of all the bugs, and I'm not interested enough in the new look to navigate the trouble or dubious "improvements." I haven't installed the newest iOS on my iPad and iPhone because I don't even have the room—because I have no simple way of deleting music and my Photo Stream photos from those devices.

In summary, my evaluation: 

Hardware department — Doing great. Nice job. Keep up the great work.

Software department — Heads need to roll. Get your "ecosystem" to look and act cohesive. iCloud, iPhoto, iTunes, Mavericks... they all look like they're from different companies, except for the typeface. Stop rolling out buggy bloatware that please your shareholders in the short term while alienating and enraging your users. 

It's worth noting that Apple's original mission was to empower the everyday person so they could be more creative and productive. There was an emphasis on making technology beautiful, easy to use, and widely available to the masses.

Apple's apparent new model of releasing hardware and software before it's ready—along with software that crowds its hardware to the point of immobilizing the hardware to get people to upgrade both more often—is anathema to this original mission, the reason so many people fell in love with Apple in the first place. It turns Apple into a brand that's the opposite of innovation, accessibility and empowerment, into one that's reserved for elite members of the club—a club that's most assuredly not the creative class. The Apple logo itself is becoming a status symbol instead of an expression of everything Steve Jobs and the company were about.

Please keep all of this in mind before your next shareholders meeting. Shareholders don't make much money if everyone's buying cheaper, more functional hardware and software from their competitors.

RIP Steve Jobs, but Apple's still got it

Apple has been my favorite company and has made my favorite products since about 2000, when I made a deliberate switch from my PC to my first clamshell iBook (gray). Since then I've followed the business and Steve Jobs, whose bio I recently read, very closely.

I know I'm not unique to this. I'm writing this post now, though, because I visited the Apple store last night and—after toying with the iPad mini and the new MacBook Pro Retina display version—I hereby declare that the company has still got it.

Like a lot of Apple geeks, I couldn't help but wonder what become of the company after Steve Jobs died. This is something I've been thinking about since he was diagnosed with cancer and trying to keep a lid on it in the press. Would the company keep innovating and making great products? Are these the same thing? If not, what would that mean for Apple's survival and identity?

There are a few key things that make Apple such a special company. The first is their emphasis on aesthetics and the humanities. No other technology company makes technology more fun, simple, exciting and beautiful. This is reflected in another big part of their success: their marketing. A lot of pundits like to call Apple a "marketing" company, but this is a misnomer. You can't have great marketing without great products, and frankly, I don't buy Apple products because of their TV commercials or marketing—I buy them because they are great products. I think the vast majority of consumers feel the same way.

So let's just focus on the products. I myself even thought the iPad mini was a lame idea. Apple is known for innovating, not putting out versions of past innovations to compete with followers and wannabes trying to take over the same space. Then I saw one last night and I was like... Wow, this is beautiful. The size is perfect. I still love my "large" original iPad, but I think this mini will make the device even more popular.

Then I saw the new MacBook Pro with Retina display. All I could think was "Wow" (...actually, I thought "I want that," but I already have a MacBook Pro and I'm not that desperate to get the latest and greatest, nor do I have that kind of money to throw around.)

The new MacBook 13" is almost as thin as an MacBook Air, and the display is so crisp and colorful that it makes reality look downright dull. There's no CD drive, so the innards can be much thinner and smaller, the clerk explained. To me this is a product innovation in itself, and I don't mean the hardware or technology. I'm speaking to the fact that Apple is leading by design in saying, "The CD drive is dead. The cloud is the present, and it is the future, according to Apple."

So two awesome products. One of them sort of innovative and the other more innovative. Oh and by the way, the new iPhone is pretty killer, too.

From what I know of Tim Cook's style, he is an operations guy. If he keeps killing it like this, then Apple doesn't need to worry about the quality of their products.

What I'm still wondering, though, is what other Apple fans, shareholders, and the world at large is wondering as well: Will Apple ever blow our minds again, the way they did when they rolled out the first Mac, the iPod, iPhone, and iPad?

That's what remains to be seen.

Make Mine Marvel

Most boys are into comicbooks, but when I grew up, my dad and I (well... mostly my dad) built special bookshelves to accommodate my collection. I was never into DC Comics, whose characters never really resonated with me. The vast majority of them were Marvel.

My favorite titles were, in no particular order, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Daredevil (the Frank Miller years) and the rest of them. Favorite writers and artists: Lee/Kirby, John Romita, John Byrne, Frank Miller. Some of the dialogue and story arcs from those classic books still stay with me to this day. I'll never forgive myself for selling my collection for an embarrassingly low sum at a convention right before I went off to college. I needed the money and thought I was ready to let go of these dusty relics from my childhood.

Spider-Man reboot coming this July. Looks awesome.

As an adult, I wouldn't go so far to call myself a FANBOY per se, but it is cool to see all of these superheroes I grew up reading and drawing come to life on the big screen—especially my favorite, Spider-Man. The reviews are in, and I'm psyched to see "The Avengers" tomorrow night, especially the new Hulk (and it looks and sounds like they finally nailed it). And I can't wait for the Spidey reboot.

I know it's been said before, but Marvel really was about the characters. The superheroes had flaws. Most of them didn't want or like their superpowers. In short, even with their special abilities, they were human.

This is the book that taught me how to draw.

As a creative professional and fiction writer, I can say I probably learned more about visual storytelling and drama from Marvel Comics than I have from any other single source. I still maintain that just about anything anyone needs to know about drawing is covered in the Lee/Buscema classic, "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way." To this day, I keep this book in my home office for quick reference and refresher.

This book offers so much more than all the major topics you need to know, such as perspective, the human figure, composition and foreshadowing. It shows you how to draw comics, and how to draw period, with passion. It short, it's the Marvel method of comic book storytelling. Whether you're a creative professional—or just a kid that wants to learn how to draw from the masters—that is priceless. 

Confronting math anxiety: my experience with different teaching methods

I had no idea math anxiety was a "thing" until I read this article in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle about new research that shows it can be treated like most other phobias.  In fact, when I Googled the term 'math anxiety,' I saw dozens of links to schools, programs and techniques to deal with it. 

Just another reason I wish this knowledge, and Google, were around when I was in the 10th grade. I had been in advanced placement classes for math since the 7th grade, so when I hit 10th grade, it was time for geometry. My teacher was a stereotypical schoolmarm type; stern, never smiled, did everything by rote. In short, she intimidated me. 

Edward James Olmos as inner city math teacher, Jaime Escalante

I told my parents I was struggling with geometry, so they found me a tutor. I think her name was Mrs. Paules. She wasn't what I'd call maternal and warm, but she was nice enough, no-nonsense, direct. Because she thought geometry was simple, she made me feel at ease, and over time, I started to become less intimidated by it. I got through the year, I believe, with something like a B+ average. 

After that, I took trig in 11th grade and calc in 12th grade. I was never as naturally good at math as the top kids in the class, but I wasn't afraid of it anymore. By the time I hit my last two years of college, I was required and qualified to take two advanced calc classes. I got As in both classes, which I rarely attended. I was proud of those grades because they were better than my high school math grades, but mostly because I wasn't afraid anymore. 

The Substitute Teacher: a case study in the dramatic difference learning methods can make

Flash back to 5th or 6th grade, when I was struggling with long division. That math teacher was a nice woman but was teaching long division by "what goes in the tens column, then carry it over to the hundreds column, and the remainder becomes..." 

I was overwhelmed. I couldn't process the mechanical, confusing process she was describing. I was placed with two other "dumb" kids at a corner table for special instruction. A few days of this minor humiliation passed, but there was no breakthrough. 

Until Mrs. Beaker came along.

Ms. Beaker was not only very pretty for a teacher, but taught visually. Once she learned a few of us were struggling with long division, she seemed almost offended. "It's easy," she declared, "all you do is..." and she proceeded to go through a few problems on the blackboard in a very visual way, without all the blather about specific columns. She made it seem easy, which put me at ease. The breakthrough was instantaneous. I suddenly understood long division. My fear was gone. 

This incident made a lifelong impression on me, along with the power of teaching and learning methods tailored to the individual. I am a visual person. I learn visually. I respond better to concepts and visualization than I do pedantic methodology or explanations.

How long would have taken for me to understand long division if Mrs. Beaker hadn't come in to substitute that day? What if my parents didn't take the time or want to spend a few bucks for a few months of geometry tutoring? 

Nowadays I run my own business, and while that hardly requires complex algorithms, the math I am required to do is not a problem for me. For that, I'm grateful, and grateful to those few people in my life who helped me conquer my fear early on. I hope every kid has someone show up at the right time who not only looks out for them, but helps show them the way at those junctures in their educational journey when they need the help.

I heart flying

I don't fly a lot for work or vacations, but even so, I'm always surprised to hear how some people hate flying. Personally, I love to fly.

I'm a big reader, writer, and like to listen to music on my iPod. A coffeehouse person, essentially. Flying is basically an isolation chamber that allows me to do some of my favorite activities for long, uninterrupted, unplugged stretches of time—time that for me literally flies. Give me my Coltrane MP3 library on shuffle, a great book or novel like my current pick, Michael Chabon's "Kavalier and Clay," and I'm pretty much in heaven.

Another thing I love about flying is the window seat. I always find it fascinating that they don't charge higher prices for the view, and that there isn't more competition for window seats. How can you fly and not want to enjoy that view? I've seen some pretty crazy cool scenery while looking out the window: mysterious outposts in the middle of nowhere (Central Mountains at night), an aerial tour over Los Angeles all the way to LAX, the San Francisco Bay, Lake Tahoe, Philadelphia, the Great Lakes... I even enjoy that lovely menagerie of lights when coming in for a night landing.

It's when I'm looking out the window that I have some pretty deep thoughts. Being up that high, along with the isolation, perhaps, makes me sentimental and insightful at once. A passage from my book or song in my ears might suddenly move me to tears. I'm seized by an uncontrollable urge to thank people I hadn't thought about in years. I feel a groundswell of gratitude for everything I have, of how beautiful it is up here, with most of humanity quiet and snoozing peacefully in their seats. There seems to be some unspoken, sometimes expressed, sense of camaraderie, perhaps because we're all in it together. Like that one passenger on every flight that allows themselves a bit of applause upon landing.

One thing I don't invite when I'm flying is chit-chat with fellow passengers seated next to me. And like me, for the most part, people tend to keep to themselves. Tonight I made an exception (or the other way around) for a very nice grandmother from the Main Line of Philadelphia; she struck up a conversation that eventually revealed mutual beliefs in animal rights, past lives and auras. I learned about her family, her seat on the board of a local children's hospital, her grandson's football game, her visiting her daughter in Chicago, and that her own mother is still alive—102 years old! We talked about fracking, political candidates and our mutual concern for the future of this country and our world below. After the fasten-your-seatbelt sign went off, she politely told me she had to continue reading her Julie Oringer book for book club, and I said of course, and went back to reading my book. What a great seat-mate.

Upon deplaning, we exchanged names again and said our goodbyes, with me wondering how many past lives she'd lived and why I felt our conversation had some sort of meaning or purpose. Maybe up in the air, they all do.