Boys Will be Boys

 [ preface:  I did write a recap of last weeks little adventure into Halloweenland, but it just kept getting more and more macabre as I had to delve more and more into what exactly what happened there in Chicago in 1966 - and it just became unpleasant. Too bad too, because Sally and her step Grandmother were television GOLD! You will just have to forgive my squeamishness . ]

SIGNAL 30

or

 It's the end of the world as we know it 

Are We Not Men ?

High Summer 1966, this date set in stone as England beat WEST ( !! ) Germany for the World Cup on July 30th. Seems as if a little Richard lll could fit here, a glorious Summer and all, or we could just talk about this sport coat - these sport coats. Don wearing this is..... earth shattering.

It is the Man in the GREY FLANNEL suit, not this garish, mod summer plaid thing. We saved the whole freaking planet from Hitler singlehandedly. Freedom and peace reign, and we are happy. Everything is as it should be and we will have our place, as Americans, at the head of the table and enjoy the massive fruits of our labour, it is God's will. 

Except these boys are an early Generation Jones all placid there in Cos Cob ( not quite Greenwich! ) They did not fight that war, they were too young, and the easy path in life that WAS promised to their dads /older brothers was not going to be theirs, and they are JUST NOW, like maybe today, this second, realizing that.

When you stick to the grey flannel, keep your role/rut pure of heart - life is good. But when forced out, forced to except that to the high school chick in your Drivers Ed class you are " just Pete " and the boy who is about to go off to war is  " Handsome ", you can, in these VERY pre Iron John days, end up as Pete said " I have nothing ". You know, other than every single damn thing you ever wanted, only this time with a wife that will leave the house in her robe.......

Who is this happy man , and what have you done with Don Draper ?!?

But before we can get to Don we have to deal with some Betty and through her, Megan - because the two women are , more or less, exactly the same. " You have lost it Kyle, they are nothing at all alike - nothing " Except they are, for their time. Betty is - was - the beyond perfection embodiment of her day. Mid 1950's - Grace Kelly is the Queen of the universe, and Betty is her clone. Betty is such an unapproachable crystalline beauty, that her entire life is going to spent on that ivory tower, the Goddess of lament that Grace herself whined on and on about in High Society ( The Philadelphia Story, pure Main Line,  WHERE Betty is from!  ) Betty IS and will forever be 1955. 

Megan is the EXACT same thing, only she is Carnaby Street and Fire Island - all post Jackie bouffant and - maybe to some extent, we don't know yet, a little bit of a proto feminist, she does work.

 DON DRAPER! says "let's make a baby" - the reason that Betty was formed from the sea foam - and Meagan sort of says NO. "Take off the boring grey flannel and wear the sport coat that I bought you②". You don't want to go to the Campbell dinner party? You call Trudy yourself, - bitch. Meagan is pure 1966 just as Betty was '55. Both total archetypes, and both have/had this man, Dick/Don.

Now : Who is this happy man, and what have you done with Don? Seriously. 

I am having just a little bit of trouble here , and I think maybe that I am supposed to be . We know that Dick Whitman can, in the blink of an eye, change. As perfect an ice princess that Betty was, Dick is as perfect of a chameleon. The Kennedy era Ossining bound, knotty pine husband and father becomes the PRE Nixonion UES dwelling man about town??? 

It was just last season that Don was in that dingy dark apartment, a nasty horrible drunk beast, falling down in the hallway, hitting on anything that walked, and paying to get slapped during sex - the bottom of any barrel. Blink of an eye and Don is: 

•  So at peace with Dick Whitman that Megan knows all about him - all of season one done away with - and he is admitting to a Madam that his own mother was a whore ,  I was raised in a place like this.... when Don Draper was not! I know a little bit about living the two lives thing - and for us gay folks, stopping it, is the first big move any of us make, it is , as a rule, never with out angst , and yet, the writers have Don making this huge ( huge! ) change as casually as he took off his shirt in the Campbell kitchen - just odd that's all.
• Allowing ( is that even the right word ? ) Megan to be so much in charge. Allowing TRUDY of all people to have power over him?!?
• All sunshine and light - not really caring all that much about SCDP, " any new business , Don?" - and AND judging Pete for sleeping around? Sure he said he wasn't , but come on - that was some hard core judging in the back of that sad taxi.

Are we, as watchers,to think that its the love of a not so pure " we can go to parts of town where there are people that I used to work with" twenty something woman that has made this change OR is it just Dick's superhero ability , "being what ever he needs to be at the time " kicking in. Don can and will be JUST as " happy" in 1955 and he is in 1966. If it is the later then 1970's Don is going to be an open shirt , gold chained hot mess.

you may ask yourself, what is that beautiful house

Last night was all about the boys. Peggy and Joan bit players, The two English ladies there for just as reactions. " Mrs. Harris will you please leave the room".
There was no masculine introspection in the 1960's. Grey flannel and all. Google Thomas Eagleton if you want to see how the 1960's dealt with Mens mental health. Don changes as need be, and is more than fine -a willow. Rodger drinks and lives in his moneyed world of privilege - miserable according to Don. Ken , doing better than them all, drifts off from Bay Ridge to distant planets with robots and women that lay eggs. The world is much much darker for Lane and Pete. Welcome to the Sixties boys.......

Pete, Pete, Pete - all Grisabella under the street lamp, life was beautiful then. BUT! then was only five minutes ago for him and , in keeping with my trouble with the show this season: when did uber snob Manhattan born and bred Pete Campbell care so much about what Don thinks???? He blackmailed Dick Whitman, or tried too, now he is getting " the best piece of meat "..... hmmmmm.

Clueless here to the angst of sudden parent/suburban hood . I'm guessing that it can happen that fast. He is NO LONGER Trudy's KING ( sound of clearing throat here).... she has a baby now, her life ruled by someone else.

Lane, British to the core, other than not caring about football, and just wanting a little bit of the fun himself. SO puffed up about having his own account . But Mr. Jaguar is just as piggy as all those men around him at work that he so so wants to be like - but you are what you are , and Piggy, Lane is not.The closed door kiss, never to be mentioned again, his last hurrah.

So, last night was boys night out - and ended up in an old fashion cat fight, with the Queensberry rules! Life which held so much promise only a few years ago, as so many have said and written about before, is not turning out the way we thought it would. So much died in Dallas.....And NEW YORK, happy shiny Gotham.... did you notice , as the cab pulled up to Don's apartment the trash blowing by? Last week with Chicago, this week with Austin, all those corpses and Don doodling a noose...... I'm thinking someone is not getting out of this one alive. 

Pete, all bloodied and swollen,  should NOT bring that shot gun home........