One Martinus?

MADMen, in case you have been out of town, is AMC’s hugely successful and unceasingly hyped soaper about the advertising world of the early 60’s.

I became an instant fan during the first season. I had been on the margins of the Ad game in Chicago and had enjoyed more than one three Martini lunch with the local agency guys. The show pressed all my memory bells and whistles.

Set decoration and costumes were spot on, right down to the bullet bras sported by some of “the girls” in the office; IBM electric typewriters; no computers; and the scene in which the first giant xerox machine was introduced. It all seemed just right.

The writing is still wonderful and the actors continue to be terrific, but it’s one of life’s ironies that this show about advertising is being ruined by the very stuff of its subject matter.

As we sometimes say, the show is being oversold. It is so jammed with commercials that any dramatic rhythm or movement from scene to scene is destroyed. Boredom ensues. You’re glad when the whole damned thing is over, surely not a desirable reaction.

Last night there were six commercials between each segment, and seven before the closer. What a bore.

The AMC website about the show is pretty entertaining, though, and there is a section devoted to the cocktails of MADMEN. Have a drink and wait for the DVD of the 3rd season to be issued. That’s what I’m going to do; it’s better than having a program of commercials interrupted by disconnected dramatic interludes.

I have an abiding preference for the American Motel.  For most touring motorcyclists there is no more convenient way to sleep dry.

Motels are always handy to the route you’re on…just off the interstate or a block or so in town. My favorites are the single digit motels, the 6s, 8s, or 9s… one-story units with parking right at the door. As an added bonus there is almost always a pizza joint or a chain restaurant next door. Breakfast is served  any time you want it.

All I require on a road trip is a reasonably firm bed, a decent shower and a television set with HBO. I’m not looking for a resort, or luxuriously landscaped grounds. I am perfectly content if the walls of my room are free of artwork.

In my favorite single digit chain the rooms are identical, the furniture unobtrusive and intuitively arranged. You can get up in the middle of the night, and wander around in the dark, without stubbing your toe.

Each night in one of these rooms is exactly like the one before or the one to come. I feel perfectly at home. As a matter of fact in one respect  these rooms are just like home…where every night is spent in a room exactly like the room I slept in the night before.

“How boring,” say my critics. “You should seek out a nice Bed and Breakfast place.”

Not on your life. I have never been in a B & B that was conveniently located, easy to find, or where I felt comfortable wandering around in the middle of the night. Although I was paying more than I might at one of the single digit joints, the extra cost did not leave me feeling freer, or more luxurious. After all I was a “guest” in someone’s home.

Conversations are whispered so as not to be a ‘bother.’ You don’t ask the nice retired couple, or the widow lady eking out an insufficient pension, to rise to provide breakfast at 5 am so you can get an early start. There is no TV. The bathroom is across the hall.

I have never been in a B &  B that wasn’t over-decorated: Twee little stuffed animals, pictures of clowns or big-eyed children, gaily decorated vanities,  type boxes filled with colored beans, lamp shades with fringe… Martha Stewart gone mad. Or maybe just Martha Stewart.

You can lie awake at night in one of these places and hear things in the room whispering, “Wouldn’t you like to take me to the Salvation Army?”

No thanks. When all I want is a place to sleep dry, 6s 8s or 9s are road-trip perfection.

In an Arizona Daily Star guest editorial dated August 4th, former Tucson mayor George Miller said it’s time to add two more wards to the city.

If the city is successfully  forced by the state legislature to go to non-partisan, ward-only elections, now would be an ideal time, according to Miller, to bring a large chunk of the Foothills into the city.

The new wards would be north of River Road between Campbell and Sabino Canyon Road. The Foothills have long resisted annexation, but Miller thinks that the promise of their own Council reps would overcome Foothills resistance.

Miller continues:  “As an annexation bonus, a big chunk of money, as much as $40 million, could come to Tucson in the form of state-shared revenue funds. Unincorporated areas do not receive these funds. Incorporated areas do, and that money could come to the city of Tucson.”

I’d love to be annexed but the chances of that are nil, despite what the annexation folks in the city may think. I’m happy with ward-only elections, too, but the idiots in the legislature crafted (possibly the wrong word) the impending change without specifying that their law would take effect in 2010. Right now it’s scheduled to become law after this year’s primaries ( under the old rules) and before the general election (under the new rules.)

It’s a legal jungle. Ain’t going to happen this year; maybe never…but if it ever does there’s a chance that the new wards would be Democratic.

While no one was paying attention Democratic and Independent registrations in that section of the Foothills drew even (or possibly surpassed) Republican registrations.