Jon Hamm To Appear on '30 Rock'

Jon Hamm, the actor better known as Don Draper, the suavest mofo of 1962 in AMC's hit series Mad Men, has signed to appear as Tina Fey's love interest in three episodes of 30 Rock.

What an amazing range this guy's got. He can name products:



Read poetry:



And create ham you can eat in the bathroom.

Don Draper Knows How To Sell Books

It's funny. Frank O'Hara hasn't been in my consciousness before, say, a few weeks ago when I visited the Beat Generation exhibit at the HRC at UT-Austin. An excellent exhibit, but if you are going to see it, you'd better hurry because it ends this Sunday.

Nonetheless, Frank O'Hara figures prominently in the Season Two premiere of Mad Men on AMC when Don Draper sees a guy at a diner reading the Frank O'Hara book, Meditations in an Emergency. For more about this book, check out Michael Leddy's blog.

At the end of the episode, Don reads aloud the fourth (last) section of "Mayakovsky," the last poem in Meditations:

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

For a fictional character, Don sure knows how to move books. When I checked Amazon.com just now, it was the No. 1 selling book of American poetry. Suck it, Robert Frost!

Don Draper’s Rant

My friend, let's call him Jim, has a law. We'll call it Jim's Law. It goes like this: You can lead a client to water, but you can't stop 'em from pissing in it.

So true.

I've already written about my love of AMC's new series, Mad Men, on my other blog. During last week's episode, Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm) showed why this show is awesome. He lived the dream every consultant has ever had -- telling a client that they don't have a fucking clue.

So often, people will hire you to give them something different, then work very hard to make sure they get the same thing they had already. Sometimes you can give them a gentle nudge toward the right thing. Sometimes they need something a little more, shall we say, emphatic.

Here I've recounted Don's more emphatic approach. Don and his colleague, Ken, are pitching a new add campaign for lipstick to a client. The client isn't buying it. See how he handles it:

Ken Cosgrove: (To client) I’m not telling you to listen to anyone, but this is a very fresh approach.

Don Draper: “It’s okay, Ken. I don’t think there’s much else to do here than to call it a day. Gentlemen, thank you for your time.

Client: (shrugs) Is that all?

Don Draper: You’re a non-believer. Why should we waste time on kabuki?

Client: I don’t know what that means.

Don Draper: It means that you’ve already tried your plan and you’re number four. You’ve enlisted my expertise and you’ve rejected it to go along the way you’ve been going. I’m not interested in that. You can understand.

Client: I don’t think your three months and however many thousands of dollars allows you to refocus the core of our business.

Don Draper: Listen, I’m not here to tell you about Jesus. You already know about Jesus. Either he lives in your heart or he doesn’t. Every woman wants choices. But in the end, none wants to be one of 100 in a box. She’s unique. She makes the choices and she’s chosen him. She wants to tell the world he’s mine. He belongs to me, not you. She marks her man with her lips. He is her possession. You’ve given every woman who wears your lipstick the gift of total ownership.

Client: (pause) Sit down.

Don Draper: No. Not till I know I’m not wasting my time.

Client: Sit down.

Brilliant. I think anyone who has ever consulted anyone on anything has wanted to say something along these lines at some point. Maybe few have actually said it. But has anyone ever said it and not gotten fired?

UPDATE: For a fantastic breakdown of this episode, visit Matt Zoller Seitz's blog.