It's Mad Men time!

OK, after a loooooong delay Mad Men is back on the air. The Chiarella's have a special place in their hearts for this show as it feels like 'we were there'. I am reposting this from a while back in part because I love these old photos of my father. Enjoy!

Mad Men has started, and it's hard not to watch this show. You know, I knew 'Don Draper', or perhaps his real life body double! Our Don had a different name, though but it feels exactly the same. Dad lived a very similar life, his agency was actually right on Madison Avenue, and his clients were a lot like these characters.
We knew a lot of these 'mad men', they came for dinner parties in our Bayside home. For each party, I put on a great outfit and went in to greet the guests, then my brother and I would watch from the top of the stairs. When he was older, he tended bar, whipping up rye and gingers, bourbon old fashions and mai-tai's. The refrigerator was full of maraschino cherries and tom collins mixer!

Mom at a party (that's NOT dad)

The madison avenue husbands and wives really looked like the cast, we wouldn't notice anything funny if they'd been transported back in time and dropped into our house at one of moms dinner parties! Well, the pics below don't have the drama that comes with the real 'Don Draper', I think they are from a sales meeting my dad went to in 1964. The look is right, it's so cool. See where I get it from? Ciao!

Caption: Joe Chiarella, from Ad Graphics clarifies advertising policy. With a beer in his hand, at lunch. Seems perfectly fine, if you really want to know!








Caption: "Tell me another one". This looks like a meeting i'd
go to anytime!


The storyboard begins here....



"Joe swapping stories with Doug Blow and
Jack Ware." Dad was pretty cool, and a great
artist as well.



We still have drawers full of Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, the only pencils we ever had. No other brand would do, 'cause it was his account!