mad madison avenue

OMG-it can't be true-my favorite show of all time MAD MEN is coming to a close.
I think I took this show a lot more to heart than most - as my real life dad was a real life MAD MEN.

Dad was a super creative and bold Art Director - he resigned  from J WALTER THOMPSON and rented a brownstone across from the Morgan Library.
He invited  his account team and copywriters from JWT to join him - and AD GRAPHICS was born.
The brownstone was amazing it had a backyard where Dad had his drawing table in the during the summer - he was soooo cool.

DAD- just a boy from Queens was in Manhattan -on Madison Avenue and had a key to the Playboy Club!
It was heaven on earth.
The writers, the photographers,the art directors, and the bongo drums.
It was a perfect combo that gave our family a perfect creative life open to possiblity.

Thank you daddy for the amazing head start in life & bye,bye Don Draper - I will never forget you.

mad (dad) men

Mad Men has started, and it's hard not to watch this show. You know, I knew 'Don Draper', our Don had a different name, though. We knew a lot of '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!
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!