Hey Bald Movers,

Great cast as always, keep up the good work!

On to the stuff:

A “bad penny” is a metaphor for a person who keeps coming back into your life…like a bad penny evidently does? I guess?

On serial killer pathology, sexual psychopaths usually have something called “low arousal.” This means they do not respond to stimuli the way normal people do and require increasingly intense experiences to fell the kind of thrill normal people get from relatively safe experiences. Most psychopaths are relatively harmless as are most people who have violent sexual fantasies. But when you combine violent sexual fantasies with psychopathy, well, that’s when people end up being shoved under beds.

I think “don’t make that mistake” was about not referring to footwear as “shoes.” The client would consider “shoes” to be a vulgar vernacular and “footwear” to be the appropriate professional term. Customers think of footwear as shoes, people who work in the industry don’t.

Also, this may be a bit of a stretch, but it’s possible that Don’s aspirin addiction is a reference to Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” which was published in 1966. In that book, Perry Smith complains that he picked up an addiction to aspirin while treating his chronic leg pain in prison. The book is about real life murders that were committed in cold blood and Don commits an imaginary murder in hot blood.

For Ginsburg, I’m taking him as a variation on Don. He’s provocative and overconfident, the way Don can be in his best moments, but he lacks Don’s discretion and sense of overall propriety. He’s doing with instinct what Don does with artifice.

I also think he’s using his social awkwardness and bluntness to throw people off. They won’t suspect that he’s playing any cards close to the chest because he’s acting like a, well, mad man.

It’s also possible that he’s foreshadowing the emerging cultural zeitgeist that includes things like Alan Ginsburg’s poetry and Laugh In. We’re about 2 years out from Laugh In and about 4 years out from Frank Zappa and I think Ginsburg is a harbinger of the irreverence that’s to come.

There’s also an element with Ginsburg of an ethnic minority finding their own way in the world. Roger especially is always very calculating about race (blackface wedding serenades notwithstanding) and said something along the lines of “we need a Jew; everyone has one these days.” Ginsburg seems to me to be a reaction against the trickle-down theory of racial/ethnic equality where the cracker power structure hands out perks and privileges to those who play along. Ginsburg I think represents the rising sense among ethnic minorities in the civil rights era that there is no equality without self-definition.

Prediction: Dr. Harris has another family in ‘nam. He’s got a Heaven and Earth scenario going on.

“Signal 30″ is one of those blood-on-the-highway safety films. It was produced in 1959. Earlier in the season, Roger makes some sort of reference to “getting around Nader” in reference to the recent publication of “Unsafe At Any Speed” and I think the episode will continue the theme of scaring the hell out of people vs fixing broken systems that we saw in this last episode. Specifically, it will deal with the ineffectiveness of just showing people horrific traffic accidents vs the systemic approach of making cars themselves safer.

My prediction is that this theme will be used as an analogy to the issue of birth control. Griswold v Connecticut was decided in 1965 and birth control pills would just now be widely available. Prior to BC pills, the only sex education was to simply scare the hell out of people, especially women. Like seat belts and other safety features on cars, safe, effective contraception reduces the need for such scare tactics and results in a sexual liberation that the older generation would naturally regard as reckless.

-Jason at Natter Cast

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/natter-cast/id464000567

Oh, and go out, buy a hat and get ready to hold onto it: not only is “Peggy” a nickname for “Margaret,” but so is “Daisy,” “Greta” and…this is the hat grabbing moment…”Megan.”

Daaamnnnn. Best freakin episode since the S4 finale.
Everything about Mystery Date is what I wanted from Mad Men this season. It was dark, funny, thrilling and fucking awesome. By the time Don strangled that bitch I nearly thought I was watching an early episode of Breaking Bad! Withought a doubt this is the episode Christina Hendricks is getting her emmy nom for, and this is the first time since The Suitcase where I noticed Elizabeth Moss’s great acting.
I havn’t seen the Sound of Music, will not plan on watching the Sound of Music, and hopefully will never have to see the Sound of Music, or for as long as 60′s musicals are purposely targeted for young girls or elderly couples. I am also shocked that Jim hasn’t seen Casablanca. It’s number #14 on my top 500. (This list is on IMDb, and is very cool)
I havn’t seen Justified, but once I finally get through The Sopranos i will try.
Lacking HBO, I have not seen any G.O.T, but really, really want to buy season 1 if I can convince my mom it’s about dragon’s, not blood, sex and more sex.
I’m really pissed that Breaking Bad’s final season will have a long midseason break like The Walking Dead, but it’s worth it.
Also, I apologize for leaving an untrue coment on the Tea Leaves page. Pete doesn’t punch Ken in 1.08 The Hobo Code, but in the next episode, Shoot. Having watched the first 4 seasons in one month, some plot points have been blured. Great Podcast