Don Draper's Work Product - My Passion

1963

1963

1965

1966

1967

I smoked Larks when I went in the Army. Sometime during basic training I bummed a Salem after a run and liked the cool after taste. Most of the young blacks I served with were Kool or Newport smokers and they opened the pack from the bottom to keep the filters clean. Whites were almost all Marlboro (box) smokers. During arguments, usually stereo wars, I remember hearing, "You Marlboro smoking, Budweiser drinking, white sock wearing mother fucker." Or, "You Kool smoking, Schlitz Malt Liquor drinking, in grown hair mother fucker."

I was sent to Canadian jump school in Edmonton where I tried, Cameos, du Maurier and English Ovals until settling on Export A's. They paired nicely with Labatts Blue. Back at Ft Bragg I found Export A's being sold at a gas station just south of Fayetteville. They also sold cigars and I tried Dutch Masters that came in a Cameron wrapper. A major, seeing my five pack of cigars on a FTX, gave me a Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur which turned me off Dutch Masters forever.

In college I cut back on cigarettes and cigars but smoked a pipe with Lane 1Q until an art professor turned me onto Mac Baren Virginia No. 1. After college I went back to cigarettes but cut back considerably by smoking unfiltered Camels then Lucky Strikes and briefly Old Golds. I dated and later married a rabid nonsmoker but found myself alone on business in London where I became a dedicated Silk Cut smoker until I bummed a Benson & Hedges Gold.

Two years smoke free (except for one). Ten pounds fatter. I like to think I had my fill while not being brand loyal. I'm not sure Draper would understand.

Winning & Losing

Q. Golf-wise, what are your expectations this week?
TIGER WOODS: Nothing's changed, going to go out there and try to win this thing. Recently Trad Dad reminded me of Little League baseball tryouts when I was 11. Coaches, who always had their own sons on the team, were interested in winning. And these memories are some of my earliest about life not being very fair. I did manage to play on a Pony League team (2nd base and short stop) but we lost almost every game. Still, I got to play. At 15 I was the assistant coach of a Shakey's Pizza team. We came in second to last but we ate well.

I was lucky I got to play. If someone's gonna win - someone's gotta lose. I've always told my Little League stories proudly and wore 'Loser' as a badge of honor. But never have I been so curious about winners as the recent events surrounding Tiger Woods.

Winning, a old friend tells me, is directly related to power. Wall Street sure likes to win and win big. Michael Jordan appears to be addicted to the charge of winning at the card table. I guess winning in Vegas must be like winning on the court. And what about winning women? I reckon they stand as the ultimate prize.

The April 12th feature of New York Magazine, The Half-Hooker Economy, dovetails nicely with the Vanity Fair feature on Tiger. Bottle girls, who claim not to be prostitutes, sell $30 bottles of hooch for $800 and may or may not sleep with the customer. And of course there are 'winners' among the bottle girls. So I was thinking, is all of this really about an addiction to sex? Or, is it an addiction to winning? Fortunately, like drugs, I never did enough winning to get hooked. But America sure does love a winner.