Mad Men Water Cooler – “Signal 30”

Welcome to your Weekly “Mad Men ” Water Cooler! “Mad Men” represents some of the best in music, design, art and writing, and each week we use it as a lens to examine broader themes of creativity and the arts. Read on for more about this week’s “knock-out” episode, but let it be known that there are spoilers ahead!

Mad Men Water Cooler – “Signal 30”

This will be completely off-topic, but before I get started can I just say how utterly satisfying it was to see Pete Campbell get beat up by Lane Pryce? Heck, I would have been happy if Sally Draper had been the one to finally punch him in the face, as in the words of our much-loved Joan Harris, “Everyone in this office has wanted to do that to Pete Campbell.” Lane Pryce, we salute you, and “Mad Men,” thank you for an event that was a long time coming!

However, the “Mad Men” subplot I found the most interesting had to do with the often-underused Ken Cosgrove and his secret career as a sci-fi writer. While we’ve seen Ken’s literary ambitions in episodes like “The Gold Violin,” now we get to see how he juggles life in the advertising world with a fledgling career as a writer.

Ken isn’t the first writer to have to juggle a literary career with a 9:00 to 5:00 job, nor will he be the last. Plenty of writers have balanced the demands of a full-time job with their artistic pursuits, some in surprising fields.

John Steinbeck walked tours through a fish hatchery in North Lake Tahoe for several years, finding a spouse and inspiration for some of his works along the way. J.D. Salinger was director of entertainment on a Swedish cruise ship , which seems light-years away from his grounded, morose writings.

William Faulkner was the postmaster for the University of Mississippi for three years, while Robert Frost replaced light bulbs in a Massachusetts factory after leaving Dartmouth. Douglas Adams was a security guard for a London hotel, while Harper Lee worked as a ticket counter salesperson for an airline company in New York.

For my first year as a professional writer, I spent the majority of my day working at local coffee shop, selling lattes to the masses. Alexander worked at video game store, and another writer I know spent her daylight hours pushing carts at a Wal Mart until she secured a gig as writer for a newspaper.

At one point, Roger Sterling suggests that Ken focus on finding fulfillment in his day job and to stop dividing his attentions between his writing career and his work at the agency. Instead of meekly submitting to Roger’s demands, Ken devises and new nom de plume and ignores Roger entirely.

Writers are often told to do just that, or asked when they’re going to give up their writing career ambitions in order to get “a real job.” However, for many, writing is a real job, and the rest is just the way to pay the bills. Thankfully Ken Cosgrove, and generations of real writers, ignored the warnings of the Roger Sterlings of the world and continued to put pencil to paper.

How about you, Studio 602ers? What odd jobs have you worked while waiting for your dream career? Drop us a note in the comments below!