Blackshaw
was a "Catholic outsider" in the agency world of the "Golden Age," his son writes. His favorite quote was, "Never trust a guy whose first name sounds like his last." But it wasn't just sour grapes.
"He lamented the sexism and the anti-Semitism of advertising," Blackshaw writes, and did so on the record in a series of video interviews the two recorded that took their cue from the fictional world
that Matt Weiner has created.
"My dad's life and the show's script collide on a darker side of the business: alcoholism," Blackshaw writes. "By the time he died, at age 83, he had already passed his 30th anniversary without a drink, and whatever took place in the years before remains a bit shrouded in mystique." What followed after, however, was coaching and mentoring "countless peers from rough spots." Touching piece.
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