Hipster

Let’s start with the title. There were a lot of ways I could have gone with it:

Shoot From The Hip.

Hip Hip Hooray.

Joined At The Hip.

Hip Hop.

Hip-A-Long Cassidy.

Keep Hip Alive.

But I didn’t choose any of those. Instead I went with Hipster, because it conjured up an image of Rich in a knit cap, wearing ripped jeans and an olive drab t-shirt with a vaguely smug, ironic saying on it.

I know how much he’d like that.

Rich by the way is my good friend Rich Siegel, proprietor and author of the RoundSeventeen blog, former captain of the USA pole vaulting team and bronze winner in the ’96 Olympics in Barcelona.

After years of breakdancing and spinning, poppin’ and lockin’, and his part time gig as an Elvis impersonator at the Graceland chapel in Vegas, his hip had enough Jailhouse Rockin'.

So this past Monday he walked with a limp into the hospital bright and early and had hip replacement surgery, which he so eloquently wrote about about here.

I spoke with him by text yesterday, and he was doing fine. A lot of napping. As those of us in the tribe say, “Why is this day different than other days?”

Anyway, I along with his other friends and quite possibly some members of his own family he doesn’t owe money to are glad he came through it swimmingly. I imagine he’ll be back on his feet setting off airport metal detectors, working on his Lee Majors impression (look it up), auditioning for Dancing With The Stars and doing a #glitchchallenge (@_aubreyfisher) on the IG in no time.

Get well soon Rich. Oh, and by the way, fuck Trump.

Agency opening ceremonies

Next time someone at your agency starts yapping about team players, and trust me, someone always does, tell them to put their uniforms and flags where their mouth is.

In just a few months, the 2020 summer Olympics in Tokyo will be upon us. Because the Olympic committee didn't ask me when they should schedule the games, they happen to start around the same time I'll be in San Diego for this year's Comic Con, so you can let me know how many gold medals we won later.

Sitting here, eating onion rings and a tuna melt—as the best athletes do—and thinking about the upcoming Olympic opening ceremonies, it occurs to me what all those team player loving agency big wigs should do. Every morning, after their warmup stretches and carb-loading, they should lead their various agency delegations into the office in an inspiring, heartwarming, intricately choreographed display of unity called the Parade Of Work™.

Instead of flags, they'd have copies of agency work carried in on poles, blowing aimlessly in the wind—which coincidentally is where you find a lot of it anyway.

People in each department would be broken into teams: instead of luge, cross-country skiing and bobsled, there would be digital. Social. Brand. Retail. CRM. All marching proudly into their open office spaces.

Of course before any of this could happen, the agency would have to devote more than a few non-billable hours to coming up with team uniforms for each division. Not sure exactly what they'd come up with, but I imagine there wouldn't be any shortage of knit caps, torn jeans, off-brand sneakers and my personal favorite, black t-shirts with the agency logo front and center.

The good news is players wouldn't be bothered with oppressive rules like no beards, tattoos, open-toed shoes or friendship bracelets. There wouldn't be anyone left if they were.

And as they get ready to start each day, the team captains would make it a point to remind them about the importance of staying focused, working as a team and good sportsmanship. That and, contrary to what they may believe, it's just advertising.

Not the Hunger Games.

Nothing but grateful

Despite the fact I’m an only child and the world revolves around me (that’s just science, look it up), I’ve always had a grateful heart and a thankful attitude. I appreciate there’s one day a year designated for celebrating our gratitude, but I think a better approach is to practice it everyday.

Ok, so it’s not going to be my funniest post.

Anyway, between the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade hosted by Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb (It’s the Riverside City College marching band!) and the generically titled National Dog Show (where the German Shepherd came in fourth – rigged), I started thinking about things I’m grateful for, not just today but everyday.

I know what you’re thinking: is he going to tell us or not? I won't keep you in suspense - I am.

I’m grateful for my wife and children. I’d say they somehow manage to put up with my craziness and idiosyncracies and love me in spite of them, except that—and they’d be the first to tell you this—I’m the perfect husband and father. I know, they can hardly believe it either.

I’m grateful I enjoy almost all the people I work with. They’re creative, funny, smart and they challenge me in a positive way to raise my game. I spend a lot of my life with them, so it’s a good thing I feel that way. Except for that one guy—he’s a total asshat.

Grateful for my long-time friends, the one’s I’ve known forever and even though I don’t see as much as I like, can pick up right where we left off. The conversation usually goes something like this: ME: Hey, remember that $500 I loaned you that time we were in Vegas? THEM: I’m pretty sure I paid you back. ME: You didn’t. THEM: Huh. Ok. When I get home I’ll get it to you. (Fast forward ten years) ME: Remember that $500 I loaned you that time we were in Vegas?

I’m grateful for my good health. Despite having to do a little more maintenance than I used to, I’m in pretty good shape. Could stand to lose a few pounds, but I don’t think this is the day to be thinking about that. In fact, I probably won’t worry about it until after the Olympic trials.

So grateful for my dogs. Unconditional love in both directions. They’re both beautiful and smart, but they still don’t pick up after themselves in the yard. If they only knew how many treats were waiting for them if they ever do.

I’m grateful my dear friend, ex-office wife and person who encouraged me to start blogging (blame her) Janice has been declared the winner in her bout with cancer. She’s someone I love and hold in my heart in a way reserved for a special few, and a world without her just would not have been acceptable.

I can’t name all my friends here—not because I have so many, I’m just bad with names—but if I'm lucky enough to call you my friend, know that I am grateful for you every day of the year. Each of you in your own way make my life richer and more frustrating. I meant meaningful.

Finally, I’m grateful for Robert Mueller. And I hope with all my might to be even more grateful to him very soon.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Let's leave Bruce Jenner alone

When I used to live in Santa Monica, in a rent-controlled corner apartment on the top floor of a seventeen-floor building that was a hundred yards from the beach, I used to somehow manage to get up in the pre-dawn hour and stagger half-awake over to the internationally famous Mecca of Bodybuilding, Gold's Gym in Venice to work out.

Now I know what you're thinking. You're saying to yourself, "But Jeff, why do you need to work out? You're already such a perfect physical specimen." First, thank you for noticing. Second, it takes work maintaining this physique. And third, unless this is a circus funhouse mirror - and I'm hoping it is - I probably should get back to it sooner rather than later. But I digress.

Did I mention my rent controlled apartment a hundred yards from the beach? Okay, digressing again.

Anyway, because it was Golds, I'd always see a lot of celebrities working out there. I've worked out with, well, worked out in the same room with Jeff Goldblum, Jennifer Connelly, Keanu Reeves and Laura Dern to name a few.

One person I also saw fairly regularly was Bruce Jenner. At the time, no one was talking about him transitioning to a woman. They were just whispering about his bad plastic surgery. But as the years went on, and his face took on more feminine features, the rumors started - privately at first, then publicly.

Eventually, he started take female hormone treatments, and his physical appearance began to become more feminine as well.

I recognize the fact Jenner has courted a lot of the publicity that surrounds him. He's been a public figure for over forty years, becoming a genuine American hero by winning the Olympic gold medal for the 1976 decathlon, a sport which until then had been dominated by the Soviets. He's also excelled in other sports, was talked about for the role of Superman in the 1978 film, and more recently has sold his soul to the devil by cavorting with the Kardashians on their reality show.

Throughout it all, his appearance has been gradually changing to the point where what is transpiring is now undeniable. Especially by Jenner. Apparently he has come out (no pun intended) and made public the fact he's transitioning to a woman.

From the procedures to the revelation that the rumors were true, none of it could've been an easy decision. In fact, Jenner is doing his own reality show about the entire transition, that will explain the process as it happens. Of course this is for money and ratings. But I suspect sharing it all with the world will be somewhat cathartic for him as well.

I feel if he's finally transforming into who he believes he really is, then let him. Leave him alone. Stop the tawdry press stories and harsh memes about him. Quit Photoshopping his pictures with grotesque and exaggerated feminine features where his face is.

What's so disturbing about it all is this misplaced logic people have about having a right to be disappointed in Jenner because he's making a decision he's probably wanted, needed, to make all his life. The cruelty of the comments surrounding his decision are nothing short of ignorant and evil. So is the sense of entitlement of the tabloid and some mainstream press.

From Olympic athlete to actor, game show celebrity to aviation businessman, race car driver to reality television star, Bruce Jenner has always been who we've wanted him to be.

It's time to let him be who he wants to be.