Your outside voice

I recently wrote a post that dealt with a kind of phone I thought had disappeared but hadn't. Today's post is about a phone I know has been vanishing for some time now.

That urban American cultural icon, and improvised Superman dressing room, the pay phone.

Not a surprise really. With the proliferation of cell phones, the pay phone and phone booth were on borrowed time.

I always felt there was a class system when it came to pay phones. There were the thick wooden phone booths, like the ones you can still find at Philippe's downtown, or Musso's in Hollywood. Then there were the metal ones, filled with graffiti and wreaking of urine, that you'd find on the corner of every gas station.

There are any number of movies where someone is on the pay phone, in a phone booth, at night, in the rain. The romance of those shots rarely matched the reality of trying to hold the receiver a few inches away from your face in case some of the nastier germs decided to make the leap.

Despite the inherent risk of using them, I miss pay phones. Not half-booth ones like above that got such a huge laugh in Superman II, but real ones.

When I'm at a place like the restaurants I named, I make it a point to call someone. I love the feeling of ducking into the booth, closing the door and shutting out the world.

Barring finding out I actually came from another planet, which many people I work with believe, the phone booth is probably as close to being Superman as I'm going to get.

The romance of the phone booth was also captured in the song Operator by Jim Croce. In it, he has a conversation with a pay phone operator, asking her to connect him to a lost love. It's a song I always loved, maybe because it reminds me of nights before cell phones, when I was on a pay phone trying to get back together with someone.

Or maybe I'm just a sap. It could be that too.

The golden rule

So this evening I was sitting in the porcelain chair in our reading room, perusing the pages of Fortune magazine. As one does. I found an article that talked about how much employees who work for the Four Seasons Hotels love their company.

Not their jobs, their company.

Sure there are the perks you'd expect. Ridiculous employee room rates at any hotel in the chain, anywhere in the world. The ability to transfer to hotels in other countries, and live out that adventure in style.

But the one reason they love the company so much, and, by extension, customers love the company so much, is the one main rule they have for their employees: treat others as you want to be treated. Simple recipe for success, right?

They're not the only company that shares that point of view.

There's a little shmata shop you may have heard of called Nordstrom which also operates under the same golden rule. It's the reason their sales people are more like helpful, leave-you-alone-until-you're-ready people.

The sad thing about good service is that it's as surprising as it is refreshing. As customers, we've reached a point where we're so used to bad service it's like being hit with cold water when you encounter someone who's genuinely there to make sure you're happy.

When was the last time you said, "That guy was so nice! I can't wait to visit the DMV again!"

It's ashame more people don't make it a personal philosophy no matter who they work for. I work at a lot of ad agencies where no one treats anyone the way they want to be treated. And if they do want to be treated that way, they have bigger issues to worry about. But most of the time the philosophy is "Do unto others before they do it unto you."

Yes, it is a glamour business.

Still, I'm nothing if not an optimist. I believe the glass is always half full. Sure it's with rusty, dirty, chemically polluted tap water from a municipal reservoir homeless people bathe and pee in, but still.

I remain filled with hope that one day we'll all treat each other just a little kinder, a little better and a lot more like the way we'd like people to treat us.

Now if this asshole in front of me would just make up his freakin' mind. I need an ice vanilla spice latte like you can't believe.

The daily grind

Like the ability to make change and cursive writing, the fine art of driving a stick shift is rapidly disappearing.

As I mentioned in this post, most people couldn't name three kids who can drive a manual transmission. The real shame is because of that, they'll never get to experience the thrill of what I like to call "real driving." The speed at your beck and call. The precise control and coordination between foot and hand. The shame of being with your high school friends and stalling out on La Cienega just before Sunset and rolling into the car behind you.

Of course I made up that last one. Yeah, that's it. Made it up.

My first few cars were manual transmission, and I used to look for any excuse just to drive. At every red light, I felt like Andretti waiting for the green, revving the engine, giving the nod to the car next to me, ready to leave him in my dust.

Of course, it was a '71 Super Beetle so there wasn't a lot of dust. But you see where I'm going here.

Eventually, time takes it's toll in the form of children, and as any parent knows you always want to have one hand free to reach in the backseat and remind them where they come from. So inevitably the day comes for all of us where we give up the thrill of a stick shift for the convenience of an automatic transmission. We convince ourselves it feels almost as fast off the light. That's it's not so bad, which it's not (I'm good at fooling myself). Automatic really is a lot better at rush hour on the freeway, and that becomes sort of a mantra.

But if I'm ever stuck at a Hertz counter at a regional airport in farm country somewhere in the midwest at midnight - and why wouldn't I be - and all they have left is a beat up Ford Focus with a manual transmission, I'll be able to drive it.

Sadly, the 2015 graduating class of Driver's Ed can't say the same.

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.

Let's keep this short

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, so it probably doesn't matter what I write since no one will be reading it (I know, why is this day different from any other?)?

I've written here a couple of times, here and here, about my futile, humiliating, nothing-can-make-me-feel-more- stupid-with-the-possible-exception-of-my-children attempts to become a contestant on Jeopardy.

However, as I was watching the show the other night, it hit me like a bolt of what is lightning (see what I did there?). I've been applying for the wrong position.

Instead of contestant, I should be going for Jeopardy category writer. It's not like I don't know how to bring the funny. Depending on who you ask, I do it for a living. And those category titles and answers are short. Nothing I like better than short copy, with the possible exception of the paycheck that comes with writing it.

I always think the categories reflect the writer's personal tastes. So it'll come as a surprise to no one that my first Jeopardy categories would be Springsteen, Breaking Bad, The Godfather, Sushi Bars, German cars, Helen Mirren and Potpourri (have to keep some traditions alive).

Moving on to the double Jeopardy round, which is always harder, I'd have Movie Palaces, Star Trek, Stand-Up Comics, Seinfeld (I know he's a stand-up, but really, a category unto himself), Is This Thing On and Star Wars Geography (This planet was destroyed by the Death Star super laser in Episode IV: A New Hope...).

Unfortunately you can't go online to apply for the category writer job, so I'll have to see who I know and how to get stuff to them.

Another great job for me would be lotto winner. Working on that one as well.

By the way, it was Alderaan.

Things I was wrong about: Remote control

So here it is - the second in my series of Things I Was Wrong About. By the way, if you missed the first and feel the need to catch up - and frankly, who could blame you - you'll find it here.

I'm kind of partial to this series more than some of the others I do (Guilty Pleasures, Don't Ask, Things I Don't Need To Know), because, as my wife, children, close friends, banker, work colleagues, doctor and complete strangers on the street keep reminding me, I'll never run out of topics to talk about.

The one I'm talking about today is an American cultural icon, companion of couch potatoes worldwide and best friend of the AA battery industry. The remote control.

I remember the first remote control TV my parents bought. It also happened to be the first color TV we owned. It was an RCA console television, and looked similar to this one, minus the statue collection of the mixed fox/bull terrier Nipper that was the RCA mascot for years (Impressive I know that, yes? My mind is a crowded place).

Besides being able to finally see the NBC "in living color" peacock in living color for the first time, now we didn't have to get up to change from one of the seven - count 'em seven - channels to the other (3 network, 4 local).

The remote controls then weren't the streamlined, digitally programed, colorful, button-laiden devices they are today. The were like little bricks, usually offering only four buttons: volume up and down, and channel up and down.

Still, not having to get up to change the channel was a revelation. It gave me the perfect excuse get even less physical activity than I was already getting. I know you wouldn't think it to look at me now, but I was a fat little kid (you know I can hear you laughing, right?). And this new, magical device wasn't going to help that.

As the years have gone by, we've been able to control more and more things by remote. Lights to drapes. Thermostats to DVRs. Cameras to ovens. Today, with the power we hold in our hands, there's virtually no reason to get off the couch to do anything. Except get the potato chips.

Even as I write this, it seems hard to believe there was a point in time where I thought, "How lazy do you have to be that you can't get your fat ass up and walk four or five feet to the TV and change the channel?" But that was before molded-to-your-hand grip remote controls. And Netflix.

So on the long, long list of things I was wrong about, let me add the modern day convenience I could now never live without. The remote control.

I think that just about wraps up this post. CLICK! Power off.

Guilty pleasures Part 8: Devil's Advocate

Continuing my wildly popular Guilty Pleasures series (if you missed any, you can catch up here, here, here, here, here, here and here), we turn up the heat with one of my favorite over-the-top Al Pacino performances - Devil's Advocate.

In this B-movie gem, Keanu Reeves plays a hot shot southern lawyer (do the words casting against type ring a bell?) who's never lost a case. When a big New York law firm recruits him, he can't resist even though his wife, Charlize Theron, is somewhat hesitant.

His new boss, John Milton (Pacino) is a master of the universe literally and figuratively, and is prone to making a lot of inside jokes about being able to relate to Keanu when he starts talking about how lousy his father was.That's because he may not be who he appears to be. DA DA DA!

Better than his courtroom speech in And Justice For All, louder than he was in Scent Of A Woman, Devil's Advocate has one of the best Pacino tearing it up speeches of his career. It comes towards the end of the film, where he finally reveals to Keanu who he really is. Here's a hint: It's similar to the relationship Darth Vader has to Luke, only Pacino is a lot more, shall we say, subterranean.

It goes a little something like this:

Throughout the film, Pacino gives his character a little reptilian quality by licking his lips quickly with his tongue. It's mighty clear how much fun he's having, even if he has to act his ass off against Keanu's monotone voice and limited expression.

I could tell you a lot more about the film, for example what happens to Pacino's law office partners who don't go along with him. Or how Keanu defends Craig T. Nelson against murdering his wife. The frosty exchange between Pacino and Keanu's mother in a New York elevator. Pacino's subway run in with gang members. There's also the part where Charlize is driven crazy because, well, you'll just have to see for yourself.

Hamming it up? Yes. Chewing the scenery? Definitely. A wild ride? Absolutely.

I'm going to take the high road here (just to see what it's like) and resist the temptation to say it's a devilishly good time. I'll just say it's definitely worth finding on cable, or renting on Netflix. You'll have just as much fun as Pacino's obviously having.