That Would Be Me (dot net)

When I still lived in Northern California, fresh out of college and settling into life before my planned foray into a life in theatre, I took a vacation trip to Ahsland Oregon to attend the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for a week. Once there for few days, I decided I wanted to be part of something like that, contacted the administrative office and scheduled an audition. I’ve always been a bit ballsy about such things. I knew that several people who had acted there had gone on to have fairly respectable careers in both New York and Los Angeles. My audition was in front of Jerry Turner, the long time artistic director of the festival, who has since passed away.

I went to the local library to look up some scripts and worked up a couple of monologues, the requisite comedic piece, a cut and pasted monologue from Dylan Thomas’s Under Milkwood, “Mr. and Mrs. Pew are silent over cold grey cottage pie,” and a dramatic piece from Hamlet, “Oh, that this too too sullied flesh would thaw, melt or resolve itself into a dew.” I did, I think, fairly well. Because I had already planned on moving to Los Angeles, I gave them the family homestead address in Spokane to make sure any mail would eventually get to me, then told my family to look out for anything from them. I went back to my job in Northern California, then moved to Los Angeles in another ballsy move that deserves it’s own essay.

Two years later I was happily ensconced in my Los Angeles dream, working at a tacky answering service, living in a room in a fourplex in Hollywood, sharing the kitchen and bathroom with the crack heads and hustlers in the other rooms. I was having a phone conversation (on the payphone out front) with one of my siblings when they announced, “Oh, I never told you. A year or so ago you got something from Ashland in the mail.” Now, I could have done any number of things at that point. I could have said, “Well, find the damn thing and send it to me.” I could have called the festival administrative office and explained the situation, asking if I had actually gotten in and if I could do it that next summer instead. I could have sent them my new address in LA as soon as I had one. Instead, I said, “Oh” and left it at that.

Several years later (and several years ago), I quit acting, figuring that the Universe was against me. (I didn’t yet get that I had more than a little to do with the whole not getting an acting career going thing.) Three months after I quit, I got my first professional acting job. File under “Irony”. I was called by the Los Angeles Theater Center. They had my picture on file and could I come in for an audition. I’d thought it odd because I hadn’t remembered ever sending my picture to them, but when I quit acting I said that I would no longer pursue acting, but if it pursued me, I wouldn’t say no, so I went.

The play was to be a new translation of Henrik Ibsen’s tragic piece about selfish fathers called The Wild Duck. I went to their huge wonderful theatre building in downtown LA and was ushered upstairs to a large rehearsal room. The producer and casting director of the show introduced themselves to me and said that the director was still in Norway, but they were casting the smaller roles. I did the monologue from Hamlet. “Oh, that this too too sullied flesh would thaw, melt or resolve itself into a dew.” It felt okay, I knew I had done the speech better. In any case, I didn’t really give a damn one way or the other at that point. I’d quit acting, remember?

We talked for a moment or two and then they asked me to leave the room for a moment. Something felt strangely familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. You know the feeling. Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters playing with his mashed potatoes. There I was in the hallway of the upper recesses of the Los Angeles Theater Center wishing I had a plate of mashed potatoes to form into some recognizable shape.

Then it hit me, and I knew why it had felt so familiar. Several years before that, (I know, I’m jumping around a lot. Stick with me,) when still that diligent but naive young actor doing everything I had heard was necessary to do to get a job, before I had spent ten years being unemployed, I had heard through the grapevine that the Los Angeles Actor’s Theater was having open auditions for their new company to be housed in a theatre somewhere downtown. I called and scheduled myself for an audition.

I was told to go to the Variety Arts Center, that venerable, stately old building. The audition was in a medium sized rehearsal room upstairs. I brought in the requisite comedic and dramatic pieces, the same two I’d used in Ashland. I walked into the room and was introduced to Bill Bushnell, the artistic director of the theatre, and his assistant. I did the Thomas piece. It felt good. It felt wonderful. I peeked over at the two sitting behind the long folding table and they had smiles on their faces. I did the Shakespeare. I was dead on. I had never done it better. It rang with emotion, with betrayal. “Oh God, God, how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seems to me all the uses of the world that it should come to this… But two months dead. Nay, not so much, not two.” I felt it in my bones. I was Hamlet. Albeit an overweight one with dark curly hair, but I was Hamlet.

When I was done, Mr. Bushnell looked at me, smiled and said “That’s it.” I said “That’s it?” He said “That’s it.” I was a little surprised, but I knew that to make a graceful exit was almost as important as the entrance and the actual audition. I had been to all the seminars. I knew how to behave. As I gathered up my coat, Mr. Bushnell started asking me where I was from. I answered casually as I gathered up my appointment calendar and papers. He asked me about my training as I backed out of the room. I answered and closed the door behind me. I hadn’t lingered past the welcome point. I had done well.

As I walked down the hallway, I had a very strange sensation; I knew that I had done well. I thought that they had liked me, but the whole end part seemed very odd. I could still hear him say “That’s it.” “That’s it.” But why was he making casual conversation as I was leaving? As I went down the elevator, the odd sensation became a rumbling in the pit of my stomach. “That’s it.” It didn’t fit. Something was off.

As I got into my car, it dawned on me. He had said “Have a seat.” I pictured my bizarre exit from their point of view: a talented young actor had given a very creditable audition and then had slunked out of the room during the interview. How very odd. Is slunked a word? Well, even if it isn’t, I’m sure I had slunked. I put my head down on the steering wheel. That image, the image of me leaving in mid word has haunted often since then, as have the things I could have done to have repaired the damage and become a member of what became a very respected acting company. A company which, once established, was called Los Angeles Theater Center, headed by Bill Bushnell.

During my second audition for LATC, that one for Wild Duck, I was called back into the room and told I had the job. I started to laugh. They asked what was funny and I told them I had quit acting about three months earlier. They also found that funny, and said that that was probably why I had gotten the job. I didn’t tell them I had missed out on the opportunity to be part of their company all those years ago. You see, Wild Duck was part of their final season.

We are told that we are often our own worst enemies. In a nod to Oliver Perry, Pogo Possum once famously said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” I write, now. But if acting ever pursues me, I still won’t say no.

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Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend

My mother liked extreme foods. The tea she liked was smoked. I have no idea what the brand or type was, although I have a vague memory that it was something British. It came loose in a tin and my mother would put well over a teaspoon of it in a tea bell, put it in her large coffee mug and pour boiling water over it. Then she would let it steep for hours. Literally hours. Some days she’d make her tea right after breakfast and it would still be sitting on the kitchen counter in the late afternoon. The water would have cooled by then, of course, and there would be a dark grey-brown ring on the ceramic just above the level of the tea and the musky, smokey aroma of it would permeate the house. Tea should not be smokey. Scotch is smokey. Which, of course, is why I prefer a good Irish. Steak grilled over hickory chips should be smokey. Not tea.

Once my mother got her tea to this tepid, almost viscous state she would put a little more hot water in to warm it up, pull the tea bell out, stir it a few times to mix all the tannins evenly and contentedly sit sipping the venomous brew. I was sure the bowl of her spoon would dissolve while she stirred, but it never seemed to.

She also enjoyed Limburger cheese. Not the pot of mildly fragrant cheese you find at your local greengrocer, jar cheese that spreads smoothly across your rye cracker. This cheese was a gently aged block of runny offal that had legs. And feet. And armpits. I used to say Limburger smelled like dirty socks, but that’s not quite accurate. It smelled like athletic socks that had been worn for eight days on a forced march across a burning desert by a very masculine man who suffered from severe athlete’s foot and profuse sweating, then stuffed into moldy sneakers and left in a damp basement for a couple of years. It actually singed the hairs in your nose. Mom would store her chunk of precious matter in a small, tightly sealed Tupperware container in the fridge so that it could marinate in its own essence to its most piquant fullness. (I recently read that the bacteria that is used to ferment Limburger is the same found on human skin that causes body odor. So, in essence, if I wear the same tee shirt two days in a row, I’m a delicacy. Who would have imagined?)

She liked her Limburger in a sandwich, but not just any sandwich. She would cut two thick slices of bread which, I assume, was rye or pumpernickel. She just called it “black bread.” Then she cut a thick slice from a Bermuda onion. Then a couple of hacks from the cheese, put them all together and once again sit down to her special treat. She rarely made these sandwiches while we were around, from fear of Child Services, I suspect, but I would know she was indulging when I turned the corner at the end of our block on the way home from school. Something in the air would quietly whisper, “go visit someone for an hour or two.”

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my mother. She introduced us to some amazing culinary delights such as lox, pickled schmaltz herring and pasta con pesto so strong you sweat garlic for three days. And she never forced Limburger or smoked tea on us. It was there if we wanted it. We didn’t.

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Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend

Many years ago Toyota had an ad campaign with the catchy slogan, “What Will You Do with All the Money You Save?” The thinking was, I assume, the consumer had $20,000 in their checking account allotted especially for the purpose of buying a car. When they bought the Toyota and it only cost $18,000, they had $2,000 worth of FREE MONEY! Woo Hoo! I’m going to Disneyland and have dinner at one of the real restaurants!

Of course, how many people actually have the cash already set aside to purchase a car? (Or even a pack of gum these days, even that’s put on a credit card more often than not.) We usually don’t even have the down payment ready at hand. So, when a car costs less than originally expected, you don’t actually “save” money, you just don’t spend as much potential (read “imaginary”) money as you would have on the more expensive item. You can’t do anything with the money you saved, because in actuality it never really existed. Except in your mind. Which, now I think about it, is how most of my money exists.

Why do I bring this up so many years after the fact? Well, there is a new ad campaign now running from Hyundai, called Dollars & Sense, where the wide-eyed consumers, having fallen in love with the car, are admonished by either Larry Winget, Ray Lucia or Adam Smith (all presumed to be best selling authors of books about money) that they should “put the money they saved into an insured CD” or some such drivel. These renowned economists should be ashamed of themselves! What could it possibly do to an economist’s reputation to advise people to put money that never existed into savings? Isn’t that illegal? Would there eventually be a margin call? Would you have to give the car back when that happened? What if you’ve already spilled ice cream on the upholstery during your trip to Disneyland?

I don’t really begrudge these authors getting their truck load of money for giving this fictional advice in a commercial, it is good economics. For them - lead by example, I always say. Are Hyundai cars relatively inexpensive? Yes. (I didn’t say “cheap”!) Will you spend less money on one than if you buy a comparable car from another maker? Probably. Does that mean you’ve saved money? Theoretically. What are you going to do with that money? I’m going to invest mine in an imaginary gold mine in Argentina. Hey, I don’t even have to buy the car to do that. How much more money can I save, then?

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Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend

Yes, I’m verbose.

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Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend