This morning at about eleven am, while composing a Tweet (yes, I Tweet.  Don’t you?) to a fellow writer, the power went off.  At first I thought it must be the whole building, so I sat for a few moments listening for any of my neighbors who might be coming out to see what was up.  No one seemed to be coming out.  Then I remembered the Edison bill.  Damn.

My phones are Internet based, so, without the modem and router, I couldn’t call out.  My cell phone is old, needs a new battery, so I knew it would die before I actually reached someone to pay the bill, so I went out to my car, plugged the phone into the cigarette lighter adapter and called.  They said the lights would be on in between three and six ours.

I spend my life at the computer.  I spend my life on the Internet.  It is where most of my business is conducted, most of my socializing is at least initiated, most of my creativity happens and most of my communication with the world takes place.  The soft hum of the hard drive and fans in the computer is a constant companion, so much so that, like an old lover, I have become oblivious to it’s presence.  It was suddenly very quiet.  Even with the street noises, and I live on a major boulevard with much traffic, it was quiet.

After calling Steve (the business/writing partner, for those of you who don’t keep up) to let him know not to come in, and to call the answering service occasionally, I picked up a book and started reading.  The blinds were open, as was the front door, and the light was bright and natural, riding in on a cool spring breeze.  At first I felt guilty.  Not, as you might expect, because of the “not paying the bill” thing.  I felt guilty because I wasn’t working.  I wasn’t writing.  I wasn’t doing things that would bring in money.

After a small while, I realized that the guilt was pointless, that I might as well decide to take advantage of the day.  Several pages into the book that has been long wanting to be read, (one by Orson Scott Card, one of my favorites SF authors) I decided to move out to the chair on my front stoop.  I actually finished the book.  I took in the sky.  I listened to the street noises.  I chatted with my neighbors, something I used to do a lot but hadn’t seemed to find the time for, lately.  I finished another (very short) book, and realized it was getting dark and cold so I came inside to reflect on the day.  I don’t often take an entire day off.  Even when I decide to take the day off, I check my email several times, jot notes, surf the web.  I’m never, it seems, idle or contemplative for any sustained length of time.

Being forced to simply not go on the computer, being forced to not spin my wheels, to sit, read and think, was an amazing experience.  No one needed my attention that quickly, nothing needed to get done, tasks that were there in the morning would still be there tomorrow morning and no one was injured or died because I didn’t get to them.  At about nine pm the power finally came back on.  It was a wholly wonderful day.

So, of course, as soon as the power was back on, I turned on the computer and wrote a blog about it.

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

When I was twenty-three, I moved to Los Angeles with a dream and everything I could fit into a bright orange Ford Gran Torino station wagon that I bought for six hundred dollars and named Stanley.  (Two points for anyone who can figure out why I called him Stanley.)  I spent the first several nights parked on side-streets in the car, then spent a month on the living room couch of some friends from college.  I got registered with a temp agency and got a job fairly quickly, then started looking for a place to stay that I could afford.

I found an apartment in Hollywood, a couple of blocks north of Hollywood Boulevard.  A room, actually.  The building had been built as a fourplex, two apartments upstairs and two down, but by the time I got there, the owner had started renting the individual rooms out instead of the whole apartments.  I was in the back room on the first floor, just past the bathroom, and shared the bathroom and a small kitchen with everyone on that floor.  The landlord charged rent weekly, thirty-four dollars a week, as I recall.

It was an interesting place.  I would be woken up in the middle of the night by fist fights in the hallway.  I’d find hypodermic needles (and often blood) on the sink in the bathroom.  The fellow who had the room closest to me made his living (if you want to call it that) by “patrolling” Santa Monica Boulevard.  He was younger than me, perhaps nineteen or twenty.  I am really not sure how I managed to stay sane for the year I was there, but I was young, on my own and going somewhere with my life.

That December, my temp job ended about a week before Christmas.  My Grandmother had sent me a check for Christmas, I think it was ten or fifteen dollars.  It was the only money I had.  My neighbor had a tiny little portable black and white television that one of his customers had given him.  It was two days before Christmas.  We were both sitting on his bed, the only piece of furniture in his room, watching the television.  We were both depressed.

Suddenly, he looked at me and said, “Let’s go to Disneyland.”  I was startled by that, and it showed.  “I worked last night,” he said.  “I can put gas in your car.  Let’s go to Disneyland tomorrow.”

The next morning, December 24th, we filled Stanley’s gas tank, I cashed my grandmother’s check, and we drove down to Anaheim.  It was a drizzly day, the kind of day most would find, at the very least, annoying, but let me assure you:  The best way to experience Disneyland is the day before a Holiday when it is drizzling.  The thing most people talk about when they talk about “The Happiest Place on Earth” is not the wonder of it or the fun of it.  What they talk about is standing in line.  The Disney “Imagineers” have turned standing in line into a high art, giving you twists and turns that reveal the line is twice, no three times, no twelve times as long as you thought when you first entered it.  Standing in line is what you spend your day doing at Disneyland.

Except on a drizzly Christmas Eve day.  There were no lines.  The drizzle wasn’t enough to make you wet, only enough to put a sharp chill in the air that kept most people huddled up in their homes by their Christmas trees, waiting for the turkey or ham to come out of the oven.  To me, though, it put a soft filter on the world, making the plastic splendor of Disneyland glow with an unreal magnificence.  It felt like moving through a beautiful, Impressionist painting.  Monet’s Cathedrals with men dressed as large mice.

All the attractions besides Tom Sawyer’s Island were open, and we were able to see everything we wanted, go on every ride we wanted.  Neither of us had ever been to Disneyland, and I was completely enthralled by the wonder of it.  This was back when you needed tickets to go one each attraction.  When you entered, you received a bunch of tickets, The “E” ones for the best, scariest rides, down to the “A” ones for the mildest.  Once you ran out of your tickets, you had to purchase more.  Except for “A” tickets.  You could get as many of those as you wanted.

I’d read about the haunted house when I was in grade school and had always wanted to experience it.  It lived up to my expectations and more.  It was thrilling.  It was an “E” ride.  I also fell in love with the Peter Pan ride, where you board a boat and fly over the rooftops of London.  That was an “A” ride, but became one of my favorites.

The Disney film studios had just put out the move, The Black Hole, and everywhere we went in the park were ads and posters for it.  On the way back home, we stopped at a nice Italian restaurant for dinner, then, when we got back to Hollywood, went to the Chinese Theatre to watch The Black Hole.  It wasn’t a great movie, but it was a good ending to the wonderful, surreal day.

It was a magical, perfect, drizzly Christmas Eve Day.  I’ve been back to Disneyland many times but it has never seemed so full of wonder and magic.  And the irony of experiencing the home of Mary Poppins on funds derived from illicit activities only added to the surreal joy of it all.

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

And then America went crazy and tried to retroactively stop a bunch of zealots who turned a jet into a very lethal weapon.

I made my peace early with the illogic and humiliation of having to remove my belt and shoes to join a friend for lunch in their office building or keep my appointment with my cardiologist.  I try to interact like a human with the poor people manning the portals of a system designed to be very inhuman and inefficient.  I talk and joke with them and most will talk and joke back, or at least smile.  Some just give me that bureaucratic blank stare to let me know this is not a time for levity, thank you very much, but I feel it is part of my job to bring a ray of sunshine into people’s lives whenever and wherever I can.  Okay, I also always wanted to be the teacher’s pet.  You might try it, though.  It makes my day easier than if I grumbled through them.  I must go through, I might as well do it with a smile on my face.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of flying to San Antonio.  At Terminal Seven of Los Angeles International Airport I checked in at the little computer console with my e-ticket.  Wonderful convenience, those, you do everything on-line, put your credit card in a slot, print out your boarding pass and you’re on your way.  The first console didn’t work.  Nor the second.  Nor the third.  Finally, one of the people behind the counter, whose load these consoles are supposed to lighten, came out, opened one of the consoles up, waved her hands voodoo-like over its innards and printed my pass.

I had packed my bags fulfilling all the regulations I was aware of for carry-on.  Not too heavy, not too big.  Only one suitcase and a shoulder bag.  They could both fit in the overhead or under the seat in front of me.  On the way to the main screening station at Los Angeles Airport, or at least at Terminal Seven, you must pass several mini check points.  It’s sort of akin to what I understand entering a country behind the Iron Curtain must be like.  Yes, there still is an Iron Curtain.  I joked and chatted with each person at each point and got my requisite smile, albeit sometimes patronizing, from most of them.

I was happy to travel and secure in the thought that this minor inconvenience was stopping a child, somewhere, from starving to death.

After the last checkpoint, where you present your photo ID and prove you have a boarding pass, there are four lines to choose from in order to wend your way up to the row of abattoir that are the x-ray machines.  All four rows looked to be about the same length, so I chose the outermost one.  You don’t actually see the screening stations until you wind around the line a bit.  It’s kind of like Disneyland that way, without all the cloying music.

I started realizing my line was moving more slowly than the others.

I chatted and joked with those around me, in my line and the one across the rope.  Finally I saw our x-ray station.  The portal.  The conveyer belt.  The man, staring at his little x-ray screen.  He was stopping at every second or third bag to call his supervisor over to examine some supposed piece of heinous contraband.  The supervisor let all of them through.  No wonder we were the slowest line.  All the other screeners were looking intently into their screens, but letting almost everything by.  Our man had a look about him.  He was big.  He was angry.  He was bitter.

I got my shoes off, my belt unhooked and unlooped, took the laptop out of the shoulder case, took my toiletry bag out of the suitcase.  All my metal, coins, money clip, neck chain, into the plastic bin.  I was ready.  I knew the routine.  After all my stuff went through, the fellow at the controls stopped the conveyor belt and opened my toiletry bag.  Uh oh.

He took out my tube of toothpaste.

“This is over three ounces,” he said.

I sort of didn’t understand.  “I’m sorry?”

“It’s over three ounces.  No liquid over three ounces.”

“But it’s half empty.”

“It’s over three ounces.  The container is over three ounces.”

I was flabbergasted.  It’s not like I was going to blow up a plane with toothpaste.  I doubted even an experienced demolition man could do that.

“I’m going to blow up an airplane with toothpaste?”

I actually said that.  And I didn’t get arrested.  At least we can speak our minds, still.

I insisted there was far less than three ounces of toothpaste in the tube, but he was adamant.  He finally told me I could go back and check it if I wanted.  I’d been in the line for this moment for over forty-five minutes.  A short time, granted, given the state of some airport screening stations, but still.

This is a man who has little or no control of anything in his life and wields his petite power like a demagog.  It never even occurred to me to try to bring a ray of sunshine into his life.  The ray would have been instantly sucked into the black hole that is his void.  A complete waste of a good ray.

“I’m not going to check a tube of toothpaste,” I said to him with a heavy coating of sarcasm that was lost in that same void, never to be seen again.  Hey, it was Tom’s of Maine toothpaste!  “Keep it.”  He did.

I gathered my stuff with quick jerks and snippily put my shoes and belt back on.  That’d show him.  I still haven’t bought a new tube, either, just for spite.  I’d rather brush with salt water.

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

Now, a few definitions are in order. Miracle Whip is not mayonnaise. It couldn’t even dream of being mayonnaise in its darkest fever dreams. It is a sweet goo that people who must be excused because they don’t know any better, mistake for mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is not sweet. Also, besides something hand made like the nectar of the gods served at Cassilles Hamburgers on sixth street in downtown Los Angeles, unless the mayonnaise is Best Foods (oddly called Hellman’s east of the Rockies) Real Mayonnaise, it isn’t the best.

I realize my mayonnaise addiction isn’t rational. (What addiction is? To paraphrase Kenneth Halliwell in Prick Up Your Ears, the whole point of an addiction is to not make sense.) Roommates have been known to hide the household stash from me. In stronger days, I’ve rationed it by buying the very small, much more expensive jars. I’ve even gone great periods of time without mayonnaise, but then someone will bring a jar to a picnic or pot luck and I’m off.

I can make a salad out of anything. Ever thought of corn salad? Frozen sweet corn (thawed, of course), garlic, a touch of onion, salt, pepper and mayonnaise. Sometimes, for pep, I squeeze a very small spot of yellow mustard into it. Pea salad? Same concept, no mustard, but you can add basil, parsley and a touch of sage and thyme to that. (Just a touch, you don’t want to actually tasted the sage and thyme, it’s there for a hint not a flavor.)

I’ve put mayonnaise in mashed potatoes. I’ve put it on mashed banana sandwiches. I learned this treat from my Grandpa Hoff, who also, sometimes, added peanut butter to the mix. Also, sandwiches made from dill pickles sliced lengthwise and cheddar cheese with thinly sliced white onions and a healthy dollop of mayonnaise. Trust me on this one. I’ve converted many people to it. Not so many to the whole banana peanut butter thing. Most people simply aren’t that adventurous, culinarily speaking.

My mother used to make this warm German potato salad. She was very proud of it. No, she wasn’t German. I think it was a leftover part of the pact between Hitler and Italy before the fall of Mussolini. I hated it. First, it was warm. Second, it had no mayonnaise in it, which, as far as I’m concerned, is the main reason for the existence of potato salad. Sort of like popcorn’s only positive attribute is as a vehicle to bring butter into the system, but that’s a subject for another post. Potato salad should contain potatoes for substance, chopped celery for crunch, chopped dill pickles or olives for salt and pep, and mayonnaise. (I also like to add some spices like salt, pepper, garlic and onion, but I’m Italian, and that sort of goes without saying. I said it anyway. I’m verbose that way.)

Due to several varied health issues, I’ve given up cheese (very difficult), bread (relatively difficult), chicken skin (I usually say a small benediction over it before tossing it down the garbage disposal) and several other delectable edibles, but not mayonnaise. Perhaps some day I’ll need to. It will be a very sad day. I may have to recover with several days a-bed, wearing black pajamas and listening to Joni Mitchell and early Simon and Garfunkel albums. Until that day, I’ll continue to try to ration myself, but won’t feel too very guilty when I notice another jar has mysteriously been emptied.

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

I’ve always said I have great “parking karma” – I always find a parking space. (In Los Angeles, that’s a big deal.) Of course, that’s UNLESS I’m in a foul mood, then I can circle the block for hours until I remember that I have great parking karma and find a space! Someone then, magically, pulls out of a spot right in front of me, and voila! I’m not late for my court da… I mean movie.

I know that sounds very “new age”. And my definition of someone who is “new age” is someone who is willing to believe anything. Well, I suppose I’m willing to believe anything, but I do some investigation and end up not believing a lot of stuff. I don’t believe in iPods, for instance. Who thought up that myth? Little white buds that you stick in your ears for aural pleasure? Next, you’ll try to tell me that they can translate foreign speech for you on the fly. Sounds like something out of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. No fish in my ear, Bud!

Sorry. Back to choosing a tile.

Things have gotten, shall we say, “hairy” in the last several months. Both Steve and I have been talking a lot about what isn’t working, which, using the “choose a tile” metaphor, is like choosing that it doesn’t work. Very recently, we both noticed we were doing this, and started choosing other tiles. Things began to appear. Opportunities. Like magic. Okay, not really magic, they were already there all along, but we started noticing them or remembering them and choosing them. That’s the magic of real magic, it’s not magic at all. Okay, I even confused myself with that one.

Are we out of the woods, yet? No, but the trees look pretty while we’re here. And we can see a quaint village in the distance. We’re close enough to see the smoke from the chimneys and the rabbits eating out of the rutabaga gardens. Okay, I tend toward folk imagery. I grew up in the sixties and listened to Jethro Tull. Shut up.

I noticed this afternoon that I’ve been pontificating a lot, lately. Yes, I know, but more than usual. I think I’m gearing up mentally and spiritually to write fiction again. I choose that tile. Better than a “J”.

Steve still chooses fireworks and liquor, but that’s him.

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

The question we get asked the most at parties, seminars and public hangings is some variation of “how do you guys write together?”  It is usually asked with an air of someone trying to grasp something they don’t believe possible.  Some even offer suggestions of possible processes: “Do you each write a paragraph, then put them together?”  Well, no.  Or, “Does one of you write, then the other edit that?”   Well, sometimes.  Sort of.  Or, “Do you argue?”  We discuss, thank you very much.

If what people are really asking is, “What is THE process of writing with a partner?” I can’t answer that.  We do have our process, honed over the years, but as with every individual writer’s process, ours is uniquely our own, and, as with every individual writer’s process, is a wonderful, delightful, sometimes harrowing mystery.  That being said, this is what we do, and, after several screenplays, a web based comedy story, a best selling satirical novel, a popular web show and several articles, sales pages, blurbs, press releases and forum postings, it works fairly well for us.

First, of course, comes an Idea.  Some of them come fairly well-formed out of one of our heads, some of them as just a vague notion of something that might be interesting to explore, some a request for a work-for-hire project, a subject for an entire blog post in itself.  Then we talk.  We talk a lot, sometimes for days.  We make each other giggle.  (Yes, even Steve giggles sometimes, but he does it in a very manly way.)  Sometimes we even piss each other off, but not too much.  At some point, when the idea seems to be being fleshed out to the point of actual life, one of us (usually Steve) says, “shouldn’t we be taking notes on all this?”  I grumble, then get out a yellow legal pad and we re-iterate all our ideas so I can get them down.  Then I transcribe them into a file on the computer.  Then we talk some more, take some more notes, etc., until it seems like a story.

At that point I go through the notes and try to put them in some sort of logical order, then open up a word processor (Final Draft for screenplays and web show scripts, WordPerfect for everything else) and start typing.  Steve sits to my right, watching.  We don’t talk much, it has, by this point, been talked out to the point where my fingers just know where to go.  Once in a while, Steve will make a comment and it will flow out of my fingers as if I’d thought of it.  Sometimes, he says, “really?” and we discuss the bit he questioned.

Steve had a writing partner before he met me and they used to argue about every word, sometimes getting less than a paragraph written in a day.  When we started writing, we made an agreement and have stuck with it ever since:  Unless we both love something, it doesn’t go in.  It’s a rule with us.  Our only rule, actually.  (Besides not showing up naked.)  Do we ever defend a particular joke or idea or wording?  Yes, of course.  One of us will make a case for it.  If the other one doesn’t really mind, it goes in.  If the other one hates it, it doesn’t.  Simple as that.  During these discussions, we’ve often come up with a “third way” that’s better then anything we’d thought of before and very different from what we were initially defending, so these discussions are very important.

The dictum to leave your ego at the door is utterly ridiculous.  Who could create without an ego, without the thought that they had something to say that other people want to hear?  We just know that our ego, our pride, will be better served if the piece works, rather than if “my idea” works.  Often, actually, we can’t remember who came up with what after the fact.  And it doesn’t matter.  We did.

As we’re writing, we’ll often question a fact, or a word meaning or word usage.  That’s were writing on a computer with an Internet connection is useful.  We look it up.  Google, Wikipedea, IMDB, dictionary.com and thesaurus.com are all a moment away.  And whenever we look sometime up, we get distracted and follow odd trails into vastly unrelated subject matter.  We’re artists.  We like bright, shiny objects and have short attention spans.

At some point on these random wanderings, one of us (usually Steve) will say we need to focus and we get back to the project at hand, but along the way, we’ve often discovered some delightful thing that we can add to the plot or turn into a new joke or have become an entire conversation between the characters as a wonderful metaphor for what they’re really trying to say.  (Free tip: Oblique dialogue is often much more satisfying, and will involve the reader much more deeply.  And often make him laugh.  Free tip #2: Too much of it will make your reader want to hit you.)  We remind each other that the random wanderings work whenever one of us (usually me) wants to get all rigorous and hidebound.

Sometimes we will get frustrated, as a new passage starts flowing, because the “perfect word” isn’t readily at hand, which leads to the question, is there a “The Perfect Word?”  I say yes.  Sort of.  We have spent hours in the pages of Roget’s Thesaurus and on thesaurus.com looking for an elusive word that one or both of us knows is out there.  (We use the original Roget’s format, not the stupid dictionary type format.  Feh! Whose idea was that?)  Often we will come up with a fairly good compromise word, sometimes one that is spot on.  Sometimes we will be disappointed and can’t find anything better than the one we initially came up with, but my thought is that the right word can make or break a thought, a bit of dialogue, an entire paragraph.

“The Perfect Word” isn’t a new word, or, necessarily, even a big, impressive one.  It’s simply the word the most expresses the idea at hand.

I said we only have one hard and fast rule.  We actually have two.  Steve and I are artists, and as such, like a drop or a dram or two.  He’s more partial to Beer, I to a nice Canadian or Irish whiskey.  When we first started working together, this fancy figured heavily in our friendship.  We tried writing with a beer nearby (it’s only a beer!)  It really, really didn’t work.  We quickly became fuzzy and what we produced wasn’t the sharp stuff we love.  We made an agreement fairly quickly that no drinking happens until the writing session was over.  Even the early idea chats were included in that; they’re as or more important then the actual typing it all out.

Of course, we still liked our dram.  Often, after a nice writing session, I’d sort of notice Steve wasn’t right there.  Then a cold can of beer would suddenly appear by the keyboard.  “Oh,” I’d say.  “I guess we’re done.”  Steve would answer, “It fell into my hand!”  I never objected much.  (I would, of course, finish typing the thought I’d been in the middle of before we opened the cans, toasted to our genius and sipped.)  Now, of course, we both drink only rarely and almost never after working.  We’re older.  Eleven years is longer than you might imagine.  I’m in my mid fifties and Steve’s in his mid-to-late forties.  The effects of a beer or several or a shot or several are much harsher and last much longer.  Give me a nice glass of ice water with a slice of lemon in it and I’m perfectly happy.

We treat writing as a job.  We always have.  This is key, I think.  We write after work for several hours at least four nights a week and one full day on the weekend, with rare exceptions.  The full day can involve the roasting of a slab of animal flesh over a charcoal fire or a walk around the block to clear our heads, but the focus is writing, and even while we’re roasting or walking we’re talking and thinking and, really, working.  Is it work?  Yes.  Is it the best work in the world?  Yes.

What he have together, we know, is magic.  Early on, we had a large potential falling out.  I was very angry with Steve.  And he was angry at me for being angry at him.  In what friendship/ partnership/ relationship does this not happen?  I brooded for about a week, barely talking to him, which is odd for two people who write together every day.  Then I started thinking about what we were creating together, how special that was, how unusual, and how important and realized that was much more important than any (perhaps imagined? Possibly misunderstood, definitely overblown) slight I may have suffered.  We made up.  We talked about it and agreed that what we have is more important than either one of us individually.  Friendships, partnerships are often ruined over such things, but what we had and have is magic and is worth the effort to communicate.

It can even be miraculous, sometimes, not to be too hyperbolic.  But it’s not impossible.  Obviously.  Other writers can model what we do, adjust it to their own lives and create their own miraculous partnerships.  I invite and encourage you to do so.

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

After getting discharged, I got myself enrolled at County.  Thank God for County.  The bureaucracy is hell, it takes forever to get anything done, plan on spending hours on hold waiting for the appointment lady (you have to do it by phone, not in person, because she doesn’t really exist in actual time and space) but every single person I’ve encountered in the vast system is truly wonderful, caring and committed to the patients.  They actually give me information, explain to me what’s going on, what will go on, why we’re doing what we’re doing and take the time to giggle politely at my sophomoric humor.  Still no mention of the penis thing, of course, but after six months of consuming no salt or fat I’ve lost over sixty pounds and the thing seems to have come back with a vengeance, so no harm no foul, to use a phrase coined by our friends the basketball players.

I’m still on the ton of medication as I’m still in A-Fib (heart out of rhythm.  The pesky thing won’t use its whole top half, it seems.)  I’m having three procedures in the next two months, two to determine how damaged the heart is and how well it will start to heal once it’s out of A-Fib, and the third to get it out of A-Fib.  That is the one where they drug me up, shock my heart so it stops, shock it again so it starts back up in the correct rhythm, then send me on my way.  I’m both looking forward to that (it will mean I can stop a lot of the medication, especially the blood thinners, which react with everything I eat and give me hemorrhoids) and am really, really, really not looking forward to it.  (They are going to stop my heart!)

It sounds more extreme than it is.  It’s an outpatient procedure, believe it or not.  The only prerequisite is that I have someone drive me to the hospital and wait around for however long it takes to stop and start a heart, then drive me home again so I can curl up in my own bed and sleep off all the nifty narcotics they’ll give me so I don’t freak out while they’re actually electrocuting me.  I’m serious.

I must be getting to that age.  A friend of mine called to tell me he’d had heart surgery the week before, a surprise to him that he needed it until they rushed him to the hospital.  We talked on the phone and sounded like two old men on a park bench.  A lot of my conversations, now, are about my health.  When I hear myself, I want to start talking in a faux Yiddish accent.  “Pain?  You don’t know from pain.  I got pain you vouldn’t believe all the way up and down my nichtacocusoid…”  Maybe I should write a blog about it.

I recently visited my brother, his wife and their kids in Washington, DC and the kids thought it was hysterical that I made the “old man” noise every time I sat down or stood up.  I started not doing it, just to throw them off, and they’d giggle about that, too, the savages.  This is all odd, as I still think of myself as in my twenties.  Well, maybe thirties.  Wait a minute, it’s time for my medication.  Ohiee.

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

But don’t worry, I took a nap and it went away.

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

I apologize for writing this email to you, but I need to express it to someone and you are as good a person as any.  I am a little in my cups at the moment and you can completely ignore this message if you want, I don’t mind in the least.

Over tea the other day, you asked me what kind of movies I want to make and my answer to you was wholly and completely inadequate.  Here is a more accurate answer.  I want to make moves that are simple.  I want to make movies that are complex.  I want to make movies that make people sob, and make them guffaw and make them think.  I want to make movies that are so beautiful they open your mind to new possibilities and movies that are so ugly they hurt your eyes to look at them.  I want to make movies that are logical and those that make absolutely no rational sense.  I want to make Un Chien Andalou and The Grapes of Wrath.

I want to make movies that incite people to violence and movies that incite people to examine and change their lives and the world for the better.  I want to make movies that are wonderfully surreal and movies that are so real you disappear into them and fall out at the end wondering why and where you’ve been.  I want to make science fiction and romance and noir and western movies, silly comedies and political thrillers.  Movies in unparalleled color and in gritty greys and ambers.

I want to make movies that rely on clever, witty dialogue, and movies that rely on complex visual imagery, movies in the tradition of Preston Sturges and in the tradition of Robert Altman.  In the tradition of Walt Disney and of Salvador Dali.  Movies with great poetry and those with jarring syntax.

I want to make movies that raise spiritual awareness and those that simply raise the level of enjoyment in a room.  I want to make spectacular movies and movies confined to a single, simple location, movies that confound and movies that enlighten.  Movies that glorify the human condition and those that examine how it has been debased.

And, I realize, on this New Years Day, January 1st, 2009, if I don’t start now, I will be dead before I make any movie at all.  I have a commitment to co-write the second season of a web series, but once those episodes are completed and approved, I want to make a movie.

Happy New Year.  May yours be filled with glorious creative possibilities.

Geoff

If I have a muse, she seems to have fallen asleep. I wish her good dreams. That she can convey to me once she wakes up and has her first cup of strong coffee. I’ve had my coffee and my pen is poised for the flow of genius.

What interests me about the creative process as much as those times when you can’t stop creating are the times when you don’t seem to get much done. I used to get nuts when I was in that seemingly stagnant place until I realized that it was a necessary part of the process, that I’m always creating and in those times it’s just more subtle. A gestation, perhaps. There are several stories and a couple of novels coalescing in there. Am I mixing my metaphors? Ah, well. As Walt Whitman said:
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

I am also, I fear, repeating myself. Old Walt has conveyed my feelings on a number of diverse occasions. His passage seems more elegant, somehow, than Emerson’s oft quoted dictum about a foolish consistency being the hobgoblin of little minds. It’s also much more apt to the subject at hand.

Yes, now I am simply rambling, using other poets words to appear knowledgeable and creative, and doing it without any orderly theme or plan. Of course, A. A. Milne said, “One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.” And as soon as my muse awakens, I’ll convey some of those discoveries to you.