That Would Be Me (dot net)

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

Spy Magazine, that wonderful satirical magazine that slowly started losing subscribers as it slowly devolved into a bitch fest, had a great feature called “Logrolling In Our Time” which presented two members of American intelligentsia giving favorable, often glowing critiques of each other on their respective pulpits. It was surprising how many pairs of mutual admirers they could find to keep the feature fed for as many issues as they did. This is a different kind of logrolling, more in line with birling, where a lumberjack perches on a log in the water and spins it with his feet in order to keep his balance. This is an essay inspired by a movie based on a book about a man who wrote a book about a real life event. It is, therefore, at least five times removed from anything that could possibly be considered important to anyone. And so I roll the log.

The movie, of course, is Infamous, which I finally saw last night on cable, about Truman Capote writing his masterpiece (and artistic swan song) In Cold Blood. In this movie Sandra Bullock proves she can really act, disappearing completely into her role. I don’t know if she accurately portrayed Harper Lee, I’ve never met, seen or watched video of the diminutive writer, but Bullock convinced me, at the very least, that she was someone other than Sandra Bullock. It is also a movie in which Daniel James Bond Craig plays one of at least two conflicted gay men he has portrayed on-screen. This essay, you may have guessed, is not about them. The log continues to spin under my feet.

It is, moreover, not about why we are as fascinated by the masterful In Cold Blood as we are by Capote, the silly, pretentious little gossip who wrote it. So fascinated that, within a year, there were two movies made about him creating it. (And there was a movie based on the “nonfiction novel” In Cold Blood. And there was the Broadway play, called Tru, about Truman’s last years, as he faded into obscurity after bitterly betraying his high society friends by telling all their tales in one of the few books he was able to write after finishing In Cold Blood. And the television special based on the play. It’s not about those, either.) I think the reasons we are fascinated by him and by it, even though he and it seem on opposite ends of the cultural spectrum, are really one thing: Voyeurism. We are a nation of voyeurs. We love getting inside the minds of criminals, watching them plan and execute their crimes. And then we love watching them be caught and punished for the crimes. We also love a gossip. And we surely love watching a gossip crumble and die. We love watching. And I love watching us watch. I’m a voyeur of voyeurs. Even though I’ve never read the book In Cold Blood. But, as you may have surmised, this essay is about none of that. I almost lost my balance for a moment, there.

So what, exactly, is this essay about? It started with a description of how a defunct magazine feature relates to a movie based on a book about a man who wrote a book about a real life event, then moved into a condemnation (or celebration, perhaps) of voyeurism and a confession of talking about something I don’t know anything about. It is about the random connections our spinning minds make, connecting immediate input with data stored so long ago its accuracy might be questioned, and thinking, in the moment the connections occur and coalesce in our conscious minds, that we have discovered or realized something brilliant that others will be moved or intrigued to read or hear. I have just plunged into the icy water and the log is now spinning on its own, quite out of my reach.

It’s not about anything, ultimately. It is logrolling. There is a website that sells a tee shirt that says, “More people have read this shirt than your blog”. I think I’ll buy that shirt. It makes me laugh every time I think about it.

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

Christopher Fry’s delightful verse play, The Lady’s Not For Burning, opens with young, pretty Alison Elliot, having recently been let out of the convent to marry, entering the town hall sun blind. “I am all out at the eyes,” she says. “I have a winter blindness.” Richard, the clerk, sees her, is instantly smitten and lets go with a string of “God, God, God” or some such exclamation of shock. Allison, who was told no one would be there, cries, “Oh! They told me no one would be here.”

“That would be me they meant,” Richard replies.

My first encounter with this play was as a very young man. My mother had a recording of the Broadway production starring John Gielgud (pre knighthood) and Pamela Brown. An actual album of five or six records consisting of the entire play, along with a copy of the script. I listened to it raptly more often than one may suspect a toddler would want to. It probably goes a long way to explain my love of all things theatre and especially all things Shakespearean theatre. (Yes, I spell “theatre” with an “re”. I am pretentious and gay. Join with me or move on, I say.)

Several years later, I wrote for, then joined the cast of, then became director of a long-running scripted cabaret show called Tony Mack’s Swingin’ LA (not the least Shakespearean, I’m afraid) about several Gumbas trying desperately to become the Rat Pack and failing miserably. There were torch singers, a swing band, variety acts. It was all very grand. The fellow who was playing the Dean Martin wannabe was married to the very beautiful, sexy lady who played the silent but buxom show girl. Once, during a rehearsal, someone farted. (If I really were pretentious, I would say “passed gas” but farted is so much more earthy, don’t you think?) The lady playing the show girl thought it had been her husband and, in order to humiliate him in front of friends and family, said, “Who let one?”

I looked over at her and said, “That would be me.”

I had, actually, let loose. I have no problem admitting my sins, but wouldn’t normally have done so at that particular moment, but I saw why she had asked the question and wanted to spare the poor sap some grief. In fact, the show girl, not the husband, became very embarrassed, and said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Really. I thought it was Johnny! Sorry!” It was a proud moment.

Ever since then, my writing partner, Steve Mancini, reminds me of the incident by randomly looking over at me and blandly saying, “That would be me.”

Welcome to my blog.

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