I'm here now
http://bitter1stuff.tumblr.com/

Dear my blog advertisers, I can’t fathom what there is about my profile that makes you suddenly believe that I am an End Days survivalist in need of plant seeds and a mail-order bride. Is this the new 41-year-old, single male, target demographic? You’ve also included coin collecting. Well, I suppose money WILL be worthless come the revolution.  Honestly, the old ads from junk food manufactures and whiskey merchants were closer to the truth. Give me back those, please. Thank you.

 

 

 

I just learned that parrots can live to be 60-years-old. So now, no matter how bad my day is, I can take solace in the fact that somewhere there is a Macaw swearing at people in 1950’s slang, going on anti-communist screeds, and enthusiastically singing jingles extolling the health benefits of smooth tasting, charcoal roasted, unfiltered Lucky Strikes. You know what? The world IS magical.

Now Let's See Who He REALLY Is!

pic via Hanna Barbera

Dear readers,

There's a few things I need to tell you:

              First, I apologize for only writing 30 days worth of plays.
I'm studying to be an English teacher, and all my final semester
projects kilt whatever modicum of creativity I had left. See, I was trying to outdo George Bernard Shaw's one-act plays by writing daily one scene, one-act plays. To go one better than Shaw, and as it was only one scene, to make it a easier for today's online reader. Lesson learned: Before you attempt to take on Shaw's legend, make sure you have something worth writing about, especially when you're arrogant enough to believe you can scribble out a masterpiece in five minutes. Maybe I just needed a rotating shed for inspiration.

             Second, my name is Fred Hagemeister and I am A Stumbling Mass of High Energy Frustration. I use a lot of pseudonyms on this blog, but this is all me. I feel like a villain removing multiple masks to reveal his true face. I am Editor Freditor, I am Bud "kind" Darwell, I am Zanzibar von Bitter, I am Stupor Mundi, I am Cold Pizza and countless others. Why all the chicanery? Half of it is because I set deadlines for myself and was never exactly proud about how some of the pieces turned out. The other half is because I think it's sad to see one guy write an entire blog.
              
              It probably goes back to my old fanzine Killing Trees. Friends promised to write, but most of what I got were drunken, two sentence scribbles on a napkin, and was told to add more to it.  So for the majority of the zine, in order to fill space, I created a bunch of fake writers, wrote a bunch of fake articles, and published it that way. After creating all those aliases, I found I enjoyed writing from multiple points of view.
               
              Plus, I learned that with a fake staff I could create all kinds of weird rivalries for my one-man show.  I mean, all the best publications from my adolescence were a surly mix of writers and editors: Creem magazine, early Rolling Stone reprints ( I mean really early), hell, even Stan Lee's Bullpen dispatches made the Marvel Comics workplace look like a cross between a bar and a treehouse. In reality, I'm sure all three offices were just crowded rooms full of sad, middle-aged drunks trying to create some excitement under deadline. Pretty much what I do here! 
              
              So is everything now going to go under the name Fred Hagemeister? Am I getting rid of my little imaginary world? Who knows. I have the urge to make this blog super crazy. I don't even know what that means yet, but it could be something which, as a future teacher, I don't want my name attached to. How would you explain to the school board a Victorian tale in which butler ghosts exact revenge on their former employers by forcing them into lives of opium trafficking and white slavery? Okay, I just made that example up, but who knows where I'll go next. Certainly not me, that's for sure. A pen name could come in handy!

pic via Abominable Dr. Phibes, AIP

DEATH AND TAXES

                                # 30 in a series of daily one-act, one scene plays

[ACT I, Scene I: Rosaline and William nervously stand in their living room]


[the phone rings, William answers it]


WILLIAM: Hello, yes. No, I understand. Well, we simply weren't able to get the money....I see [hangs up phone and turns to Rosaline].They're sending someone over. I'm sorry, Rose. Still, we need to remember there's nothing they can do to hurt him.


ROSALINE: But it's just the idea, Willie!


WILLIAM: Believe me, I know. It's blackmail is what it is. Simple blackmail. When a man's buried, that should be the end of it-


[William glances out the window and gasps]


ROSALINE: What is it, Willie?


WILLIAM: It's..it's either a sick man, or a-a boy. He's coming up the walkway.


[Knock on the door, William opens it]


MESSENGER: I've been sent by the chancellor, he who runs things. Have you the money? 


WILLIAM: I'm sorry, we haven't any more money.


MESSENGER: At times people can gather the money at the last moment, so they always ask me to go. It's only fair, I say, to give everyone one more chance.


WILLIAM: If you give us time, we could get the money. Please, he's her father.


MESSENGER: Begging your pardon, sir, but if he cannot afford his bed then he'll end up like the others. [to Rosaline] Like many others, ma'am. His bones will be added to the heap. 'Tis a shame when ya can't pay. It always breaks me heart, it does. But there's nothing to be done if you cannot pay the chancellor's price. He's a hard man, sir, but he's fair. He's fair.


[messenger silently waits for a reply, there is none but for Rosaline sobbing quietly]


MESSENGER:Well, I'd best be on me way then [tips his cap]. I'll make sure they place the bones down gently [turns to walk down the front steps]...it's the least I can do.




                                           (curtain)

FREEDOM ISN'T FREE

                                   # 29 in a series of daily one-act, one scene plays

[ACT I, Scene I: on a stage set up to look like a street corner, a turkey addresses the audience]

TURKEY: Hello, my name is Freedom. That's right, I'm the turkey President Lyndon Johnson pardoned yesterday. I spent two years in a turkey coop. Two long years with my own kind, and then-BANG! Just like that they throw me into the outside. Well, let me tell ya something, I can't deal with life outside of the big farm. I've been walking up and down these streets all morning, peeking inside your windows this Thanksgiving Day. Watching. Watching you. Watching you as you carve up my brothers and sisters. Some of the time, I spent watching you watch the parade on TV. Brother, that Snoopy balloon is something else, I tell ya. Then I watched the Cowboys play the Dolphins. Good game, good game.  But then I saw you go for seconds on the turkey, and you know what? I wish I was with 'em. I wish I were dead. What I'm saying is, I'm stuffed up to here with freedom. My giblets are all a quiver at my situation. Every wishbone snapped is a break in my heart. But I guess I'll waddle on down this quiet, lonely road. Maybe there's a cranberry bog I can drown myself in....make everyone's job easier.

[turns and leaves muttering]

                                      (curtain)

THINGS I MAKE WHEN I SHOULD BE STUDYING CGmc STEM CHANGES