Author: Eric Fritzius
August 30, 2015
It’s the question of the ages, at least around this website. Who is Mister Herman?
In short, Mister Herman’s Home Page has been the name of my website since I coded my very first one back in 1995. It’s been around in one form or another, from one ISP or another, for over two decades. The actual origin of Mister Herman, however, extends well before that–technically even before my very birth…
At some point during his 20 year career in the Navy, my father acquired the head of a mannequin. It was not the sort of head that once sat upon a mannequin body, but more of the sort of fiber-glass, life-sized head used to display hats or sunglasses. As a kid, I named it Eddie and it took up residence in my bedroom, usually as the support of whatever hat I happened to like at the time. It used to have painted eyes and uniformly painted reddish brown hair, but over the years of my youth I used the head as a base for sculpting faces in modeling clay. The many times I scraped it off with a kitchen knife have scared and chipped away at the paint, until I eventually just filled it in with liquid paper. At some point, I gave Eddie a touch of gray at the temples, due to his resemblance to the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards. These days he sports a set of welder’s goggles, which hide his seemingly cataract-coated eyes from the world.
Jump ahead to my sophomore year of high school. I made what was perhaps an error in applying to receive information about educational opportunities from a major religious college in Virginia. I was then and remain a religious fellow, so I’m not knocking the institution itself. However, in this particular institution’s zeal to secure my place as a student with them, they sent me approximately one metric shit-ton of mail. For the better part of at least three years, I received on a fortnightly basis at least one thick envelope stuffed with brochures, followup notes, encouraging form letters, and earnest pleas to come visit the campus. Again, this began when I was a sophomore in high school and was entirely my fault, but it became annoying to me quickly all the same. For the first year I simply dropped their letters into my sister’s gerbil cage, where they were happily shredded into bedding. By the time I was a senior, I had pretty much had an assful of these letters. (When you’re young, you take seriously the small amount of mail you receive and are prone to take offense at any you feel are wasting your time. Did I mention the fact I was receiving all of this resented mail entirely due at my original request? Oh, it was all my fault.)
In what can only be described as a wildly passive aggressive and immature move, I began a new tactic: whenever one of their thick envelopes would arrive, I would remove from it the postage-paid envelope that was always within, then I would shred every other piece of paper within the original envelope into tiny confetti bits, then stuff those bits into the postage paid 
envelope, write “Mister Herman’s Mental Home” as the return address, in crayon, and then pop them back in the mail. It only took about a year of doing this before the mail from them stopped entirely. Again, I’m not claiming I had any kind of moral high ground in this battle, nor was I acting maturely; I was 17.
Mister Herman’s Mental Home was born from this and is what I began to call my bedroom. I even had a sign. And the symbol of all things Mister Herman became a drawing of a partially deflated smiley balloon, which I also used to draw on the return envelopes. To me it represented warped optimism, which is about the best I can claim on any given day.
Photo courtesy Matt Myles (2014)
During college, Mister Herman took on a new life. I began working on the writing staff of a summer theatre camp called Summer Scholars Onstage. As a lark, I started writing top ten lists, inspired by those of David Letterman. Wanting to join in the fun, a number of other staffers became co-authors of the lists. Not wanting to take credit for their work, I decided to use the collective name of Mister Herman’s Top Ten List in order to have a neutral party at the helm. Those began in 1991. I’m proud to say that the top ten list tradition of that camp continues to this day, though they have had several other names over the years, including Uncle J.J.’s Top Ten List and Rick & Bill’s Top Ten List.
As I mentioned earlier, in 1995, as a project for a college introduction to computer concepts class I was taking, I created the first version of Mister Herman’s Home Page. It was pretty bare bones then, but soon grew to house such things as the archive of Top Ten lists from camp, my then ongoing series of college-themed recipes, my series of Mister Herman’s Cat Games, my Horribly True Tales stories, my short fiction stories (some of which now appear in A Consternation of Monsters), and, of course, the Rules of Joe–a lengthy and inside-joke-choked guide to the dos and don’ts of interacting with my friend Joe Evans. Before MySpace, Facebook and Twitter essentially gave everyone their own home page, this one was mine and remains so to this day. Only now I use it to hock my wares in addition to blogging and fun stuff.
A bit further down the line, I started operating under the heading of Mister Herman’s Production Company, Ltd., an umbrella entity I use for webdesign, graphic design, and my podcasting and voiceover work. It seemed only natural when I began looking into publishing some of my work that Mister Herman take over that as well. Ed’s a good guy to have around.
As for Mister Herman himself, he still remains a fixture in my office. He’s had a number of other hats over the years, but is currently wearing only three. He occasionally even comes back to Mississippi with me for the Summer Scholars camp.
Author: Eric Fritzius
August 19, 2015
Just got a letter from the U.S. Postal service, alerting us that our official postal mailing address is now the same as our physical address. We may start using it as our official mailing address for all mail correspondence and bills.
We are to never again, it said, use the old rural route and box number, never ever.
We are to update the DMV with the new address.
We are to update insurance policies with the new address.
We are to update our bank accounts with the new address.
We are to update our voter registration with the new address.
We are to update our Christmas card/Personal address lists with the new address. (I am making none of this up.)
We are to update our utilities with the new address.
Naturally, when I attempted to update our various utilities online, they, to a one, refused to accept the new address–at least, on the first try. Bank of America finally allowed me to force it in, but begged me not to. All others I tried gave me the finger.
And when I called the phone number for the local county contact in charge of assisting me with any concerns I might have, I got a message that said, with strain in its voice, “Mailbox full.”
Yeah. This should go smoothly.
Copyright © 2015 Eric Fritzius
Author: Eric Fritzius
August 18, 2015
Ed Davis is the WV-native author of the novels I Was So Much Older Then and The Measure of Everything. His third novel, The Psalms of Israel Jones was recently published by WV University Press. It tells the story of a legendary hard-living, hard-lovin’, hard-drinkin’, and hard-druggin’ rockstar who, in his later years, develops something of a cult following. Literally. His son Thom, a conservative minister with some possible moral issues of his own, is led to join Israel’s tour by a mysterious phone call. He finds himself once again thrust into his estranged father’s chaotic world of tour busses, dive-bar shows, and… snake-handlers?
In Episode 75 of the West Virginia Writers Podcast, I sit down with Davis for an interview about the novel and his other work. This was recorded during the Lewisburg Literary Festival on August 8, 2015.
Listen to it HERE.
Author: Eric Fritzius
August 10, 2015
Had a blast at the Lewisburg Literary Festival this weekend! Sold a goodly number of books and the “cemetery” performance of the play adaptation of my story “…to a Flame” had a fantastic turnout and, despite some initial sound problems, went nigh on perfectly. A big thanks to Devin Preston for co-starring with me. You were a great Virgil Hawks. And thanks to Dr. Larry Davis (the original Virgil Hawks in the Greenbrier Valley Theatre production from a few years back) for introducing us. As I told Larry, I’d planned for Devin and I to do a reading of “The Ones that Aren’t Crows” for the cemetery reading up until two weeks ago when I realized that the already in-existence “…to a Flame” stage play would be a more satisfying fit for a performance. If I’d thought of doing it sooner, I would have had Larry and another local actor, Curtis Pauley, step in and star. But I thought it was too much to ask on too soon a notice. Since Devin and I were already supposed to be involved, and since he can memorize lines like a super human, it seemed the way to go.
Apologies should be issued to the handful of folks who waited at the Old Stone Cemetery, the original location for the play, rather than the revised location of the green space in downtown Lewisburg. The story of why the location had to be changed the day before the event is long and wrought with controversy. It is also one I do not plan to tell here (though it miiiiiiiiiiight get told in a podcast in the very near future… just sayin’). Needless to say, we at the LLF dropped the ball in not sending someone to stand in the cemetery and redirect traffic. And Devin got chewed out for it good by the folks who stood there for half an hour waiting. Again, this is entirely our bad. In what little defense we have, though, my acting partner and I were simultaneously trying rehearse for the first time in over a week, test our wireless microphones, load sound equipment, and paranoidly checking weather apps on our phones to see if it was about to pour rain on said equipment. (Nary a drop.) It slipped our minds that some folks might not have gotten the memo about the venue change, and for that we are sorry.
Thanks also go to Eliot Parker, who held down the fort for Publisher’s Place’s table in our Literary Town Square and shared proximity to the Mr. Herman table. Thanks also to S.D. “Sam” Smith, author of the fabulous young person’s book The Green Ember and his publisher at the Story Warren, Andrew, who both kept us all entertained (and fed, cause Sam bought us lunch on Saturday).
Thanks to Cat Pleska, Fran Simone and Ed Davis for leading great workshops and traveling a distance to be a part of the event. I got to interview Ed for the West Virginia Writers podcast, but I’ll repost that here as well when it’s edited and ready to go.
Thanks to all the folks behind the scenes at the LLF (Greg Johnson, Josh Baldwin, Cindy Lavender-Bowe, Mary Cole Deitz, Erin Hurst, Laura Lee Haddad, Sarah Elkins, and so many more) for all the time and effort they volunteer throughout the year and throughout the event to keep things running smoothly. Very few fires had to be put out. Thanks also to Aaron and Monica Maxwell, co-founders of the event, who stepped down from the LLF board this year, but who still did quite a bit to make it happen and are missed dearly. (We never knew exactly how much work you guys did for the LLF until we had to do it in your absence. It took six of us to pull it off and we still got things wrong. Hats off to your three years of making it happen and for what you did to assist this year. Come baaaaaack!)
And thanks to my lovely wife for womaning my table while I had to go do introductions for speakers, rehearse plays in alleys, and haul sound equipment. She sold more books in two hours than I did before she got there.
Ed Davis, S.D. Smith, and some guy in corduroy author armor.
Sherrell Wigal, Eliot Parker and the author.
Devin Preston and me in the dramatization of “…to a Flame.”
Author: Eric Fritzius
August 9, 2015
The latest episode of the Consternation of Monsters Podcast adapts my story “The Ones that Aren’t Crows.” It is is one of three award-winning stories in the collection, the others being “Nigh” and “…to a Flame.” However, when this particular story won 2nd place in the Animals Category of the 2011 West Virginia Writers Annual Writing Contest, it did so under the title “Native Arts.”
I never liked that title. I often don’t like my first choice of title and tend to use them as placeholders until I can find something that feels like a better fit. It was not until a later draft of the story, a revision I made prior to a live-reading of it, though, that the new title suggested itself and felt perfect.
As to the origin of the story itself, it is a quad-fold affair.
Home sweet home.
The first fold: Back in 2007, the wife and I took a two-week trip to her home state of Alaska. It was a three week trip for her, as she had gone up to present a poster at a medical conference, in her capacity as chief resident at the local hospital. (She likes to downplay the significance of the chief resident part, as she was the only person in her program for that year, so she was the only available candidate to be chief resident. I maintain she would have been chief regardless of other candidate availability, but that’s a question for an alternate universe.) I flew up after that first week and we rented a Winnebago in which to vacation, touring around Alaska to see the various places where she’d lived and grown up. Our first leg of the journey took us down to Seward, where we spent a couple of days on the shores of Resurrection Bay–occasionally venturing out onto the water for chilly June tours of the Kenai Fjords and the glaciers that could be seen there. Oh, and the whales. We saw a goodly number of whales, though due to the slowness of our camera we mainly took pictures of their tails as they disappeared again beneath the surface. The ranger on the tour was sure to point out the r
estricted speeds for the tour boats in the bay, done to give whales plenty of time to get out of the way. We had a great time.
Tour boat
One of the things I noticed during our trip, though–which brings us to the second fold–was the amount of native Alaskan art on display, everywhere you went. There were brightly-painted totem poles in most of the places we visited, as well as other totemic art that depicted whales and bears and birds and fish, all with bright red, teal, black and white coloration. Curious, I began reading up on the traditional stories of the native peoples. They offer some very interesting tales of how the world came to be, and the interesting gods and figures who helped shape it. The standard fantasy trope of “what if these aren’t just myths” began to ring in my head. Or, more importantly to a common theme in the stories I write (and those of many other writers) what if belief in the myth is the power necessary to make it real?
Another source of inspiration, perhaps the third fold, came during one of a number of, perhaps, ill-advised solo hikes I took during our time in Alaska. I like to explore, especially when there is the promise of a cool view, or a waterfall to be seen, and I’m willing to go above and beyond to reach that goal. I always invited the wife to come along, but she’s rarely interested, especially if the journey will require strenuous physical effort. One of my hikes, in Valdez, was to try and climb up the lower section of a mountain, to try and reach a step where the lower part of the mountain jutted out, creating a natural incline that continued on up to a much higher elevation. It looked like the sort of thing a person could reach and then walk up to get a great view. The wife thought the plan was foolhardy and a lot more work than I knew, but I insisted on trying it. Because neither of our cell phones worked well there, I said if I didn’t come back in an hour and a half she was to assume I’d been lost or eaten by a bear and call the authorities. It was, as she predicted, more difficult than I’d thought, because to simply get to the foot of the mountain meant having to walk pathways through the thick brush leading up to it. While in those paths, I came upon the remnants of a lunch interrupted. There was a plastic grocery sack which had been torn open and its contents shredded. My memory of this is that it was a grocery store pre-made sandwich and some chips, but all food items were gone, leaving behind shredded remnants of their packaging. The most curious item from the mess, though, was a 16 oz plastic soda bottle, its cap still in place, but empty due to a VERY large tooth hole in the side of the bottle. (I thought I had a picture of this, but evidently not.) The tooth hole, to my eye, could only have been made by something the size of a bear. I was then on my guard, as this meant bears were in the area, or had been in the area. I still continued on my trek, though, eventually making it to the foot of the mountain, and then, slowly, step by step, handhold by handhold, clawed my way up the steep slope of the foot of the mountain. It was tough going. But while I did it, the image occurred to me that it would be super creepy if, suddenly, I were to discover the claw marks of a bear on the side of that slope, except the claw marks in my image were of a bear being dragged UP the slope by something much larger. And I instantly knew what that something would be. It’s the same creature that went on to inspire “The Ones that Aren’t Crows” and is a short story that may yet appear in next year’s volume of tales. (I did manage to make it to the top of the step, but it took way more work and way more time than I’d planned for it to. By the time I got up there, it was time to head back or risk the wife calling out the authorities.)
Me snoozing on the tour boat, dreaming of gods and monsters
The fourth fold of this tale’s origin happened over a year after we returned from our trip. We had left Lewisburg and moved to Princeton, WV, in 2008. I had been looking for a job there, but things were pretty scarce. So I began seeking other possible employment opportunities. I saw an ad online for a job as a transcriptionist. I thought this might be something for me, since I type superhumanly fast. The application process involved learning the formatting, in which the transcriptionist types all the words being heard, down to the ums and uhs, and any incidental sounds or other business that can be heard–doors opening in the background, coughing, sneezing, etc.–is included in bracketed statements. I learned the format, took the transcriptionist test and thought I did pretty well. Never heard anything back from them, which led me to believe that what they were really trying to do was sell me the expensive transcriptionist foot-peddle-pause button, which seemed to be mentioned a lot in their materials as being something serious transcriptionists used. I didn’t bite. But I did think that the idea of a short story formatted as a transcription was something I’d not seen before. I even thought of a way for the format itself to become part of the storytelling. After that, it was just a matter of plugging in a story and I knew just the one that would fit.
As I said before, this story has been read live on a couple of occasions and turns out pretty well. It does require a second reader to provide the transcription notations. I’ve always read the captain’s part, with someone else doing the transcription voice. The first time I read this live, back in 2011, my wife did the voice and was excellent at capturing the cold, flatness I heard in my head. Unfortunately, when I recorded that reading, only I had a microphone, so her voice could not be heard in the recording. The second time, she was unavailable for a reprise, so I recruited my friend and fellow actor Joe Lehman. We performed it for the Greenbrier Valley Theatre’s Literary Tea series in 2013. I had a much better recorder by then and we were both miked. It was a great performance, too. Joe was great at keeping the exact same tone on each of his repeated words and I felt especially in good bronchial form as the captain. Unfortunately, when I stopped the recorder after the show, something went amiss and the recording vanished into the ether never to be seen again. It was a tragic loss, as that would have been a recording for the archive and probably would have been podcasted in some form long before now.
I’m still pleased with how Episode 04 turned out, though. The text-to-speech program I used for the transcriptions is not without his charms. I may have to hold on to it for future use.
Author: Eric Fritzius
August 5, 2015
Another review has appeared before me!
Ed Davis (author of The Psalms of Israel Jones: A Novel) has written a lovely review of A Consternation of Monsters that appears at Zoetic Press’s blog Our Rizomatic Ideas. Check it out, there.
Also check out The Psalms of Israel Jones, which is the book I coincidentally am finishing up this week. At it’s heart, it’s a father-and-son relationship struggle story, but in which the father is a hard-drinkin, hard-loving, hard-living folk/rock legend with dozens of albums to his name, and the son is a recovering alcoholic preacher, pursued by a moral quandary or two of his own. It’s a very good read with some truly beautiful turns of phrase and quite a bit of insight into the human condition.
