Find Me!

"Well, if she wants to see me, you can tell her that I'm easily found..."

- Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town

The other day I had to send a cease-and-desist letter to someone who put a bootleg video of one of my bands up on YouTube without asking my permission. I know it's hip to pretend that the internet means we now live in some sort of magical bizarro world where copyright no longer exists, but guess what? It does. And I most certainly am not hip.

His excuse for not asking permission was this: "I lost all your contact info."

Now - never mind that losing my contact info doesn't explain why one would go ahead and post the video anyway - how can you be computer-savvy enough to know how to use YouTube and yet not be intelligent enough to know about this here space-age thing called "Google"? I hear tell, if you type stuff into it, it tells you about that stuff. Ain't that somethin'?

A Google search for "Jeffrey Scott Holland" brings up, in the first page of results, at least three different sites on which my contact info is clearly provided. The very first hit in the results is jeffreyscottholland.com, which has my contact info on a link cleverly labeled "Contact".

The Catclaw Theatre Company site even lists my personal cellphone number. If I'm hard to find, I'm hidden in plain sight.

(Of course, I suppose shouldn't be surprised. Hundreds of thousands of people use "answers" sites like Yahoo Answers and WikiAnswers, even though the answers to almost all questions asked there could have been obtained in seconds by simply typing them into a search engine instead.)

For the record, I receive mail at all of my branch offices listed on the web - Los Angeles, Washington DC, NYC, etc. - and I can always be reached anytime by anyone anywhere on the planet, via e-mail at jshpaint@gmail.com. I am always happy to hear from my readers!

Mystery Bottle

Readers of my column Commonwealth Curiosities in the September issue of Kentucky Monthly will get an early report about a very special and very mysterious bottle in my possession; one that I plan to open at a special event soon. More details to be announced.

Check it out!

"Son of Grimaldi" Bits and Pieces

I rarely write a linear story in drafts, preferring to arrange it piecemeal as potential fragments I assemble slowly begin to come together and form the story. Two of my heroes, William S. Burroughs and F. Scott Fitzgerald, worked in this manner. (Some of Fitzgerald's collected random pieces, unused ideas, and notes were published verbatim in the book The Crack-Up, and I actually think it's his best work.)

What follows are just a couple of random fragments from the play "Son of Grimaldi", a work in progress. The story concerns the aging clown Joey Grimaldi desperately trying to mold his son into following in his footsteps.



*****

JOEY
(exasperated)

No, no, NO!!! You don't start pulling the sausages out of the baby carriage until after you've juggled the grapefruits and sung the "Skippity Sunshine" song!! What kind of imbecile are you?

JOEY, JR.
Butterscotch.

(a beat)

JOEY
What??

JOEY, JR.
You asked me what kind of imbecile I am and I said "butterscotch". (widens eyes, waves hand along as if to say, "And...? Get it?")

(silence. JOEY stares, confused.)

JOEY JR.
(losing his temper)
I'm being sarcastic. It's a JOKE!!!

(JOEY's eyes narrow, he trembles with rage, then slaps JOEY JR. hard across the face)

JOEY
Clown rehearsal is serious business!!! This is NO PLACE FOR JOKES!!!


*****

JOEY, JR.
(reciting)
"And O mother dearest, though a silly and persnickety short-pantalooned lad I be, let no man judge my follies without that especial soupçon of salt. Let the forest come alive with the sounds of a thousand flatulent owls, perched among the...."

(JOEY JR. has pronounced "soupçon" as "soop-kon". JOEY, who has begun to doze off, snaps out of it, rouses himself and consults the script)

JOEY
WAIT a minute! WAIT a minute! Did you just say "soop-kon"?

JOEY, JR.
That's what it says in the script, papa. "let no man judge my follies without that especial soupçon of salt...." (mispronounces it again)

JOEY
It's pronounced "soupçon". (correctly pronounces it "soop-sun".) Soupçon. Say it with me. Soupçon.

JOEY, JR.
What kind of word is that? It's no kind of word.

JOEY
It's French.

JOEY, JR.
Ugghhhh, I hate the French. (to audience) Why do they have to use a different word for everything? I like my way better: soupcon! (continues mispronouncing it)

(JOEY JR. begins grinning idiotically, making sweeping gesture with his hands, delivery almost like Jason Alexander on "Seinfeld")

Yessir, I just like the sound of it. SOUPCON! ha ha ha! SOUPCON!!!

(JOEY momentarily puts head in hands, then reaches for decanter of wine)

JOEY
Let's take a ten minute break.


*****

Commonwealth Curiosities

My new column, Commonwealth Curiosities, debuts in the current August issue of Kentucky Monthly magazine! More of my musings on what's weird, wild, wondrous and worthy in our fair state; you know the drill.

In this issue, the "back to school" special, I examine points of interest to be found on college campuses and universities around Kentucky.

Look for Kentucky Monthly magazine at your local bookstore or newsstand, and if they don't have it, ask!