The Ghost of Paramount Joe

Ashland, Kentucky - especially the legendary spirit said to haunt its Paramount Arts Center - is the topic this time in my monthly column Commonwealth Curiosities. Pick up your copy of Kentucky Monthly magazine at reputable newsstands and bookstores everywhere!

Acer is Aces!

After running into insurmountable technical difficulties with my favorite laptop, I rushed out and grabbed the first and cheapest netbook I could find, which turned out to be the Acer Aspire One D260. It's a mouthful to say and to type, but it's a mere trifle to pack around. I love this planet.

A month into using it, I just wanted to note that I am still every bit as pleased with my purchase as the day I laid down the lucre. There have been no major surprises or snafus, although I have to say: I thought I could stand having no CD/DVD drive on it, but it's really starting to chafe me now. I keep reaching for a disc tray that doesn't exist, and I never realized just how much I depend on one. Would it be stupid to buy an auxillary USB CD drive now to go with it? It would, wouldn't it?

I'm also a bit puzzled that this version of MSPaint has no "invert" function, and that this version of Windows Photo Viewer has no "fix" functions. And I suppose there's no point complaining that the thing came loaded with all kinds of software and games that I don't want, and had to take considerable time to uninstall - that is just the way of things nowadays.

But these are mere trifles, my friends - if you haven't tried the new generation of netbooks because of bad experiences with older ones, or with laptops, give this one a spin. It's fast, it's powerful, it has a battery that lasts long yet charges fast, and if all you really want to do is surf the web and write (like me), you're all set. And in an increasingly wi-fi-saturated world, it's nice to be able to pack this lightweight doohickey around and start writing whenever and wherever the muse mocks me (like Ernesto's Mexican Restaurant!).

The Mystery of Irma Vep

I'm not a fan of writing theatre reviews. I hesitate to give a negative review of any production just because it didn't speak to me, because I know from my own personal experience how hard it is to mount a serious production and my hat's off to anyone who pulls it off, regardless of the end result. But when Theatre Louisville (who I occasionally write a column, Suspension of Disbelief, for) asked me to report on an Actors Theatre of Louisville production of Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep, well, it made me even more of a hypocrite than I already was. (I worship Charles Ludlam.)

Read all about it by clicking here.

For the Love of Beer Cheese

Brillat-Savarin once wrote, "A dinner which ends without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye." And that's doubly so when it comes to my favorite Kentucky delicacy, Beer Cheese. My regular readers already know what lengths of fanaticism my love for Beer Cheese can reach, and now I'm droppin' that knowledge for the Kentucky Monthly crowd in this month's installment of Commonwealth Curiosities! Scope out the October issue at your favorite bookstore or newsstand.

Local Monster Legends

I did a piece in the new October issue of Louisville Magazine about some of Louisville's legendary monsters, crypto-critters, and things that go boomp in the night.

This article acts as a sort of a teaser for one of my current book projects in progress - one which ties together several different mythical beasts, including the Pope Lick Monster. Check it out!

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!