Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/herecomethejudgementalist.mp3

or read on…

HERE COME THE JUDGEMENTALIST

Give a kid a bow and arrow set and everything begins to look like a target.

Give a kid a love of reading and everybody who isn’t reading begins to look off-kilter, akimbo, substandard, not quite right.

Sorry, that’s just the way it is.

Birmingham’s streets are filled with imperfect examples of this judgementality of mine.

There’s a man sitting in a parked car, staring into space while his wife is shopping. He’s just sitting and staring. Why isn’t he reading a book, writing a letter, making a list of things…why isn’t he doing something with his mind? How can he just sit and stare into space?

Sorry, I can’t tamp down these feelings.

There’s a young woman sitting in a car’s passenger seat, licking her fingertips, rubbing them under her eyebrows as if to iron down her makeup rough spots. Then, she picks at a blemish, thus making it more blemishy. Then, she pats her hair and adjusts her clothing. Why isn’t she reading a book or a newspaper, studying philosophy, writing poetry? How can she just sit there adjusting her bellybutton lint, so to speak?

Sorry, something inside me is in awe of time wasted by people who are not reading and absorbing more knowledge and factoids and sharing imaginations with writers.

How can that big guy, tagging along with his wife in my shop, just stand there in the aisle, ignoring all the glorious thoughts and wishes and tales and truths and lies begging for attention on my shelves? How can he just stand there while the rest of us are running around shuffling reading materials and absorbing images and ideas that keep our brains from shrinking?

Sorry, that judgementalist in me just can’t understand.

I just want to share my love and lust for reading, my exuberance at holding century-old books in one hand and brand-new books in the other, as I scurry around shelving them.

I don’t know how to get through to these denizens of the streets, but I keep trying.

As Bo Diddley said, “We’re a short time here and a long time gone.”

Grab a book fast, before the colors fade

© 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

Listen to Jim:  http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/ticklemejimbo.mp3

or read on…

When I was a kid, people often called me Jimbo. It’s what they did to guys named Jim back then.

 .

This was OK with me, since I found it funny.

.

Speaking of funny:

. 

I’m sitting and talking and listening and eating, which is just about the most fun you can have clothed or unclothed—at least, sometimes.

. 

My friend Jo is sitting and talking and eating and listening, too.

. 

This is an opportunity to learn something new, so, as is my wont, I pop out a spontaneous question, “When you are alone, do you ever laugh?”

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Jo’s eyes grow wider than usual and, instead of answering, she exclaims, “Why, what an unusual question to ask! Why would you ask that?” 

. 

This gives her time to ruminate and come up with a reply, I suppose.

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I say, “Just something I wanted to know—you don’t have to answer it.”

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But Jo does answer, “Well, yes, I do laugh when I’m alone.”

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I can believe this, since Jo has a wicked sense of humor, thus I’m satisfied.

. 

So many people I’ve met through the eons don’t seem to have the ability to laugh at much of anything, much less at themselves, much less with themselves. I try not to hang with these folks, since I do like to laugh—especially at myself. Just observing me is sometimes hilarious, particularly as I grow older. Added to that is life, which is increasingly hilarious as well.

. 

I grew up as a question-asker, which scares some people and intrigues others. When very young, I determined that the best way to find out stuff was to ask questions. I also learned that not asking questions can lead to a very dull time, since lots of people don’t ever think to ask me a question. Either they don’t want to know anything about me, or they are content with being quiet and somber.

. 

When I don’t receive an answer to a question, I learn twice as much as I’ll ever learn from a proper answer. Either way, I’m going to learn something new in the process. It may not be what you hoped I would learn, but it will be a learning experience.

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Myself when young naturally gravitated to activities that required question-asking, and I therefore learned a bunch—a bunch of primarily useless information, but information that was interesting and exciting and funny and scary, regardless of its uselessness.

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So, I became a child actor and performer and teacher and reporter and writer, all of which require the asking of questions and, further, the listening to answers.

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I’m never bored. I’m often in the presence of others who are bored, but just asking them questions to get their reaction sometimes makes them forget how much pleasure they are deriving from being bored. It’s like shock therapy.

. 

As I learned from H.G. Wells and the Pet Shop Boys, people who are bored are people who are being boring. Both states of mind frighten me, so I just go on my merry way, asking and listening and treading the maelstrom that threatens all of us—the maelstrom that wants to bore us to death.

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Tell me something funny and uncruel and I’ll have a good laugh. If you can’t think of anything funny to say, just say whatever comes to mind.

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Don’t worry—I’ll find something funny in it

. 

© 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

After many decades of living, loving and getting by, I’ve come to the conclusion that everybody feels cool at least once in a lifetime–maybe even a few times in a lifetime for the lucky ones.

Coolness is a state of mind, which means that you may feel cool to yourself, but you have no idea how you might look ridiculous–uncool–to others.

There’s the time in my life when I owned and wore an exact replica of the Pee Wee Herman suit–you know, his trademark outfit–which consisted of this form-fitting neatly pressed narrow-lapeled suit complete with white dress shirt and bow tie. In my case, I wore the obligatory  Mad Men thin necktie. Also, in my case, I wore black wing-tip dress shoes instead of Pee Wee’s white loafers. But in all other respects, I looked like Pee Wee Herman. I was skinny as a rail, still had my hair, wore hornrimmed glasses, and thought the coolest thing in the world was my then-fashionable suit.

You might have guessed by now a couple of things:

1. This was back in the 1960′s, long before Paul Reubens had ever conceived of Pee Wee and his suit, so in essence, Pee Wee wore an exact duplicate of my suit, rather than the other way around.

2. This was the era of Mad Men, when we all smoked and drank and caroused too much, and had miles to go before we became enlightened about the wrongness of smoking and drinking and carousing too much. 

Anyhow, I worked as an on-air personality at Tuscaloosa’s fledgling television station, then known as WCFT-TV, Channel 33. I would snazz up in that suit, grab my loaded, hand-wound 16-millimeter movie camera, and go off to cover some news event, hoping to get back to the station in time to have Curtis Lake develop and edit the film while I wrote the story to go with it. Then, I’d get ready to host the daily live Noon broadcast interview show, called “This is the Show that Starts at Noon,” which remained on the air for four years.

Back in those days, you could look cool while out in the public being recognized as a TV personality, but there was no way to be cool, once you got back to the station. At the station, you were just another employee, trying to keep your job, stay out of the way of the more hostile pointy-haired folks, and just having fun doing your job. It is thus with virtually all jobs: as long as you can concentrate on and perform the tasks you love, you’re happy. But office politics and office politicos will be working full-time trying to spoil it for you. Denial is your only weapon.

Anyhow, for a few minutes at a time during those years at Channel 33, I could overcome my insecurities and self-doubts, don the Pee Wee suit, leave the station to cover a story or host a panel or judge a beauty contest or make a personal appearance, and just plain forget the other facts of life I had to put up with.

The Pee Wee suit was my magic time machine, my way to beam up and away each time conflict threatened to douse me. It made me feel like somebody, even though I wasn’t. It made me feel stylish, even though I wasn’t. It gave me a few chuckles many years later, when I saw Pee Wee himself wearing that outfit and feeling like a million dollars.

Wonder if Pee Wee found my suit at a thrift store

(c) 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

In the Creative and Thinking and Pondering Worlds, there are three basic fears:
 
Fear of Creating
Fear of Thinking
Fear of Pondering
 
I think about this all the time—perhaps too much. But I do think about it.
 
Often, Thinkers, Ponderers and Creatives are looked upon with bemusement.
Society and anti-society types sometimes find us entertaining, frequently annoying, and all too often downright unwelcome.
 
We are like the Court Jesters of old–we’re kept around as long as we don’t disrupt or disturb too much. And we serve as diversions, diversions that aren’t really worth the effort to ban, since we’re almost always non-political.
 
Thinkers, Ponderers and Creatives mostly just want to examine things experientially, not scientifically. We go with the gut, with the common-sense alarm factor, with the distant-early-warning system that sorts bullshooting from empathy. Being artists, we are good at spotting fakes.
 
Once in a while, we come out of our creative spider holes and as troubadors wander about a bit, spreading and teaching what we know–until we become self-conscious and realize that we’re better at plying our art than at proselytizing.

 We just wait for you to discover us or ignore us. Either way, we are mostly content in our little worlds.

Take a peek, though. You might discover you are already one of us
 
(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed
 http://jimreedbooks.com

Thumbing through miles of notes in my fractured and scattered Red Clay Diary, I found this  from a couple of years back. I don’t think anything’s changed, except that I’m more sympathetic toward the Zombies who roam the city streets in clouds of smoke–only doing harm to themselves and passersby and those of us trapped in their nicotine zones.

SMOKIN’ ZOMBIES

My vision is photographic.

Not my memory, just my vision.

I remember small details that seem important at the time.

I don’t remember names, but I can tell you way too much about

the image that sticks in my mind about everybody I meet.

Who knows how this happens? Probably just genetics.

But sometimes, this is fun. Want some examples?

AMAZEMENT # 406

The clerk at the counter seems not there. She looks like she’s

there, but her mind, oh, her mind…her field of vision, oh, her

field of vision…they are definitely somewhere else. She’ll never

remember our moment together.

AMAZEMENT # 407

The singer is my age, his smooth tones have transmogrified into

a galloping vibrato. It makes it more beautiful.

AMAZEMENT # 408

The overlapping-belly green-shirted baseball-capped Bermuda-shorted

guy totes a large K-Mart bag and wanders about the lot, looking for his car.

Maybe he’s still searching.

AMAZEMENT # 409

The Day Glo fluorescent-finger-nail employee at the Salvation Army Thrift

Store has bright blonde hair and deepdark skin and a ready wit. She makes

me smile at nothing in particular.

AMAZEMENT # 410

Two tall hairbraided guys at Family Dollar talk enthusiastically about their

momentary problem: whether there’s enough ice at home or whether they

should buy another bag on the way home. It’s a big deal, their

moment, and don’t you laugh about it, you hear?

AMAZEMENT # 411

A bloated male clerk at the Salvation Army Thrift Store is in charge

of re-arranging the deck chairs and making the place neater. There

is an enormous stuffed mascot bear lying deathlike on the floor.

He brings it to life by placing it into a wheelchair. Now, the animal

is merely handicapped. The clerk kicks at the children’s books

scattered about but doesn’t pick them up.

Bending would be required.

Effort would be required.

AMAZEMENT # 412

The golden-tressed woman with bare midriff looks good

far away. But oh, the close-up: weathered face and flabby

paunch and deep frown report her real life to me.

AMAZEMENT # 413

The smokin’ zombie girls still smoke on break outside

my store, hissing into cellphones, double-inhaling,

chain-lighting-up, happy to be outside in the heat,

away from the smoke-free zombie cubicles inside

the multi-decked office buildings

The Downtown Explorers Club has spent yet one more

day appreciating these puzzling lives.

What have you discovered in the steaming pavements

of Downtown?

Let’s share

(c) 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

What’s in it for me?

That’s the mantra most of us chant when searching for a way to avoid leaving The Zone of Comfort.

You know, The Zone of Comfort–that which allows you to leave Rocking the Boat to someone else. It’s what makes me find a reason for not attending one more Social Occasion, that which creates happiness in a lot of people while I’m seeking a quiet corner in which to peruse a book sitting on our host’s shelf.

Lately, of course, that option is difficult to find, since so many folks we know don’t own books–at least no visible books, except for that one coffee table volume that matches the drapes and has never been opened or read (I know this because of the fine layer of dust thereon).

Homes, condos, apartments without lots of books lying about, are rather scary to me. What is it that these people read?  Highly condensed and expurgated factoids promulgated via television or internet or texting or tweeting or blogging or blasting? Is this where they obtain their knowledge of the world? If that’s the case, it’s a lot like learning your history and science lessons through the sole act of driving down the highway and reading billboards and signs and markers. You may absorb an amazing amount of disjointed information, but have you gained anything even remotely associated with wisdom or knowledge?

So where’s the fun in leaving The Zone of Comfort?

1. You just might learn something useful you’ve never before imagined.

2. You might learn something useless but utterly enjoyable.

3. You might learn something that will change the way you look at life.

4. You might learn something that will reinforce your belief in remaining within The Zone of Comfort.

5. You might unlearn something you always thought was The Only Way.

6. You might actually learn something educational and thought-provoking and transformative.

7. You might learn to lift The Cone of Silence and begin a new mind-expanding project or ten.

And so on.

Try busting out of The Zone of Comfort once a week. Standing vulnerable for a few moments will be more riveting than you can imagine. And besides, if it doesn’t work out, you can always slink back into the Zone and blame it all on me.

It couldn’t hurt

(c) Jim Reed 2011 A.D.

http://jimreedbooks.com

The Good Ol’ Days Are Exactly What They Used to Be! Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlzvet-QNAU

From http://jimreedbooks.com

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/pulpnoir.mp3 or read on…

PULP NOIR: THE TIME OF FINDING THINGS OUT

Many solar cycles ago…

.

As the small child of human parents, I learned about the world—my version

of the world—in the usual manner: through sight, touch, smell, taste, sound,

vibrations…by the ingestion of impressions through intake points of my body

and its neurological complexities…by rearranging the patterns inside my head

to match up with—and sometimes differ with—the ideas generated by thoughts

and feelings, feelings and thoughts.

.

One enormously interesting way of learning about my world was through the

absorption of words, words composed of alphabet and numbers, strung together

and spaced in order to form sentences and passages and stories and essays both

true and manufactured.

.

As I absorbed more and more of these words, learning how to distinguish fiction

from fact, learning how to tell when “fact” was fiction, when “fiction” was indeed

fact…I began to see how much fun it was—and how sensible—to toy with words,

allowing them to exist as realities in my imagination but never letting them force me to

believe them. You see, I believed in their power, but I always knew the difference

between reality and fantasy.

.

Knowing this difference has formed me into the person I seem to be this day—a

secular dreamer, a realist who knows how to operate the spigot—the valve that

can be switched from hot to cold at a moment’s notice. I am astride two

worlds—living in the myth-based, superstition-driven, make-believe world

most of us inhabit each day…and the real world, the one that just is, the

world that operates as if human beings are a momentary figment in the passage

of time—which, of course, they are.

.

Once my feet were planted solidly upon these separate universes, I could get on

with the process of living my life and deriving pleasure from the kinships and loves

and ideas I most cherish—ignoring all the made-up stuff most folks spend their time

obsessing over.

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Part of my early education came from reading pulp fiction, the kind written by visionaries

and philosophers such as Ray Bradbury and Walter Gibson and Kurt Vonnegut and

Aldous Huxley and the hordes of individualists who emulated them in the soft and brittle

pages of pulp magazines.

.

Pulp literature was so filled-to-the-brim with ideas and joys that a person could learn just about anything about anything…and metaphor became the way pulp readers got through life.

*

Understanding a good metaphor is worth a thousand books, a million words. Metaphor can take you by the hand, by the mind, and lead you safely through a forest of dragons any day.

.

Want to know more? Come to the shop  and look at samples of the enormous

selection of original, collectible pulp fiction on display here at Reed Books/The Museum of Fond

Memories. Maybe in so doing, you’ll find out that I’m full of useless whimsy…or maybe you’ll

discover you, too, are a metaphor-chaser, blithely tiptoeing past the potholes and explosives of life,

experiencing joy despite all those whose task in life is to make you screamingly bored or miserable.

.

Come along with me and  for a moment obscure this chaotic world

.

© by Jim Reed 2011 A.D.

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/lawnmower.mp3 or read on…

I’m flat on my back upstairs in bed, alone in the house and feeling sorry for myself

for not being able to get up and around because of this dislocation thing with my

back–you know, the kind of back pain that only gets worse if somebody tries to

help you to your feet.

The house is a century old and made of old wood that creaks and signals throughout,

whenever anything moves in or about it.

Suddenly, I hear, or feel, that someone or something is on the front porch. Two

thoughts present themselves: 1. a neighbor is about to ring the bell, or 2. we’ve had

a series of yard and porch thefts in the ‘hood lately, so somebody could be grabbing

something.

Since the bell doesn’t ring, I decide I’d better check on things. Adrenaline must be

kicking in, since I arise relatively painlessly and hobble to the stairs, still not sensing

anything but movement on the porch. Halfway down, I can see through the front door

glass that a male is leaving the porch, carrying my lawn mower with him and heading

for the adjacent alley. I can’t possibly run down the stairs after him, so I do the next

occurring thing: I return to the bedroom and raise the alley-side window, stick my head

out and instantly see the lawn mower thief below me, scurrying past.

Without thought or consciousness, my fifty years of theatrical and speech training pop

into mind like a perky toaster, I recall a wonderful scene from The Dresser, in which aging

thespian Albert Finney uses his booming voice to actually stop a train. I expand my

diaphragm, remember how my theatre coach taught me to project words from upstage

to the last row of the audience, add a pinch of Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff for

extra fear factor and yell, “Put that down!” The thief is so startled at the heavenward

voice that he drops the mower, spins around, wondering what to do next. Then, for

emphasis, my brain makes me add, “I’ll shoot you, you S.O.B.!” Where that last line

comes from I’ll never know, but Clint Eastwood and John Wayne must have influenced

me in some way.

The lawn mower man has an epiphany and disappears faster than the Roadrunner.

Later, I retrieve the mower and wonder what in the world made my back pain go away.

If I knew the answer, I could influence the incomes of orthopods and chiropractors

everywhere.

But I’m rather proud of myself for using my best weapon in a responsible manner.

If you ever need help stopping a train or a thief, just call

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/seventhheaven.mp3 or read on…

HALF A LIFETIME AWAY, IN SEVENTH HEAVEN

Eldest grand-daughter Jessica is getting married on Saturday.
One day, about half of her lifetime back,
the two of us prepared dinner together.
Here are my notes. 

     I’m sitting at the kitchen table, observing Jessica. She’s 13 years old these days, and 13-year-olds must be watched and carefully considered, since time passes so fast and before you know it a 13-year-old will be a 25-year-old and you won’t have any idea where the time went, where the moment went, where the 25-year-old went.
 
     Jessica is sitting at the table in front of four soup bowls, or maybe they’re salad bowls, only they don’t contain soup or salad. Into one bowl she has crumbled up a bunch of Ritz Crackers, another bowl contains milk, another is filled with flour and the fourth holds several eggs she has whisked together into a sunshiny blend. She’s had me cut up a lot of de-boned chicken breasts into nugget-sized hunks–the only way to do it, she insists.
 
     Over on the stove, the wok awaits usage, since Jessica instructs me not to turn the heat on till she’s through doing what she’s doing at the table, which is: each hunk of chicken must be dipped one at a time into all four bowls, until the hunk looks kind of flaky and golden and quite raw. The process takes a while, but that’s OK because we’re chatting a little bit and she’s got the TV turned up high so she can watch and listen to one of her favorite shows–Seventh Heaven, or something like that.
 
     Earlier, we’ve gone to Bruno’s Supermarket and bought everything on Jessica’s list: Chocolate chip mint ice cream, corn oil, pre-packaged salad (Jessica likes it because she says it doesn’t have to be washed and it’s already cut up. I wash it thoroughly, just in case somebody named Booger has not practiced good hygiene the day he packs the plastic bag), frozen lima beans for microwave zapping, and whatever else Jessica has decreed for the ideal meal at home.
 
     Process is important to Jessica. Everything must be done a specified way, a specific way, or the meal will be ruined. She’s a particularly finicky eater, so finding a meal that she’ll actually eat is tricky. She’d rather not eat at all than eat something she’s never tried and has made a firm decision against.
 
     Anyhow, we get this meal cooked to Jessica’s satisfaction, and we even clean up the kitchen so that there will be no trace of the havoc we’ve caused in her father’s absence.
 
     The deep-fried chicken nuggets are good–we’ve cooked about four times as much as we can eat. And we’re both somewhat satisfied with ourselves. She gets what she wants–a meal just like her Aunt Vikki cooks. I get what I want–a nice meal at home, not prepared by strangers, prepared with love and camaraderie, and the company of my grand-daughter.
 
     We settle in to wait for her father’s return, watching this TV show she loves, Seventh Heaven,  and the night is quite all right, as nights on earth or in Seventh Heaven sometimes are

© 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

 http://jimreedbooks.com