If you are eager for a random story and celebrity fodder, scroll down for some kicks. If you don’t believe libraries are better than bookstores, read my old journal entry. If you want to hear about my intellectual insecurity, start with the next paragraph.

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Down the street from my house is Changing Hands Bookstore, which was voted “Best Bookstore in America” by Publisher’s Weekly. It’s not uncommon to see the BookTV truck parked out front, broadcasting authors talking about their book to the world. Big-name authors come and sign books there. Hillary Clinton swung through town last week to sign books and campaign. Changing Hands has a polished image as being a thinking person’s book store. If they sold cars, they’d probably sell Volvos.

Of course this is one of the reasons I like to go there. Nobody will admit it, but we all go because you feel smart just by being there. If you are at Hollywood Video across the street, you have to work too hard to let people know that you are not a dimwit. You have to stand next to shelves of foreign films or try to be overheard talking about Oscar nominations. Not at Changing Hands. You can look smart even if you are stupid and lazy. It’s phenomenal.

The people who work at Changing Hands are kind of cultish, but in a cute way. They are young and cool, but they don’t want to be too cool because then they’d gain approval and somehow appear to be a conformist. That’s a messy dilemma, so they all agree to conform to a non-conformist standard of cool: geek-sheik eye glasses, vintage T-shirts, and symmetrical postmodern tattoos on their arms (whatever the hell that means.) Still, I like these people because they smile at everyone and they walk like vegans. (All non-violent vegans walk the same. If you ever get a chance, stop me and I’ll show you.)

As their name suggests, Changing Hands Bookstore will buy your old books and give you cash or store credit towards your next purchase. Since turning my house upside down last month with the remodel, I’ve realized that many of my books are not useful to me anymore. This was a bizarre realization because I’ve deliberately gotten rid of books over the past several years. But I like the simple life, so it was time to get rid of 20 more books, good books by well-known authors. Bright minds. Heck, three of the books were written by liberals. That means fat ca$h at Changing Hands. I might be able to afford that gold tooth I’ve been wanting.

I dropped that loaded cardboard box on the counter knowing that it was payday. Ten minutes later, I visited the counter again and received a brief but respectful explanation from Mr. Glasses: “I can only take three of your books, I can’t do anything with the others.” Actually, I didn’t think he was being respectful at all when he said it, but I tried to think of an alternative line he should’ve used, and I couldn’t come up with anything. He gave me $7.50.

I walked back to my car defeated, my shoulders slumped down by the weight of a 20 pounds of books that contained ideas that were no longer marketable or interesting. I thought about thinking about what that tells us about society, but I realized it was too narcissistic of a debate to have with myself in the car. (Whenever I’m bored in the car, I pretend I’m a witty guest on Talk of the Nation with Neil Conan or I give soundbytes as a celebrity CEO being profiled on MarketPlace with Kai Ryssdal. I’m okay with this because people talk to themselves all the time on speaker phone in the car.) Instead of talking to myself, I turned on Power 98.3 and caught the last half of “Crank That Soulja Boy” as I pulled out of the parking lot.

Later in the week I took my stash of books to Bookmans in Mesa, which is a more badass store than Changing Hands. They took all my books, and with my store credit I got old issues of Esquire, This Old House Magazine, and some hip graffiti magazines. Score!

Now I have to figure out how to get rid of my CDs…

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The Golden Girls

On one random night earlier this summer, I was at Mac’s next door to Changing Hands Bookstore watching a game. I asked the waitress why the parking lot was so full. She giggled and said, “Blanche from the Golden Girls is signing her book next door.” I couldn’t resist the opportunity to do something new, so I left Candyce at the table and went next door.

The Golden Girls

Blanche is the hottie on the left.

Sure enough, actress Rue McClanahan was signing 100s of copies of her new book: My First Five Husbands…And the Ones Who Got Away. I was entirely confused by the people who showed up for this party. Half of them were retired baby boomer women, the other half were clusters of youngish males. Pairs of males. And they were all hyped to meet Blanche Devereaux. I made it back to the rowdy sports bar in twenty seconds and reported my findings to Candyce.

The celebrity autobiography has to be the last chapter in the career of an entertainer. The phone quits ringing and you’re left to yourself with a lot of free time. You have all day and night to make sense of life in and out of the spotlight, and you figure it’s time to write a book. So you turn up Sinatra’s “I Did it My Way” and start pecking your keyboard. Writing a book, after all, is a life goal for most Americans, even famous Americans. It’s noble and exciting. And for yesterday’s celebrities, it gives them the last word. If the book sells well, they might get on Opra and feel adored again. If not, you’ll see their book at somebody’s yard sale next to a stack of nappy Beanie Babies.

What sucks is that hard-working writers get bumped out of the best seller list by celebrity autobiographies. And there’s no justice for these writers! It’s not like they can cross over and star in a sitcom when the whole writing thing stops working out.