JW: Do you consider your work play?

J C: Certainly a fair percentage of it is. I do not manage anyone here because it's not an interest of mine. I'm in charge of new books and new projects. I don't get started on a project until I'm kinda interested by it. So it's usually fun. It's certainly a lot better than most things. Occasionally I come in thinking that I've just done this yesterday, but if that happens too much, I really have no one to blame but myself.

 

JW: What would you be doing now if the juggling book hadn't led to the founding of Klutz?

JC: I've wondered about that. I don't know. Hawking beer at the ball park? Let me think. What would I be doing? I actually considered this question once a while ago and I came up with something, but I can't remember what it was. I tried teaching high school right at the start but I didn't consider myself a very good teacher and since there was a glut on the market of bad teachers I didn't want to add to that problem. So I can eliminate that. Yeah, maybe a vendor at a ballpark. "Bee-ahh-Bee-ah Hee-ah. "

 

JW: What's next for Klutz?

JC: This year we're probably going to do something on water coloring. That'll test me - water coloring for the artistically undiscovered! Also a travel backseat book for kids with a lot of puzzles and things in it. And skits. That's the fun one. We wanted to follow on kids songs. I didn't want to just do a story and have a narrator read it on the tape. I thought that was too passive. So what we're going to do is have skits that will be narrated on the tape. But the point is, you listen to the tape only to in order to learn your part. Then you turn the machine off and go perform it for Mom and Dad in the living room, so it's more interactive than just listening to somebody read stories.

 

JW: Has anything else you've done been as profitable as the juggling book?

JC: Well, that one's been out so long and it's sold the most copies. It is usually not the number one title. But it is the most consistently good performer we have. If I were going to build a baseball team, the juggling book would be the first guy that I'd pick. Not because he's going to be the star that year ­ probably wouldn't be - but he'd be among the top two or three every year. Like Ernie Banks, a very steady, solid performer. Every year there's one book that goes ape that year and usually bests it, or maybe two. But those books after a while drop back and the juggling book will still be there with the leaders. So I would say it's the one book that's been the most consistently top seller. It's among the best every year.

 

JW: What's your favorite among the books you've produced?

JC: The knots book is probably my favorite. It's a book we did five or six years ago. I used to teach scout camp when I was in high school and I taught knots there. And I thought we were able to take a subject which is essentially, fundamentally unfun, as opposed to juggling which looks like fun to start with. But a book on how to tie knots is a boring subject, absolutely unfun-Iooking from the very get-go, completely utilitarian. And yet we still get very good sales out of that book. It takes a subject which is essentially dull and makes it kinda fun and clear. It's also a very good blending of form and function. The pages are actually thick board stock, and they're die cut in order to enable you to tie the knots over the illustrations of the knots. Its kinda like connect the dots. It never will be the best seller but I think its the best, it's my favorite book.

 

JW: Are you happy?

JC: Happy doing this? Oh yeah, it's fun. By not being involved in any kind of busy- ness, any "personally" type managerial stuff, it's sort of a goof-off job because I limit myself to doing new books.

 

JW: As head of the company, is there any way that your philosophy of life filters down?

JC: I hope so. I think so. I have the messiest office in this whole building and that probably filters down more than it should. And I have a very relaxed and open attitude about what goes on here. We have a good crew. It's a very happy crew of people that work here and I think that filters down. We take a backseat to no one when it comes time to tally who's got the most California corporate culture. We probably do.

 

JW: What's California corporate culture?

JC: Oh, you know, we can have a good time and still make some money. We're very relaxed. We have an extremely small rule book about the way things have to take place here. Everything gets done on a trust basis. We don't have much in the way of policy. It still works, though. We still do our three or four or five books a year. And people who work here are very loyal. We have a bunch of fanatics out there, a mailing list of I don't know how many thousand Klutz fanatics. They have little corners tn their their houses that they fill up with Klutz stuff.

 

We have scrapbooks of letters from people who have written in who're fans. Every time we have someone send a photograph of themselves, we autograph a t-shirt and send it back out. It's mentioned in the catalog ­ photograph of yourself gets a t-shirt, if you're adorned in Klutz-wear or Klutz apparel or one sort or another.

 

JW: How did you get connected with Project Hope?

JC: Right from the very beginning we needed someone to do the assembly, putting the bean bags in the beamus bags, the little mesh bags, and knotting them onto the books. Project Hope is a disabled workshop, actually the biggest workshop of that kind in the country. We are now totally, irrevocably wedded with them. And we have been for many, many years. There's someone here whose job it is only to interface with Hope, because we're constantly using them. They have five facilities in San Jose and the area. Almost every single one of our books requires some Hope staff. They do 'em all.

So Hope and us, we go back. Most of them are about 18 or older. They aren't all mentally disabled. Some are physically disabled. There's a whole variety of things there, but they're great people. They're just a fanatic group of Klutz freaks and they all know us. Most of them know me. In fact the supervisors change a lot more than the clients, so I might not know the supervisor but I'll know half the clients.

 

JW: Anything else you'd like to say to the juggling world?

JC: I can't think of anything else right off.  I've probably said too much already, anyway