The Review: Circus Of Books

Circus Of Books Too Close/10

So I finally watched the Circus Of Books documentary on Netflix. This is mostly gonna be me talking about what it was like working there. A few weeks back Barry had told me about it and that it would on soon and that I should watch it. I asked him if I was in it and he said no. I wondered if they had talked to any former employees about working there since there were so many. A few weeks after I started working there in 1999 I compiled a list of how many people had come and gone since I worked there. I added myself to the list in 2006. I was the 106th employee to leave in those seven years.

Here is the new information I found out while watching. Barry was almost sent to prison. Definitely gonna have to ask him about that the next time I see him. Karen was a journalist. Fernando and Rachel were friends (I worked with him when I first started). There are two sons. I have seen Rachel a couple times but heard that a son existed maybe but never saw them until now. Didn't know Karen had an issue with gay anything. Did not know David worked there before the Mason's took over. Out of the 105 other people that had come and gone while I was there David was one of the five I actually liked even though he loved yelling at conservative talk radio stations. The others were Bob who handled books and magazines. A porn star who was fired (not by the Mason's) for bullshit reasons. A Hawaiian kid that was funny as hell. A light skinned boy with a name I suspect was fake. And a dude who modeled for Lex Luther art when he was running for president.

The people that came through that place was a wide variety that lasted various amounts of time. Some lasted one day. Some lasted a week until they realized it was an actual job and not a fuckfest going on in the backroom. By the way, the backroom was where movies were assembled and packages were opened. One guy lasted before his lunch break saying he needed to move his car. That became a running gag. If someone was late from lunch that was new we would say “They went to go move their car.” One employee was nodding off at the counter before he was finally fired. Another was caught drinking while working overnights.

I got the job because my ex had a cousin who was a manager and they needed someone. I was like “Okay. I like books.” While the store did have books people slept on the great magazine selection. I was happy as hell when I got them to order wrestling magazines. I discovered what poppers were and how terrible they smelled when they exploded. I discovered Whip-Its. No, I never tried them. I sold those and porn to celebrities. One of the best things was that when a celebrity came no one said shit. There is another shop down Santa Monica that would sale the receipt to a tabloid and fuck with them. If this multi Grammy winning singer needed boxes of porn brought to his car we did it. If this newscaster needed poppers I gave them to him. If a very well known film critic needed a swinger magazine I sold it to him.

There is only one time I geeked out at a celebrity who I won't mention because he has passed. He didn't even buy porn. He bought this not funny British comedy magazine and would not talk because years ago before I arrived an employee tried the tabloid thing on him. Billy Idol came in once and I didn't know it was him until I had a Kaiser Soze moment after he left. He didn't buy porn but we chatted and White Wedding came on and he chuckled but kept talking. If you were at the store and I was at the counter I played KLOS or my own CD's. I look at his receipt after he left and went “Holy shit Billy Idol just left!”

Quick random side note. One day David heard me listening to The Adam Carolla Show and said that Wanda Sykes sounded like Gary Coleman. I said I am gonna tell her and he dared me to. I called and they actually answered and put me on the air. After some joking they asked where I worked and I said a porn shop. They called the next morning before the store opened and said they loved me on the air and it turned into a regular thing. I was on there maybe a dozen times. They even did a skit where Sergei a Serbian porn producer came in with full costume. I had to keep from laughing out loud while he talked about “winter bush.” A customer came in one day and asked “Was that you on the radio?” and I nodded and he started laughing at me.

When I worked there I would just tell people I worked at a book store. When people found out that I worked in a porn shop no one was horrified but started asking for prices of things and if I could get them something. I started working just twice a week on weekends because I was also reading scripts and working at PetCo at the same time. Eventually I worked every single shift from opening at 6am. 3:30 to midnight. Overnights. I was almost always the only straight guy there and for sure one of the few Black people. Offhand I can think of five other Black people that worked there. No. Six. A few transitioning men and women. There were a few women that worked there as well but for the most part it was gay men.

The reason I left was one day I was pulled into the office. At that point I was opening the store at 6am. I would bring in the newspapers, count the registers, and stock the food and drinks before opening the door. When another employee showed up I would handle the schedule, bank deposits, cleaning schedule (had to create that weeks after starting because the bathrooms were terrifying), ordering magazines, ordering the straight DVD's, ordering drinks/snacks/cigarettes, and reconciling the money made before the armored truck showed up. I even sat in for a few interviews. In those seven years I missed work only two times and showed up the day of my brothers funeral. Not because I liked it there but because it was my job. I was doing the work of four employees or more and told that there was not enough work for others and that I could either work at the Silverlake location (a huge no knowing what those employees were like) or take a pay cut. Already making far less than I deserved I chose to leave which caught everyone off guard.

By the time I was leaving I could see that it would not last much longer but I was so pissed at how I was being forced to chose even less that I went full on Drago by then and didn't want to offer any advice. “If it dies it dies” became my mentality. I won't go too much into the manager that was there forever but if you interviewed any former employees about him they would not have glowing things to say and he could account for a large amount of loss of business, employees, and customers vowing not to return.

While watching this I thought that it could have possibly been split into two parts. Maybe one part focusing more on the family and its dynamic and the second on the store because each comes with so much information it is a lot to squeeze into 90 minutes. I do not recall if the store in The Valley was mentioned. It was well directed and the pacing was handled nicely. Seeing the older versions of the store made me laugh like when the doors went from being opaque to swinging doors. I'm sure another more in depth version of this is in the works or sitting on the floor somewhere. The reason I gave it the rating I did is because I spent so much time working there I am legit too close to give it a 1-10 score. I literally just talked to one of the owners a couple weeks ago!

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