All language subtitles for Circus of Books

Mom.

Mom, turn around!

Mom, turn around!
You're on Totally Hidden Video!

Say hi. Scream!

We've got a house full of company.
Can we call you back? Okay.

Hello. What's your name, sir?

"You're on Candid Camera."

Look at that little camera hidden
in that corner behind the cabinet.

- Aren't you too close right now?
- Yes, that's a camera.

- I'm not focused, Rachel.
- Scream.

Five cans of water?! Holy-moly!

Five cans of water.

Rachel, this is gonna be
such a boring tape,

watching somebody put five cans of water
in a pitcher.

Okay, Mom, Dad,
can you introduce yourselves?

- You start.
- Okay.

So, I'm Karen Mason.

I'm Barry Mason.

And we own Circus of Books, since 1982,

so 33 years ago.

Which is a long time to do anything.

Can you say what the Circus of Books is?

All right. So, Josh,
can you describe our family for me?

Like, what are Mom and Dad like?

Um...

I think our family...

There's a level of conventionality
in our family. I think, um...

we're a normal, tight-knit family.

I just mean to take us.

Hey, Micah, stop it. Micah! Come on.

We were striving
for the perfect family look.

Micah, you moved.

Mom, she's definitely the alpha woman

but still quite soft around the edges.

♪ Oh, Hanukkah ♪

♪ Come light the menorah ♪

Do it again.

She is strong-willed,

and she goes for what she wants
with force.

How would you describe Dad?

Don't bang into the bars.

Dad is one of the few people
whose default state is happiness.

He's just kind of a happy guy.

What does the red light
in this thing mean?

- Daddy, can I go in here?
- Yeah.

Daddy!

The description is always,

"Look for the bald guy
with a smile on his face,"

whenever he was lost in a shopping mall.

It was definitely a good cop/bad cop duo.

You know, here I was, this, uh...

I would never call myself a soccer mom,

but I was certainly a working mother
with three children.

We didn't want them
to know what we did at all,

because we thought maybe
people wouldn't, like, play with them.

I think that's a very tough piñata.

We never talked about it.

It was just known
that's how the family worked.

You don't talk about family business
in the family.

If anyone asked us what our parents did,

the official answer was,
"Run a bookstore."

"We own a bookstore."

That's what you tell people.

There were times
we had to get to the store,

'cause Mom was driving us home
and needed to stop by.

We were under strict instructions
to stare down at the ground

the entire time we were passing
through certain areas of the store.

"Don't look around. Look at the floor."

But obviously...

you know, wandering eyes.

There was one time
I found a VHS tape

in the back of Mom's car,

and I grabbed it, and hid it,
and waited for months.

Finally, everybody was out of the house,

and I run to my hiding place,
and I pull out this tape...

and it turns out it was a Beta,
and I couldn't watch it.

So, Circus of Books is a bookstore

and a hardcore gay, adult business.

I would always see Circus of Books,

and I thought
it was just... a bookstore...

with a circus theme.

And I went in and realized

that it was so much more
than just a regular bookstore.

It had this whole section
that was just, like, porn,

P-O-R-N, you know.

It was great.

A purveyor of gourmet sexual material
for every pervert in America,

that was Circus bookstore's claim to fame.

It made all these men comfortable
exploring their own sexuality.

Circus of Books was a safe place
to find other gays.

There was cruising going on
in the book stacks.

It was the center of the gay universe
in that neighborhood.

A regular feature here
on 2 on the Town is to take a look

at some of the famous and infamous streets
of Southern California.

And tonight,
Lou Lauren takes us along with him

to Santa Monica Boulevard.

This is the face of Santa Monica Boulevard

that is familiar to most outsiders.

But the street also has a private side,

perceived by outsiders
only if it dawns on them

that almost all of the people
they see here are men.

In the first year I moved to Los Angeles,

I found a place that was accepting.

West Hollywood was mainly
very young, gay people,

and it was called Boystown.

Back then, if you were out,
you were an outlaw,

and you did outlandish things, you know?

That whole, like,
toe-tapping, and cruising,

and like, bandannas and flagging...

People don't say,
"Well, maybe I'd better get into a corner.

My boss might see me here"?

No, no, I think gay liberation is here,
and there's no problem at all.

My name is Alexei Romanoff,

and I happen to be one of the last people
who are still alive

from the demonstration at the Black Cat.

On New Year's Eve, 1966,

there were police raids
on two of the bars.

Two or three seconds after midnight,

after the song "Auld Lang Syne"
was playing at the Black Cat,

the police started
to arrest people who were kissing.

They were afraid,

because if they got outed,
they could lose their job,

lose their homes.

From that incident, came demonstrations
against police brutality

outside of the oldest gay bars
in Los Angeles,

the Black Cat and the New Faces.

It was the largest demonstration
in the country at the time,

and it was two and a half years
before Stonewall.

The New Faces became the Circus of Books.

That bookstore was really important,

because there was literature in them
that had to do with our lives.

I mean,
we were the unspoken, hidden people

that you never talked about
because they were disgusting.

I can't even explain how different it was.

To be a homo was unspeakable, basically.

Porn has always had a place
in the gay community,

because, you know,
we didn't see anything like that.

To see men, you know,
naked and unafraid...

that gave us a lot of pride.

Circus of Books was my first glimpse

into the fact
that I wasn't alone as a gay person.

Being gay back then was not easy,

and this bookstore, you know,

it kept me safe.
It kept me out of harm's way.

How are the sales today?

They're on the slow side.

Then up.

Like every day, huh?

Oh, looks like some
of the VHS might have sold, huh?

- Yeah.
- Did it?

- Yep.
- Somewhat, yeah.

So, I mean, I just see this this morning.

Somebody brought in straight VHS tapes,
and these are in really good condition.

I don't know who's gonna buy
the straight VHS tapes,

but we didn't pay anything.

We traded for books
that we sell for a dollar.

These are pills.
These are called cock rings.

Why is this going over there?

I don't know why this is going over there.

All right.

We got a report of a rat.

So one of the employees this morning
happened to see it

way back here where there is no food,
but we just want to catch it

before he decides to go up front
and grab some of our snacks.

Well, the front of the store
has our most merchandise.

So this guy here, Handjobs magazine,
just stopped publishing.

Now, he does organic chicken farming.

So when I order from him,
we catch up on his chickens.

Okay, so this is our adult section.

Famous.

So, this is
one of our best sections of all.

This is called "Previously Viewed,"

and these are...

hardcore gay DVDs

that customers bought from us
over the years.

I don't know
that this is one of the really good ones.

For a while, we were just doing
buy-one-get-one-free with this sale.

It's called Nude and Rude,
directed by Carl Stanyon.

But even at $3.95,

they're not flying off the shelves.

Some days, I go to work,

and I feel like I'm just moving
the deckchairs on the Titanic.

I take a seven-dollar movie
and reduce it to three dollars,

and I move it from this side of the wall
to that side of the wall.

We're just an aging, ailing business.

She set off to be a journalist,

so she did not set off
to go chart a different course.

But I guess circumstances changed her
from that path.

But if you look at Mom's early reporting,

she interviewed Larry Flynt.
She wrote about smut raids in bookstores.

- Really?
- Yes.

- That was her early reporting?
- Yes.

I had no idea.

Me neither until I found her articles.

Oh, this was our little, um...

staff in Dayton.

Whoa! You dressed kind of sexy actually.

Yeah, I did.
I had a nice figure. Look at that.

Whoa!

What?

- Yeah.
- What?

See, but, Rachel, what are you
gonna do with stuff like this?

I mean, this is just stuff
that I happened to be involved in.

Okay, well, you're not somebody
that makes documentaries.

Well, neither are you.

Well, if you want to take it
and make a collage or...

Mom, I don't know
what I'm gonna do with it.

Just stop criticizing
every little possible turn of events.

I want to find that Flynt article.

Oh, look at this.

"Six arrested in smut raids."

Oh...

So, this could be...

"The judicial system moved
with unusual speed Friday

in the cases of six men charged
with selling obscene material

in downtown Cincinnati
adult book stores."

Karen and I met in high school.

She was outgoing, inquisitive,

interested in everything.

Karen always wanted to be a reporter.

My first real newspaper job was
at the Wall Street Journal in Chicago.

And then I got hired
at the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The editor has arrived.

It's a start of a typical work day
at the newspaper.

I specialized in criminal justice.

My special project was to interview

a Supreme Court Justice
named Potter Stewart,

who's particularly well-known
for his obscenity decision, which said,

"I can't really describe obscenity,
but I know it when I see it."

I interviewed Larry Flynt
for a series on these Hustler bars.

I'm a very unlikely person to be in this,

because if I hadn't have ran away
from home when I was 12 years old,

I'd still be looking a mule up the ass.

It was clear
that he had a pretty big concept,

and it looked like
he was gonna be pretty successful.

What was happening in that picture

where you are looking around a car?

There was somebody in a house,

and they were trying to get him out,

and I think shots were fired.

She always wanted more exciting stories.

She likes things to be hard.

I never expected
to be burned out of journalism,

but a good newspaper story
is very often somebody's tragedy.

I covered plane crashes.
I covered murders.

I covered car accidents.

At some point, you either get very jaded,

or you say, "That's enough."

I came out to LA to visit my parents,

thinking I was gonna go to Alaska
and be a freelance writer.

I never went to Alaska,

and I never did anything
with freelance journalism.

And is that when you met?

We met at a Jewish singles party
in Woodland Hills.

It was pretty dark.
I don't know why it started so late.

As I got to the party,

there were some women leaving,
and they said, "This is terrible party.

Why don't you come with us?"

I said, "Well, I drove all this way.
I think I'll stay for a bit."

I just happened to notice
the light from the end of a cigarette.

I said, "That looks like
it might be a girl up there."

He came over to me,
and we just started talking.

It was a very interesting conversation.

The whole time, I couldn't see her.

I mean, I couldn't see her face.
It was so dark.

He suggested we go for coffee.

When she walked in,
that's first time I saw her.

She looked fine to me.

And then, from then on,
we just went out all the time.

He had a motorcycle.

Mother wasn't crazy about that.

And we got married in seven months.

I had a blue dress.

He had a jacket
that we paid five dollars for.

- It was on sale.
- Yeah.

A lot of stripes, colored stripes.

I remember she said
he's this kind of genius,

inventing gizmos.

I started in UCLA's
Motion Picture Department.

Jim Morrison and his friend Ray Manzarek,

those two hung around together.

And since we were all
in the same department,

we shot movies together.

But what happened?

How come my parents, or the state,
or the university didn't look ahead?

I got my first job in the movies
with Linwood Dunn.

When I first got to work with him,

we were just finishing up special effects
for 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Light it up.
Okay, lights up, gentlemen.

And then Star Trek came along,
and we did that for three years.

They used these optical printers.

That was a very common thing
in special effects.

And since I knew a lot
about color and light,

I invented an accessory
for dialysis machines.

We have to back up
and say his father was a kidney patient.

Okay. So, I invented things for him
and then...

Well, you have to say why.
In those days,

Barry trained running his father's blood
through the machine.

The first night he was home, a tube broke,
and he could have died.

Yeah, he could have died.

I said, "There's no reason
I can't make a little detector

that would detect when the tubing
turned red instead of white."

And so I... figured out a way to do that.

So you actually just applied
your special effects technology skills

to medical devices,

and you had no experience with that?

Yeah.

The technician who had trained me
calls me, and he says,

"Hey, Barry, you gotta quit your job.

Your thing works so good

that I went out,
and I showed it to a company

who makes actual kidney machines,

and they're gonna order 325 of these."

We made a very modest living
as an inventor of dialysis equipment.

But then malpractice insurance
went up $35,000.

Well, at that time,
that's about what I was making.

These doctors, they said,

"Well, if you can't afford the insurance,
we're out."

We were not in a good place at all.

We were starting a family
and needed to make a living somehow.

The basic unit of society

is the family.

And if you destroy that,

you destroy society.

And I'm firmly convinced
that pornography, obscenity

attacks the family.

I decided a long time ago.
If you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly.

I'm not rolling over and playing dead

for him
or any other prosecutor in America,

because this country belongs to me
as much as it belongs to them.

I spent most of the '70s and '80s

putting out censorship fires
all over the country.

- Hi. It's so good to see you.
- How you doing?

You put out an ad in the L.A. Times

looking for small distributors.

Well, because
the establishment distributors

would not distribute the magazine.

So I went direct to a lot of bookstores
and secondary distributors.

The very day after I sold
all our rights to these machines,

Karen came in.
I hadn't woke up yet.

And she shows me a full-page ad
from Larry Flynt

that says he's looking for distributors.

It was just something else he could do,
because we didn't...

He didn't... have anything to do really.

Yeah, I was...
I was sleeping late, you see,

'cause I didn't have anything
to do that morning...

until she woke me up with the ad.

I spoke to a woman, and she said,

"You just need to send us an order
for 2,500 magazines,"

and they would put us on as a distributor
as long as we had a truck.

And so, I said,
yeah, I had a truck.

Of course, I didn't,
but I could rent a truck.

You don't have the luxury
of not earning a living.

You have to figure out
what you're gonna do.

Barry took our little station wagon
out to the liquor stores in our area.

I would say, "If you can't get it
from your regular distributor,

would you buy it from me?"

And at the end of the day,
I had 2,500 orders.

Your mom and dad
were one of our very first distributors

in this area.

And they grew, and they did very well.

I told Karen, "This was so easy.

Why don't I just see
if I can get more customers?"

We made enough money
that we could just function

while we figured out
what we were gonna do.

Meanwhile, Flynt took over
other magazine companies.

So, now, we had several gay titles.

One. We had Blueboy.

Blueboy was one of the first
really successful gay publications

that was not underground.

They had trouble finding a distributor,

and they came to me.

Then he got other ones,
Honcho and Mandate,

which were all the top gay magazines
at the time.

We had even thousands of titles:

knitting magazines, woodworking, guns,
you name it.

- New York Review of Books.
- Yeah, but fine, good magazines.

We would try
and get the better magazines,

- and they sold it to us.
- What do you mean "better"?

- Like New York Review of Books.
- No.

The New York Review of Books
never sold very well.

What sold well was Hustler.

I remember hearing that
Barry was distributing Hustler magazine,

and Circus of Books, or Book Circus,
was on his route.

The store was taking 600
of all the gay titles.

I mean, I would load the whole truck up
just for them.

Book Circus was not paying
their bills very well.

And so, Barry saw an opportunity
and pounced.

When he stopped paying,
I ran into his manager.

He says,
"He's become a terrible cocaine addict,

and he's not paying anybody."

I got the idea to call the landlord
and offer him half the rent.

So then, we actually were in business,
and there was no more problems,

other than the old owner threatened
to kill me one day, and that was...

But that didn't happen fortunately.

There was this big, fluorescent sign.
It said, "Book Circus,"

and we had to rename it.

I said, "You know what?
We could just cut that sign right in half,

and flop the words around,
and just pay for "of," and...

I didn't know that you switched the sign.

I mean, that's kind of like
our whole philosophy of retail.

How can we do this cheap?
Because it may not work.

I mean, if you look at the store,

it's all kind of falling apart now.

Don't Drop the Soap.
Let me see what it says about that one.

What are you looking for?

I'm just trying to find

something that isn't quite as explicit.

What does he want?

He wants a white man
and no penetration, he said.

Do these guys look white to you, Jorge?

- Yeah, they're white, all of them.
- White? All of them?

Okay, good.

Okay, so we'll take this one.

Do these guys look white?

See, all these boxes are full of DVDs.

We made all the titles in this list here.

- You guys made all of those?
- Yeah, those sent you to college.

These are the videos
that sent me to college?

They certainly helped.

What year were most of these made?

Oh, you can't photograph
those model releases.

Mom, I'm just photographing
the title names.

Okay, you gotta stop filming, Rachel.

So, now, Mom?

So, where we're going now is to this...

It's called Adult...
ANME, Adult Novelty and...

something Expo. ANME, yeah.

And then I'm not going to this ever again.
It's the last time.

Why?

Because I don't like it.

She said we're gonna meet in the lobby,
but I don't know where the lobby is.

Can you just stop for one second,
so I can put this mic on you?

You can't just keep telling me
what I can and can't do.

I run a little business,

and I don't usually
have to answer to people.

- Ellen's here.
- Oh, hey, Ellen.

I brought you an order.

Excuse me.

Yeah, I came...
This is a bigger camera than last time.

I didn't wanna poke myself in the head.

Okay, this is an order.

- Okay?
- Okay.

What kind of a special
do you have this time?

- I got a big special for you.
- Okay.

This gets rid of herpes, destroys herpes.

Okay, we didn't do good with the...
We didn't do good...

Just give us the stuff we always sell.

We're not doing good with new stuff.

The other thing that I have
that everybody likes,

it's the lube, is the anal lube.

- Which one is that?
- It's this one.

I mean, it's doing really well.
It's our silicone.

It's anal lube. It's silicone.

It's got clove in it,
so it's kinda numbing.

So it's not gonna tear...

- Okay, but do you have a smaller size?
- Yeah.

- Okay, so send me, like, 12.
- It comes in a fishbowl.

Okay, all right.

- You want a fishbowl?
- Yeah.

- Okay, so just add that.
- I'll do that.

Okay, that's a nice order, Ellen.

We're placing an order
for those pills from China.

I guess you only have 200 left.

We got lots. I bought lots.
We received a lot.

Okay, is that still selling okay?
'Cause, uh... Hello.

- How are you?
- Okay.

- Good to see you. How's everything?
- Okay.

Yeah?

How's Barry doing?

He's good, yeah.

What happened to Frankie?

- Are you Circus of Books in LA?
- Yeah.

I've been to your stores.

- You're the owner?
- Yeah.

- Whoa! Good for you!
- Yeah.

Hello.

All right, so what do you have
besides a good name?

Yeah, this is gay, right?

- Or not necessarily?
- Uh... Not necessarily.

- Clamps...
- Okay.

Don't explain anything to me. Just, uh...

If it's not for gay, then that's
the reason we didn't do any business.

What's something
that would do well for you?

Here, like this whole wall of stuff.

But I don't particularly enjoy
looking at it,

so I can notice it without looking at it.

So, this wall
would probably do well for us,

whatever it is.

- That's it. Now, can we go?
- Yeah.

We hired the people
who ran the store for the old owners,

and they really taught us
what we needed to know

about how to get the merchandise,
which was the key to the whole thing.

I'm one of the buyers
for the condoms, the lubricants,

and some of the sale video.

They pretty much let me decide.

You know, and if I make mistakes,
it's no big deal.

Karen and Barry were the absolute best.

They were so good to me.

It was always my dream
to work in a porn store.

I'm a weirdo
and kind of a pervert, I guess.

The heyday of this place
was really, really jammin'.

People spent money on books,
magazines, you know,

whatever they wanted to.

Within the month, we opened,

and the first day,
the store did over $1,000.

You got your magazines
on that side of the store,

and your real graphic,
adult magazines were on this side.

There was an alley behind Circus of Books
called Vaseline Alley.

Every community
that has a big gay population

has a Vaseline Alley.

It was a place where gay sex happens.

I lost my virginity in the alley
behind Circus of Books...

with a cop in training.

I mean, this was, like,
every queer boy's wet dream.

On my first night here,

there's this guy in that corner...

This is not even on the adult side.

...with his pants down, stroking.

And I'm like,
"Son of a bitch! My first night here,

and this happens."

You could walk back to the back room,

and there were some steps to the attic,

and...

I had sex in the attic.

Not full-on sex in the attic, but...

I've never even been up there.

I didn't even know that existed.

I missed out, man.

Did you ever hear
about any of that stuff?

You know, I heard about it,
but I didn't think they were so crazy.

The whole operation was a little goofy,

so it would have
to be something incredible

for me to find it really crazy.

When Barry walked in, you didn't change.

You still continued reading a magazine.

"Hey, Barry, how's it going?"

When Karen walked in, phew,

that magazine flew to the back.

Your dad has always been
the very mellow one.

He's not the one
that wears the pants in the family.

I shouldn't say that on camera.

They were very, like,
no-bullshit, no-nonsense.

"If you steal from us, you will be fired,
and that's that."

In the '80s, adult material was expensive,

and it was illegal in some places,

and if you could sell it,
you could make a lot of money.

A manager said to us,

"You should open a Circus of Books
in Silver Lake,

and this will become your biggest store,"
and it did.

They're not offended.
They're not scandalized.

It's their job.

It's like they're selling apples
at an apple cart.

I don't think we had
any misgivings about doing it.

We just felt
it was gonna be a very temporary thing

until something came along that was, um...

more substantial.

Because, I mean, we're college graduates,
and we had careers.

That was, like, not anything
anyone would do,

and we certainly wouldn't tell anyone
we were doing it.

So then what led you
to start making the adult movies?

Oh...

This way just a tad.
There you go. Yeah, that's it.

Somebody knew a very famous
hardcore gay movie producer,

Matt Sterling.

He was looking
for a legitimate distributor

who he could trust.

And he was coming out with this new movie,
which no doubt was gonna be a hit,

because it was also gonna star
that, at that time, very famous...

- Jeff Stryker.
- Jeff Stryker.

- Who was already famous.
- Who was very famous.

I mean, Jeff Stryker was, like,
a superstar of gay porn.

He was one of the biggest, you know.

No pun intended.

♪ Lookin' so good, feelin' good ♪

♪ When you know things are going right ♪

Are you willing to give me
whatever I want?

Anything.

♪ 'Cause I know who I am ♪

♪ I'll do all I can now ♪

♪ I'm a new man, dreams have come true ♪

♪ Bigger than life ♪

♪ Yeah! ♪

Hello. My name is Jeff Stryker, and...

here I am.

This is the Jeff Stryker action figure.

It's 12 inches tall, anatomically correct,

and the penis is pose-able.

That's what I got over... an edge on Ken.

You would never expect these people

to be distributing adult movies worldwide,

but they looked at it
the same way I looked at it.

You're creating a product,

and it's the supply and demand.

It's just business sense.

It was strictly an opportunity.

So we started a business, um...

that made hardcore gay... films.

They made Stryker Force,

and it was hard to keep up
with the demand.

People were calling us

and insisting we ship them
the tape already.

I said, "I don't even have it yet.
I can't ship it to you."

It was like a panic to get this tape.

In fact, we had him at our store
signing the tapes,

and there's a big line of customers.

Barry would bring stack after stack
of these boxes,

and I would sign
as long as they could supply them.

Other people,
when they knew we were distributing,

they would come to us too and say,
"Would you do ours?"

Of course, by then, we'd hired
another fellow to sell the tapes.

Barry and Karen were behind the scenes,

they wanted somebody like me
to be their front man for them.

When we first started,

we might have been releasing one movie
every six weeks.

And somewhere in the middle of that,

we were releasing two movies a week.

It was like riding a tiger,
we used to say.

So many companies wanted
to do business with them

because they're good, honest,
trustworthy people,

and in the adult industry,

that was a rare bird at the time.

This is one of the compilations
I made for Barry and Karen.

It's called Rimnastics Gold Part 2.

"Video 10 Distributors has uncovered
even more hot rimming scenes

to bring you Rimnastics Gold Part 2.

It's more than fantastic.
Its rim-tastic."

Sorry. Oh, my God!

It never felt like
we were getting into pornography.

We were just getting
into a different business

that was related
to the business we were already in.

We never saw any of those movies.

At one point,
we were probably the biggest distributor

of hardcore gay films
in the United States.

It was a very lucrative market,

but you really took major chances,

major chances of imprisonment

in any part of, uh, the adult movies.

Adult material, especially at that time,

was a pretty polarizing thing.

There were always people on the right

who looked out
for things they could demonize.

Obscene publications are socially harmful.

The Department of Justice says
that pornography is a problem

that pervades all levels of society.

Should therefore be solved
by all levels of government.

Their anti-porn plan is expected
to involve state and local participation.

This was led by Meese,
the Attorney General for Ronald Reagan.

This administration is putting

the purveyors of illegal obscenity
on notice.

I never felt free
to let anybody know what we did.

I don't think you would have cared,
but I didn't want it.

Right, I just didn't talk
'cause she didn't want me to.

She preferred that I not tell people.

If you went somewhere,
and you said,

"Well, I own Circus of Books,"

people would say to you,
"Oh, I don't have any problem with that."

So, it was like you were being judged.

I mean, you don't go up to somebody
when they say they're a teacher

and say,
"I don't have any problem with that."

Or, "I'm a lawyer."
"I don't have any problem with that"

But they would say that to us.
"I don't have any problem with that."

And they probably did have a problem
with that. I had a problem with that.

Karen's problem with the whole
sexually-explicit inventory,

a lot of it, I think,
has to do with her faith.

She was raised
in a conservative household.

She loves to be
in synagogue all day praying.

Well, I always say we're a mixed marriage,

because I'm the religious person,
and he's not.

He doesn't particularly like
anything very spiritual, I don't think.

- Pretty accurate.
- Yeah.

We've always belonged to a synagogue.

Although, the synagogues never knew
what we were doing.

She was very afraid
that the business, if it got out,

would impact those relationships.

Do you feel like we had a lot
of, like, religious education or...

So, I feel it was really complicated.

Mom was kind of caught

between this stuffy,
conservative synagogue.

But that's what she was born with.

And us growing up in West Hollywood,

which is just really secular
and liberal...

So, I feel like
it was kind of forced on us...

and not in a soft way.

Mom's usual force of nature,

"You are going to Sunday school"
kind of way.

Just go ahead. You have
the Torah out. You have to be respectful.

Now, come on. Find your...
Come back here and find your spot.

But, Mom...

Find your spot.

My reaction
to a lot of the pressure was to be quiet.

I know you fought with Mom a lot

'cause you wouldn't dress
the way she wanted you to.

Definitely did your own thing.

But I'm guessing Josh's reaction was,

"Fine, I'm doing what I'm gonna do,
and I'm gonna do it perfect."

I think I absorbed the most
of Mom's ambition towards perfection.

I was always looking
to give a positive image to them,

to everyone else.

Use your power! Kick the thing!

Just spread out, Joshua. All right!

Get the ball!

I wanted to be perfect.

Do you remember writing this book
when you were a kid?

Don't remember it.

It's called Boy by Joshua Mason.

"In the future, my family would consist
of my beautiful wife,

me, and my three kids.

I would live in a world so close to heaven
it would be unreal."

Oh, my God!

I distinctly remember
"gay" being a bad word.

It was one of those words
that you used about bad things.

I definitely perceived that it was wrong.

All right.

Keys for her store.

- Tom's gonna pull another 100 today.
- Oh!

And over the weekend.

This used to be ten times more than this.

I know. It seems like it's hardly any now.

That's it. There's still a lot,

but it's not nearly as much
as it used to be.

Yeah. Did you know
many of the people in these films?

Uh, I know some of the more famous ones.

The Matt Sterling one,
that was a very famous one,

and Jeff Stryker,
he was a very famous guy.

- What happened to Matt Sterling?
- Died. He died.

Yeah, I know a lot
of the producers of them.

How many people would you think died

in, like, a lot of these movies?

A lot. When AIDS was going around,
a lot of them died then.

How old were a lot of them?
Like, what would the average age be?

In their 20s and 30s maybe.

Those would be the ones
I would see in the hospice,

those guys I knew or...

But a lot of them didn't do that.
I didn't even know.

They would just go home,

maybe back to Wisconsin
or wherever they were from,

and, uh... that was it.

Barry and Karen enjoyed
a strange, freakish vantage point

to bear witness to the epidemic
without being part of it.

I mean, my God! They ran a sex business.

That was the locus of the population
of the people that were dying.

Nobody knew
what it was caused from at first,

and people were avoiding each other.

We just didn't understand it.

We were afraid of each other.

More than 800 cases nationwide,

and yet still
surprisingly few people are familiar

with the Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome.

The reason for that may lie in part

in the character
of its most common victims,

homosexual males
who frequently change sexual partners.

We lost so many of our employees,

and nice people.
I mean really nice people.

Talented, bright, young.

It was a real, real tragedy.

Ninety percent
of the people I knew at that time

are no longer here.

I remember Barry
visiting an employee who was in bed.

We would call the parents and say,
"Hey, your son is sick.

Don't you wanna come and..."

A lot of them would just say,
"No, I don't.

I kicked him out.
I never wanna see the guy again."

I'd say, "But he's your son."

I was just so surprised

that the parents could be so bad
to their children.

And I didn't think
about the gay part of it.

It was just their children.

The employee who worked
so closely with us to open that store

went home on a Friday

and died on Monday.

We were working with him until...

literally, until he passed away.

And I remember taking a call
from his mother after he died.

She wasn't in touch with him
during that period,

and I think she was feeling bad.
I don't know what she wanted from me.

But she should have visited him.

- It was a horrible, horrible time.
- Yeah, really bad time.

I remember going to the store

and being like, "Oh, where's so-and-so?"
"Oh, he just died."

Something seemed...

like a horror about that to me,

but I didn't understand it
till much later.

I know they supported the gay community.

I mean, they didn't set out to,
but they did.

They were not gonna let
other forces tell them what to do.

I think what we did was
small, human kindnesses

in a very small way.

Government officials
will very often use pornography

as a means of deflecting attention away
from their failures to do something.

Attorney General Meese
accepted the pornography report today.

Obscenity, that illegal activity,
it is not the kind of thing

that is subject
to the protection of the First Amendment.

When that Meese commission was on,
I would read about it all the time,

and it was a totally stacked deck.

Everybody that testified
was anti-pornography people.

So, the outcome was absolutely assured.
They were just gonna say it was no good.

Opponents say the commission

is using a half-million dollar report
to moralize.

The government is attempting
to obtain self-censorship

by the threat
of these draconian sanctions.

They had a multi-million dollar task force

with all the money they needed

with one mission, you know,

to control people's reading
and viewing habits

and their sexual habits if they could.

Isn't it about time
we remove the profit motive

from activities that are sick and obscene?

One of the things you did in those days,

was you only sold movies
to people you knew.

So, we sold movies all over the country,

but only to companies
we'd been dealing with.

One day, somebody called up
and ordered three films

to, like, Joe's Video Store,
in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

And our guy entered him in the computer
and shipped them out.

Unbeknownst to us,

the prosecutor begins this process

of illegal transportation
of adult material over state lines.

They were running a sting operation.

The FBI comes in,
like you see on television

with FBI on their...

- Jackets. Big letters.
- ...jackets, and their guns drawn.

We made some
undercover purchases of this stuff,

and after consultation
with the Prosecuting Attorney, uh,

they issued us a search warrant.

We were charged
with shipping obscene material.

It easily could have been
a five-year jail sentence or maybe more,

and the fines could have been
very, very large.

One of us was gonna have to go to jail,
and I thought it had better be Barry.

That lead prosecutor had

put together a staff
of very religious people,

and he himself was very anti-porn.

So they said
Barry has to enter a guilty plea.

He has to be convicted
and made guilty of a felony.

Jail is the worst place
in the world you can be, but...

fearing jail is...

even worse.

It was like a knife
over our heads all the time.

We never ever talked about it
with anybody.

Our parents didn't know what was going on.

The kids didn't know what was going on.

Our friends didn't know what was going on.

I felt like I was going down
in an elevator

and was losing everything
that was inside of me.

Did you know about the FBI charges?

I didn't know about the prosecution.

I think I'd heard...

something about a video being mailed
to Pennsylvania.

They completely hid that
from us growing up.

I don't remember knowing
about that at all.

We just were completely kept in the dark
because... you know, we were kids,

and we're not supposed to be
anywhere near that stuff.

So because of that,

I didn't have much of a connection
to the business.

Did you feel any connection to the store?

I think the store definitely operated
in its own sphere outside the family,

but I think that's fairly...

There's a conventional element to that.

Parents go to work.

They don't necessarily talk
about what they do all the time.

Stop rubbing your eyes!

I think the family at home
fell into a conventional pattern.

- Did Josh say that to you?
- Really?

Yeah, he did.

We all talked about kids,
getting married, and being straight.

Nobody sort of questioned it.

I think even my understanding of...

um, gays and gay life was through...

through the business in a strange way.

And I would like to say,
you've been a pretty good kid.

I really like being your mother.

Realizing I was gay

was a kind of long, ambiguous period.

I was keeping that secret
from the world...

'cause being gay was not acceptable.

But did you ever know or see people

that just were gay, like,

and that, you know, you recognized
and like, "Oh, that's gay.

- That's cool. That's like a thing."
- No. Definitely not.

I think I was kind of actively ignoring...

um...

all the gay issues in the world...

much like my straight high school friends.

You just didn't talk about gays
or, you know, what it was like.

It was very archetypal,

jocks picking on the gays.

Idiot!

I did what I could to keep myself
out of the gay category,

but I wasn't good enough
to be heterosexual.

So I was just asexual
as far as they were concerned.

I put a lot of pressure on myself

to be the more conventional,
rule-follower child.

You ready, Dad?

Whoa! Yeah!

I think I filled every available gap

in the day with some sort of activity.

So I had diving,

gymnastics team.

Did you feel, like, pressure
to pretend that you were straight?

There was a lot of pressure
towards dating.

There were kids that lost their virginity
and stuff like that.

Um... Not me.

It's just so weird to me

that you wouldn't have thought
that I would have cared, right?

I mean, I didn't care. I wouldn't...

I mean, my world was gay anyway.

Like, why wouldn't you have wanted
to jump into my world?

Your world was too gay.

Your world was too gay.
It was too artsy.

I didn't connect with it.
I think that was...

That wasn't where I was.

It's not where I am, I don't think.

So, Fernando,
can you tell me how we met?

So, we met in ninth grade.

At that time,
you kind of recognized those people

that were living
to the beat of their own drum,

I would say, um, through...

you know, hair, and clothes, and music.

And you were one of those people

that had the whole package
of what I was looking for in a friend,

you know, someone that just, again,
walked to the beat of their own drum.

Ooh!

Always looking for attention!

Pssht!
Oh, nice coming from you, Miss Green.

Do you feel like our friend group
identified as the queer group at school?

We didn't really identify as queer.

In the '90s, we identified as weirdos,
artists, punk rockers, rebels.

Like, that was our identity,
and that's what drew us all together.

That's why it was so accepting
for all of our friends

to experiment with their sexuality.

Can I come over
and, like, hang out with your computer?

Okay.

Do you remember
when I found out about the store?

Yes.

You had said,
"My parents own a bookstore."

And I said,
"Oh, what bookstore do they own?"

You're just like, "They own a bookstore.

You probably never heard of it.
It's called Circus of Books."

And we were like,
"Circus of Books? What?"

"Rachel, Circus of Book is a porno store!"

I just remember being really confused

'cause it didn't align
with who I thought my parents were.

It was sort of an interesting, fun secret,
but also kind of a dangerous secret,

'cause I could definitely tell
it could easily be a problem.

As rebellious and as precocious
as we were,

we were still pretty innocent.

What's funny to me is that

I didn't think my parents got my world
with artists and queer kids.

But they were actually intersecting
with my scene

without me even realizing it.

Yeah, it felt like
we had seen Karen and Barry one way,

very parental
and a little bit more strict.

Certainly not subversive, you know?

Certainly not part of the counterculture.

But when we realized
they were invested in Circus of Books,

it started to become clear to us

your parents were more layered
than we had previously thought.

It allowed us to realize

that you can live as an adult

without following the path

that everyone's telling you
you need to follow.

I think that
when your parents acquired their business,

they really didn't know
what they were potentially facing,

and the terrible thing about it was
that nobody could know.

There was no way
to look at the obscenity statute

and predict whether something
that one was selling

might trigger a prosecution.

We knew people who had been
in this business and had gone to jail.

But what I thought initially was,
"We'll just go out of business,"

and when we finally sat down
with John Weston,

he said that is a terrible, terrible plan.

Government always wants
its pound of flesh.

So, if at the very beginning of something,
you close it down,

then you've got less to offer.

If the war on drugs ever goes away,

all these people who fight drugs
are going to lose their jobs.

Well, it was the same thing
with people who fought obscenity.

They needed somebody to negotiate with,

and so we were advised
not to close at all,

but to stay in business and fight.

I mean, it's scary
when the government comes after you.

That is just really powerful...

and for basically religious reasons.

It's pretty scary stuff to me.

I got a communication
from the government, saying,

"We need Barry Mason to say, 'Guilty.'"

He has to be convicted and made guilty
of a felony.

Just at a human level, the idea
that Barry Mason should be a felon

was just unacceptable.

I mean, that's just not part
of any world that I'd wanna live in.

And so I implored them to reconsider.

To see who he was as a person,

and what the impact on him,
and his family,

and to some extent, you, would have been

if your dad had been forced
to stand up in court

and say, "Yes, I'm guilty.
I've committed a federal felony."

The reason it was resolved was
that Bill Clinton got elected.

The President of the United States,
Bill Clinton.

All right.

Thank you.

So, the prosecutors got switched.

There was a different attitude
towards obscenity,

and I'm sure that created a climate

which allowed my earnest request
for reconsideration to be evaluated.

They were able
to see the fineness of your dad.

They accepted the guilty plea
by the corporation.

Corporation pleads guilty.
They let you out on parole.

I had to just go down
to the Federal building once a month,

sign a little piece of paper

that said I didn't commit
any crimes that month,

and then that ended the whole situation.
I was off.

It turns out our First Amendment rights
are really protected

by the most extreme kind of speech
and the most extreme kind of material.

The greatest right
that any nation can afford its people

is the right to be left alone.

Josh needs a perfectly round head.

Say hi.

So what did you just say?

So, in June, both stores had
the worst month they've ever had.

And...

it's still profitable, but it's not, um...

It's not sustainable.

At some point, it's just...

Like yesterday.

I was leaving the store,

and I'm trying to get out, and I can't,

because the man there
just bought something,

and he's got a walker.

And he's sort of looking
at what he bought,

so he's not opening the door.

And because he's got the walker,
he's stuck there.

And this is our customer base.
They're aging, uh...

mostly men...

who can barely even walk.

Are you, like, mixing it in as a cereal?

Yeah, 'cause otherwise,
you can't eat the little pieces.

This way, I can eat all the pieces.

So, I think
instead of a business decision,

I have a psychology problem because...

you know, I've run this business
for all these years

without knowing what I'm doing,

and...

I need to close it,

but I still got people working for me
who won't get as good a job if they...

- That's cheese.
- Cottage cheese, yeah.

- If they, um...
- Cheese.

...you know, if we close.

I don't know.

You know, that's... I don't know.

And I don't know why you think
this is worth documenting.

Because, I mean,
this happens in small business.

It's just...
It's a different, um, business model.

I don't like all this filming.

I don't know what
you're gonna come up with from this.

Karen and Barry were in a constant state

of... panic
about the collapse of their business.

And so, it was constantly like,

"Oh, this is it.
We're closing the doors this week.

This is it. This is the end."

That was always the case.

So, that's why I'm sort of in disbelief
about it closing.

I'm like,
"Well, it was always about to close."

These are letters of reference.

It just says, "He's worked for us
for over 25 years.

And if you need a good, honest,
reliable, hard-working employee,

you've found him in Ben."

- Oh, I'm so sorry, but good for you.
- Thanks.

Today is my last day. I'm retiring.

So, I'd say it's kind of a depressor,

but it's time.

The worst thing in the world
is laying off a good employee...

because you can't afford
to keep them anymore.

It's a terrible thing to do.

The past will never come back.

And unless you're willing
to invest in the future,

there's no use even trying to...

exist anymore.

"As I'm sure you can see,

business at the store is slowing down
despite our best efforts to improve sales.

This is to let you know

that I have listed the store for lease
with a real estate agent.

I welcome any suggestion
of new merchandise

and any ideas
for a different use of the space."

Post it here by the time clock.

Let me see.

Okay, so this is...

That's gonna go... They'll see it.

Can you describe that day
that you came out to Mom and Dad,

and what led you to feel
that you could be more open about it?

What led you to really think
that you should be?

So, it probably wasn't
until after high school

that it even started
to enter my mind as an option.

And it wasn't really until college
that I sort of started transitioning

from, um, who I was outwardly
towards who I felt like I was inwardly.

I came home a number of times from college

expecting to come out,
and it didn't happen.

I put a lot of pressure on myself
to kind of make it happen.

I made sure I had my flight...

booked and paid for,

'cause it wasn't an impossible thought

that, um, you know,
I was gonna get thrown out.

Yeah.

Are you okay?

Should I read the questions to myself?

No, I'm sorry.
It's just upsetting to me to hear that.

Friday night dinner,

just before he was going back
to school at Columbia.

He was at one end
of our dining room table,

and I was at the other.

Someone was having a conversation
that required a Post-It Note and a pen.

And I just started scribbling
on the Post-It Note, "I'm gay."

I flung the pen and paper on the table.

And I'm trying to see who wrote this note,
'cause it didn't have his name on it.

Finally, his mother and him went upstairs,

and I said, "Wow! It's Josh."

I said, "Are you sure?
Why are you doing this?

God must be punishing me."

God would punish her
for having this business,

and I think she was thinking
this was a punishment.

Up until that point,

it had just existed somewhere
outside any of my core values.

It wasn't, uh...

It wasn't something
I really needed to think very hard about.

I was fine with anybody who was gay
as far as I was concerned,

but I really wasn't prepared
to have a gay child.

I was actually expecting Dad
to be more upset about it,

just 'cause it's usually the dad
that throws the gay son out of the house.

And he was...
Yeah, he was really good about it.

When he told us,
I was just simply surprised.

The only thing
that I was even slightly upset about was

that he had kept it a secret,

because it would have made
absolutely no difference to me.

His plane was the next morning,

so we didn't get a chance
to talk much about it.

As we were driving to the airport,

he said, "You know...

men can take advantage of other men

just as much as men can take advantage
of women."

Which I thought was actually quite astute.

Why do you think
Mom had any issue whatsoever

when she was so deeply in this world?

Everything about the business was really
in support of family, ironically.

The gay part of it fell
on the business side

of that mental dividing line.

I never thought of my employees

in the same way
that I thought about my son.

I was fine working with gay people,

but when it came to my own family
and what I had absorbed in the religion,

I was not fine at all.

When it came to my own son,

I realized that I had some thoughts
about gay people that needed to change.

Well, I don't know why he didn't come,
the trash.

What day does he come?

- I think Thursdays, but I can check.
- Well, that's today.

Why were you saying
that you wanna close in June?

You know, if it's... Sales are bad.

We're trying to keep our staff.

It seems, because the business is so slow,

they're not even doing
kind of minimal straightening.

So...

You know, everybody's kind of done here.

So, goodbye...

to this box.

You know, if I thought
it was a viable business for anybody,

then I would put it up for sale,

but I don't think
that anybody will be able to make it

more than what we make it.

But, you know, it may go another year,
say, or something.

Or not. It's hard to know.

Which is why I wish your movie was done,

so I could see how it would end too.
I would like that.

This is a statement about this business.

It kind of all ended up in the dumpster.

Here.

I just think it's kind of interesting.

That's, like, a sales, you know...

It tracks it.

Okay, so this is 2008,

which is, like, the recession
and also the Internet,

and then you can just see it going down.

When people started selling
on the Internet, we didn't.

We have a website,
but it really doesn't sell anything.

Well, it just tells people what we have
and they come into our stores.

I've wondered how they could survive
with the Internet,

because porno was devastated.

You can't sell
what people can get for free.

Pornography is pushing the limits online.

Sexually explicit material
is increasingly available on the Internet.

The Internet totally devastated
my business.

It robbed me of my income.

It also could be considered
the death knell of the gay bar,

because you don't need to go
to a bar anymore to meet somebody.

You can meet them online.

Grindr or SCRUFF.

In a lot of ways, the Internet has helped,

because we don't have to live,
like, in the shadows

and so, like, oppressed
and afraid anymore.

But I also think it's, you know...

I mean, it just sucks
that the younger generation is...

It's so hard to just talk face-to-face
with one another.

They weren't just places of commerce.

They were places of gathering
where people could get together.

They were places where people could meet
in all the best senses.

The material may be delivered,

but it's not going to be a substitute
for human interaction,

and to the extent that's what's going on,

I think that's a tragic
and irreplaceable loss.

I don't think they're gonna want
any of these papers.

I don't know what I'm giving them anymore.

It's been such a long time
since I put this stuff in here.

- I've heard his name, though.
- Yeah.

So, those are some of his covers.

He was really a nice guy.

You know, I would like...
If he's not in ONE Archive,

I think he would like to be in it, so...

I think you have to sign this.

- Oh, what?
- It's a deed of gift.

Just basically saying
that you're giving the materials.

- Right there.
- Oh, okay.

And if you don't want it,
just throw it away, 'cause, um...

You don't know who you're talking to.
We never throw anything away.

But whatever it is that you have,
we're happy to look at it.

I don't think
we have anything you want there.

But as long as I'm here,
I'd just like to look at...

I just think this is really
where it all started.

So, where the erotica was,
or where the pulp fiction was,

they would basically put it
behind a big curtain.

So, there was the problem
of being caught by the police,

or there was, alternatively,
the problem that...

the good problem, perhaps,

that you could meet somebody else
who was looking for the same material.

So, it was actually a really great thing
to be able to go get them.

I remember going to Circus of Books,

and it was a place where you could go
and find other people like yourself.

The store served its purpose,

and it's just not...

I'll be happy when it's closing.

Thank you for your donation.
I really appreciate it.

Well, it's just some stuff.

This is important, I think.
Much more than our store, this is...

I mean, the courage that it took
to put these out month after month.

They had to go in secret.

But can you imagine some kid
in Iowa or someplace

getting a copy of this and thinking,
"God! I'm not the only one."

It's just amazing.

Should be doing the documentary
about this.

When Josh came out,

the next morning,
we took him to the airport,

and the rule was
that when he got to his dorm,

he had to call
and say he got to his dorm.

And so we waited and waited,
and he didn't call,

and finally, I picked up the phone,
and I said to him,

"You know, no matter what you are,

you still have to call your mother
and say you got to your dorm."

It was much harder for me
to then begin talking about it.

Karen did not, could not,

tell any of her friends for a year.

I was sitting there in the congregation

just trying to find

how I was gonna get through
this struggle that I had with who he was,

my wonderful son.

The idea that he was homosexual
was an abomination in our religion.

In a marriage like Daddy's and mine,

the non-religious spouse
has much less trouble

accepting their homosexual child

than the religious spouse.

Why didn't you ever just drop religion?

You know, it's just not an option for me.

If your way of being in the world is
to be religious,

accepting God is just easier.

But being religious is not easy.
You have to work at that, too.

I needed to rethink my theology
in order to be okay with it.

I took Bible study classes.

You know, what does
the word "abomination" mean?

Why do they say that
in relation to homosexuality?

And what were they really saying
in the context of the time?

It was a long time of searching,
and acceptance, and learning

that there was a really profound group
of thinkers, and leaders,

and people who happened to be gay,

and were forming these wonderful,
vibrant communities.

We got involved with PFLAG,

and she met other women
that had similar experiences.

It's called Parents, Families, and Friends
of Lesbians and Gays,

and it's a support group for people

who need help understanding
what gender issues are.

She really went through
kind of a transformation after that.

I was not not gonna be
his best mother that I could be.

Your children have their own path,
and you can't direct it.

You can only take them
the first few steps on their way.

But it sure took a lot of work
to come around.

So we're gonna start
with the Masons telling their story,

and you...

Would you like to go first, Karen,
since Barry went first the other time?

I think let Barry go first.
He has the better story.

- That'll compensate for you.
- Well.

Okay, so...

About 15 years ago,

our son was coming back
from college in New York.

Now, we're big shots in PFLAG,

and we just talk about it to them,

try and make them feel
more comfortable with it.

And I didn't have a clue that he was gay,
not a clue.

I'm a trained facilitator,
so I can lead support groups.

I'm kind of the poster child, I think,

for somebody
who had a really bad reaction to it.

And I'd like to take back everything
I said to him the night he came out,

but it doesn't go away,

and unfortunately, I speak a lot,
so I have to remember it.

Their involvement
in PFLAG has been amazing.

I think at some point...

Mom said that it's the parents' role
to fight for change,

and it's the kids' role

to have as normal a life as possible
and just get on with things.

You just always think
you know what's best,

and you're wrong.

Yeah, parents, uh...

are only smart
for a very small window of time.

I'm happy with who I am because of them.

So, um...

Yeah.

I'm not very good
at finishing my sentences.

I've spent the last 20 years helping
other people understand and accept

the gender variations in their children,
and there are a lot of gender variations.

And they're all okay,

and I hope you put that in this movie.

Mom!

Now I wanna find my, uh, husband

so that we get a group picture.

- Okay. Yeah.
- You guys will be at the end.

We're taking a picture?
You're here to take a picture? Good.

Dad, give me the camera.
You should go in.

Okay, I'll get one.

Okay.

Well, you organized a really big picture.
That was hard.

I know, and don't keep calling me,

'cause this is like my job
at PFLAG to do this.

I'm not. That was it.

Hi again!

Parents and Friends
of Lesbians and Gays, PFLAG!

Forty years,
ladies and gentlemen,

Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays,

moms, dads, brothers, sisters,

proud parents.

If you watch the parade,

you'll see nobody gets
this kind of cheering.

Just the PFLAG,

and it's for the parents
who came before us,

the people who were there
when there was nobody standing up

for the people who came out as gay.

I wish my parents were here.

- Dad, look, there's your store.
- I know!

Whoo, Barry!

No one has ever given us
anything we haven't had to fight for.

I have seen so many changes in this world.

For the better and for the worse.

But I have hope, and there is hope.

I'm not gonna end this on a sour note.

This is a good note,

because people are more together today
than they ever have been.

It's our last hour, so shop quick.

- Last hour?
- Yep.

We're gonna put up
the closed sign pretty soon.

You can be the last customer maybe.

Okay.

Owner of the last item
sold by Circus of Books.

Yeah.

Well, I always like
to be anonymous, but...

Well, you could sign it "anonymous"
if you really wanna be a purist.

No, at this point,
I'm pretty public about it.

All right!

Okay.

Barry and Karen have always been
like Mom and Dad almost.

You know, we've always had...

- Our surrogate. Like family here.
- Yeah.

- Goodbye, Karen.
- Bud, you're great.

Thank you. I'll miss you.

Well, you're gonna go on
to do good things. I know you are.

- It was great working with you.
- Thank you, Barry.

- And I hope everything goes well.
- Thank you.

- I need to give you a hug.
- Oh, Karen!

- Thank you so much for everything.
- You've been wonderful.

It's not an easy trick to be married

and be in business together
for such a long time.

- Very hard, actually.
- Yeah, he had to listen to me a lot.

♪ Who's in the circus? ♪

♪ Who's on the trapeze? ♪

♪ Who's in the circus with me? ♪

♪ Who's on the trapeze? ♪

♪ Wait on the corner
Till I give you a sign ♪

♪ Can you see my red bandanna? ♪

♪ It's set to the right ♪

♪ We'll get along for the ride ♪

♪ This is where the sunlight ♪

♪ Lives on the ground ♪

♪ It's where lovers meet ♪

♪ When they need to be found ♪

♪ It's where you gave me the look
That took me out ♪

♪ And away and over ♪

♪ And away ♪

♪ Let me celebrate ♪

♪ What you don't understand ♪

♪ It's where I get the strength ♪

♪ To be who I am ♪

♪ And if you give me a look ♪

♪ I promise I'll always
Give you everything that I have ♪

♪ Always give you everything that I have ♪

♪ Cruisin' the alley
With a broken taillight ♪

♪ Lose a few dollars
But get a good price ♪

♪ You'll be a friend for the night ♪

♪ I'll be a friend for the night ♪

♪ This is where the sunlight ♪

♪ Lives in the sand ♪

♪ It's where I want to be ♪

♪ Whenever I need a hand ♪

♪ It's where you gave me the look
That took me out ♪

♪ And away and over ♪

♪ And away ♪

♪ Let me celebrate ♪

♪ What you don't understand ♪

♪ It's where I get the strength ♪

♪ To be who I am ♪

♪ And if you give me a look ♪

♪ I promise I'll always
Give you everything ♪

♪ Always give you everything ♪

♪ Always give you everything
That I have ♪

♪ That I have ♪

♪ Let me celebrate ♪

♪ What you don't understand ♪

♪ It's where I get the strength ♪

♪ To be who I am ♪

♪ And if you give me a look ♪

♪ I promise I'll always
Give you everything that I have ♪

♪ Always give you everything that I have ♪