 Welcome back to the Agora Cafe for the second in my series on the independent bookstores of the San Diego area. If you're new to my channel, I'm Roger Glong, I teach philosophy at Auburn University in Alabama. I'm also involved with a conjoined pair of anarchist think tanks the Molinari Institute and the Center for a Stateless Society. Specifically, for the purposes of this series, I'm also a displaced San Diego and I'm, that's why I'm interested in doing this, the series on on on San Diego bookstores because most San Diego travel videos. Don't really give the impression that there's a interesting indie bookstore scene in San Diego and there definitely is. You know, so this next one is with lookbooks, which is a once in future San Diego area bookstore, I'll be talking about that. And I just just finished recording this recording the introduction before after I've recorded the actual interview. And I think this interview is likely to be one of the most interesting ones in the series. I mean, this is only the second one, maybe there'll be other ones equally interesting. But, and this one I think it's going to be interesting, and not just people who are interested in, you know, in San Diego bookstores, but people who are interested in bookstores generally in, you know, in art and literature and and so on generally in fact this, you know, this could, this video could plausibly go in either the, you know, the San Diego bookstore series or just my regular interviews with interesting people series I guess I'll put it in the San Diego bookstore series but no, this is really could be anyway so I I think this is going to be really interesting interview for people to watch and here it comes. Anyway, but you had success with your tree hunting. Yeah, it was crazy it was really cool because I literally had a easel set up and I was building a funky like anti Christmas tree. And then this guy helped out and took us way deep in the forest and had a permit and everything and had been like, you know, fourth generation local so he knew all the backwoods but that also why it took so much longer but it's an anti tree. Well it was it was literally I had like a single pillar easel that I was just like putting to like putting together there was no there was no I was going to just hang ornaments and decorate this easel. So, if I would if I had known that would happen I had in my bookstore had done like a six foot tall. No no it's like seven foot tall solid meat, a book tree like, and there was all I had all really cool like color coordinated mostly red and green and a few like gold books, like stacked in a nice nice big tall pyramid with a typewriter and everything. It's actually. Yeah. Anyway, I guess I should. I should know tell my viewers what we're doing now. So, this is Sean Christopher. Who's the. The head of a once and possibly future San Diego bookstore. It's look books it's looks spelled L H O O Q. If you're a student of art history or get the reference and if you're not well we're probably going to talk about it. Look X realism was formerly located in Carl's bed up in North San Diego County. Currently moved to Australia Oregon, but there are prospects for reopening something in the San Diego area once again. So, Sean, tell me your story tell me the story of this. The website's for it the main website and the Facebook page are really interesting and I've got, I will have links in the description to great yeah the the website was a really creation of my wife but she wanted to reflect the intimacy of being of the store like trying to have a have a have a actual femoral reaction to like that was it is actually very technically difficult like she built it from scratch but it but it looks rustic almost, I guess you could say, you know, how's that feeling. So that was that's all her and only problem though it's been kind of on hold for two reasons when she stuck in Europe because of the pandemic, and her equipment is all in our office here. Her computer is right there. She stuck here and, and also because we were doing a relocation we didn't want to announce anything until we would have had everything finalize an official. So we didn't have we're waiting kind of to like do the formal launch and relaunch at least on the website. But as far as the bookstore. You know I had to think about a lot to actually it's a good time that we talked today because last night and this morning I was working on the final proposal about how we were going to go about the bookstore here. And, and the nonprofit which it emerged to a cultural center and what we're also working on doing back down in San Diego County. And I guess one of the things I would think I could share, maybe more uniquely for the, just the independent bookstore industry at a whole was understanding. You know what the importance of an independent bookstore, and what, what were its values more than its product. Because to be honest, when it came down to the product, they're in, you know, the business of a book of independent bookstore where everyone's dealing with serious issues and it's not going to get any better. It's going to get different. It may, you know, but it's not it's not going to get better if you stick to an old formula. So, I got into. I followed kind of it was there is some secular, like, journey is with the business of the of the, at least the bookstore part of it, because I started off getting interested in in books in my early teens. And was just became obsessed, so obsessed that I chose to quit professional skateboarding to pursue a career in writing and the arts and I headed off on a one way ticket to Europe at 18 years old. And it was all for the pursuit of the adventure of the story. And, and I traveled in Europe for over two years and I didn't come home for almost about three and a half years all together. So I went to Europe to them came back to New York and hope that felt like home after being in New York for two years. But, and even in my writing I wrote about how bookstores were my churches. So when I was traveling I was lonely, I'd go to instead of going to a church I'd go to a bookstore. And I would and my saints and angels were the authors and the characters in all the novels I've written so that's who I literally prayed with and talked to and had comfort in where I felt most comfortable. So there was that side of it. And then also as you know just being a young young kid pursuing the arts and then also going through academia. It just was absolutely natural that a bookstore was part of the development of creativity and intelligence like the intellectual pursuit the philosophical pursuit and the artistic pursuits throughout history, you know, and it's just one of those places and intellectual salon or cafe. And that's where I realized that's what needs to be protected presented protected and preserved was that that concept that what what the bookstore represented. And so that's how I started evolving. And I even went from going. The first business I had was online bookstore. I basically basically inherit but took over a business a book, the business, it was a former professor of mine. And he was very intelligent, really neurotic. He was working on a second PhD. He was a full time professor working on a second PhD, and he owned a bookstore. And so by the time I got involved, he asked me to help him save the bookstore but it was too little too late. So the physical bookstore was gone, we're going. But I ended up taking this inventory and his contacts and, and, and getting and learning a lot from him about just being a wholesale buyer and selling retail and having connections and networking and learning the business side of selling books. Then a few years later, I opened the bookstore. And as I start as I was transitioning and building my bookstore. There was also the transition of the Amazon going from pretty user friendly pretty fight pretty successful financially pretty. It was a place where you could sell books at your own pace at your own time, make good money. Pretty much just middleman. And it was great as a writer because I was, I had to take a job at any time and sometimes it was a couple days notice to go off and be gone for two weeks or, you know, somewhere in between that and I couldn't do that with a part time any kind of job. It was something that would work with that. And so that's how it started but then as I actually opened the physical store that was over a course of years and like say the 2008 when we are worse economic, you know, second worse now, pretty bad time economically, and also coincided with the rise of audio books digital books and the online market was just booming. And Amazon was becoming more overbearing and restrictive. Yeah, and I sold stuff on Amazon and yeah it's gotten worse and worse and worse. Yeah, and I ultimately boycotted. I consciously stepped away from selling on on Amazon and online completely for a while. Of course I still network and sell online to my, but people with relationships that already developed like especially collectors and whatnot. And we do have. We had a website that had our e commerce set up like when it was scarce square space but now that we have our new site. And that whole inventory didn't transfer over. And this this is so they did on purpose so that you couldn't transfer the inventory. So we are going to still sell online but our primary purpose really is to. And it's been and it was it was a working formula was to create the bookstore intellectual salon and cultural center and and really and even like a museum in a way. And I think that's really helped and it's we've we've actually evolved like we have we went from a tiny building that was just nothing to. We have. Well, we have 22,000 square feet to work with not all of it is going to be the bookstore somewhere via gallery and you and the little art house theater and as in recording studio but it's mainly still the central main room and entrance to all that is look books, which is bookstore and and it really goes off the traditions of Shakespeare and code city lights and everything in between in that world. So can you tell me the story both the story of the the Carl's bad store and then the story of the, you know, the Astoria store and then you know whatever. Or you think might be coming. It was kind of. It's, I'm strangely saying it in an optimist way but there was it was a pretty crazy journey because I found an old building and I was looking for a retail space. Obviously it's expensive in coastal, coastal Southern California. And I found what basically was just a dilapidated nearly condemned warehouse kind of workshop building in the village. I came from a generations of builders, I have a grandfather for uncles and a stepfather all in some field of building mostly construction. I put myself through grad school as a finished carpenter. I was like, okay, I'm going to act. I physically built the bookstore that took me a year. And I also there was principles to I didn't want to take any business loans or use any credit. I wanted to build as my means could provide. It could take about a year to actually build the bookstore and how it gets her a grand opening. And then a few weeks, we are open soft opening for a couple months and then a few weeks after a grand opening as a bookstore and a legitimate nonprofit. We were brought down by the city. And it ultimately, there was a lot of different reasons the reasons changed but ultimately came down to building use. Because we had our license we had a permit we had our insurance, but they, for some reason that they, they misjudged who we were and what we're trying to do in the beginning, the Lisa city did. So they just, they just thought we, they could shut us down with a pretty superficial reason. So it came down to building use, because we were zone properly but then because it was an old building that I had renovated. They are trying to say is this it was zoned. It was in a, in a, in a survey done in the early 90s. The survey was actually fired by the city, but they had designated it as a residential space garage when it wasn't. So I had to prove that otherwise and it actually took me 18 months to get reopened after I just had spent a year investing into the place. So we reopened, then we had a solid run for a few years, and it took a while because we were evolving from a bookstore to a cultural center. And it was very inclusive so we went from having we had readings and poetry nights and but then we had lectures and we had political activists, intellectuals doing discussions. And this is kind of before the even the Sam Harris's and the Jordan Peterson's of the world we're starting that. So we were in that lead in that direction, even we're doing that with a screen and a projector, which led us to even having our house movie nights, because we didn't have any even even land market shut down by then so we didn't have much And then we even started having shows and real, not just background music but real present like real music events. So you come for the for the event. So the videos of the of the the concerts on one of those and one of the very diverse range of performance. Yeah, we went from from noise to classical violin and everything in between. I was on very conscious it was just, we wanted artists of all mediums, and we just really wanted them to. We always said to everyone that performed or, or did a workshop or time I said just doesn't matter if there's one person there 20 or 200 just do your absolute best and it'll reflect on and and it'll it'll You'll get it back in return somehow and also will raise the status of our venue and reputation and it's just but it's a win win because even if it's a small venue if you if you get a point where People recognize that there's real talent being shown or put on display whether it be you know visual art or music or writing it right and you have to The artist would come in knowing I have to raise the bar and really be at my best. It helped everyone involved. So the other thing we did as a nonprofit was to make sure that we gave all net profits to the artist. So instead of other venues that were, you know, it's usually the, the performers and, and the quote unquote talent would get paid the last and the least. And we reverse that we pay them the most first and the most and then we take it from there. And that became a big part of what we did and what part of what we're doing and what kind of books did or do you carry. I try to get every genre and every nonfiction subject, but just the, the absolute best. And, and I do to a few things where For one, absolutely no filler, no filler whatsoever on any shelf. I want to know why every book is there and or have someone that's an expert that knows why that book is there and explain to me why this is the right book. One simple example is say there's a, how many, how many biographies are there on Lincoln. You know, hundreds, you know, maybe more maybe thousands and I'd say I want to I want the, the most respected, you know, accurate historically accurate one. But the one that is has the most unknown information, like information that you never heard about, but it was also as, as sound as could be like, you know, fact based as they could get it. And that's kind of a way I went about each thing so and also just like a lot of any of from music and any art is you, you just peeling the onion so you have some a book or an author that someone likes and you find their influences and you share their influences and then you find those those persons influences and then you get those books and to the point where you find the really most obscure and interesting books you can. A good example is that on a that people could relate to say Oscar Wilde and during and during gray. Well, if they read that then they need to know about J.K. Heisman's and against nature or all rewards. It's both Oscar Wilde's Bible in which I think he actually called it, and even put it in during gray. It was his favorite book as well in in the story. And if you read all rewards or it's often against sometimes against the grain but mostly against nature by J.K. Heisman's you, it's pretty basically the prototype for doing great. And then in there he's got references to, you know, some Greek and Roman authors that were from the elite class that lived with the on the streets, where everyone was illiterate and but they were literate so they live the life of a peasant and then wrote about it and then so we would search and find those books and then have those and then that leads to the next part which was really trying to make those kind of books, get those books that were the best content but but accessible. So we wanted them priced fair. We want we want we didn't want just rare collectibles. We definitely had those and that was a personal interest is it's neat to have a rare first true first edition. But we did we it was more about the content we wanted to share the content and and we weren't discriminated we wanted history we wanted science we wanted from religion it went from the, you know, the main main religions to the occult to pagan to wika to Christianity to Islam and the Quran we have the Torah you have just every every section we had. We wanted to go as far as we could with accurate information and interesting information. And how did you come up with the name of the store. Or the name that comes from yelling q and you've got the X realism. Yeah, they're they both are pretty personal and look comes from just my artist side. Marcel Duchamp, the, you know, one of the basically the primary member of the data movement. And that is the big brother to the surrealist, which was which was at the surrealist were a literary movement before they most people know them as an artist art visual art movement. But they were a literary movement primarily and firstly and primarily. It was it was about writing and so Marcel Duchamp, who was more of an artist so I just. He was one of those figures that his philosophy on life and art was just to me that was still to this day is just one of the most interesting so that so one of his most iconic pieces was. I think this is a postcard of the Mona Lisa and drew a mustache and a go to honor and he wrote an acronym LHO Q. And what was interesting about that acronym is that people are aware of the French translation if you say LHO Q in French, it sounds a lot like she has a nice. English. She has heat at the ass literally. Yeah. Okay, there you go. Perfect. Yeah, you know better. And then it's a play on words because in English it's look so look then she has a hot fire ass but then there's also. It could be debatable but in our research in college there was some other languages that referred to as his sexual ambiguity. And there's basically five languages that that phonetically played into something that related to him art and art, and, and I just thought that was pretty genius and fascinating. There's a follow up to it called LHO Q shaved, which is just Mona Lisa without the mustache. Okay, which is, you know, which is sort of treating the original Mona Lisa, as though it's a modification of his of his work which is sort of a nice little nice. In a way it's, you know, it's right to be sort of like, you know, bar cases. Pierre Maynard author of the cahote. Sure. Yeah, it reminds me a bit of that of treating like, you know, I guess it's sort of an inversion of that since and that one or treating. You know, something like that is treating just as Gorge streets, this text of, of servantes rewritten by someone else's though it's a whole new work. So, you know, LHO Q shave treats treats the original Mona Lisa, as though it's a, you know, as though it's a modification of this work by do so. That's the kind of stuff I love. And that's basically what reflects the a lot of what was inside the store. You know, you know, one of our, you know, from, I think we had one of, I mean, we had, I think one of our most popular books was always. It was something along the, the Max Ernst serialistic novel, which is just basically a lot of people with bird heads. But it's a great, it's a great book of colleges. And just, I just, it started really as my personal library that just turned into and personal collection of art and personal interest that I that were on the walls and and experience I got from my travels and my education. And I just started putting it out externally and sharing it and that was that was what we were selling was the, you know, the, the community and the, the, the, the conversations and the experience and the environment. And, but obviously, the books were a huge part, aesthetically and in content wise. And in school, you definitely know that part of, you know, art history. And then X realism comes from that's even that's very personal one was the first short story I got published that had any reviews. I was up in San Francisco and I was working with McSweeney's when they first came out. So this was, I was, I went up transferred up there in 2000. It was actually to like 2000, 2001 2002, that kind of time period. And Dave Eggers was building 826 Valencia, and which was the front end of the store and a nonprofit and then be in the back end was the offices work for McSweeney's. So I was the only person there in the area. I happened to move into an apartment a block away. I looked in walked in there and I was the only person that was a writer going to college for English lit and was a carpenter. So that's how I got in with them. And I wrote this story, the Russian clown. And one of, in one of the reviews, this author described it as he said X realism in a sense they followed in the sense of surrealism or existentialism and saying your X realism as your, your in reality. And it's not, it's not like magical realism. The writing is is in this setting is deeply trenched in reality and our time place in epoch. But there was a literary style that could swirl and wander. But it was always based in our real time place in epoch. So he said it was like a divorce from reality where you know it is better than anyone your own reality, but you are at the same time separated from it. And then at the, at the other end of it, the other translation of it was X reality as an extraordinary reality, its reality, but it's, it's the description of it was extraordinary, or extraordinary. So then, like, okay, you know, we have existentialism we have surrealism and and then now we have X realism could I actually have, you know, something that is that I can expand on philosophically that it's actually a type of literary or art movement. I don't know if it'll ever go that far but you know that's where the name comes from at least. And, and we still hold to that and I mess with the, you know, the definition or the type of kind of explanation or manifesto of what X realism, you know, is or can evolve to be or morph into. So that's where it comes from. Yeah. So at first it was look books and the nonprofit was the X wheels and project. So all the events we did were supposed to be under the X wheels and project, but people always call that look books. I didn't mind I like I kind of like that same way. There's bars are called the office. I think people like that kind of ironic juxtaposition that there would be a legitimate kind of underground show but we're going to the bookstore but it was a venue. And, or it was a nonprofit that was doing a lot of, a lot of extracurricular work than just being a bookstore, but just call it look books and so I didn't, I didn't fight it. I like that idea. A couple of my best friends got married in a bookstore, which I think is a cool a cool idea. I don't know many people who do that. A couple of people got married at our bookstore because we just created this environment we had indoor and outdoor patio and everything was just our interior design and exterior design was all functional but very, very, you know, creative even our we had a whole wall 40 feet 45 feet length of from from Brown to the roof was shelving stocked always full stocked of books and it was a free 24 seven free library. People donated a lot for to help for maintenance and lighting but it was fundamentally it was a free community library, but it looked beautiful to you because you come from the street and you see, you know, a whole wall 45 foot long just filled with books. So that was that was neat. And that was also up here that was a hard thing because I have merged or partnered with a large nonprofit with the board of trust board of directors, and to try to translate that we were more than just a bookstore. It took a while for them to understand that we were actually a cultural center and not to them just quote unquote a bookstore. Which even I took offense to that because I don't think that there is just bookstores but even if that is all we were we wouldn't have been just a bookstore in my mind. Okay, so we're in you know so you've got the store and Carl's bad and then you know what's the next stage. Oh yeah. So then what happened was, I had a we were there for over all, we were there for about a decade. But that was all my warehouse evolution to building and opening and with the original landowner and my house was also on the same property. So, and I got the shop first and then two years later I lease entire property and got the house. And then about two years after I lease the entire property. I signed a contract for first right refusal and basically at least to own with the first right refusal with the original landowner. And then about a year and a half ago. The sun took over and we were going actually going through a phase of preparing for renovations and expansion and renovations and doing it. Getting our permits pain for permits, paying for materials did a few renovations already put a new roof on and and this is all with in agreement with the the sun, the new the new transitioning landowner. And we were having some problems about everything was going through and then just out of left field, I get a 60 day notice to vacate my business and my home. Ouch. Yeah. Yeah. And I had invested well over $50,000 just the materials. And you could obviously do the math on the labor to that. And we had just gotten to the point where we were firmly established and recouping and both in rep like a reputation and financially as established per place. And we're, and it was just before that notice we were, you know, looking at everything's great and growing and it's going to get bigger and better and just, we're going to be able to help more people we were doing a lot of community outreach and it was going to our nonprofit was going international. And then we lose our home base. What was he planning to do with it. What has he done with it instead. Well, unfortunately, I have to be careful because we have in in DA's non disclosures. So I have to be careful, but I honestly don't know. He they own the whole corner lot, which is on the main street and it's too, too large a lot. So you have to figure that they would are going to and Carl's bad spend tearing down buildings and redeveloping the those three to four and a half years of the story, you know, like shopping and condo places, literally every block in the village. So I have to believe that that's coming soon. But to my surprise, I figured the, the place in my house and that back shop would be remain abandoned for about four and a half years until the leases came up on the front properties. And I've been gotten pictures and sent from my friends and family is that they have been doing not deep renovations but basic cleaning and some small renovations to rent it out as just a home and I don't know what they're going to do with the with the commercial space. And so that was surprising because they, it was obviously, I guess, that's the most I could say, as far as in DA's goes that it was, I believe it was personal. Because it doesn't make sense any otherwise we weren't given the option to, you know, negotiate a different price. A new hero rose that knew not Joseph. So we were looking and Carl's bad. And the problem was, there was that spike. I mean, there was always growing and, and, but there was a huge spike in the last I'd say even. It's hard to say when because it's been going and going, going, going, but really over the least the last five years you see on the streets, a massive spike of development. And so to rent to lease a place the size we needed would have been, you know, somewhere between 10 and $20,000 a month, where to buy was the place we're looking to buy they wanted they asked for million for at the same time I needed to get a home to buy a home. And so trying to buy a home and we say a commercial space that was enough for a venue and bookstore and coffee shop was not an easy task and coastal San Diego County. So, also, even if we could we knew we're going to barely scratch by, and we were really big on the nonprofit and helping people and getting funding to help people. And if we were to do that so much of anything we could do to generate in any kind of funding would be going to our overhead so we wouldn't be able to do what help. What was our, what our primary mission statement became to be which was helping artists and individuals and organizations, you know, do do something good and right, you know, by the way before I forget if you. If people can, you know, can donate to what you're doing. You know, send me the link and I'll put it in the description. Definitely, the website has a donation part and, and the only thing I have to say that we definitely and and we are. We're working on the Astoria Armory, and they have a website which is just the Astoria Armory.com. That's, and so it's look, look X realism at the Astoria Armory is where what will be. And then our website is look X realism.com and their website is the Astoria Armory.com. And eventually, their website is a little static. Not so static, but also there is not complete because of what I mentioned before, as soon as my wife gets here in January, it should be building up but. Yeah, that must be frustrating to me. Especially, especially because it's been. Oh, it's going to be resolved next week or next week and next week and it's been months and months and months. If it would if they would have said from the beginning it's going to be this many months then we would have been working and. Doing things in between. But when you think it's going to be you're going to come home every every two weeks or so. It becomes somewhat of a paralyzing and defeatist and hopeless feeling after a while. But I think we're I think we're pretty we have attorneys I think we're pretty, pretty clear on January. But we'll still is there's a lot to deal with politically and with the pandemic. But to get back to it. Yes, the definitely donations and one thing about the donations that I'd like to share is one thing that when we are do get the site. Completely revamped and updated I should say not revamp but updated and get the nonprofit window open. I had always set up a program to show basic accounting, because what I experienced, getting into the nonprofit and dealing with charities and charitable organizations was how much corruption there was in it and, and it was really disheartening to see. We saw a lot of times that 80 to 90% of the money that was generated was, or say, you know, kept by an only 10 to 20% got to the person place or cause that was organization that was necessary that needed it. And I learned that you could it for you could in with 10 or 20% of the funds you could get 80 to 90% of the funds to the person place or cause that needed it. You didn't need all the inflated executive pay rolls. You didn't need the, not just the middle man but the transitional man and the third middle man in the fourth middle man it just went on and then there was the, you know, the the golden toilets and all that kind of stuff and it was rapid, vamp it or whatever it's a red cross even. Even when they do good, there's still other areas where they've had problems so what we want to do what we are doing is we set up a site where when you for when especially when we have benefits and collaborate with another organization. We have an agreement to do the same that we're doing which is have basic accounting available that just has graphs and scale so any in basic layman terms you can see where the money goes and also we put out there. Complete accounting so someone could even do forensic accounting on it if they needed to and see where every single dollar went so that they can see that it. The money went to where it was supposed to go and there and there wasn't people on the take on the way there. And that's really important to us and we hope that that starts a trend with with nonprofits and charitable organizations that that they uphold to the same standards NGOs across the board and just kind of built on that like if we can do it they can do it. And just transparency is an honest is the same as honesty is always usually the best way to go. If we can be honest and to be transparent. You know, it's, I think that's pretty it. It's, it's a good, if you're doing a good thing, it's good things are going to happen so. Yeah, I mean I'm involved with the nonprofit and a very shoestring nonprofit and our financial statements are very all encompassing, although the, you know, the people's monthly salaries is are usually like you know something like $25 a month $50 a month and so forth so there's not, you know, there's not much opportunity for for corruption even if we were so inclined. I mean it's a tough one like I learned that even just learn it with the small businesses. It's a lot of work so you know people do need to. Everyone does need to make a living and, and so they're people should get paid for what they're doing and especially the ones that are doing good work like helping each other. Also, and that goes along with the artists like they really deserve to be able to make a living being artists but they also have to, you know, put in their dues and work hard and treat it with as much care and effort and practice and networking and experience that's what we teach with the nonprofit is you can't just kind of proclaim your, you're an artist or a writer and not do anything or, you know, those are why they you have those oh it's a 100 billion chance because a lot of the, like you take a writer. It's very rare that there's someone that's actually doing their 10,000 hours, you know, and, and on, you know, to master the craft and then continue to practice and practice and practice and become actually a master and good at what they're doing. And then and then there's always the absolute rare anomaly of that plus the extra special just gift and that is just, you can't teach and you can't learn just you have it or you don't, but you can teach and learn practice and time and I think there's you will get something in return for that. I think you could make it I call it I'm a working class writer. I'm not, I'm not famous and I'm not rich, but I make a living and I take care of my family and my primary income is writing, but I also have to diversify that was part of doing the bookstore was subsidizing my income and and then also trying to help subsidize other people's income, like, get making helping them make it get an income from the art. So how, how do you get from Carl's bad to a story. Personal and professional both kind of equal where I grew up. I was born and raised in Carl's bad. Most of my time, most time in Carl's bad but I traveled extensively throughout the world lived in Czech Republic, lived in London for a while, lived in and Wicklow, a little town outside of Dublin for a while. We lived in Brooklyn for a while, San Francisco for years. Oklahoma, Norman Oklahoma. And, and then now we are apartment in Moscow. So, I, but Carl's bed was my hometown and I was back there for quite a bit with my son, basically since my son's just turned out as 12th birthday. A couple days ago on 18 so it was back for about 14 years. And it wasn't, I was, I was burned out on cities from my travel I didn't want to live in the city. And I was just being a little as this feeling pretty down about there was a big move a few years before I opened up and curls bad to to create to for community to create the field make the village a community friendly place. But it ended up being a lot of kind of for shit, I guess a lot of it wasn't true. There, there wasn't they, it was still focused on legacy, not history vehicles not not pedestrians, tourists, and not a balance with with red locals. There's nothing wrong with tourism, but you got to balance, it's got to balance everything. And I just didn't see that happening. And it just was, it was the quality of life and the cost of living versus quality of life was just about the pros and cons, the pro, the pro, the con list was just getting heavier and heavier and heavier. And so when I had an opportunity to, well, when, you know, under the, the, the, there was a, there was a net positive to the, our, our, our notice to vacate, I should put it that way. You find a place that we could even afford $4 million for for a building was was not not in our price range at the time. And then also personally all those things I mentioned and I sat on my porch I lived in the village and I was stared at a out at a stucco wall across the street and two trees that were butchered so much by the city just because and they're at the sidewalks just bundling up but instead of like taking out the concrete that cut the roots of the tree. And you need to see in this for years, you know, like my gosh, I just want to look out and see nature. So that was where it was personally I wanted to move to the countryside. And then, but I wasn't solvent yet so I needed some kind of city and infrastructure. So I started looking from Northern California up and long and short of it, I found a beautiful house and land in the countryside three month three, well actually four miles outside of town. And then, as I was honing in on this house that we have ended up being one of our potential lenders was on the board of directors for the Astoria Armory we got to talking about that. And next thing we know I'm in negotiations for not only a place for the business, but a position for myself as their nonprofit kind of organizer liaison. I was the first consultant, but now it's actually in the house and I, I was able to work our, our, our place and project into the, the mission statement of their nonprofit and the physical space so we have basically the whole entire working and confirming having the entire lower level, at least transitioning to the entire level so we always have the largest space down below, and the main entrance on the end on the Columbia Riverside which is important up here. I've never been to a story of when I was a little kid, my family was planning to move there and I can't remember why we were planning to move there and I also can't remember why was it. But I still, I still have sort of a you know it's like a alternative universe where I, you know where I lived there. I still feel like connection. Oh, you would have went. Well I think the two simple the simplest things about us, like at least downtown Astoria is it is the oldest city in Oregon. And it is one of the third oldest port towns on the West Coast entire West Coast. So before Portland Astoria was, was the port center for for the Columbia River. So, from, I don't, it has a long history Lewis and Clark ended here. That's where that's where the expedition ended. In fact, right across the river from me like right out my window here, if I if it was daytime I could see clap stop for it which was their last settlement. And then in town which is about four miles behind me. It's really neat because you have the, the architecture and structure of us of a 1800s city. You've got eight story 10 story 12 story buildings here. My son calls that mini San Francisco. I mean you can, it looks and it looks kind of like mini San Francisco it does it, but it, but really many for my son is bigger but it's very, it's a small city, but then population wise is a very it's a small town. So it's interesting. So, and they have preserved its lots of museums, lots of historical buildings. Lots of it's a, it's kind of like if at, you know, Georgia has Athens. And this has Lawrence, you know, what's North Carolina has Asheville. It's one of those kind of places. So for that one, I've been to Asheville. Yeah, so for Oregon. And it kind of has at least it's definitely since what I know of it when I see of it is building up. And what I'm actually been asked by even the mayor who is on our board of directors is to help artistic migration or the growth in that direction, because it is an artist community. It's also very like family friendly. And so you have a lot of these, you know, because you can buy home for a reasonable price. And so you have a lot of like really, you know, nice families which is good for me because I have a young family. And so there's a lot of artists, and it's really diverse where you have. At first I looked in that looked like I'm retired artists like a lot of people my age that like maybe didn't think they made it really in their 20s so they were, and so they weren't New York or San Francisco there. So that concerned me for a second. But I see there's a lot more diversity than that going on. And so we have everything from our our gutter punks to our own guard. And, and we have a pretty good diverse, like demographic of age. So we have young artists and young kids and young people and we have, and we have, and we have it's age wise is very diverse. So other than that it's not that diverse yet though that's Oregon I think it's part of that but I think for Oregon where we're definitely on the diversity side of it, one of the Portland and then the story and Eugene, something like that. By the way, while I think of it if you know after this interviews over if you can pick any, any photos either of the old store of the new one or both for me to throw up on here just let me know which are which. I will do that. I'm going to interrupt this interview briefly to show some of those photos. I already threw a few photos in at the earlier on in the video but these photos are of the original store in Carl's band, and these photos are of the new location of the story of Armory in a story of Oregon. And at the end of the interview I've also stuck in a little five minute video that Sean sent me about the the reconstruction of the story Armory the new new location. That's a fun watch so stay tuned at the end of the at the end of this interview it's like a Marvel movie there's a not exactly an end credit scene but just before the credits scene. There actually is a there actually is an end credit scene as well but it's it's very brief. I think that's my first and credit scene in this series. In this on this channel. All right. So back to the interview. Anyway so I don't know how much you can say about future plans but I know you mentioned that there's a possibility of of having something new and in in the San Diego area while also keeping the location. Well everything is just going going as good as it can go up here considering the pandemic. All the deals that I wanted to have for the business and the nonprofit have been green lit. Now it's just a matter and I was able to write and procure a couple significant grants still need more. So so that's going to be an issue but resolvable. It's just the the big question is the same question everyone has with the pandemic. You know when when are we going to get to what what's going to be sustainable and win and no one can answer that right now. But with that being said we're feeling pretty pretty stable up here and I know that one of the best things that I've done is to just diversify and expand so that I'm not all my eggs and one basket basically. So before it was just a want to have to keep a place in our where we started. Now it becomes more of not just a one but actually very practical and sensible idea and also experiencing being away from the community connection and support we had and and still have there. You know it's only been a few months and also the pandemic hit so a lot of places are are kind of not open and and need support from their local community. So the idea that we're that's how you know we would be in the same situation isn't isn't it's less than unusual right now. So how that's evolved is at first it was like no way we can't do anything. Now it's like you know what actually I see how many people people not only do I see how much people appreciate what we did there people once we are gone really realize how much they appreciate what we offered which was because we really focused on giving a place to commune and and that's what we need more now than ever it's a place to go and feel comfortable and and socialize. And so when that is allowed, because I'm at the point now where I'm a strong believer and and very very supportive and protective when it comes to coven, but I have some serious issues with the pandemic related restrictions and policies. So, and that's not a problem with California and even it's very similar here in Oregon to. So, but what that has led to is people reaching out about more people reaching out about investing and helping open a place down there. And I have made contacts here with you know investors potential investors the benefactors where it's we just have a more likelihood and it's more plausible to go ahead and along the timelines of the pandemic man probably, you know, slightly behind other businesses because we're going to have to start from I left inventory down there but as far as infrastructure and we're going to start from scratch so it's not just opening the doors. So you have to, you know, find the right location. But we're we're definitely it's it's we're not on hold anymore we're we're actively seeking a location and trying to make it work out. So would you back down there or stay up in Oregon or would you divide your time or what I think a little bit of both. I think for at least for the beginning it would be having a dedicated store manager there or even partner in the area and then just visiting and coming down and helping from a distance, then then eventually sharing my time down there and up here, and then who knows after that. So you end up ahead of a chain of bookstores. That would be pretty cool. I wouldn't mind that I mean as long as it serves a purpose like sure. But but yeah, why not but at least definitely the two I definitely want to do what we're doing especially since we really focused on that cultural center aspect of it, and and pain and homage to the the artistic and intellectual gathering but sharing that with everybody. Not not not being elitist at all in that sense, even an intellectual artist since there's no pretension with our place. So everyone's welcome, but I really think it had a home there and it is its home there so it needs to have a play part of it needs to be there. Well I hope I hope it I hope it materializes and I hope I get a chance to visit it when it does. Yeah, I'm, I'm certain it will. It's just a matter of, of, of weight. Yeah, and I think that's just, and that's very directly related to the pandemic. Well, I mean these, they are rolling out vaccines now so you know obviously not everyone's going to be getting them until. Yeah, spring or maybe summer. I know and I just saw the news that they do the they say vaccine and then oh and oh we have a new strain, you know coming from. Yeah. So it's like who knows what you know and then you get the conspiracy side of it. Who knows what's going to happen but yeah, that's a tough one. And yeah, especially being a small business and being in a small business that is also never been a high margin small business of any kind anyway so it would be interesting. So your, your, your story in the story is it open for people to enter or are you just providing. No, it's not open that we can't we couldn't at the moment yet even right now because we went on that second wave lockdown for the winter. So do you, do you, do you have any order by mail stuff or pickup stuff or just are you just shut down entirely. Unfortunately, mostly because of the whole the massive process of the relocation, which, you know, we weren't we started in August but I wasn't officially moved up here until September. The relocating my home and business, and then having to renegotiate the terms of the business, and then having my wife, who is my, my partner on every level from my helping with family and my children to the business and art is. We've been on on a giant on the great pause. So, but starting actually this month in December we started to actively making things happen so we expect to have activity merchandise and some and some select books online available online, and maybe even doing things instead of just trying because we're never going to be able to compete with Amazon and thrift books with the meat the middle market or the low market. So we will sell some of our rare and collectibles and high and high end stuff online, and we might try things like like a raffle like have a rare book, but where you only have to put, you know, put in $5 to get a raffle ticket to get a $5 book or something like that. So for my viewers if you're watching this in December is probably not much you can do but if you're watching this, you know, a bit later, mid January and on, there's going to be stuff and more and more and more as we go. If you're watching this in mid January 2021, or later. You know, there's a good chance there'll be stuff you can get online there and of course if you're watching it a few months after that you know, you know, then we can hope that you'll actually able to be go into that store and you, if you're watching this even later than that you might have two stores. Yeah, we will exist we are existing we're definitely opening we're opening here and shows you know shows you can attend and various events you can attend and it sounds like really cool. Yeah, right now I'm editing every every event we had from every lecture every reading to every music performance I filmed everything and at least 75% of them were filmed professionally and so one of the things I've been doing that during the pandemic is actually taking classes to really learn my premier pro editing skills, put them to work and then editing that footage together and be out online. I'm very much an amateur when it comes to this topic you can tell from the fact you know why I like your background. You know, given my laptop's limited processing power. You know, weird things happen with the edge of my head when I move around the zoom is not sure how much, how much part of me is. How much of that stuff is part of me and how much is part of the background so he's appearing. Now my hair is longer than it's ever been I'm actually going to clipped back now but I haven't had a haircut since March. You're doing your doing your COVID no cut your COVID cut or not. Show you with this actually. Well, some of the longer. It's actually longer than it looks now because some of the longer part is not is not showing up zoom thinks that it's not part of it. You know it's really irritating so keeps you bothering. Yeah, I've been going through that with my editing with photos and video to where you're trying to get that and it will. What you try to do the auto auto eraser or add and you're like nope that's not part of that. Anyway, that's what's behind me is, is the ocean beach pier. Oh yeah, I recognize it right away. It's near near near where I lived in the 70s. You know exactly where you were the background was right away. But yeah so I'm, you know, I'm, I'm pretty new to this video editing stuff but I because so because a lot of the classes were teaching removed online and had to, you know, you know, require some minimal confidence. That was why I decided to start a YouTube channel because I'm doing stuff with zoom anyway with my classes and so I thought it would be cool to have YouTube channel where I interview people and also you know sound off on crap and want to sound off on and various things. Yeah I didn't realize we're going to we're doing that I would have a dress for the occasion. I don't have pajamas in my hoodie, but yeah I've been doing the same thing I actually for my son's birthday he's he's got a high income like PC PC desktop for his gaming. And then we just, I just got him for for his birthday. I think I should, I should try to acquiesce it for myself as a nice mic for gaming or podcast or, you know, for him it's going to use working on being a YouTube gamer on YouTube. But we've got the boom mic and you know I test it out it's like oh man I need one of these actually. I'm pretty low tech I've got, I've got a new my web, my webcam that I had with my desktop somehow stop being compatible with a stop. So I'm doing this on a laptop which is part of the reason that the, you know, the processing power is a little bit less but that's where I'm at I for me I'm a writer so like I always am on laptops and because to me it's a as a typewriter with a screen. But then both my wife and son are on big powerful PC desktops. So that's why they do like my wife does all the website stuff and she's she's an artist but she's just a master of the back end and programming and algorithms and coding to the to the front end visual and design which is, I have, like, not not even getting there at all. So. But, but my, I'm not a lead I'm not in not a neo lead I, but I was a little resistant I one of the reasons for the bookstore even was, was because we're going in that direction as a society, I felt like we needed a place like intellectual salon or cat. Your voice just cut out there. Your voice is still out. And we need to protect that. Now your voice is back, but your voice. Okay. Where'd we leave off on there was. You know, you're just saying, you're not a lot of it, not only a little bit, but you, you know, you wanted a space like a salon. And then you're saying that like I wasn't against the technology, but I just saw the direction we're going so I thought in line with that we need to preserve and protect a space, the physical book and the physical space that stores. What what they what they're here for what they what they do for people. And it's something that Amazon cannot compete with I mean if you want if you want sort of stuff shipped, you know, with great rapidity. You know, you're dependent bookstores compete with that but if you, but the, but if you're bundling the, you know, the individual book with the experience of, of the physical bookstore and, you know, and not just all the book events, but just the bookstore itself because, you know, bookstores are just, I mean to me there's such cool places I always want to, you know, I always want to. I always want to go somewhere where I always want to head and see the bookstores like what's what started this whole Diego series of bookstores that I'm doing. And this is the second video to go up I just did the one on mysterious galaxy. But I've got some of the people lined up but the was, you know, I was out of nostalgia, I was watching some, some San Diego travel videos and they were all about beaches and restaurants and shopping malls and things and I have nothing against any of those things but I couldn't find very many on bookstores. And I think a lot of people have the impression that San Diego isn't really a bookstore bookstore kind of place, but I know I know. There's been some great ones throughout history and there's a great ones that still exist up in their long time and there's some great relatively new ones. What's the name of the bookstore in La Jolla? DG Williams. And he's been there for a long time. I've been talking to him, having some trouble getting coordination there I'm going to try this. There was when I was a kid there was a great bookstore classic bookstore coffee shop, but it was pretty like family friendly but by the freeway in La Jolla on the east side of the freeway I forget what they even called it. It's kind of like one of those panicking bookstore type places they had, but that was there for a long time. And then that was gone. I was good in the 70s. There was the, I think it was John Cole's bookshop in La Jolla, which is, which is now is like a cultural center or an art center or something right on the main. Yeah, and there was a couple of pretty, pretty iconic like cultural center type bookstores and Hillcrest. And downtown there was something called Hurwick or something like that, which was this, there was this amazing place you asked the, you know, would you call and ask the owner. Do you have and then you give like the first two or three words of the title and he'd say yes. That's how I used to be in the beginning when I when I was shelving everything myself like I was like I knew I would knew exactly where a book was. But that's long gone. But even for now verbatim books seems like a great place in San Diego. Yeah, they're on my list. I haven't, I haven't lined up anything, haven't lined up an interview with them yet, but. And then I know galaxy like they're not exactly so much but they do amazing stuff there. They have great books and they do amazing they do a lot of good. They do a lot of events. Yeah. Formerly in house but now, now online events. The duration of the pandemic. Yeah, so that's our neck. That's basically what we're gearing up through this month and through January's to go ahead and accept this online dynamic, which which was interesting though because I mentioned before with some of those lectures and readings one of the things we did was I think this is actually important with the main part of the story was because of that hit in the publishing world or in the economy in 2008 but with on top of that was the digital hit on music and and and literature and the publishing world. And since the publishing world was obviously smaller than the hit was even felt worse. So what was happening is, you know, writers are getting like their advanced offers were literally 10% of what the standard offer advanced was before 2008. It went from 100 grand to 10 grand for for a top publisher, you know, advanced, and then also no touring. The publishers can afford to put any authors on on any tours. So one of the ideas was like this is pre pandemic was let's we have the technology now let's put up a big screen. Let's have someone from New York and in the way I pitched it to established artists anywhere from a bestselling author to an art visual artist even a director and actor that was a top tier. I was saying it's so convenient you can do it literally from your toilet you can sit on your toilet on your phone and you can and give us 15 minutes. And then to the other one is like you can be in New York, and you don't have to travel here you don't have to stay in a hotel, we don't pay for hotel, you don't have to do anything. You can just be like this, but you're going to be on screen and the difference though was that you're on screen but you were interacting with a live audience that was in the end. So there was a mix where it was this but you also had a live audience and it was streaming at the same time and recording, and then we film the audience to and then and then if we had everything lined up then you could also log in and interact from like, like this too. And there were the prime part was the, the, the person on stage on there, even if they're on screen, and then a live audience, but we set but everything else we were using the online technology to to to interact and to have a author we had an author read live from Syria. And, you know, actually we had one event where the opening author was in London. The publisher who hosted the event was on the island in Greece, and then the main author was in Syria. And we, we did a test run and figuring out all the time zones and during the test run the mortar shell went off in Syria, like 30 feet away from the guy, like in another home, and he had to like it was no big deal. Didn't happen in the actual event, but it happened in the test run but. We were doing that. And so it's kind of strange that we haven't done anything during the pandemic but again it was because of the relocating and just negotiating everything. And once overlining the pandemic is a lot of, a lot of stores have learned how to do some of the distance stuff that they haven't before. Yeah, even after the pandemic that might, they might then do a mix of distance stuff and in person. And I think that's important because that's what I learned. Yeah, and that's how we were growing in a time when businesses were failing we started and during that, you know, yeah, in 2008, we were starting stuff. And we grew because we learned to mix media mixed styles and we weren't used online but not be dependent online. And, and just, you know, have the events but not have them be background having to be center stage when they happen. And, and rent out the space. So we created a beautiful environment. And then so if we knew that hey every Tuesday it's really slow, or every Monday, why don't we rent out the space for a French class, because the environment like to them was like a French cafe they could hang out and so we just started doing things like that and it worked. So I think that was really, really important, but because, and even now what we're doing here is we're creating a, a literary museum. So we have right now we're starting off with where we have the some of the rare, you know, true first editions we have we have on display. And like a museum just as a museum and we even have authors, they're like, James Joyce's typical setup and him in ways podium and typewriter, but right now they're the same typewriter the same podium and you know the same desk and same typewriter from anywhere I mean, wait Joyce to William Burroughs, but eventually the goal is to actually have their actual desk and typewriter and have it on display like a museum but right now we're, we're setting up displays that replicates replicas. So there is there's that transition there is that mix to where it's a museum that you can also buy something from to like take that museum piece off the shelf and buy it. So, just kind of, you know, because that's another thing that's important like the bookstore itself is is historic and important and valuable and something that needs to be preserved. And that's been the main theme, I think through most of what I've shared, I think. I think this is going to be one of my more interesting interviews. Well, I'm glad, you know, like, just that's why when you reached out as like I knew that how important was just to share, you know, from communicate to, you know, press to meet anything that you can share anyone you can talk to any audience, it's good, it's good for everybody. So, like, I definitely wanted to help like, I wanted to help San Diego wanted to help what you're doing. It helps what I'm doing. I don't see any negatives to doing stuff like this. I hope I hope not that I have a huge audience but I hope you know I hope that this will direct some more people to your to your sites and what you're doing. You know, that'd be great and and and everyone we all have to start from somewhere and we can and we can start at any time that's one great lesson I learned in my life. When I was going through a great, like, romantic tragedy in my 30s and I thought, you know, everything ended at 30, I was coming into 30, I thought everything ended. And I had a, and, you know, he was a, you know, a lifetime theater actor in San Francisco in the 80s and and his group of friends were all about the same age and they truly taught me that as long as you didn't accept it, life was an adventure the whole entire time and you can do whatever that your life like a story and try as best you can. And that's kind of what ex realism is about is try to divorce yourself from those oppressive type of things and then live an extraordinary life. And that could just be a set of ideas. Like, and to me that's something I still, you know, I have to keep practicing it, but it's still a valuable lesson or even kind of a mantra after remind myself of the lesson and put it in. But I remind myself with a little mantra like, hey, you can, you know, you never know what's going to happen. You never know when it's going to happen. But you do know if you don't try, it's not going to happen. Thanks a lot. This has been really fascinating and I may check back with you again once you've got the, you know, once you've got the, you know, the new store opened up or the old store opened up, whatever. Yeah. Anyway, best of luck. Yeah, I love to. Okay. All right. I will do that and see what time is it. I'll probably I'll send you a couple pictures probably probably later tonight or maybe tomorrow morning if that's okay. That's fine. Okay. All right, thanks a lot. It was really great meeting you. You too. Glad we did hook up because that was a while ago and and I could have just said, Oh no, I'm gone and not there. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Glad we chatted. Okay. Okay, talk to you again. See you on email. All right. Okay. And here as promised is a brief five minute video showing the reconstruction of the new location of the books at the Astoria Armory in Oregon. Unfortunately, I have thought it prudent to strip out the soundtrack originally had a musical backing but when worried about the video being taken down by copyright talks. And so I've, I've removed that, which makes it someone less enjoyable but you know we live in a fallen world. So that was my interview with Sean Christopher. Look books or look ex realism. If you are watching this, you know, in 2021 as opposed to December 2020, which is when I'm, which is when this will, which is when this was interviewed when this is recorded and when it's going to go up but watching a little bit later. There will be more stuff on online that you can access from from his store and if you're watching it still later in the year. There'll be still more and there will likely be two stores, one up in Oregon one back in in San Diego again. Anyway, you know so this I think that his, his project really deserves a lot of support. So, and I think it's very interesting so check out the sites they're going to have in the description. And I will see you next time.