Universal Books, Hot Dogs, Nazi Bikers, Texas Rangers, and the Hollywood Bookseller’s Baseball League Starring Icky Icky Icky as a Fastball<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h1>\nMark Sailor’s Nostalgic Memories of his Early Days in the Long-<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h1>\nVanished\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Hollywood Book Trade East of Vine Street<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h1>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bookstorememories.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Universal-front.jpg?resize=584%2C721\")
Universal Book Store
Photo by Wayne Braby<\/p><\/div>\n
Editors note:\u00a0 Mark sailor wrote this about his early adventures in the Hollywood book trade.\u00a0 The manuscript is undated, and I found it in Frank Mosher’s storage unit many years ago when I helped him move an enormous bunch of books and shelves.\u00a0 I worked with dear friend Mark during the last couple of years of Cliff’s Books. We had known each other since the early 1970s.\u00a0 He\u00a0 died about a year before Cliff’s closed down.\u00a0 Hope you enjoy this travel back to the days when Hollywood was lined with book stores, the golden age of the late 1960s and the 1970s.<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\nStory by Mark Sailor<\/strong><\/p>\nThe south side of Hollywood Boulevard at Argyle was a squalid corner in the early seventies.\u00a0 Universal Books existed only because of the times in which we lived:\u00a0 a group of tiny shops jumbo packed between the Dog House and Marlow’s Magazines on the corner.\u00a0 Serenaded by an endless rendition of Dueling Banjos through the paper thin walls that separated Universal Books from the cowboy bar just next door, we hosted Nazi biker gangs curbside on Friday Nights.<\/h4>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bookstorememories.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Marlows-Bookshop-3.jpg?resize=584%2C748\")
Marlows Book Shop
Photo by Wayne Braby<\/p><\/div>\n
Our regular clientele included Don Morphis, “Head Reverend of the Church of Satan of Hollywood”, and Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger, a sometimes unwelcome frequent flier.\u00a0 Frank had 19 packages of books on the hold shelf above the front counter of the book shop.<\/p>\n
We lived in a time of the world of dreams as large as the Bingo Mansions and the Hollyberries who instantly occupied their immediate celebrity west of the Sunset Strip.\u00a0 But we lived in a real-world east of Vine Street where rents diminished the farther one traveled into the habitat of ex-Nixonista refugees from Asia and the lands of the troubled Middle East.\u00a0 Like living on Pluto at the edge of the Solar System,\u00a0 we were at the edge of the Hollywood book world, east of Vine, in the shadow of the fading glamour of the Brown Derby and The Broadway Department Store.\u00a0 In fact, just west of Argyle was the last outpost of the Hollywood Dream, the beautiful Pantages Theater.\u00a0 The bulk of the bookshops were sprinkled west of Vine all the way to Highland Avenue.<\/p>\n
I was a student at Occidental College.\u00a0 My scholarship did not include meals.\u00a0 I worked at Universal Books at night.\u00a0 I learned to “slap jackets” there and my mentor Larry Mullen taught me cataloging.\u00a0 It was my job to catalog the Black Americana collection started by Jerry Weinstein, a book maven and previous owner.\u00a0 Jules Manasseh was the co-owner and had entered the book world as an auto insurance salesperson.\u00a0 Jules’ manic presence as banker and novice bookseller provided a fertile backdrop of excitement and angst.\u00a0 We were always broke.\u00a0 Mrs. Manasseh’s matzoh ball soup on weekend nights was a blessing unexpected and usually happened following a big sale.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bookstorememories.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Universal-Books.jpg?resize=584%2C334\")
<\/p>\n
Universal Books was a small shop of 1000 square feet divided into two rooms; a main browsing parlor on Hollywood Boulevard and a backroom where books were processed by myself and fellow future bookseller Melvin Gupton.\u00a0 Melvin was a student at Ambassador College.\u00a0 He worked nights as I did.\u00a0 Later, Melvin moved to Valley Book City on Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood.\u00a0 In the eighties Melvin opened Modern Times Bookshop in Pasadena and specialized in art and first editions.\u00a0 His brilliance was as unexcelled as his petulance toward everyday duties like making coffee and bathroom cleaning.\u00a0 His early death some years later was a loss to the world of knowledgeable and seasoned booksellers.<\/p>\n
It was because of the shortage of money that I was chosen to call Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger so he could pay for one or more of the nineteen packages on hold.<\/p>\n
“You wanna get paid, huh?”\u00a0 Frank Braun was terse.\u00a0 “You bring packages #2 and #19 to the Dog House in twenty minutes.”<\/p>\n
“How will I know you?”<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry about me – I’ll know you,” he quipped.<\/p>\n
I turned to Larry.\u00a0 He was already getting the packages down off the shelf.<\/p>\n
“You gonna tell him Frank Braun’s got a gun?” Jules pealed.<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry.\u00a0 He won’t use it.” Larry answered.\u00a0 His voice was flat as a pancake.<\/p>\n
“Why me?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Cause he’s a nut,” Jules answered, “and an anti-Semitic bastard.”<\/p>\n
“You gotta go” Larry told me.\u00a0 “We need the money.”<\/p>\n
The Dog House was a little Cinderella-style building 40 feet long and about as high as two trailers stacked sandwich style on top of one another.\u00a0 The dogs were as good and cheap as the clientele.\u00a0 Expatriates of the cowboy bar mingled with horse racing cappers.\u00a0 Hollyweirders abounded.\u00a0 Sometimes the lines into the Dog House exceeded the benches waiting for diners.\u00a0 It was a jumpin’ joint.<\/p>\n
An arm in a trench coat yanked me.\u00a0 “You Mark?” the voice demanded.<\/p>\n
I nearly dropped the book packages.\u00a0 It was Frank Braun.<\/p>\n
“Guess you wanna get paid?” Frank peeled open his Bogart-like coat, revealing a 45 and a checkbook.\u00a0 I was so scared I almost washed my pants.<\/p>\n
“You seen Larry lately?\u00a0 He’s a hang dog and lost his spirit.\u00a0 You tell Jules ‘the Jew’ Manasseh that Frank Braun’s ready to meet him anytime.”<\/p>\n
I got Frank’s check and hurried back to the bookshop.\u00a0 Sans hot dogs, sans kraut.<\/p>\n
Universal Books existed as a bookshop because of the high esteem in which books were held.\u00a0 No electronic device could replace Uncle Tom’s Cabin with the telltale “Stereotyped by Hobart and Robbins” and the 1851 moniker in two blind stamped brown cloth volumes which made it an exceptional and rare work.\u00a0 No computer could duplicate signed copies of W.E.B. Dubois “The Souls of Black Folk” or Jean Toomer’s “CANE”.\u00a0 The electronic equivalency and\/or convenience of the Kindle iron lung dependent on a battery or a cord mirage existence, now you see it, now you don’t, just didn’t exist.<\/p>\n
Book scouts, legendary and famous, were always coming into Universal Books.\u00a0 Maybe they wanted money from the previous book buy, maybe they didn’t.\u00a0 I got to know Jack Crandall, who later discovered a collection of incunabula in Kansas and bought an honest to God mesa in Arizona, complete with Indian bones and the remains of failed Conquistadors.\u00a0 Jack was great; he found the exceptional book and we sold it.<\/p>\n
‘Doc’ Burroughs, a gruff and talented book scout, provided occult and mystical books.\u00a0 His presence was often joined by another great bookseller, Paul Hunt.\u00a0 Paul’s star as a bookseller traveled and ascended into several great shops in Burbank, including Book Castle, and a store called Atlantis Book Shop, specializing in the paranormal and UFOs.\u00a0 An encouraging friend, Paul also helped create the California Book Fair, a convention of booksellers gathered annually at the Glendale Civic Auditorium or the Burbank Hilton.\u00a0 It was there such luminaries as Jay Leno and Kevin Tighe began their book collecting careers.<\/p>\n
Doc, Larry and Jules provided the final boot to the Nazi Bikers.\u00a0 On Friday nights “Icky Icky Icky” the biker leader would come in, pick a Bible from the shelf, tear it up and goose-step out of Universal Books with his arm and middle finger doing a HEIL HITLER.\u00a0 After some weeks of this grandstanding, the boys (Jules and Larry) called Doc for help.\u00a0 \u00a0At about 8:15 that night, Icky Icky Icky met a baseball bat invitation from the “Hollywood Booksellers Baseball League”. His head was to be the fastball.\u00a0 He was escorted out of the store.\u00a0 It took a lot to subdue Doc Burroughs, who really wanted some batting practice.<\/p>\n
The answer to our troubles was a bullet through the front window some weeks later.\u00a0 Ironically it was from Frank Braun, whose gall overcame his pall of resentment about Jules.\u00a0 I found out later Frank had commissioned Igor (Hollywood’s carpenter who built bookshelves) to build 20 bookcases on wheels with doors, so to move from his Beachwood address in the event of attack or invasion by the communists.\u00a0 Some kids dumped boulders on Frank’s roof and Frank released the 20 cases down Beachwood Drive.\u00a0 I never heard from him again.<\/p>\n
Larry Mullen moved to Mexico.\u00a0 Jules Manasseh moved his store up to the middle of Hollywood Boulevard some years later.\u00a0 Doc Burroughs and Paul Hunt opened the Atlantis Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard and after Doc’s death Paul moved to Burbank and re-opened the shop on the old Golden Mall where it flourished for many years.<\/p>\n
The high shelves at the Universal Bookshop and its depth of stock was a delight to many a book reader.\u00a0 Its passing was unmentioned like a Blanche DuBois typescript unremembered for want of a cast of characters.\u00a0 In its Streetcar Named Desire was the beginning of a long journey into the book world of rarity and wonderment.\u00a0 It was a fine community of Hollywood bookstores.\u00a0 Those book stores now exist only on bookshelves in readers homes throughout the City.\u00a0 Perhaps you have some copies in your home too, books from Hollywood’s lost book world, east of Vine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Bookstore Memories Time Capsule Archives:\u00a0 Universal Books, Hot Dogs, Nazi Bikers, Texas Rangers, and the Hollywood Bookseller’s Baseball League Starring Icky Icky Icky as a Fastball Mark Sailor’s Nostalgic Memories of his Early Days in the Long- Vanished\u00a0Hollywood Book … Continue reading
Vanished\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Hollywood Book Trade East of Vine Street<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h1>\nUniversal Book Store
Photo by Wayne Braby<\/p><\/div>\n
Editors note:\u00a0 Mark sailor wrote this about his early adventures in the Hollywood book trade.\u00a0 The manuscript is undated, and I found it in Frank Mosher’s storage unit many years ago when I helped him move an enormous bunch of books and shelves.\u00a0 I worked with dear friend Mark during the last couple of years of Cliff’s Books. We had known each other since the early 1970s.\u00a0 He\u00a0 died about a year before Cliff’s closed down.\u00a0 Hope you enjoy this travel back to the days when Hollywood was lined with book stores, the golden age of the late 1960s and the 1970s.<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\nStory by Mark Sailor<\/strong><\/p>\nThe south side of Hollywood Boulevard at Argyle was a squalid corner in the early seventies.\u00a0 Universal Books existed only because of the times in which we lived:\u00a0 a group of tiny shops jumbo packed between the Dog House and Marlow’s Magazines on the corner.\u00a0 Serenaded by an endless rendition of Dueling Banjos through the paper thin walls that separated Universal Books from the cowboy bar just next door, we hosted Nazi biker gangs curbside on Friday Nights.<\/h4>\nMarlows Book Shop
Photo by Wayne Braby<\/p><\/div>\n
Our regular clientele included Don Morphis, “Head Reverend of the Church of Satan of Hollywood”, and Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger, a sometimes unwelcome frequent flier.\u00a0 Frank had 19 packages of books on the hold shelf above the front counter of the book shop.<\/p>\n
We lived in a time of the world of dreams as large as the Bingo Mansions and the Hollyberries who instantly occupied their immediate celebrity west of the Sunset Strip.\u00a0 But we lived in a real-world east of Vine Street where rents diminished the farther one traveled into the habitat of ex-Nixonista refugees from Asia and the lands of the troubled Middle East.\u00a0 Like living on Pluto at the edge of the Solar System,\u00a0 we were at the edge of the Hollywood book world, east of Vine, in the shadow of the fading glamour of the Brown Derby and The Broadway Department Store.\u00a0 In fact, just west of Argyle was the last outpost of the Hollywood Dream, the beautiful Pantages Theater.\u00a0 The bulk of the bookshops were sprinkled west of Vine all the way to Highland Avenue.<\/p>\n
I was a student at Occidental College.\u00a0 My scholarship did not include meals.\u00a0 I worked at Universal Books at night.\u00a0 I learned to “slap jackets” there and my mentor Larry Mullen taught me cataloging.\u00a0 It was my job to catalog the Black Americana collection started by Jerry Weinstein, a book maven and previous owner.\u00a0 Jules Manasseh was the co-owner and had entered the book world as an auto insurance salesperson.\u00a0 Jules’ manic presence as banker and novice bookseller provided a fertile backdrop of excitement and angst.\u00a0 We were always broke.\u00a0 Mrs. Manasseh’s matzoh ball soup on weekend nights was a blessing unexpected and usually happened following a big sale.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Universal Books was a small shop of 1000 square feet divided into two rooms; a main browsing parlor on Hollywood Boulevard and a backroom where books were processed by myself and fellow future bookseller Melvin Gupton.\u00a0 Melvin was a student at Ambassador College.\u00a0 He worked nights as I did.\u00a0 Later, Melvin moved to Valley Book City on Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood.\u00a0 In the eighties Melvin opened Modern Times Bookshop in Pasadena and specialized in art and first editions.\u00a0 His brilliance was as unexcelled as his petulance toward everyday duties like making coffee and bathroom cleaning.\u00a0 His early death some years later was a loss to the world of knowledgeable and seasoned booksellers.<\/p>\n
It was because of the shortage of money that I was chosen to call Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger so he could pay for one or more of the nineteen packages on hold.<\/p>\n
“You wanna get paid, huh?”\u00a0 Frank Braun was terse.\u00a0 “You bring packages #2 and #19 to the Dog House in twenty minutes.”<\/p>\n
“How will I know you?”<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry about me – I’ll know you,” he quipped.<\/p>\n
I turned to Larry.\u00a0 He was already getting the packages down off the shelf.<\/p>\n
“You gonna tell him Frank Braun’s got a gun?” Jules pealed.<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry.\u00a0 He won’t use it.” Larry answered.\u00a0 His voice was flat as a pancake.<\/p>\n
“Why me?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Cause he’s a nut,” Jules answered, “and an anti-Semitic bastard.”<\/p>\n
“You gotta go” Larry told me.\u00a0 “We need the money.”<\/p>\n
The Dog House was a little Cinderella-style building 40 feet long and about as high as two trailers stacked sandwich style on top of one another.\u00a0 The dogs were as good and cheap as the clientele.\u00a0 Expatriates of the cowboy bar mingled with horse racing cappers.\u00a0 Hollyweirders abounded.\u00a0 Sometimes the lines into the Dog House exceeded the benches waiting for diners.\u00a0 It was a jumpin’ joint.<\/p>\n
An arm in a trench coat yanked me.\u00a0 “You Mark?” the voice demanded.<\/p>\n
I nearly dropped the book packages.\u00a0 It was Frank Braun.<\/p>\n
“Guess you wanna get paid?” Frank peeled open his Bogart-like coat, revealing a 45 and a checkbook.\u00a0 I was so scared I almost washed my pants.<\/p>\n
“You seen Larry lately?\u00a0 He’s a hang dog and lost his spirit.\u00a0 You tell Jules ‘the Jew’ Manasseh that Frank Braun’s ready to meet him anytime.”<\/p>\n
I got Frank’s check and hurried back to the bookshop.\u00a0 Sans hot dogs, sans kraut.<\/p>\n
Universal Books existed as a bookshop because of the high esteem in which books were held.\u00a0 No electronic device could replace Uncle Tom’s Cabin with the telltale “Stereotyped by Hobart and Robbins” and the 1851 moniker in two blind stamped brown cloth volumes which made it an exceptional and rare work.\u00a0 No computer could duplicate signed copies of W.E.B. Dubois “The Souls of Black Folk” or Jean Toomer’s “CANE”.\u00a0 The electronic equivalency and\/or convenience of the Kindle iron lung dependent on a battery or a cord mirage existence, now you see it, now you don’t, just didn’t exist.<\/p>\n
Book scouts, legendary and famous, were always coming into Universal Books.\u00a0 Maybe they wanted money from the previous book buy, maybe they didn’t.\u00a0 I got to know Jack Crandall, who later discovered a collection of incunabula in Kansas and bought an honest to God mesa in Arizona, complete with Indian bones and the remains of failed Conquistadors.\u00a0 Jack was great; he found the exceptional book and we sold it.<\/p>\n
‘Doc’ Burroughs, a gruff and talented book scout, provided occult and mystical books.\u00a0 His presence was often joined by another great bookseller, Paul Hunt.\u00a0 Paul’s star as a bookseller traveled and ascended into several great shops in Burbank, including Book Castle, and a store called Atlantis Book Shop, specializing in the paranormal and UFOs.\u00a0 An encouraging friend, Paul also helped create the California Book Fair, a convention of booksellers gathered annually at the Glendale Civic Auditorium or the Burbank Hilton.\u00a0 It was there such luminaries as Jay Leno and Kevin Tighe began their book collecting careers.<\/p>\n
Doc, Larry and Jules provided the final boot to the Nazi Bikers.\u00a0 On Friday nights “Icky Icky Icky” the biker leader would come in, pick a Bible from the shelf, tear it up and goose-step out of Universal Books with his arm and middle finger doing a HEIL HITLER.\u00a0 After some weeks of this grandstanding, the boys (Jules and Larry) called Doc for help.\u00a0 \u00a0At about 8:15 that night, Icky Icky Icky met a baseball bat invitation from the “Hollywood Booksellers Baseball League”. His head was to be the fastball.\u00a0 He was escorted out of the store.\u00a0 It took a lot to subdue Doc Burroughs, who really wanted some batting practice.<\/p>\n
The answer to our troubles was a bullet through the front window some weeks later.\u00a0 Ironically it was from Frank Braun, whose gall overcame his pall of resentment about Jules.\u00a0 I found out later Frank had commissioned Igor (Hollywood’s carpenter who built bookshelves) to build 20 bookcases on wheels with doors, so to move from his Beachwood address in the event of attack or invasion by the communists.\u00a0 Some kids dumped boulders on Frank’s roof and Frank released the 20 cases down Beachwood Drive.\u00a0 I never heard from him again.<\/p>\n
Larry Mullen moved to Mexico.\u00a0 Jules Manasseh moved his store up to the middle of Hollywood Boulevard some years later.\u00a0 Doc Burroughs and Paul Hunt opened the Atlantis Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard and after Doc’s death Paul moved to Burbank and re-opened the shop on the old Golden Mall where it flourished for many years.<\/p>\n
The high shelves at the Universal Bookshop and its depth of stock was a delight to many a book reader.\u00a0 Its passing was unmentioned like a Blanche DuBois typescript unremembered for want of a cast of characters.\u00a0 In its Streetcar Named Desire was the beginning of a long journey into the book world of rarity and wonderment.\u00a0 It was a fine community of Hollywood bookstores.\u00a0 Those book stores now exist only on bookshelves in readers homes throughout the City.\u00a0 Perhaps you have some copies in your home too, books from Hollywood’s lost book world, east of Vine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Bookstore Memories Time Capsule Archives:\u00a0 Universal Books, Hot Dogs, Nazi Bikers, Texas Rangers, and the Hollywood Bookseller’s Baseball League Starring Icky Icky Icky as a Fastball Mark Sailor’s Nostalgic Memories of his Early Days in the Long- Vanished\u00a0Hollywood Book … Continue reading
Universal Book Store
Photo by Wayne Braby<\/p><\/div>\n
Editors note:\u00a0 Mark sailor wrote this about his early adventures in the Hollywood book trade.\u00a0 The manuscript is undated, and I found it in Frank Mosher’s storage unit many years ago when I helped him move an enormous bunch of books and shelves.\u00a0 I worked with dear friend Mark during the last couple of years of Cliff’s Books. We had known each other since the early 1970s.\u00a0 He\u00a0 died about a year before Cliff’s closed down.\u00a0 Hope you enjoy this travel back to the days when Hollywood was lined with book stores, the golden age of the late 1960s and the 1970s.<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\nStory by Mark Sailor<\/strong><\/p>\nThe south side of Hollywood Boulevard at Argyle was a squalid corner in the early seventies.\u00a0 Universal Books existed only because of the times in which we lived:\u00a0 a group of tiny shops jumbo packed between the Dog House and Marlow’s Magazines on the corner.\u00a0 Serenaded by an endless rendition of Dueling Banjos through the paper thin walls that separated Universal Books from the cowboy bar just next door, we hosted Nazi biker gangs curbside on Friday Nights.<\/h4>\nMarlows Book Shop
Photo by Wayne Braby<\/p><\/div>\n
Our regular clientele included Don Morphis, “Head Reverend of the Church of Satan of Hollywood”, and Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger, a sometimes unwelcome frequent flier.\u00a0 Frank had 19 packages of books on the hold shelf above the front counter of the book shop.<\/p>\n
We lived in a time of the world of dreams as large as the Bingo Mansions and the Hollyberries who instantly occupied their immediate celebrity west of the Sunset Strip.\u00a0 But we lived in a real-world east of Vine Street where rents diminished the farther one traveled into the habitat of ex-Nixonista refugees from Asia and the lands of the troubled Middle East.\u00a0 Like living on Pluto at the edge of the Solar System,\u00a0 we were at the edge of the Hollywood book world, east of Vine, in the shadow of the fading glamour of the Brown Derby and The Broadway Department Store.\u00a0 In fact, just west of Argyle was the last outpost of the Hollywood Dream, the beautiful Pantages Theater.\u00a0 The bulk of the bookshops were sprinkled west of Vine all the way to Highland Avenue.<\/p>\n
I was a student at Occidental College.\u00a0 My scholarship did not include meals.\u00a0 I worked at Universal Books at night.\u00a0 I learned to “slap jackets” there and my mentor Larry Mullen taught me cataloging.\u00a0 It was my job to catalog the Black Americana collection started by Jerry Weinstein, a book maven and previous owner.\u00a0 Jules Manasseh was the co-owner and had entered the book world as an auto insurance salesperson.\u00a0 Jules’ manic presence as banker and novice bookseller provided a fertile backdrop of excitement and angst.\u00a0 We were always broke.\u00a0 Mrs. Manasseh’s matzoh ball soup on weekend nights was a blessing unexpected and usually happened following a big sale.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Universal Books was a small shop of 1000 square feet divided into two rooms; a main browsing parlor on Hollywood Boulevard and a backroom where books were processed by myself and fellow future bookseller Melvin Gupton.\u00a0 Melvin was a student at Ambassador College.\u00a0 He worked nights as I did.\u00a0 Later, Melvin moved to Valley Book City on Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood.\u00a0 In the eighties Melvin opened Modern Times Bookshop in Pasadena and specialized in art and first editions.\u00a0 His brilliance was as unexcelled as his petulance toward everyday duties like making coffee and bathroom cleaning.\u00a0 His early death some years later was a loss to the world of knowledgeable and seasoned booksellers.<\/p>\n
It was because of the shortage of money that I was chosen to call Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger so he could pay for one or more of the nineteen packages on hold.<\/p>\n
“You wanna get paid, huh?”\u00a0 Frank Braun was terse.\u00a0 “You bring packages #2 and #19 to the Dog House in twenty minutes.”<\/p>\n
“How will I know you?”<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry about me – I’ll know you,” he quipped.<\/p>\n
I turned to Larry.\u00a0 He was already getting the packages down off the shelf.<\/p>\n
“You gonna tell him Frank Braun’s got a gun?” Jules pealed.<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry.\u00a0 He won’t use it.” Larry answered.\u00a0 His voice was flat as a pancake.<\/p>\n
“Why me?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Cause he’s a nut,” Jules answered, “and an anti-Semitic bastard.”<\/p>\n
“You gotta go” Larry told me.\u00a0 “We need the money.”<\/p>\n
The Dog House was a little Cinderella-style building 40 feet long and about as high as two trailers stacked sandwich style on top of one another.\u00a0 The dogs were as good and cheap as the clientele.\u00a0 Expatriates of the cowboy bar mingled with horse racing cappers.\u00a0 Hollyweirders abounded.\u00a0 Sometimes the lines into the Dog House exceeded the benches waiting for diners.\u00a0 It was a jumpin’ joint.<\/p>\n
An arm in a trench coat yanked me.\u00a0 “You Mark?” the voice demanded.<\/p>\n
I nearly dropped the book packages.\u00a0 It was Frank Braun.<\/p>\n
“Guess you wanna get paid?” Frank peeled open his Bogart-like coat, revealing a 45 and a checkbook.\u00a0 I was so scared I almost washed my pants.<\/p>\n
“You seen Larry lately?\u00a0 He’s a hang dog and lost his spirit.\u00a0 You tell Jules ‘the Jew’ Manasseh that Frank Braun’s ready to meet him anytime.”<\/p>\n
I got Frank’s check and hurried back to the bookshop.\u00a0 Sans hot dogs, sans kraut.<\/p>\n
Universal Books existed as a bookshop because of the high esteem in which books were held.\u00a0 No electronic device could replace Uncle Tom’s Cabin with the telltale “Stereotyped by Hobart and Robbins” and the 1851 moniker in two blind stamped brown cloth volumes which made it an exceptional and rare work.\u00a0 No computer could duplicate signed copies of W.E.B. Dubois “The Souls of Black Folk” or Jean Toomer’s “CANE”.\u00a0 The electronic equivalency and\/or convenience of the Kindle iron lung dependent on a battery or a cord mirage existence, now you see it, now you don’t, just didn’t exist.<\/p>\n
Book scouts, legendary and famous, were always coming into Universal Books.\u00a0 Maybe they wanted money from the previous book buy, maybe they didn’t.\u00a0 I got to know Jack Crandall, who later discovered a collection of incunabula in Kansas and bought an honest to God mesa in Arizona, complete with Indian bones and the remains of failed Conquistadors.\u00a0 Jack was great; he found the exceptional book and we sold it.<\/p>\n
‘Doc’ Burroughs, a gruff and talented book scout, provided occult and mystical books.\u00a0 His presence was often joined by another great bookseller, Paul Hunt.\u00a0 Paul’s star as a bookseller traveled and ascended into several great shops in Burbank, including Book Castle, and a store called Atlantis Book Shop, specializing in the paranormal and UFOs.\u00a0 An encouraging friend, Paul also helped create the California Book Fair, a convention of booksellers gathered annually at the Glendale Civic Auditorium or the Burbank Hilton.\u00a0 It was there such luminaries as Jay Leno and Kevin Tighe began their book collecting careers.<\/p>\n
Doc, Larry and Jules provided the final boot to the Nazi Bikers.\u00a0 On Friday nights “Icky Icky Icky” the biker leader would come in, pick a Bible from the shelf, tear it up and goose-step out of Universal Books with his arm and middle finger doing a HEIL HITLER.\u00a0 After some weeks of this grandstanding, the boys (Jules and Larry) called Doc for help.\u00a0 \u00a0At about 8:15 that night, Icky Icky Icky met a baseball bat invitation from the “Hollywood Booksellers Baseball League”. His head was to be the fastball.\u00a0 He was escorted out of the store.\u00a0 It took a lot to subdue Doc Burroughs, who really wanted some batting practice.<\/p>\n
The answer to our troubles was a bullet through the front window some weeks later.\u00a0 Ironically it was from Frank Braun, whose gall overcame his pall of resentment about Jules.\u00a0 I found out later Frank had commissioned Igor (Hollywood’s carpenter who built bookshelves) to build 20 bookcases on wheels with doors, so to move from his Beachwood address in the event of attack or invasion by the communists.\u00a0 Some kids dumped boulders on Frank’s roof and Frank released the 20 cases down Beachwood Drive.\u00a0 I never heard from him again.<\/p>\n
Larry Mullen moved to Mexico.\u00a0 Jules Manasseh moved his store up to the middle of Hollywood Boulevard some years later.\u00a0 Doc Burroughs and Paul Hunt opened the Atlantis Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard and after Doc’s death Paul moved to Burbank and re-opened the shop on the old Golden Mall where it flourished for many years.<\/p>\n
The high shelves at the Universal Bookshop and its depth of stock was a delight to many a book reader.\u00a0 Its passing was unmentioned like a Blanche DuBois typescript unremembered for want of a cast of characters.\u00a0 In its Streetcar Named Desire was the beginning of a long journey into the book world of rarity and wonderment.\u00a0 It was a fine community of Hollywood bookstores.\u00a0 Those book stores now exist only on bookshelves in readers homes throughout the City.\u00a0 Perhaps you have some copies in your home too, books from Hollywood’s lost book world, east of Vine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Bookstore Memories Time Capsule Archives:\u00a0 Universal Books, Hot Dogs, Nazi Bikers, Texas Rangers, and the Hollywood Bookseller’s Baseball League Starring Icky Icky Icky as a Fastball Mark Sailor’s Nostalgic Memories of his Early Days in the Long- Vanished\u00a0Hollywood Book … Continue reading
The south side of Hollywood Boulevard at Argyle was a squalid corner in the early seventies.\u00a0 Universal Books existed only because of the times in which we lived:\u00a0 a group of tiny shops jumbo packed between the Dog House and Marlow’s Magazines on the corner.\u00a0 Serenaded by an endless rendition of Dueling Banjos through the paper thin walls that separated Universal Books from the cowboy bar just next door, we hosted Nazi biker gangs curbside on Friday Nights.<\/h4>\nMarlows Book Shop
Photo by Wayne Braby<\/p><\/div>\n
Our regular clientele included Don Morphis, “Head Reverend of the Church of Satan of Hollywood”, and Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger, a sometimes unwelcome frequent flier.\u00a0 Frank had 19 packages of books on the hold shelf above the front counter of the book shop.<\/p>\n
We lived in a time of the world of dreams as large as the Bingo Mansions and the Hollyberries who instantly occupied their immediate celebrity west of the Sunset Strip.\u00a0 But we lived in a real-world east of Vine Street where rents diminished the farther one traveled into the habitat of ex-Nixonista refugees from Asia and the lands of the troubled Middle East.\u00a0 Like living on Pluto at the edge of the Solar System,\u00a0 we were at the edge of the Hollywood book world, east of Vine, in the shadow of the fading glamour of the Brown Derby and The Broadway Department Store.\u00a0 In fact, just west of Argyle was the last outpost of the Hollywood Dream, the beautiful Pantages Theater.\u00a0 The bulk of the bookshops were sprinkled west of Vine all the way to Highland Avenue.<\/p>\n
I was a student at Occidental College.\u00a0 My scholarship did not include meals.\u00a0 I worked at Universal Books at night.\u00a0 I learned to “slap jackets” there and my mentor Larry Mullen taught me cataloging.\u00a0 It was my job to catalog the Black Americana collection started by Jerry Weinstein, a book maven and previous owner.\u00a0 Jules Manasseh was the co-owner and had entered the book world as an auto insurance salesperson.\u00a0 Jules’ manic presence as banker and novice bookseller provided a fertile backdrop of excitement and angst.\u00a0 We were always broke.\u00a0 Mrs. Manasseh’s matzoh ball soup on weekend nights was a blessing unexpected and usually happened following a big sale.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Universal Books was a small shop of 1000 square feet divided into two rooms; a main browsing parlor on Hollywood Boulevard and a backroom where books were processed by myself and fellow future bookseller Melvin Gupton.\u00a0 Melvin was a student at Ambassador College.\u00a0 He worked nights as I did.\u00a0 Later, Melvin moved to Valley Book City on Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood.\u00a0 In the eighties Melvin opened Modern Times Bookshop in Pasadena and specialized in art and first editions.\u00a0 His brilliance was as unexcelled as his petulance toward everyday duties like making coffee and bathroom cleaning.\u00a0 His early death some years later was a loss to the world of knowledgeable and seasoned booksellers.<\/p>\n
It was because of the shortage of money that I was chosen to call Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger so he could pay for one or more of the nineteen packages on hold.<\/p>\n
“You wanna get paid, huh?”\u00a0 Frank Braun was terse.\u00a0 “You bring packages #2 and #19 to the Dog House in twenty minutes.”<\/p>\n
“How will I know you?”<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry about me – I’ll know you,” he quipped.<\/p>\n
I turned to Larry.\u00a0 He was already getting the packages down off the shelf.<\/p>\n
“You gonna tell him Frank Braun’s got a gun?” Jules pealed.<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry.\u00a0 He won’t use it.” Larry answered.\u00a0 His voice was flat as a pancake.<\/p>\n
“Why me?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Cause he’s a nut,” Jules answered, “and an anti-Semitic bastard.”<\/p>\n
“You gotta go” Larry told me.\u00a0 “We need the money.”<\/p>\n
The Dog House was a little Cinderella-style building 40 feet long and about as high as two trailers stacked sandwich style on top of one another.\u00a0 The dogs were as good and cheap as the clientele.\u00a0 Expatriates of the cowboy bar mingled with horse racing cappers.\u00a0 Hollyweirders abounded.\u00a0 Sometimes the lines into the Dog House exceeded the benches waiting for diners.\u00a0 It was a jumpin’ joint.<\/p>\n
An arm in a trench coat yanked me.\u00a0 “You Mark?” the voice demanded.<\/p>\n
I nearly dropped the book packages.\u00a0 It was Frank Braun.<\/p>\n
“Guess you wanna get paid?” Frank peeled open his Bogart-like coat, revealing a 45 and a checkbook.\u00a0 I was so scared I almost washed my pants.<\/p>\n
“You seen Larry lately?\u00a0 He’s a hang dog and lost his spirit.\u00a0 You tell Jules ‘the Jew’ Manasseh that Frank Braun’s ready to meet him anytime.”<\/p>\n
I got Frank’s check and hurried back to the bookshop.\u00a0 Sans hot dogs, sans kraut.<\/p>\n
Universal Books existed as a bookshop because of the high esteem in which books were held.\u00a0 No electronic device could replace Uncle Tom’s Cabin with the telltale “Stereotyped by Hobart and Robbins” and the 1851 moniker in two blind stamped brown cloth volumes which made it an exceptional and rare work.\u00a0 No computer could duplicate signed copies of W.E.B. Dubois “The Souls of Black Folk” or Jean Toomer’s “CANE”.\u00a0 The electronic equivalency and\/or convenience of the Kindle iron lung dependent on a battery or a cord mirage existence, now you see it, now you don’t, just didn’t exist.<\/p>\n
Book scouts, legendary and famous, were always coming into Universal Books.\u00a0 Maybe they wanted money from the previous book buy, maybe they didn’t.\u00a0 I got to know Jack Crandall, who later discovered a collection of incunabula in Kansas and bought an honest to God mesa in Arizona, complete with Indian bones and the remains of failed Conquistadors.\u00a0 Jack was great; he found the exceptional book and we sold it.<\/p>\n
‘Doc’ Burroughs, a gruff and talented book scout, provided occult and mystical books.\u00a0 His presence was often joined by another great bookseller, Paul Hunt.\u00a0 Paul’s star as a bookseller traveled and ascended into several great shops in Burbank, including Book Castle, and a store called Atlantis Book Shop, specializing in the paranormal and UFOs.\u00a0 An encouraging friend, Paul also helped create the California Book Fair, a convention of booksellers gathered annually at the Glendale Civic Auditorium or the Burbank Hilton.\u00a0 It was there such luminaries as Jay Leno and Kevin Tighe began their book collecting careers.<\/p>\n
Doc, Larry and Jules provided the final boot to the Nazi Bikers.\u00a0 On Friday nights “Icky Icky Icky” the biker leader would come in, pick a Bible from the shelf, tear it up and goose-step out of Universal Books with his arm and middle finger doing a HEIL HITLER.\u00a0 After some weeks of this grandstanding, the boys (Jules and Larry) called Doc for help.\u00a0 \u00a0At about 8:15 that night, Icky Icky Icky met a baseball bat invitation from the “Hollywood Booksellers Baseball League”. His head was to be the fastball.\u00a0 He was escorted out of the store.\u00a0 It took a lot to subdue Doc Burroughs, who really wanted some batting practice.<\/p>\n
The answer to our troubles was a bullet through the front window some weeks later.\u00a0 Ironically it was from Frank Braun, whose gall overcame his pall of resentment about Jules.\u00a0 I found out later Frank had commissioned Igor (Hollywood’s carpenter who built bookshelves) to build 20 bookcases on wheels with doors, so to move from his Beachwood address in the event of attack or invasion by the communists.\u00a0 Some kids dumped boulders on Frank’s roof and Frank released the 20 cases down Beachwood Drive.\u00a0 I never heard from him again.<\/p>\n
Larry Mullen moved to Mexico.\u00a0 Jules Manasseh moved his store up to the middle of Hollywood Boulevard some years later.\u00a0 Doc Burroughs and Paul Hunt opened the Atlantis Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard and after Doc’s death Paul moved to Burbank and re-opened the shop on the old Golden Mall where it flourished for many years.<\/p>\n
The high shelves at the Universal Bookshop and its depth of stock was a delight to many a book reader.\u00a0 Its passing was unmentioned like a Blanche DuBois typescript unremembered for want of a cast of characters.\u00a0 In its Streetcar Named Desire was the beginning of a long journey into the book world of rarity and wonderment.\u00a0 It was a fine community of Hollywood bookstores.\u00a0 Those book stores now exist only on bookshelves in readers homes throughout the City.\u00a0 Perhaps you have some copies in your home too, books from Hollywood’s lost book world, east of Vine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Bookstore Memories Time Capsule Archives:\u00a0 Universal Books, Hot Dogs, Nazi Bikers, Texas Rangers, and the Hollywood Bookseller’s Baseball League Starring Icky Icky Icky as a Fastball Mark Sailor’s Nostalgic Memories of his Early Days in the Long- Vanished\u00a0Hollywood Book … Continue reading
Marlows Book Shop
Photo by Wayne Braby<\/p><\/div>\n
Our regular clientele included Don Morphis, “Head Reverend of the Church of Satan of Hollywood”, and Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger, a sometimes unwelcome frequent flier.\u00a0 Frank had 19 packages of books on the hold shelf above the front counter of the book shop.<\/p>\n
We lived in a time of the world of dreams as large as the Bingo Mansions and the Hollyberries who instantly occupied their immediate celebrity west of the Sunset Strip.\u00a0 But we lived in a real-world east of Vine Street where rents diminished the farther one traveled into the habitat of ex-Nixonista refugees from Asia and the lands of the troubled Middle East.\u00a0 Like living on Pluto at the edge of the Solar System,\u00a0 we were at the edge of the Hollywood book world, east of Vine, in the shadow of the fading glamour of the Brown Derby and The Broadway Department Store.\u00a0 In fact, just west of Argyle was the last outpost of the Hollywood Dream, the beautiful Pantages Theater.\u00a0 The bulk of the bookshops were sprinkled west of Vine all the way to Highland Avenue.<\/p>\n
I was a student at Occidental College.\u00a0 My scholarship did not include meals.\u00a0 I worked at Universal Books at night.\u00a0 I learned to “slap jackets” there and my mentor Larry Mullen taught me cataloging.\u00a0 It was my job to catalog the Black Americana collection started by Jerry Weinstein, a book maven and previous owner.\u00a0 Jules Manasseh was the co-owner and had entered the book world as an auto insurance salesperson.\u00a0 Jules’ manic presence as banker and novice bookseller provided a fertile backdrop of excitement and angst.\u00a0 We were always broke.\u00a0 Mrs. Manasseh’s matzoh ball soup on weekend nights was a blessing unexpected and usually happened following a big sale.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Universal Books was a small shop of 1000 square feet divided into two rooms; a main browsing parlor on Hollywood Boulevard and a backroom where books were processed by myself and fellow future bookseller Melvin Gupton.\u00a0 Melvin was a student at Ambassador College.\u00a0 He worked nights as I did.\u00a0 Later, Melvin moved to Valley Book City on Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood.\u00a0 In the eighties Melvin opened Modern Times Bookshop in Pasadena and specialized in art and first editions.\u00a0 His brilliance was as unexcelled as his petulance toward everyday duties like making coffee and bathroom cleaning.\u00a0 His early death some years later was a loss to the world of knowledgeable and seasoned booksellers.<\/p>\n
It was because of the shortage of money that I was chosen to call Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger so he could pay for one or more of the nineteen packages on hold.<\/p>\n
“You wanna get paid, huh?”\u00a0 Frank Braun was terse.\u00a0 “You bring packages #2 and #19 to the Dog House in twenty minutes.”<\/p>\n
“How will I know you?”<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry about me – I’ll know you,” he quipped.<\/p>\n
I turned to Larry.\u00a0 He was already getting the packages down off the shelf.<\/p>\n
“You gonna tell him Frank Braun’s got a gun?” Jules pealed.<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry.\u00a0 He won’t use it.” Larry answered.\u00a0 His voice was flat as a pancake.<\/p>\n
“Why me?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Cause he’s a nut,” Jules answered, “and an anti-Semitic bastard.”<\/p>\n
“You gotta go” Larry told me.\u00a0 “We need the money.”<\/p>\n
The Dog House was a little Cinderella-style building 40 feet long and about as high as two trailers stacked sandwich style on top of one another.\u00a0 The dogs were as good and cheap as the clientele.\u00a0 Expatriates of the cowboy bar mingled with horse racing cappers.\u00a0 Hollyweirders abounded.\u00a0 Sometimes the lines into the Dog House exceeded the benches waiting for diners.\u00a0 It was a jumpin’ joint.<\/p>\n
An arm in a trench coat yanked me.\u00a0 “You Mark?” the voice demanded.<\/p>\n
I nearly dropped the book packages.\u00a0 It was Frank Braun.<\/p>\n
“Guess you wanna get paid?” Frank peeled open his Bogart-like coat, revealing a 45 and a checkbook.\u00a0 I was so scared I almost washed my pants.<\/p>\n
“You seen Larry lately?\u00a0 He’s a hang dog and lost his spirit.\u00a0 You tell Jules ‘the Jew’ Manasseh that Frank Braun’s ready to meet him anytime.”<\/p>\n
I got Frank’s check and hurried back to the bookshop.\u00a0 Sans hot dogs, sans kraut.<\/p>\n
Universal Books existed as a bookshop because of the high esteem in which books were held.\u00a0 No electronic device could replace Uncle Tom’s Cabin with the telltale “Stereotyped by Hobart and Robbins” and the 1851 moniker in two blind stamped brown cloth volumes which made it an exceptional and rare work.\u00a0 No computer could duplicate signed copies of W.E.B. Dubois “The Souls of Black Folk” or Jean Toomer’s “CANE”.\u00a0 The electronic equivalency and\/or convenience of the Kindle iron lung dependent on a battery or a cord mirage existence, now you see it, now you don’t, just didn’t exist.<\/p>\n
Book scouts, legendary and famous, were always coming into Universal Books.\u00a0 Maybe they wanted money from the previous book buy, maybe they didn’t.\u00a0 I got to know Jack Crandall, who later discovered a collection of incunabula in Kansas and bought an honest to God mesa in Arizona, complete with Indian bones and the remains of failed Conquistadors.\u00a0 Jack was great; he found the exceptional book and we sold it.<\/p>\n
‘Doc’ Burroughs, a gruff and talented book scout, provided occult and mystical books.\u00a0 His presence was often joined by another great bookseller, Paul Hunt.\u00a0 Paul’s star as a bookseller traveled and ascended into several great shops in Burbank, including Book Castle, and a store called Atlantis Book Shop, specializing in the paranormal and UFOs.\u00a0 An encouraging friend, Paul also helped create the California Book Fair, a convention of booksellers gathered annually at the Glendale Civic Auditorium or the Burbank Hilton.\u00a0 It was there such luminaries as Jay Leno and Kevin Tighe began their book collecting careers.<\/p>\n
Doc, Larry and Jules provided the final boot to the Nazi Bikers.\u00a0 On Friday nights “Icky Icky Icky” the biker leader would come in, pick a Bible from the shelf, tear it up and goose-step out of Universal Books with his arm and middle finger doing a HEIL HITLER.\u00a0 After some weeks of this grandstanding, the boys (Jules and Larry) called Doc for help.\u00a0 \u00a0At about 8:15 that night, Icky Icky Icky met a baseball bat invitation from the “Hollywood Booksellers Baseball League”. His head was to be the fastball.\u00a0 He was escorted out of the store.\u00a0 It took a lot to subdue Doc Burroughs, who really wanted some batting practice.<\/p>\n
The answer to our troubles was a bullet through the front window some weeks later.\u00a0 Ironically it was from Frank Braun, whose gall overcame his pall of resentment about Jules.\u00a0 I found out later Frank had commissioned Igor (Hollywood’s carpenter who built bookshelves) to build 20 bookcases on wheels with doors, so to move from his Beachwood address in the event of attack or invasion by the communists.\u00a0 Some kids dumped boulders on Frank’s roof and Frank released the 20 cases down Beachwood Drive.\u00a0 I never heard from him again.<\/p>\n
Larry Mullen moved to Mexico.\u00a0 Jules Manasseh moved his store up to the middle of Hollywood Boulevard some years later.\u00a0 Doc Burroughs and Paul Hunt opened the Atlantis Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard and after Doc’s death Paul moved to Burbank and re-opened the shop on the old Golden Mall where it flourished for many years.<\/p>\n
The high shelves at the Universal Bookshop and its depth of stock was a delight to many a book reader.\u00a0 Its passing was unmentioned like a Blanche DuBois typescript unremembered for want of a cast of characters.\u00a0 In its Streetcar Named Desire was the beginning of a long journey into the book world of rarity and wonderment.\u00a0 It was a fine community of Hollywood bookstores.\u00a0 Those book stores now exist only on bookshelves in readers homes throughout the City.\u00a0 Perhaps you have some copies in your home too, books from Hollywood’s lost book world, east of Vine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Bookstore Memories Time Capsule Archives:\u00a0 Universal Books, Hot Dogs, Nazi Bikers, Texas Rangers, and the Hollywood Bookseller’s Baseball League Starring Icky Icky Icky as a Fastball Mark Sailor’s Nostalgic Memories of his Early Days in the Long- Vanished\u00a0Hollywood Book … Continue reading