god soul? yesterday me and james are shopping at north county fair, the mall that i used to know like the back of my hand. i could tell you where all the stores were, where all the items one might need are. but now north county fair has lost a fair amount of cachet. for one, it is an indoor mall, and with san diego's weather and beautiful outdoor malls, nobody really goes to north county fair anymore. but to me, it is still the best mall for shopping. it caters to the young and the semi-broke. there are no outrageously expensive stores that are fun to look at but for all intents and purposes, useless. there is no banana. there is no express for men. there are a very limited number of "useless" stores like speaker stores, stationary stores and that type of thing.



there are a huge number of stores that sell skateboard/snowboard clothing and paraphenalia. a few years ago, there were maybe two. the times they are a-changing. we were on the search for hats and beanies so we hit up every single board shop. we walk into this one store, and a young man greets us warmly and hands us some fliers. as soon as i get in the door a girl goes "hi, how are you? what's your name?" i was a little surprised by the audacity of her hello but i figured they were a new store and trying to establish a rapport with the customers so i said hi and asked her where the hats where. (she also asked "so, how did you hear about us?" a-duh, you are at the mall, i just walked on by.) after politely but insistently brushed her off to look around by myself i moved to the hat section. then james walks in behind me and she says to him, "hey, do you have any family in LA? because you look really familiar." turns out she was mistaken. but still, mall people are not usually this friendly. retail people are definitely not this friendly.



so i'm at the hat section and i'm looking around and i notice a bookshelf full of bibles and various religion books to my left. this store, from the outside, looks like any other skater alternative culture store. complete with blaring rap rock music and pictures of heavily tattoo-ed guys trying to look heavily cool. but i didn't recognize any of the brands being sold and the bibles totally threw me off. james then comes over and goes "hey, did you notice this is a christian skater store?" i'm like, "what?!?"



who ever heard of such a thing? a christian skater store? finally i started looking around some more and saw p.o.d., creed, evanescence, and steven curtis chapman on the cd racks and brands names like onetruth, ezekiel, backwardfish, truth: soul armor and not of this world. aaaaah. moment of clarity. a christian skater store. literally. and apparently it does very well because this is the fourth store they've opened up. i wished them luck as i walked out the door but i was shaking my head because i wasn't quite sure what to make of the entire experience.



so i went home and looked up the website. apparently this is a store that "prays for people." i feel like there is something fundamentally wrong with cross breeding religion, evangelism and commercialism. but then again, it's not really all that bad. people have stores that cater to a specific clientele, this one is just focused on a religion as opposed to say, sports. and i guess it allows the christian kids to have clothes that fit into the societal trendy "norm." button down shirts and khakis are out for the bible toting crowd. black, trucker hats, tattoos and silver are in. i guess it's a good thing. i'm a little wary of the whole idea behind the store but i guess it's their prerogative.



on the way out i heard the girl say to the door guy, "good job." apparently in regards to him getting us to walk into the store. christian skater stores. what's next?