I went to the Neal Boortz booking signing held at the Friendly Center Barnes & Noble on Sunday, Aug. 14. As an English major at UNCG I attended many book signings and readings, but this was very different.
For one thing, there were a lot of rules. You had to pay for your book in advance, which I can understand, and you had to have a colored sheet of paper in order to stand in line. You also had to have your book flap turned to the correct page and we were all instructed that there would be signing only, "no personalizations". Neal Boortz himself explained that it would take too long to do that and he had a 6:15pm flight home.
As far as photographs-You could take a picture of the author while he was signing your book in an impersonalized way. This photo could not be taken with others. There was an armed police officer there to make sure these rules were followed and to prevent and gun play. (Never seen a police man at a book signing.)
I was luck to get a purple slip of paper which meant that there were only 200 people ahead of me.
It was called a "Discussion & Signing", but I didn't hear any discussion. Boortz came out right on time at 3:00pm and started working the crowd. He said if your buying a copy for President Bush, don't bother-he already has a copy. He told a story about a lady that contacted him that had just returned from a private tour of Air Force One and she said she saw a copy of The FairTax Book on the president's desk.
Do you remember the scene in A Christmas Story when Ralphie goes to see santa? That's how it was with me and Boortz. I wanted an hour and a half and when I got up there I froze. I wanted to tell him I enjoyed his show or ask him a question about his plan's prebate, but nothing. I handed him my two books, he scribbled in them and I moved away.
I'm not sure if I'm sold on the Fair Tax plan or not. I think it would be fun to drive to Washington, DC and march on the mall.
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