Ok, so like Ellen said we got to go see Alton Brown on Saturday.

Like Alton (al-ton, not ahl-ton), we too sort of expected to find him stuck in a corner somewhere with a big stack of books, pointing people to the rest rooms (see his "rants and raves"), so we sorta took our time getting there. This turned out to be nearly a very bad mistake.

For those of you out there who have never visited the Borders at Bailey's Crossroads, its a big bookstore, probably at least an 8 out of 10 on the size scale. It has a cafe (why couldn't Starbucks have been a brewpub?) that's about 20 ft x 30 ft (6 x 9 meters) in one corner. By the time we got there, a full 30 minutes before Alton was supposed to show, they'd not only completely filled this area, but the crowd was pushing out into the magazine area next to it.

I'd never been to a book signing outside of an SF convention, so the organization was a little strange to me. You picked up a book off the stand (we got the 2nd-from-the-last one), bought it, then got in line to get a "signing number". This was your place in line when it was time to sign the books. So I stuck Ellen in line, got the book, bought the book, then stood in line with her to pick up our card. They also gave you a "personalization card", a piece of paper you used to write down what you wanted him to write in the book as he signed it.

Ellen had to go visit the restroom, so while I was waiting I started trying to find a place to stand. I found a really nice place just beside the cafe counter that put me about 15 feet from the podium. Close is important, because Ellen can't see sh*t, and I've gotten yelled at more than once for getting seats too far away from the action.

Unfortunately there weren't any seats in this area, so I had to just stand there. After flagging Ellen down (not easy, she's shorter than the magazine stands), we stood waiting, peering out the 30 foot tall windows seeing if we could catch Alton driving up.

Now, Ellen's about as impressed with celebrities as I am, which is to say we're mostly interested in how such basically normal shmoes end up being famous while we languish here in website obscurity (the answer probably being hard work and a little luck, which is why we still beaver away at this). But she was getting visibly excited as the crowd started to build up and the clock ticked down. The crowd kept building up, filling the area we were in and flooding out past the magazine racks, devided into sections like cattle routed to trucks.

We were surprised when a small lady started saying "coming through" and ZAMMIE! Our near-mistake turned into a home run, because right behind the lady was Alton Brown himself, in the comfortable-if-somewhat-shabby style he's known for. In person, he's about 6' tall, probably pushing 180, then wearing a bluish Hawaiian-style shirt with New York logos on it, Dockers and sandals (no socks). His hair was trademark disheveled, but too long to be spiky.

The funniest thing was Ellen must have jumped a foot up and back as he walked by, not two feet from us. I mean, it was a total rock-star-groupie reaction. I swear she tried to reach out and touch him as he walked by.

For his part, Alton seemed genuinely excited by the whole thing. He cracked a few jokes as he walked by, and then made the cafe staff nervous as he tinkered with their stuff (the cafe had closed at this point).

It's funny, in a very strange sort of way, to see in person someone you've only seen pictures of or seen on TV. I kind of compare it to seeing landmarks on TV versus actually visiting them. In the former, it's not much more than a pretty postcard, but in the latter, it's actually a place. It's like that with people too. On TV, a person is almost unreal, because we're only seeing flashes of them, two dimensional cross-sections that may or may not represent the actual person. But in person, we get the 3-d reality, and a level of detail you just can't find on TV.

I'm struck by how bloody normal celebrities seem in situations like this. Alton struck me as being like several guys I hung out with in college... a congenital smartass who's genuinely nice, the kind of guy that would have stayed up late in my dorm drinking too much beer and having serious, learned opinions about everything from Pearl Harbor to the quality of Darkhorse comics (while trying not to slur too much).

Alton seems to be at the same point of celebrity that Penn & Teller claim to be... famous enough to be recognized and draw crowds in certain situations, but not so "rock star" as to take it all seriously. I get the feeling that if he hadn't had an invite to the Washington Press Club that night, a bunch of the people at the bookstore could've offered to take him to dinner and he would've accepted immediately.

Anyway, I think we caught him at a good time. As far as I can tell, this is the start of the book tour. According to Dave Barry, Steven King, and Larry Niven, most book tours descend into this cyclical hell that has you lurching from one hotel room to the next, only sure of where you are by the address on the hotel stationery. I think we may have caught him before that. He was fresh, alert, quick-witted and downright funny at times. One of those people that really does seem to be in person what they are on TV. The crowd was pretty good too, with mostly knowledgeable questions. Only a few folks tried to break his balls on obscure points (when the lead-in to a question is 3 minutes long, you know you're dealing with an asshole... I mean, who cares about how to pour tea?!?), and he handled them graciously without insult.

We only got 30 minutes of "Q&A" because a) as noted he had to go to the Washington F-ing Press Club (KUDOS!) that night, and b) there were at least 230 people waiting to get books signed. So, up he went to the 2nd level (where the movies and music are), while we all mulled around trying to figure which part of the line we needed to get into.

Upstairs they'd roped off a particular section of the music gallery and set up a desk and chair for Alton to sign stuff on. He looked like, and even commented about being, someone on display (I yelled out "DON'T FEED THE AUTHOR!" Which got a smile.) The first 50 people dutifully lined up for autographs, while Ellen and I cruised to a different section to wait.

Wil Wheaton once said that it's not the autograph that's important. The autograph is just proof of the important thing, which is that for even a few seconds you had this person's undivided attention. Alton seems to have taken this to heart, as he seemed to go the extra mile to ensure everyone that had come by got at least a little bit of attention. It's always a good sign when the "handlers" are having to shoo people around and make the author keep the line going. But even the handlers were fine... they were playing Steely Dan and serving nutter bars and milk (buy the book, you'll understand).

So eventually it was our turn to go up and face the music. As I'm sure even Alton has experienced, we both got total vapor lock when in the clinch. He'd been drinking something that looked suspiciously like red beer (and placing it behind his water), so that may have made him even nicer than normal. Ellen had requested "to Ellen and Scott and" (predictably) "the 5 cats". That brought him up short. In almost Trekkie-like fashion he quoted his own show by saying "you remember what I said about girls with more than two cats?" to which Ellen replied "actually it's 8, but 3 of them are in boxes". This completely poleaxed him, perhaps one of the few times that day that it'd happened. He kind of shook his head, and then signed the book. He was sincere at all times, and was obviously happy we'd come out to buy the book and see him speak. He even shook Ellen's hand as we left.

And that was another funny spot. Ellen totally got a Brady Bunch moment, whisper-screaming "HE TOUCHED ME!!! HE TOUCHED MY HAND!!!" I half-expected her to say "I'm never going to wash this hand again" (I'm not sure she has).

So that was our brush with (Food-Network) greatness. If Alton comes by your town, by all means go see him, he's great. The book itself is also very good. If you've seen the show, in spite of what Alton advertises, it really is in many ways "Good Eats" on paper. This is not a bad thing! For me it represents all the many notes I wanted to take while watching the show, plus extras. If you've not seen the show, it's a great introduction to the "home-ec" side of cooking, the stuff you can actually cook, as apposed to just look at.

So, thanks Alton! For having a great show and being a funny, decent guy with a good book. If you're ever in town again let us know. You see, we know this great Bar-B-Q place...