On Friday, August 22, I had the pleasure of meeting one of the people that inspired me to be playing music today. The day after Kiss played in Pittsburgh with Aerosmith, I attended Gene Simmons' book signing at Borders Books in Pittsburgh. Everyone interested in meeting him had to be there at 9am to get a ticket for their spot in line starting at 2pm. Running late, as usual, I got there around 9:30 and they handed me ticket # 149.
Around 1:30, I decided that since I'm probably going to have only one opportunity in life to ever meet him, I'm going to do it in style and I went out to my car to put on my Retrogear (Yes, I have no shame. 
). Borders gets a call about a quarter till 2 from Gene stating he was backed up in traffic because of an accident, so he didn't get there till about a quarter after 2. The bookstore took him in back to sign some items for them and he didn't come out to the stage until twenty till 3. As soon as he came out, the place lit up. There were about 800 people inside. I was standing right beside the stage while he was signing books for everyone else, waiting impatiently for my turn and trying to think of what to say to him. One of the employees told me that Gene was only staying till 4 and at 3:30, they just reached # 100. At that point, it was time for me to make a desperate and drastic move, so I put my foot on stage, yelled up to him and pointed at my Kiss bedroom slipper. He started laughing and told me to come up, so he could see them closer. At that point is when this picture was taken. The coolest part about this was around 4, he decided to stay longer because of getting there late and I got my turn with him in line as well. I got a few more pictures of him and myself, some autographs, and a chance to tell him that he and Kiss are the inspiration that drove me to play guitar. Gene was really cool and down to earth with everyone there. He's also a person that's for the fans. There was a reporter there trying to cut in on his time with fans and he said something so smart assed that the lady actually said that she wouldn't be allowed to print that in the paper and walked away without a story. KISS RULES!!!!!
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