Manliness invaded Borders on Friday night in the form of Internet celebrity Maddox and his best-selling book, "The Alphabet of Manliness."
Maddox, whose real name is George Ouzounian, visited the Mill Avenue bookstore as part of his nationwide tour. The event drew more than 160 fans to have their books, breasts and other body parts signed. Fan Taylor Hominda called the event "the most boner-inducing experience of my life."
Film freshman Crystal Bale said she even had Maddox sign a scar.
"I had to have my ovaries removed over the summer and I was like, 'Yeah, I got head-butt really hard so can you sign my scar?' It was pretty sweet," Bale said. "He's kind of my hero."
Journalism sophomore Derek Johnson and German sophomore Paul Geisler celebrated the event by drinking shots of Tabasco sauce with Maddox.
"It's the manliest thing we could think of doing," Geisler said.
Having reached No. 1 in book sales on Amazon.com before going on to become a New York Times best-seller, "The Alphabet of Manliness" is an A-to-Z guide to 26 things deemed manly enough to get their own chapter.
Included topics range from manly types of men like pirates, lumberjacks and Chuck Norris to manly items like metal music, beef jerky and pornography.
"The Alphabet of Manliness" marks the latest success story for independent authors and artists that have become a more common occurrence thanks, in part, to the Internet. Maddox's
Web site, www.thebestpageintheuniverse.com, has received more than 169 million visits since its debut in 1997.
"I never advertised my Web site," Maddox said. "It's all been word-of-mouth alone, and that's the best way because I think people are tired of being told what they like as opposed to going out and finding cool [stuff] like this."
Maddox, however, also attributes his book's success to addressing an audience being largely ignored by media outlets.
"There's nothing on TV that's really geared toward guys, especially like who we are," Maddox said. "It's not that they've made women stronger; it's that they've made men weaker in the media. Literally, it's like a desert of manliness until this oasis came by."
Reach the reporter at: michael.chichester@asu.edu.
