I just woke up from a nap on the couch here at Quiet Storm and saw that Ian was here. I asked him about Richard Brautigan and he said that he got to meet Brautigan at a book signing sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s. He said he was a big fan; that he had all of Brautigan's books and got him to sign them all. When he opened up Quiet Storm, he put all of the books out on the bookshelves and promptly had most of them stolen.

Seeing Ian's autographed copy of In Watermelon Sugar the other night motivated me to go to my parents' house and grab copies of each of Brautigan's books. In honor of Ian's Richard Brautigan brush with greatness, I offer a quote from Dreaming of Babylon, my favorite Richard Brautigan novel; the novel that I started re-reading this evening:

"... I hadn't kissed anyone in a long time. It's hard to find people to kiss when you haven't got any money in your pocket and you're as big a fuckup as I am. ...