RIP Vonnegut

I was very saddened to hear the news yesterday that Kurt Vonnegut had died. It was the first thing I heard when I turn on WMUB/NPR. I don't often cry for dead people I have never met but I did for Kurt.

He was my favorite author as well as a great critic of society, politics, etc..

I did almost meet him once. He spoke at Miami University back in the early 1990's. I was working at DiPaolo's and was pissed off that I had been scheduled to work the night of his lecture. I felt somewhat better that my boss, George DiPaolo Jr, was also working that night and wanted to go to the lecture as well. We were commiserating together about missing Vonnegut when he walked in the dinning room with his Miami escort and proceeded to get good and drunk. DiPaolo's had a policy that no employee was to bother famous people (they did a some catering of big musical events and since they were the finest eatery in town that is where the famous would be taken to eat) so I was not allowed to go and introduce myself but I did get to see him down 5 gin and tonics in about an hour