Johan the Mad Poet is a Santa Barbara icon. He's likely to be found just about anywhere you can find beer or coffee, holding his big journal and extemporaneously reciting spoken-word poems to anyone who will listen. He is, indeed, a little bit mad, but mostly he's just a person who manages to make his art a daily ritual, and that's something I've always appreciated.

He let me take his picture a few weeks back. Now I have photographic evidence of divine inspiration. If only I had the poem that resulted.