I was disappointed in Kottke with the fact that he didn't know why Van Halen had requested brown free bowl of M&Ms in his contract. (It was so he would know if the stage crew read the contract which contained safety info on their equipment, to help ensure that no one was harmed during the show, as they had some of the most complicated and dangerous stage equipment at the time)
It is very likely that Kottke does know about the reasons behind Van Halen's free bowl of M&M's since the link in his article is to the Snopes page that exists for the sole purpose of explaining those reasons.
