In Memoriam

The first time I met "Motorcycle" Michael, he was standing in line for a movie screening I was working, heckling me to let him in early. That type of behavior is fairly unremarkable at a movie screening, but Motorcycle Michael was anything but unremarkable. Motor was a big guy – somewhere in the vicinity of 6 feet, 6 inches – a cross between the Biker of the Apocalypse from Raising Arizona and Wavy Gravy, who was a hippie hero wholly unknown to me before I made Motor's acquaintance. At the time, he was wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt, a pair of stained and tattered shorts, and ancient, crusty Teva-style sandals. Later, when I got to know him better – better than I ever imagined I would – I learned that was pretty much his uniform. There were occasional variations: his tie-dye-accented Music Awards tux; the light blue Nehru jacket he overpaid to have tailored in Mumbai, India; his extra-short running shorts that made people instinctively look skyward when he sat down in front of them; and of...