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 course, in the colder months, his mismatched high-top basketball shoes – one blue, one red. In general, though, his rigorously unkempt sartorial style was fairly consistent.

Even more consistent than his fashion was his demeanor. Motor always radiated a good-natured positivity and optimism, often served up with a generous helping of Jersey-style ball-busting. For some, these traits were confusingly at odds, but for anyone who truly took the time to get to know Motor, they were the foundation of his iconoclastic personality. Motor was a self-professed hippie (albeit of the very end of the bell curve of the hippie movement), an avowed communist (Motor liked to point out that, unlike other commies, he actually lived on a commune – Greenbriar), a biker (but not of the nut-rumbler Harley variety – he rode a BMW), a Kerrvert (Motor was a fixture at the Kerrville Folk Festival, and the reason I eventually agreed to begrudgingly dip my toe in those waters), a nurse (although no one to my knowledge has actually seen documents of certification), and a convicted drug dealer and ex-con (he served some time in the federal penitentiary for making the mistake of mailing acid blotters to a friend). He claimed his violation of federal law was ultimately his salvation because federal prisons treat their inmates much better than state prisons. This opinion might be more a reflection of Motor's outlook on life than actual truth, but having no immediate evidence to the contrary, I was inclined to believe him.

Above all, Motorcycle Michael was a brilliant and often hilarious raconteur and fabulist whose tales more often than not involved himself playing the role of a Falstaffian protagonist who somehow – either through willful ignorance or just plain blind luck – stumbles into good fortune, even when the actual facts of the story indicate otherwise. Yes, Motor went to prison, but he lucked out and went to federal prison. Yes, Motor was detained and jailed by small-town Mexican police on his way through Mexico, but he only had to pay a "relatively" small fine and was out and on his way the next day! Yes, he had a heart attack in his bed one morning in Guatemala while drinking coffee and listening to the Grateful Dead, but fortunately, after a 45-minute walk into town, a boat ride across a lake, and a bumpy, daylong excursion on a crowded chicken bus, he was able to receive excellent medical treatment at a hospital in Guatemala City at a fraction of what it might cost in the United States.

Motor's optimism and good nature served him well, but his willful flouting of social, political, and legal convention gave him access to people, places, and things most people only dream about. Perhaps it had to do with his stint in prison or his professed membership in the counterculture, but Motor was never one to let rules or formalities stand in the way of what he wanted. Motor was a world traveler. He made nearly every music festival, traveled to Central America frequently, went to Hawaii and California, and somehow, inexplicably, managed to fly to India last year with frequent flyer miles while hanging out in the Admirals Clubs at airports along the way. Motor always seemed to have a South by Southwest Platinum badge – even, goddamn it, before I did. Last year, I attended the Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards for the first time in my life. Wouldn't you know it, sure as shit, Motor was carousing at the bar in a tie-dyed jacket and straw Panama hat.

I am not ashamed to say I count myself among the conned. He actually convinced me at that movie screening to let him do crowd control. Even though the crowd wasn't that large or out of control, he performed admirably. A few weeks later, he started working for me as a Chronicle contract delivery driver – a job he held until just a few weeks ago, when he came back from a music festival in San Francisco with a persistent cough. Over the years, I came to think of Motor as the Lazlo to my Hunter S. Thompson – the guy who would someday finally convince me to drive to Guatemala with him and then, on the way, would slip an acid blotter into my tequila. Zany, madcap adventures would ensue.

The truth is, he was everybody's Lazlo. He was always up for anything and for anyone. Whether it was shit work like taking out the Chronicle's recycling, hauling furniture for folks just because he had a van, or washing off tarps for the Hot Sauce Festival, he was always of service, and nearly always available. Maddeningly, he never asked for pay; he would never tell me how many hours he worked. He only asked that I "show him some love." I wish I had shown him more. Last Saturday, at the hospital, when things seemed to be looking up, I teased him about how I fantasized about life without him. He quipped back, "You're going to miss me when I'm gone." He was right.

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Motorcycle Michael was a distribution driver at the Chronicle for the last decade and a constant, unavoidable presence both here and around Austin. He died Monday at St. David's Hospital from a heart attack caused by complications during a lung biopsy. He is survived by two daughters, Kara Sommers-Blakey and Jonina Sims, and a son, Zeb Sommers. He was 57 years old. Services are tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 1, at Greenbriar Commune.