Michael once told me he'd been soloing since early on, when he began in California (Tahquitz Rock) in the late 1980s — he'd simply hid it from his partners. For while you find a tremendous poetry in soloing, you also face a tremendous reality: if you fall, you die. And not all climbers react well to this, for only a few have soloed freely, without fear. Michael carried this power inside him every day, climbing more comfortably off the rope than on (I've belayed him — trust me). But he didn't just arrive at Romantic Warrior, either. Michael began in the late 1980s as a clueless sport-climbing n00b with a jellyroll, and a penchant for eye make-up left over from his heavy metal days. He’d head out to Joshua Tree for the weekend, provisioned only with canned ravioli and whiskey. Gradually, he morphed into a trad climber, boulderer, and soloist. Later, in the 1990s and 2000s, he became a dedicated athlete, throwing mountains and longer routes into the equation. He cultivated his mental game by following the same logical progression. His spiritual game, he alone can speak to.
     Michael willingly shared his craft and he knew the responsibility that came with that. His openness and choice to make a living at free soloing took persistence and courage, even exposing him to accusations of deceit… and sociopathically mean-spirited jabs by a club of largely Internet-based"Haters." I come from an era in which you took a fellow climber at his word — in the vertical world, there are no referees. Michael did his best to document his ascents and he climbed what he said he climbed. (His talent is indisputable; if you shared the rock with him, you know.)
     And for those who could stand comfortably by and appreciate his art, his dance and life energy exploded the prosaic. The list is long: the 5,000-foot days, whipping by in a maelstrom of denim (jeans) and red (cotton T-shirt) up the fingertip laybacks and rounded cracks of his beloved Joshua Tree quartz-monzonite. The blisteringly difficult ropeless forays up the lichen-splashed corners of California's otherworldly Needles, a beetling of haunted granite domes on a ridge high in the western Sierra. The marathon days at Tahquitz that might include a trip up the The Vampire, a razor-thin 5.11 not previously conceived of as a solo. And, of course, his pilgrimages to Ireland, where await lifetimes' worth of virgin rock, preserved bolt-free. It was literally impossible to wear Michael out, and if you climbed with Michael, you climbed till dark and you damned well tried your hardest.

“Soloing is a life wish, not a death wish.”

     Michael lived volumes in his 42 years. He scrapped by as a poor Yankee kid, slurping dandelion soup to stave off the hunger while he and his father lived out of their car. He partied like a Roman as a 1980s glam rocker, in the heavy metal band Rocks Milan (once evicted from Japan — yes, the whole country). He came onto the Hollywood scene as a music-video director, and then producer. He cracked the books as a Pepperdine University law student, and then entertainment-law consultant. He knuckled in as a climbing filmmaker and documentarian, of the free-soloing legacy of his friend and inspiration John Bachar. In the last two years, Michael worked on his movie Free Soloist, an epic voyage into his world and that of his heroes, through their words, psyches, and climbs. And he made up a third of a family unit so healthy and grounded that it provided a fertile ground in which to sow his talents.