mikl-emphasizes
Emphasizing Mikl Em
Over two decades ago, I got into my car in suburban Detroit and drove cross-country to San Francisco to join the Dot-com boom before attending graduate school. It was a crazy time. The job market was so insane that I scheduled my phone interview while in Kansas, interviewed by phone in front of my cousin’s house in Denver, had my in-person two days after arriving in SF, and signed my offer letter by the end of my first week. (I wouldn’t find a permanent place to live for another three months, but that’s a story for another time.)
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Michael McElligott (two Ts!) was one of several members of Aeneid’s Content Analyst team to interview me. He later shared training/orientation duties with Sarah — a woman who put my own vulgar language to shame, and who worshipped Radiohead nearly as much as I did. I shadowed Mikl Em for months. He was my “senior,” my role model, my mentor, my friend. Eventually, a new team was created around us, and we brought problem-solving at EoExchange (as it was now called) to new heights.
At least, that’s how I remember it. I was young–22 and straight out of college. My nickname was Junior. I was the youngest employee of a startup that had a special kind of bitingly sarcastic (and often-intoxicated) magic mixed in with a lovingly-misguided passion; something I haven’t experienced in the twenty years since. I am confident I could watch Life of Brian with anyone there and not feel a moment’s discomfort.
We lived a cubicled existence, but not an antisocial or miserable one. It was cozy. Our small team’s cubes opened up to each other, and it was pretty damn fun for us (if not for those around us).
“Our search sucks less.” – Bob Ainsbury, EoExchange CEO
Our technology was vertical search, and like so many startups of that era, we were way ahead of our time, and destined to fail when the Dot-com bubble burst. Still, that didn’t mean we didn’t believe in what we were doing when we were doing it. Foolish as I was, I thought my stock options were a golden ticket. Turns out they were best used as rolling paper for a handful of joints heavily laced with irony and metaphor.
Mikl Em showed me the ropes at work, and he exposed me to parts of San Francisco I would otherwise have never discovered (I’m looking at you, Tu Lan). We regularly drank at Sutter Station where he introduced me to /cco and dpm, the Heads of R&D and QA. He also introduced me to Mike Hinnant. From /cco, I learned how to think about code. dpm taught me that if it feels broken, it is broken — until someone tells you it is by design. Hinnant was our UI lead, and I had no idea what that really meant. So one day, I went to his office, sat on the floor (like the child I was) and asked, “What do you do?”
Those four men unwittingly laid the intellectual and philosophical foundation for my entire professional career. And, despite having held jobs with titles more similar to the others, Mikl Em was the one whose template I modeled. I’m a generalist — a jack of all trades, always learning what I need to know, keeping an eye on the big picture, while focused on the itty-bitty details.
It started with Mikl Em.
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Occasionally, Mikl Em invited me over for drinks, especially in those early months when I hadn’t yet found a place to live. Mikl Em and Danielle were always gracious hosts, with a home like a comic book store, if comic book stores sold random, interesting tchotchkes imbued with the history of San Francisco’s arts, literature, and underground event scene.
How does one describe a person like Mikl Em? I have no clue. Whatever was popular, he was always a bit ahead and way off to the side of it. He hosted Bad Movie Nights at the Dark Room or outdoors, undertook various spoken-word performances, kept his listserv informed about matters like this and this, and had friends with names like Attaboy and Chicken John. And he did all of these things without a trace of ego.
I don’t think I’ve ever really had any idea what goes on in Mikl Em’s world, in part because he so effortlessly exists in several incongruous spaces at same time, casually bleeding one into the other and back again. Twenty years ago I found it fascinating, from afar and up close, and felt lucky to be invited to or included in anything.
It’s been nearly four years since I last saw Mikl Em. After seven years in Brooklyn, our family moved to the Bay Area in 2013. But we failed to meet up until he and Danielle trekked out to Foster City for our goodbye party — three years later. They got to meet our kids, though, for which I am grateful. I don’t know why, but it’s a thing.
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Back in May, I learned that Mikl Em has brain cancer. Apparently, it was treated last year, and they thought it was gone, but it had returned with a vengeance. His surgery was scheduled a few days later, and Shani – our old boss and his longtime friend – had decided to put together a Zoom EO reunion beforehand (just in case). A couple of them contacted me. I contacted a few more. In the end, I think we peaked at around thirty participants. It was quite a thing. And, thankfully – wonderfully – a handful of the old gang hung around for a good while after the rest left.
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Mikl Em died today. His passing was peaceful in the early morning hours. Danielle and his mother were by his side. It wasn’t unexpected, though it is never expected, and one can never be prepared.
Shani had emailed me a couple weeks ago. The cancer was back. It was bad. Mikl Em was transitioning to hospice care at home. It was now imperative to speak with him again — and soon. I spoke to him, briefly, a week later. It was difficult. He was there, but not fully. I also wrote to him. That too was difficult, and awkward, and surreal, and maddening, depressing — painful! It was also important. Those words, assuming he heard them, were last words he would hear from me.
Mikl,
It’s ridiculous how profound your subtle influence has been on my life…
You were my first mentor, and I can’t really point to anything you taught me. You were my first friend in San Francisco, and I’ve become woefully aware of how little I ever knew about your life. Frankly, I was too young, and you were too imbued with weird-ass glamour for me to ever fully get my bearings. But that never stopped you — or Danielle — from making me comfortable, from making sure I felt like I belonged, from being my friend.
Danielle, I have no good words for you. There are none. I can’t help but feel that the only thing keeping vast swaths of San Francisco from spinning out of control from the loss of Mikl’s massive gravitational pull is your own equally profound grace and fortitude.
His memory will be a blessing to all that knew him. Of that I have no doubt.
זיכרונו לברכה
