From Pepper Mouser

I don't know if anyone else did, but I still called him Swami and he still answered to it... especially when the call was to drinks or dinner. He became known as *The Highway Swami* in our little band of "outside agitators" after he came back from India with his long hair and beard and white robes and gnarly bare feet.

Swami was indeed a creative and artistic guy, a force.... genius maybe.... although he usually scoffed at that, but now and then he would agree... "Yes, yes I AM!"  I have so many great memories... where would I start, where would I end. I'll just pick one at random... here's a not so serious one.... in the summer of 1970 on the campus of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.... he turns to the OTHER girl and sez... "How bout YOU honey, you're pretty cute too, have YOU got a boyfriend?" It became our number one, although highly unsuccessful, pickup line of that summer and fall. It doesn't really mean much in the overall scope of his life, but in a way it says a lot... rejection on the one hand, but always hope on the other.

I'll be bringing a little video and some photos (circa '69-'71) to the event on the 29th and hope others do too. With all the people he knew at different times in his life, who knows, maybe we will assemble an interlinked record of his journey. We joked about his "story" in recent years and the walls of my study still echo with the howl of his laughter when I told him my title for it.... "The Doug Michels Story.... How Dolphins Ruined My Life."

Below is his last email to me and attached is my post(Swami)card... he called me by my Burning Man name, Captain Cocktail.
Trust the future Swami.... Pepper
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From: Doug Michels <idealab@earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 12:33:28 +0800
To: Pepper Mouser <pepper@pdq.net>
Subject: AUSTRALIA 2003
G'Day Captn',
I'm off to Australia for a few weeks... be returning on June 21. Downunder consulting on true story orca epic called the Killers of Eden, a feature film production. Sea view in the future,
Swami