Gorilla Warfare Against The Bureaucratic State

Whether he was watching head-butting contests in the basement of a of 1950s Brooklyn tenement, picking up laundry in a former Nazi concentration camp as a Jewish-American soldier, or navigating the Kafkaesque hearing room where the city of Boston relegates challenges to parking tickets, Michael Silverstein’s peculiar life was filled with unexpected turns, and unlikely (but irresistible) humor. Mike was a man who lived in a (literal) windmill in Spain, and tilted at (metaphorical) windmills everywhere else. He cleaned toilets for the Queen of England’s secretary, and was a featured speaker at a $15,000 a plate Clinton-Gore fundraiser (only to be banned from future events for insulting their biggest donor). He was an original thinker - one of the first people to see the possibilities for solar energy, and the economic opportunities in sustainable green business. But, he was also a compulsive truth-teller with a pathological aversion to personal success, who would promote ideas until others picked them up. Then, he would move on to something else before he could get any personal credit for them, making sure to publicly insult powerful people in the process. But, to everyone’s surprise - especially his own - he left a lasting legacy of small victories against the forces of corruption and cynicism, and earning the love of those who knew his odd mix of gentle caring, wry humor, and skeptical but optimistic worldview.