Who is Eric, and why would those words ring in your head all night, when he was just found this morning?

Dateline on the article is 5.14.

Miko was found the morning of Wednesday May 14th.

We spent many a drunken hazy night at Fred’s. The last I saw him, he seemed so bright and healthy. I had hoped his dark days were behind him. To those who knew him - I am so sorry.

Just found out about Miko…I’m devastated. Years ago I moved to South Grand from out of state. Miko was the first person to introduce them self to me and make me feel welcome to my new neighborhood. He was a constant friend for the 2 years I lived there. An awesome,funny, classy friend. Hell of bowler too! He always knew where “IT” was at. I’ve been missing him for a while now, I guess I will continue to miss him.

Completely genuine, Miko was one of the few people I have ever met who were as nice as they seemed to be. Too many times, people can be phonies. There was nothing fake about Miko. I am stunned. Absolutely speechless.

My heart is broken.

We will miss his smiling face at the Blackthorn. It just won’t be the same. My prayers are with his family and many friends. It’s a sad day.

Miko was a very special, sweet person.

I think I first met Miko at Frederick’s Music Lounge, in late 1990’s when we were both customers in the era when the Lounge was operated by Fred Sr. We spent a lot of quarters there, honing our skills on the bumper pool table under the tutelage of Fred Sr. Our evenly matched skills at the game became an ongoing joke, as we constantly alternated as winner.

and, as someone posted earlier, I witnessed him actually beat the master at his own game (though I always suspected it may have simply been part of the jedi/bumper pool training program.)

I think the original association he had with the Lounge, may have been connected to his role as “the Fourth Highway Matron”, during an era when he was a staple at Highway Matrons shows, as roadie and merch guy. Band member Fred Friction began working there as a bartender in 1999 (98?) and we began to see Miko even more.

I was fortunate to work with Miko at a number of different jobs, including a period when he worked long hours for me, alphabetizing VHS tapes at a video wholesale warehouse waay out in Fenton. Miko, who usually got from one place to another on foot, took the long bus ride from the city to county every morning, and always greeted everyone with an interesting story of that morning’s fellow bus riding characters.

We also worked together from time-to-time packing powdered frozen yogurt mix in Fred’s basement for export to South America, Africa, & the Orient.
Each week, the shipments we would be packing would be going to a different country. It was Miko’s suggestion that our conversations during those shifts only be done using an accent of the country the stuff would eventually be served at. (”datza berry fine tuddi-fruiddy icey-krem”)

Later, when Fred Sr. died and we reopened the Lounge as a live music venue, Miko was an very important part of our team. He worked on and off over that 5-6 year run as a greeter/doorman, bartender, janitor, barback, & soundtech. He had the diplomatic skills needed to expertly expel the occassional troublemaker, with the guy ending up thinking that Miko was his new best friend.

We were all very proud of Miko when he took the job as manager of the Black Thorn Pub a few years ago. He ran a very efficient operation and seemed to be well liked by all of his employees & customers.

In the past few years, since The Lounge closed, I regrettably wasn’t able to spend as much time with Miko as in years past. But we still managed to keep contact and have a quality visit at least once every couple weeks.

Though he had struggled with emotional ups and downs over the years, he rarely let those down periods be evident to his customers and casual acquaintances.

To the contrary, during some troubling times in our extended family’s lives,(including our loss of Fred Sr and later, Hunter) he was one who counselled others in dealing with their grief, stressing that we hold on to the postive memories we had of the departed, rather than the sadness we were feeling at the time.
I hope that we all attempt to follow his advice when our thoughts turned to our loss of Miko.

He had a lot of friends and was loved by many.
As others have posted, he will be greatly missed.

I echo everyone else’s sentiments. I was very saddened to hear the news. Miko was a wonderful human being and true original. He was always very patient with me when we worked at Freds even coaxing some bad cover songs out of me when I hosted open mic.

He will be missed