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Mike, aka "MZ", is a brother of mine. There are many things that
give me a feeling of kinship with this guy.
Back in the early 80's when I was recruited into the Cleveland band "Love Affair",
Mike was part of the road crew and had other family ties to the band. I was new to the West side of Cleveland, operating
on a club musician's budget, and spending 6 months out of the year on the road to boot. Mike and his family took me into their home
and treated me like one of their own. I soon found that their kindness and generosity were limitless and legendary, spearheaded by
the family patriarch Michael Sr. (who unfortunately past away just recently). I will always have a very special place in my heart
for both Ma and Pa Zullo. My good friend Michael Jr. has always carried on his dad's most endearing and dignified qualities with grace,
good times, and laughter. This is the real people category here folks.
Mike is a fine musician himself and has performed as a bassist with two main band projects over the years:
The Millionaires, and more recently, The New Century Beatniks.
Mike and I also share a somewhat slapstick sense of humor, and
an equally bizarre sense of artistic creativity. Below
is an example of an exercise we'd go through where one of us
would start a drawing with maybe nothing more than a nose or
an eye. Then it would get handed over to the other and
something would be added...more of the face...an arm...the legs
(Mike was definitely a much better artist whose rendering of
anatomical parts, such as hands, were far superior to mine).
Regardless, we whittled away at these things for an afternoon
or maybe a couple of days. The sample below is by far
one of our more illustrious works, which I luckily saved for
years. Here's to you...Zoi Brother!
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