005-better-than-me

Dear Diatribe That titty man is back again The evening completely blew away expectations. This Gerhardstein is somewhere in his 60s; his back and neck are very noticeably stiff; the stiffness is far more exaggerated by the fact that his goddamn name is Gerhardstein. He is not the kind of man that emanates warmth; not at first glance anyway. There was something to see though if you were looking. I was looking because Geeta set me up for it. There was a tone in her descriptions of him, the source of which I wanted to see. Helen is his wife.

She is sassy and he responded with a

knowing grin that speaks volumes about his own impish nature. Something in that made me smile and want to know more, even beyond my wife’s encouragement. One of the Chopin Nocturnes was playing when we walked in, which I recognized and commented on. Chopin … Horowitz? He says “no”, and the music stopped as he gestures toward his entering wife. Mrs. Gerhardstein you play beautifully.

One of the Nocturne’s is impressive enough. She asked if I played.

You and I know that isn’t a

question I like to answer. No, I can’t play any more" Geeta’s hand comforted me for a moment. "Did you have a broken heart son?” So, Tribe, how do I answer that one? No, I just really can’t play anymore. It’s a physical thing. I still know where all the notes are, I just can’t play them like I used to. She backed off that line of questioning, and turned to see Geeta.

She greeted her like a lifelong friend. That was odd,

and endearing. Geeta lifted her right hand to greet her, with her left, she grabbed you Tribe, my vade mecum.

She wanted to

keep us apart during dinner conversation. Don’t take it personally; she just doesn’t understand what we have together. Fuck, I don’t understand what we have together. We have only words Tribe. Dinner was nice. A baked trout with shiitake mushrooms. Shiitake have a distinct taste, but plate presentation with such

an ingredient is a key. You wouldn’t dice them, regardless of the gustatory value of the small pieces. There needs to be, and were, long cuts screaming “SHIITAKE”. It is the way to go. I assume it was made by one of them, complemented as such. However there was no sign of sweat and labor from preparing the meal. Could be like a cooking show, maybe it was done for them. I think it’s best to assume that they did. Is it assuming the best to say they did?

Purchasing the best might be just as

noble. It was good. The night got me thinking that the Geet and I should be hanging out with a set in their late sixties and early 70’s. The dinner conversation sparkled. Then it challenged me a bit. Ah, to have erudite conversation with the well-read and well-spoken. Something we need to have now and again. Either this Gerhardstein was excited to meet me, or is a really phony bastard. I cowered at his bona fides. “What is it that you do?” “Tell me more about your work?” You’re a doctor who runs an AIDS Center! What is my meaningful contribution to the planet? I’m office fodder sir, may I fax something for you? He kept asking and I had to keep

bringing it back to. You are the one who’s interesting here!! The mass of men enjoy a precious privacy in the fact that nobody gives a shit about them. Especially your betters, you don’t want them interested in you at all. Could there be another reason than scorn prompting them to ask? I don’t know if I have mentioned it didn’t go that way. I got a really different take on him than I do on the fustier members of the “Greatest Generation”. He actually spoke to me like we were contemporaries. I enjoyed that; nervous as I was, it made me comfortable. He wanted to know about my work. He’d heard of Linux and was interested in this “free stuff”. OK So I started telling them about open source projects I had used. He was a lot more interested than what you would expect. Whenever I get into my work beyond “Computer work” with someone of his age, they quickly begin nodding knowingly when it is clear they are not understanding, just bored or frustrated with me for speaking over their head. I do try not to talk above them.

This man who is clearly my better was very interested. He spoke up when he didn’t understand, but was quickly righted; his wife Helen as well. Tribal Title: Better than Me Helen is on a constant riff of comedic social commentary with a bit of an edge. The magnetism to that type of humor had me at once.

Her witticisms were often graced with uproarious

double-entendre. In many professions, there is a seriousness that ends up being displayed in a way that is distant, stuffy, often brusque and curt. Gerhardstein looks that way. Look at the aforementioned stiff back and you start to categorize the doc in a detached, serious, scientific phylum, but he is a man lucky enough to be paired with lady that causes you to take your hand out of that file. Knowing about the cranium that this guy is sporting, then having it dawn on me “if she loves him, he must be all right”; he ends up as a pretty intriguing fellow. I kept wondering why he was so interested in what I did. The interest was directed; it wasn’t merely friendliness-based. Seemingly out of nowhere, he pipes in with “so I hear you’re like Von Freeman?” Well, yeah he’s playing tonight. “I heard; do

you wanna get high with me?” He was referring to a club in Wicker Park called “Get Me High Lounge”. It was getting on about 9:15 or 9:30, I had thought that one of the benefits of dining with a couple in that stage of life was that I would get out in time to go check out the gig I wanted while they counted sheep. Who would have thought we would be headed out together? As it turns out, Geeta knew about it the whole time. He was really interested in some things. We took his car up the Kennedy to the club. He knew of it, it was a place he had sought out for some jazz when he came to town. Particularly he wanted to find traditional bop or some kind of neo-bop. Both are what you hear at the “Get Me High”. The one big club he had known in Boston was for the highbrow connoisseur; it’s not that he wouldn’t have fit in. Chicago’s Jazz offering was on a side street in a residential neighborhood. The area is gritty and at least looks working class. It is quite fashionable nowadays. Lunchbox-types built most of Chicago. The areas they did the best jobs on are the modish costly haunting of a distinctly white-collar community. We settled in at a table in the club and I went to the bar for drinks. We had wine at dinner; there would not be too much indulgence. They wouldn’t be allowed to “get us high”. I however started did start with a Bombay martini, up with extra olive,

for him a glass of port. He eyed my tall glass and its eight or nine ounces with a palpable disdain. So I got water back and let my gin lose its chill, the only attribute that makes it a martini. ‘Martini-ness’ might be the term for one who was attempting taxonomy in the tradition of Aristotle. He gave a look that had me begin to understand this was a business meeting of sorts. Is it an informal job interview? I don’t know. He had more to talk about; dinner certainly didn’t cover it. The band probably won’t start for an hour. A lady was at the piano. She wasn’t the opening act. At this club, they present ambient house tones. She played a lot of standards which had both of us singing a line or two. He produced some papers from his inside pocket. A stapled document folded lengthwise. With the addition of some reading glasses, he was off into these pages. He read for a minute of two longer than you would think if what he was looking at was for discussion with me. I settled back and watched the pianist work the keys. He began abruptly “your wife honored me with your treatise on open source medicine”.

Treatise? You have but a few pages there. Can I see them? I wouldn’t refer to this as some kind of pronunciamento. He handed me the document. I remember this. I wrote that about two years ago. It was to be the introduction, or part of the opening chapter of the perspective treatise or something of that ilk. “So this isn’t something you are still interested in?” That was the genesis of what has been my obsessive compulsion for the last couple of years. …I couldn’t really define it with that document right now. “What have you been doing with this lately then?” The idea’s just a lot more expanded. I grabbed the Tribe from my bag. I had to tell him that it is a tablet PC. I have a keyboard, but it is most handy for occasions like this. It is small; it’s a big PDA really. I turned it on, he saw a SUSE Linux logo as it booted, he pointed and gave a nod. He broke Out laughing after it booted.

Because of the lengthwise tabloid orientation of the screen, I had mocked a fitting image for the wallpaper. It was based on the famous photo of the rat pack in front Of the Sands Hotel. I had cut out and replaced each of the member’s noggins. Actually I left Dino’s in place, but in my reality I served as chairman. Dino and I stood to the left of the group. Sammy Davis is replaced by The Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein took the place of Peter Lawford and Leonardo Da Vinci was cast in the role of Joey Bishop. Gehardstein, believe it or not, was interested to some extent in me professionally and intellectually. Perhaps it was a bit early for me to be showing my eccentricities. I’ll take his laugh as a good sign. Although it is a lesson that is taught to me often; someone laughing at you is no indication of a positive opinion about anything other than your sense of humor or that you are amusingly foolish. “I’m glad to see that you possess enough confidence to take Ole Blue Eyes position in this pack of yours; I dare not ever refer to The Mahatma or Einstein as rats. If they were vermin, I say pass the cheese.” Amen That was the only reply I can think of.

I opened up the document I had been writing about open source pharmaceuticals. At this point, as you know well Tribe, it totals three-hundred and twelve pages, which have weighed you down for years now.

These three-hundred and twelve are the

distilled version of what probably totals over a thousand I have written.

I distill by pulling out what I want others to view.

It is distilled, not edited.

I’ve always expected that any

serious interest in the idea would likely be garnered postmortem. I never thought about how to react if someone serious really wanted to know about it. As I opened the items of interest on the Tribe, he watched carefully. The band began to setup and sound check. I was hoping not to offend by making it look like a Starbucks type of venue where the portable computing device is the focus for so many. A jazz club certainly is not that sort of locality. Not that it couldn’t be, but since the fifties, they are not a common meeting place. There are some of us who dream of an existence where joints like this were so numerous that it would be a casual and regular thing that you were at all the time. No matter what you would be doing, there would be some cats working. In Mexico, it’s like that with mariachis. It’s a regular profession, they are needed everywhere. That is Mexico’s music, jazz is ours, and I wish it worked in a similar way.

The interest from Gerhardstein had peaked my enthusiasm. I had to talk about it. At dinner it was just talking about open source stuff I do at work, here he wants to know about the ideas I wax about to my most intimate friends; namely Geeta and you Tribe. I had to ask him Where does your interest in this come from? I’ve not shared my ideas with that many, no one of your stature.

Nobody outside

of my own carcass has given more than a passing glance. “I am an AIDS researcher” was his matter-of-fact reply. I'm aware of that, sir “Good!” he laughed. “A man needs to take an interest in his wife’s work” “I have a big speech to give that I’m woefully unprepared for.” “This document of yours speaks to the major concern of anyone dealing with the disease on a global scale” “Drug prices are part of every reason why we cannot treat patients we have now.

They are also a major part of what slows

research for the future” Alright then, I can give you plenty of material for that speech; where are you giving it?” “Barcelona” Sounds nice, I’ve never been there. I began showing him my work. The documents, I told him, were something I would print for him to view later on his own. I opened them just to show him their length. Leaving him, I’d suppose, unsure whether I was brilliant, long-winded, OCD, or involved in a sinister plot to bore him. I wanted to move onto a couple of things I had written, in the computer software sense, while learning java programming. Programs, not pogroms; I wasn’t trying to bore him into leaving. I had built a webpage, which I had saved on the Tribe. It is a mock up of what I would expect a system for an open source drug interest would look like. Medicine: Open and Evolving was the name on a logo I created. He complemented that he really liked it. It is in no way professional, it isn’t much of a logo at all.

I started a presentation, not just jawing with him, a real dog and pony show. I have to thank the Tribe for bringing those animals. In my demo, I use an open source molecular modeling tool. I put it on a web page in a first try to see if drug developers could collaborate remotely.

It draws these bubbly-

looking atoms that you can move around and manipulate. To exacerbate the possibility that he would think I am a bonkers, the molecule I pulled up by default, was Fluoxetine (shown here).

That’s generic Prozac.

Gehardstein pipes right in with “I thought this was just a theory of yours, are you developing your own SSRI?” I laughed, trying consciously not to do so like a madman. SSRI, a bit of pharmacology that many have become aware of, stands for Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Listen! Listen closely Prozac I have heard you have to listen to Prozac. The drug itself makes no noise unless you shake the bottle. We can take the mean

of that as “Listening to” (the word) “Prozac”. Just say it, or have it said to you. That reminds me of something. Geeta bought a bottle of hair product that is labeled “Clarifying Shampoo”.

Every morning I

would do just that for her in the bathroom. “Shampoo; that is what it is called” Shampoo is a liquid soap you use on your hair”. I did that until I was asked to stop. The way any good funnyman does with his material. In the genesis of this idea, I realized that to develop it further, I would certainly need to learn something about chemistry, microbiology, pharmacology and be able to distinguish my ass from a whole in the ground. The sciences and ass thing were a big part of this. But all of that is already being done by people allover the world. There are drugs and people develop them; with science. Organizational structure, collaborative process and legal standing are the new things in this writing. In the two years since I thought of this I have spent about 80% of my time on those three aspects. Those create documents, typing. I talked some theory and I showed him how the molecular modeling piece worked.

What I did here was take a bunch of generic drugs, and mapped their molecules out in the application as if they were new drugs developed by yours truly. From there I figured out I needed to be able to have the changes to a molecule trigger database reactions which warn for likely toxicities. I showed him a few more molecules, medicines, but not ones for psychological conditions. It was probably best to show my interest as broader than what might be seen as seeking an elixir for my own mental woes. The band took the stage, he was still full of questions, and really keyed up by all we had discussed. He is moving toward some real belief in open source medicine, at least that is how it seamed. It must have sounded like a specious concept to him at first. He is impressed with my research into all the speciousness. Allow me to advocate the devil. Does his interest mean that my ideas or good? Or have I hit on that Orwellian maxim

“There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.” I am quoting Orwell, with proper dittos. controls my actions.

Big ditto