Dear Diatribe;

One thing I am sure you have noticed Tribe. More than most,

Gerhardstein is amiable to me bringing you into the

relationship. Our Geeta rarely allows the Tribe to come between

us.

This time, I spent the whole day working with Richard. I

can call him that, Helen told me so.

He said right away “So you bring that thing everywhere, how

do people react?”

Not so well, I have to put it down sometimes.

Figuring that I might as well be honest, I showed him the

recording software. Tell him that he might have been, or is to

be recorded, but disguise it as a computer tutorial.

I just set the machine down and push this button to record. They don’t know that I

am archiving their words, yawns and belches. So, that’s illegal. I need to stop doing it

really. I’ll do that after New Year’s, when I quit smoking, lose weight, and start eating

right.

“Does the recording do you much good?”

I am paranoid about forgetting something important. There is voice recognition

software called Nuance, it doesn’t work that well. It allows me to edit instead of retyping
it all. It does a shitty job really. In fact it won’t get the word “shitty”; that will cause it to

slow down on memory and the next three or four minutes won’t even be usable.

The software is from a job I worked a while back. So this is illegal recording on

pirated software. I can turn it off if you like.

Then Get This, Tribe!!! He approves of my recording!

“Leave it on, I think it’s interesting.”

OK, I will just edit this together tonight. (That is now. I am doing that.

What sort of tense would this be referred to as? There’s a

whole bunch more than just past, present and future. There are

ones like poo-perfect. I don’t think it is that.)

There was to be more than a jazz show and chatting in this

visit. On this second day with Gerhardstein, he was concerned

mainly with questions about Open Source Pharmaceutical

Development in practice. I won’t just straight up transcribe, as

that isn’t Tribe-like. It felt like he was saying something

like this.

“Have you even thought about the difficulty this would

present in practice? What are the processes? What steps one

would have to take?”

Dare I say yes? I had thought about it.

 I handed over three hundred and twenty two pages I had

printed for him.

I had thought of these things. Those pages were the lion’s

of the edited portion of written about the theories. He went

back and forth from deep interest in what I showed him and

skeptical interrogation of the efficacy of my …

Is it a proposal?

Certainly not

I don’t see myself as trying to sell him on this idea, like

I was grant writing or in an interview. He does however have far

more interest in it than I, or anyone, would expect.

Then, what would I expect?

At first, he probably just had a curiosity about something

my wife told him. He wanted to be nice, being interested is

nice. Maybe it was the only thing he found the least bit

interesting about what she had discussed about me.

I know he likes Geeta a lot, and not in any sort of

unseemly fashion. His wife seems to like her just as much. She

has known them for a long time.

People would immediately say “she is like a daughter to

both of them”. I don’t think they would say that, mostly because

of how cliché a phrase that is.

He wanted to continue the discussion on from our dinner,

and he really wanted to hear some jazz. I can understand that.

On the same note that being interested is part and parcel

of being nice; he was remaining interested in something about me

that might hold the attention of someone like him.

The third level of interest that I ascertained was when he

told me about this big AIDS conference address he was to give.

That was the level that actually both made me feel the honor and

justification of his intrigue; it also assuaged my suspicion of

his authenticity.

At that point, I am thinking I might provide him with some

portion of his speech. I don’t have an idea of immediate value

to the AIDS research community. If this Open Drug thing were a

reality, someday, it could produce some kind of AIDS drug. I

doubt he would be up to jump on trying to make it a reality.

Like me, he probably just wants to inspire. That’s what good

speeches do.

Now we come to the point in our second session of

conversation where he begins questioning the plausibility of the

entire concept. I am willing to suffer this questioning for a

while.

Hell; he is my wife’s boss and my livelihood in the on-

again-off-again epic of my consultancy. I will entertain these

questions until they stop for some reason, or until my Geeta

tells me to stop.

It is kind of off-putting, but I doubt I will mention this

to her. She could get really unpleasant. She is real excited

that I met him and his wife and I said he liked me. If I raise

a negative vibe, it ruins the whole thing for her.

I don’t know what the hell this kraut wants from me. He

says he likes my ideas, but does he really?

Conceivably he really wants to run with my pipe dream. By

the nature of pipe dreams then, it becomes his. I am used to

advocating Lucifer for myself on the plausibility within my

Tribal content. It seems Satan has Gerhardstein on retainer now.

Traitor!

I knew he was a serpent when I picked him up.

I make a joke, to myself, in my own diatribe about being a

“devil’s advocate”. I take that joke a few steps out and repeat
it a couple of times. If anyone gave a good god damn what I

wrote in these things, to them I am deranged Satanist.

That would cast an interesting light for folks on my

religious ambiguity. I don’t actually worship the great

Abrahamic adversary. I’d rather go for a Mara or some other

religions enemy.

People just don’t understand my spiritual doctrine. I

believe in god, I just think he’s kind of an ass-clown.

Gerhardstein is playing devil’s advocate.

He says he loves my wife. He is the seminal paternal figure

in her Chicago life. Her own father is not nearly as warm.

That is the reason enough for me to weather anything he has

to dish out.

This could improve my standing with Rajeev. That is my

father in law. I want to call him Raj and get him to say “Hey,

Hey, Hey!” when he sees me. The What’s Happening program

probably had little play in India.

Maybe Raj is checking me out. Fathers always sniff around

their daughter’s suitors. As a scientist, he wants me to verify

that my ideas pass muster. I fear they don’t in the way he is

used to.

We worked for more than 10 hours. We started at 9am around

that piano bar in his house. I held true, not attempting to beg

off until about 3:00pm or so. I have an excuse

I need to check voice mail, e-mail, I have to let Pablo the

dog out. There could be a couple of consulting gigs in the

works.

“You really don’t need to do any of those things today” he

rebuffs.

“Geeta walked Pablo at lunch”

“I might or might not need your services for some time”.

“I hope to any way”

“Either way; Geeta and I have worked out your compensation

for at least a month.”

I said nothing. Speechless is a possible term you could

use. Dumbfounded is another. “Off my rap” is the way I would

phrase it.

I have a rap. I am a consultant. Take that to be a fancy

term for a temp if you like, it often is that. People don’t

always know that I do little more than temping in a profession

that pays more than ones usually addressed as temps. It is

better for my employers to call me a consultant, just because it

justifies the bill. Not a bill paid to me. They pay somewhere

between $100 and $200 and hour to companies that have never seen

the need to pay me more than $50.

Add it up and fifty per hour is a hundred grand a year. It

is a hundred and two actually. Remember to subtract the possible

three months when you cannot find a gig. Take off two weeks

vacation and nine or ten unpaid holidays. It is a lot less, but

if you are twenty-five and healthy it isn’t too bad. Of course

you don’t get $50 at that age. If you need to get your own

insurance, but have a preexisting that makes it so you can’t.

It’s not poverty, but not great money either.

Gerhardstein hooked Geeta up with something like $50k,

benefits and her tuition. That is a nice take home.

I’ve this rap that I am a busy consultant. I need to be in

constant contact. I will have to take other calls. The truth is

that I would have checked home messages if I left, but they

could be checked from the mobile in pocket. E-mail and all work-

related phone calls and messages would have come straight to my

hip. “Is that a consulting opportunity in your pocket or are you

just glad to see me?”

He trumped all components of that rap. I hadn’t even pulled

out the mobile phone. But I did have to walk Pablo the dog? He

was ahead of me on that one too.

I have been at work all day and didn’t even know it.

Geeta pulled the blanket off of me at 7:30, receiving terse

umbrage. She told me Gerhardstein was expecting me by nine at

his house.

I was bitching about nine when this was actually a gig.

What a sweetheart she was for making it that late. Guys this old

start everything before dawn. She wanted to make sure I was at

my best. I will be forced to forgive her. She has become my

agent. She negotiated an engagement and remuneration while I was

unaware.

Gerhardstein is the boss, he is my wife’s taskmaster with a

possibly creepy paternal power over daddy’s friend’s little

girl. He co-opts her husband, her family’s schedule, and ranks

above her spouse when it comes to forthright straight talk.

He also has the money and the insurance to make it happen.

So I say yes sir. You can perform any sort of inquisition you like into my diary. I

have never called you a diary Mr. Tribe. Sorry about that.
 At 3:30, after that exchange, he sensed my restlessness and

decided to allow me to stretch and reinvigorate. He suggested we

go for coffee. I could use some.

We walked and talked for about fifteen minutes. He said

that he had decided that Open Source Medicine would be the theme

of his address in Barcelona. He said he planned to talk about

his plans for the New Research Center here in Chicago, but that

if he focused his speech on a report on his career, it would

seem self-serving and the attendants would peg it right on as

being a fundraising pitch. He didn’t want to go that way, even

if it was one.

He does not have a new discovery to wow them with. He has

some possibilities in the works, but not something that would

blow away the crowd.

Not having any treatment discoveries, he has nothing to

publish. He wants to make sure he doesn’t take the perish

option. He sampled a fictitious speech.

“Ladies and gentleman, I have left Harvard University to

take a better job in Chicago”. Any one who cares already knows

that. “I am building a new research facility, much like the ones

a lot of you have”.

 “Yawn”

“Furthermore, they are going to boot me out the door unless

I build a real nice one, since you are all here, I want you to

come to Chicago and help me”.

“I suppose tears would flow, checkbooks would be thrust

upon me.” “My colleagues would say that they have come to the

conclusion that my little laboratory and the clinic I haven’t

built yet are better than any other that they have built”. “I

will need to offer this wedding for them to kiss, as it is the

only ring that I own”.

He is not as funny as his wife, but he got a couple of chuckles

out of me. Now that I think about hit, he might have stolen a

few lines from her for that bit.

In a speech like this one, he claimed, that you need to lay

out challenges. Two years ago, at the conference in Durban,

South Africa, he was considered a very challenging figure. A

year later he was made a Director with so many administrative

duties that he is nothing but a suit dealing with budgets and

marketing plans.

“OK, I will be a suit”

“I realize that we are lacking in fighting the disease, but

that is not what suits produce. I am to hone my skills to

produce just one thing.”

“Money, ways to get money, where money should be spent,

that sort of thing”

Then he stops and makes eye contact so seriously and for so

long, I began to squirm.

He charged into an off the cuff speech that I will try to

write down as word-for-word as I can muster. Although I was

squirming, my attention couldn’t have been more complete.

“Peter, your ideas are the most articulated in this area

that I have heard. I want to throw them out there and see

if anyone bites. I could take a lot of guff for this at the

University. In case it flops, I will write it off to

eccentric genius.”

I would not say genius.

“That’s fine, your wife will.”

“If they jump aboard, I will need your help in getting

organized. I don’t know for how long, or in what capacity.

I don’t even know what capacity I will be taking on with

it. I know I will not be fulltime. I have commitments to my

 new community here that are my main concern. I could back

pedal from my promise to do research through treating every

AIDS patient in the city. I wouldn’t be the first to back

off of a monumental task to take on another, but I am not

ready to give that up. The tension and excitement brought

about by provoking altruism with this kind of intrepidity

could help achieve exactly what I have aimed to get here.

Good people to work with, generous donors, and repute

to satisfy my bosses at U of C.”

That’s not word-for-word, I spiced it a bit, but it was

just as moving.

I’m on board with that, doc.

This was my inspirational quip. In a Bartlett’s Quotations

moment and this is what I say? Perhaps “witty raconteur” will

not be the tagline at publication of my memoir. Damn it, I love

that word.

He guided us to a new coffee shop on 57th. The larger

letters on its sign read “SUF”. As we walked closer I saw the

acronym stood for “Stay up Forever”. It feels like I am writing

at an augural moment, foretelling of that I do not know about.

That is the name of the place, hell yeah, look it up.

 We continued our discussion there. I was going through

timelines of drug development and approval with him.

I start with the US FDA model. It is the most difficult of course, but we are in the

US, so what the hell? I really don’t envision an organization like this fighting the champ

in their first outing. In the end it doesn’t matter what country it was; it could be India,

Europe or China, the first step is the same anywhere you would want to do it. You need

to have an idea and document that you have researched it with other than human

subjects for a minimum of three years.

Minimum is the key here. Coming in at three years makes you seem a little

hurried. They will be suspicious, unless you are <censored (not profanity)> and they are

in love with you.

He seemed to be passing negative judgment that could be

kind of final.

“So what are the chances of getting something like this off

the ground if you don’t have a guaranteed good drug to start

with?”

He told Geeta he would pay me, whatever he is paying, for a

month. Maybe I go should home now. This guy is so smart he makes

my head hurt.

Sorry sir, not a lot I guess. Responds Opie Taylor

Breathe

Bring Muffin to mouth

Sip coffee while pointing in a way that makes it seem I am

anxious to say something of great value, but can’t say it with a

full mouth.

Breathe again. Feign that I had chewed and swallowed so

fast trying to get my monumental thoughts out that I needed some

oxygen.

Use those seconds to put words together.

Then speak!

It would require a commitment by the organization, and likely some sort of

avoidance of enemies who lye in wait. You’re right, the one thing that was impossible for

me to take a good accounting of is the likelihood of a good enough idea coming from

the academic community swiftly enough to make a splash before the organization gives

up and folds.

“That presents you with the greatest risks and the most

difficult efforts in your whole concept”

There are some whoppers in subsequent stages, but you do have to get there. In

that sense, I do agree.

“To actually make this work, you would need rarest of

circumstances. You have nearly everything covered on the

scientific and structural end. Neither of those are your

professional specialty. I made a call last night on the legal

components. You wrote over fifty pages on that.”

How did I do?

“Not bad at all, the contact I had said you probably at least

consulted a lawyer. He said if he was asked to write a report of

that length, he couldn’t have done better. In the end several

thousand pages and a clear-cut a forest would be needed to make

it happen in reality.”

Good to hear, I am glad your friend liked it.

“I didn’t even ask you I sent it around without even thinking.”

It is yours to send. It is open source. I intended no copyright on the ideas. God knows

what I could or would do with one.

He smiles

“I guess that is true. So are you an open source guy? I mean an

all-around open source guy?”

I haven’t moved to a pant-less existence. I am still hiding my underwear from

publication without a publishers advance. I believe in openness as a concept.

 I started my adulthood wanting to be a musician. Music is all open sources.

When you hear something, depending how well you know your instrument, you can use

it. If you copy it straight-up, you are kind of a hack. You have to do something with it to

make it something great. Jazz or classical, you can do that. In classical you just have to

do it like a hard-bopper. You have to stick to the staff.

“Did you get there?

Did you make something great?”

I think I got to the place that, from which you know you might get there.

“I think I know what you mean.

Computer work is a very different path. How did you take

that curve?”

People say that it is very different, I’m not sure it is.

“You didn’t like Helen asking you about why you no longer

play. What if I ask?”

For you, that’s different. You are a doctor, so you would understand completely. It

needs to be mentioned though. You are a doctor, so you know what not to ask.

That was more than I wanted to say. With a grip on sub-

text, it should be quite enough.

 “So tell me about this whole, out-of-your-profession

thing.”

You needn’t ignore areas outside of your experience. Everything I don’t know lies

in that territory. Everything in the stuff you’ve read were things I didn’t know before

“I count you lucky as well as smart for being able to write

something that interests me and my legal friend accepted.”

Isn’t it better to be lucky than good?

“That cliché aside, you ran a risk of really making an ass

of yourself by showing it to someone.”

Sangeeta showed it to you

“You had intended on showing it to someone, hadn’t you?”

I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it …

That’s not true. I thought about it, then I couldn’t come up with a good scenario

for when and who. So then I would stop thinking about it.

“So you would just write this?”

Perhaps I would?

I have been journaling into an electronic device for about five years now. The

content had always been a lot more varied. I had the first scraps of this Open Source
thought two years ago. I thought the concept had some merit, but the few people I

mentioned it to dismissed it right away.

“On what grounds?”

I think it was mostly because I was talking out my ass. I had nothing but sparsely

connected thoughts with little to back them up. People yap on ideas at that level all the

time.

“Go on”

I just decided to make it a real idea. It’s an Open Source idea and I do know

Linux. I figured it was a start. I have seen that there are a lot of companies based on

some type of information flow. Even when it isn’t a technology company, the base of the

whole thing is a database; a computer system contains the whole shooting match. Guys

like me get called in to quickly become the untaught parishioners of their trades.

Two years ago I was sent to a hospital while working for a radiology systems

company because the hospital asked for some radiology expertise. Would you like me

to read your CT-scan?

“Well, I can’t really read one, and I have an MD”

Exactly

“What made you think you could do it?”

“Write a viable theory, that is?”

 Didn’t know I could. I am on cloud nine now. I feel like Da Vinci handing his

notebook directly to a Larry Bell

“Who’s Larry Bell”?

He’s the founder of Bell Helicopter

Just an analogy that I thought of once

It’s related to that “Out-Of-Your-Profession thing”

Tribal Title: The Bells of St. Larry

I have been into this study of great minds for about five years. I think about that

Da Vinci thing a lot.

“What about him”?

He did a drawing in his notebook that is the same “flying machine” concept the

modern helicopter is based on. So one day I wrote something in here about how

Leonardo might do running a helicopter company. An artist/defense contractor

“OK, I see an influence here”

“A good one at that”

“I am glad this attention flattered you. Any idea where you

want to go with this from here”?

 I think I nailed it. You are interested. If you really use in this speech of yours, I

think I am done.

“I guess I would just ruin the whole thing for you”

You would just top it all off. It is not my life’s ambition.

“That’s fine, but I might need some help for a while”

I am not going to stop working; this is what I do. I would be glad to help.

“That’s good to hear. We can see how it goes.”

I don’t have enough hard drive space to save the entire

recording session I did with Gerhardstein. I am going to save

some so I can prove to people that I helped him with the speech.

To pull out the digital camera and grab a picture would have

been far too tacky.

I have no idea what the speech is going to do. We did come

to the conclusion that it was nearly impossible to do. I agreed

with him because I wasn’t there to disagree, or be disagreeable.

He really shouldn’t have to pay me for a month for this.

There is nothing for me to do once he leaves for Spain.

I was feeling proud, and then I was horrified. If I get

paid for a month, it will just be because he promised Geeta. “I

thought you said it was a good idea”. That is what I expect to

here at home.

It would be like a girl in her thirties living on money

from her dad; Living in sin that is. There would certainly be

emasculation for the boyfriend involved. He is not her father.

He is the closest thing to it that will accept whitey being

around though.

That is extreme and unfair; the kind of thing I can only

say to the Tribe. Because Tribe, you know all the ways that I

suck and are still supportive.

I did say that. It is a good idea for someone like me. For

someone like him, it is an interesting curiosity. Her dad is one

of those guys; the Gerhardstein type.

Did she and the Gerhardstein’s think I was too?

Bless their hearts.

Not much time remained of stewing on this. Helen

Gerhardstein and Geeta walked into the coffee shop together at

six. Helen carried a newly purchased suit in a bag for her

husband. It was purchased for his speaking engagement. She

unzipped the wardrobe bag and showed us. It was from Brooks

Brothers. They had gone shopping on north Michigan. There is a

whole mile of stuff there that is just, well, magnificent.

If you like that kind of thing

Geeta sat down with me and saw the recording software on my

screen. She pushed the button. It was stopped already and she

started it again. I pushed stop and it became a childish back

and forth. I pointed out her error, she smiled and it stopped

before embarrassment.

There was a pizza place called Medici pretty much next

store. We finished coffees and wandered over.

A lot of “so ho did it go” came after that. I just wanted

to change the subject. The other night when we were just dining

together this was a relaxing and interesting conversation. I

thought if I could get Helen Gerhardstein laughing, we could

carry the whole thing away. She was willing to go down a humor

road, but wanted to come back just as much as Geeta did.

“So what’s next for you too and your plans?” Helen takes

the conversation back in the direction of dread. I am waiting

for the let down. With Gerhardstein’s polite disposition, it

would be a soft and complimentary descent. That would remain

well cushioned while we are here, but the longer it took to let

Geeta down, the more hope she would have. The let down on her
aspirations could go from a trip off a curb to a fall from a

building.

“Your father will be disappointed Saneeta”

Shit! He is taking it there right away, and pouring curry

on the wounds.

“I am going to have to call and tell him that you married

well in your rebellious stage. If he takes my advice on this,

your wild oats will provide sustenance for a life time”.

“Helen?”

She produced a bottle of wine from her oversized bag, a

Ruffino Classico 99. Classico takes Chianti to a whole new

level. It’s not a terribly expensive level, but one to relax and

enjoy. It is the one wine that Geeta especially fancies, that is

from where my knowledge originates.

I respect that they didn’t pull out a $200 bottle of hooch.

What is the challenge with finding some good stuff when you make

it clear that you have two c-notes to disperse? That’s usually

clear just by looking at you. I get pointed right over to the

Boone’s Farm and Mad Dog.

“As I thought he might, Peter has given me the speech I was

looking for.” He handed the bottle to our waitress and gave a

circular point to indicate he wanted glasses for all.

Helen and Geeta applauded, Geeta clutched my hand and

smiled. Since he is leaving in a couple of days and doesn’t have

another topic in the bag, he had to go with what I gave him. I’m

happy. A months pay for two days work is as good as it gets for

someone like me.

It is getting late, there was more, more work to do, but at

2:00am, I don’t trust myself to write it anymore.

Get some sleep Tribe. Being an inert digital representation

of wandering thought patterns, and being virtually stored on an

inanimate object, must be exhausting.