I need someone to love me the whole day through

Justin Weiss, born April 6, 1922, the son of an immigrant, graduated from Rutgers in 1942, half a semester early. He test-flighted two-engine fighters during World War II; he was the engineering service officer for about two hundred fifty men. He recounted this ostensible war story during this 1994 interview:

“Oh, I was a great pilot. One day while we were waiting to leave Europe in the staging area near France as I said, a friend of mine, a non-flying officer, said, a colleague of mine, “Hey! Let’s take up one of these planes and go visit this friend of mine down in Orleans.” And so I said, “Sure,” because I’d been flying these anyway. So we took off and I was such a sharp pilot that I didn’t have an aircraft map. I had a road map. [laughter] But I knew where it was, you know. So we got down there and discovered there wasn’t an airfield there. [laughter] So I saw this softball field, and I said, “Well, we can set down here.” So we set down and ran out of field before I ran out of speed. [laughter] Crossed the road, wound up in a ditch, and we were standing on our nose. The propeller broke and some other damage. I got the plane down, and so we had no choice, but to spend the night … in the place where these ordnance troops lived while the ordnance mechanics, I went to Paris in a jeep and got parts, and they fixed the airplane under my direction. And then, as we were preparing to leave the next morning in this little plane, we had to spin the prop. We didn’t have an electric starter, and he was spinning and it wouldn’t go, and I said, ‘You sit in the cockpit and I’ll spin.’ And I gave it a good spin and the next thing I know I see my watch on the ground. The prop had kicked back and just hit me right there.” [Could it have taken off your arm?] “Yeah, it could have. I was sure I had a broken wrist so it was back to Paris again, by jeep this time, for medical attention. And so I come back, and I take off, no airfield. I take off down the highway, one arm in a sling. It wasn’t broken, but it was badly swollen and hurt. … What seemed like hundreds of guys cheering me off as I jumped off the ground over some wires and took off. [laughter] That was the closest I came to a combat mission. But no, as you see, I had an easy time in the service.”

After night classes at Columbia, he did a brief stint at Yale Medical School in the clinical psychology department, taught clinical psychology in Harvard’s doctoral program, and went on to run that program for Harvard. Dr. Justin Weiss was the chief psychologist for Harvard’s doctoral psychology program until he resigned in 1982.

Dr. Justin Weiss, devilish, lovable, egoless, atheist, cigar smoker. He enjoys his weekly poker sessions at the Harvard Club: “probability seminars,” as he puts them. When I moved in with Mandy several years ago, he called me and said: “I want to tell you how shocked! Shocked! I am that you are living in sin with my granddaughter!” And he immediately changed tone. “And are you having fun?”

A year ago I told him: “When I grow up, I want to be you.”  He laughed and said, “Me too.”

Dr. Justin Weiss is the father of my mother-in-law. A week ago in Florida, he collapsed as he was going out to get the mail. His son, also a Harvard doc, flew Dr. Weiss by air ambulance to Massachusetts General Hospital. Lung cancer, liver cancer, affecting his brain, spreading fast. All the family members, gathered around his bedside here tonight, as the presiding white-haired doc says: “It’s an honor to work on his case. We can definitely make his remaining time as pain-free as possible.”

At the top of what is probably the best hospital on the East Coast. All the other floors in this hospital are your typical tile and anonymous white walls, but the top floor is special. There is wood paneling everywhere. This floor in this tower of this hospital is called Phillips House. Sharp-eyed, well-spoken RNs check into this room punctually on the hour. The waiting room contains a beautiful wood cabinet filled with antique china. The couch pulls out into a sofa bed. And the cool midnight lights of the Boston cityscape twinkle and beckon, tracing delicate brushstrokes across the river Charles.

The twenty-second floor is where the best-connected in Boston get well or die.

I drew watch tonight. It’s one a.m. now. He does not speak. I am not sure if he sees me or knows who I am. As I write this, Dr. Justin Weiss’s hands fidget endlessly over a small brown Beanie Baby tiger. I have found that, if I keep the Beanie Baby in his hands, he fidgets with the doll, and is less likely to pull the oxygen tubes from his face. I have figured out how to replace his oxygen tubes in any case. He seems to fidget less, also, when I hold his hands, and stroke them.

I cannot bring myself to talk to him.

Hail Mary, full of grace. See you when the sun rises —

You’d be surprised to know what a dime would buy

My wife’s father sat, flanked on either side by his daughters, Jodie and my wife, Amanda. For reasons that are lost in the thick history of my wife’s family, he is generically referred to as Nurn. Nurn is sixty-plus, with a salt of gray hair and a big round belly and a rich, sonorous voice. He would make a great part-time Santa Claus, were he not Jewish. Mandy’s mother, tired, smiling thinly, cuts another piece of date cake and poured a glass of milk for me. Seven hours of airplanes. It was one-thirty a.m.

“Yes, I suppose – it’s been difficult,” said Nurn, looking into his empty glass. “I received the call four days ago from the nurse. She said, ‘Your father has something very important to say to you,’ and the nurse put him on, and my father said to me, ‘Dan, I’ve had it. No more. I want to die.”

Nurn paused, his tired, red eyes brimming with tears, and his daughters touched his arms.

He said, “I went to him. And when I talked to him, as best I could understand him he was concerned about the money. He thought that he didn’t have enough money to keep him on life support. I told him this wasn’t the case, and he seemed to feel better about it. About going on, and living.”

I wanted to ask something, but I kept quiet.

Nurn said, “And I told him that he can continue to live. And that maybe his life won’t be exactly the same as it was before, and perhaps he won’t have the independence that he had, but his friends can visit him, and maybe he can talk with them. And he can be happy, I think. Maybe he can live, perhaps not an existence of the body, but an existence… of the mind.”

His daughters silently cried crystalline tears. They rolled down on his shoulders.

He said, “But I have to tell you… without Grampa, your Grammy is less and less… present. Apparently Grampa was the only thing keeping her in check, and with him gone… well… there is very little of her present anymore. She has become… Violent.”

Nurn’s big body quakes and trembles. I hold his hand and it burns in mine.

“It got… Bad. We had to call the police. And the officer came, and I must tell you… this is important… he was so kind and understanding. And he handled the situation so professionally. He didn’t hurt her at all. And later, I thought, how kind the officer was to take care of her, like that…”

“You’re a great son,” said Amanda, holding him. “You’re the best son that ever was.”

“And so I called his captain, I called his captain to say specifically what a good job he did. In taking care of my mother. When someone does a good job, of course… it’s important, to say thank you, to the person in charge…”

Nurn collapsed and cried, thick guttural sobs racking his body. “Because,” he breathed, “because that is the way I was raised.”

More than words to show you feel that your love for me is real

A day of extremes.

Spoonful of Caesar salad on a spoon, frozen in dry ice; sushi cartoon with bluefin tuna, an inkjet picture printed on nori, with carbonated grapes that sizzle on your tongue; champagne and king crab, a little exclamation mark of seafood; French onion soup with a frozen-hot crouton, with liquid nitrogen added, it sizzles mad-scientist style in your bowl; Lobster with freshly-squeezed orange soda, also carbonated; artichoke, hundred-year-old balsamic vinegar; French-fry potatoes, cut by hand into an impossible but true chain link; bass cooked on the table in four-hundred-degree miniature glass tandoori; dry-aged beef with braised pizza ingredients in a remoulade; doughnut soup — the ingredients of doughnut glaze in a cream base soup; and chocolate mousse with liquid center with hot ice cream. All this came with the Moto wine progression: the Duval-Leroy Brut Champagne, Mount Langi Ghiran Riesling, Echeverria “Unwooded” Chardonnay, Vyes Breussin Vouvray Reserve, Vlackenberg Gewurtztraminer, J. Palacios, Petalos del Bierzo from Galecia, C.G. Di Arie Syrah, De Bortoli “Noble One” Botrytis Semillon from New South Wales.

And (as it deserves a line all by itself) the Jaques Puffeney “Cuvee Sacha” Arbois.

A day of extremes. Last night I took the Japanese to Moto Restaurant, an uber-tony restaurant in the old industrial section of Chicago. As a restaurant, Moto is somewhere between Trader Vic’s, Benihana and Cirque du Soleil. Every dish — and in the standard meal, there are ten of them — has a chemical or physical trick straight out of Beakman’s World.

After dinner I towed everyone over to the House of Blues in downtown Chicago for a Steve Vai concert. Steve Vai is the evil dark guitar badass from Crossroads, the heir apparent to American noteheads like Frank Zappa. He put on the most bombastic rock show I have ever attended. Smoke, lasers, costumes, LED-bejeweled guitars, gratuitous leather, and twelve-minute self-indulgent guitar odysseys. It was far past camp, and it was the perfect sensory second course to the gastronomic thunderstorm of Moto. It was a vast two-hour evacuation from deep within the constipated bowels of rock.

A day of extremes. I received a call from Mandy. Her father’s father, having survived open-heart surgery, has been on life support for weeks. Yesterday, he apparently he informed Mandy’s dad that he no longer wants to live.

Independently of this, yesterday, Mandy’s mother’s father has come down with a serious case of pneumonia. While in the hospital, his tests indicated that he has cancer, and the cancer has metastasized into his liver.

Mandy’s mother and father are taking turns at nighttime bedside vigils for him.

Mandy told me all this and then we made a decision.

I walked out of a customer meeting two hours ago, leaving the Japanese engineers behind. Mandy will come from San Francisco, but I will fly direct from Chicago. Our goal is to provide whatever assistance and comfort we can to the step-parents. A day of extremes. The flight leaves in half an hour.

Ever since I was a tiny boy, I don’t need no candy, I don’t need no toy

Notes from all over: Dad and Rachel came to visit for the first time in four years. Dad’s thinner and more up-to-date on current events, but he takes nine flavors of pills and still obsesses over obsession. My stepsister Stacy has been diagnosed with Devic’s syndrome, a variant of multiple sclerosis. It is statistically important that we have both been diagnosed — Stacy and I are not blood relatives. She’s undergone chemo and has returned to work — she seems generally in good spirits. Amanda continues to take Spanish lessons and fall asleep during Sangha night meditations.

Alex selected a few songs for me to play on guitar for her East-coast wedding in August. We meet today for lunch to discuss how well I can cover the theme from “Star Wars” on my acoustic guitar. Keite rocked in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which I saw last night with Lisa and Marin. Most people in the Rose and Crown listened quietly and clapped respectfully, but the songs got me jumping and headbanging. I tried to convince Keite to come rock at Mr. Fantastic’s birthday party, on September 17 of this year. It seems likely that the Hungry Hungry Hippos will get together again on that day for our 7th last-ever reunion gig.

Four days ago I was offered a leading part (the evil psycho pastor) in an indy horror movie. The director seems well connected, and I’d love to do a horror flick, but the script wanted another draft and so I respectfully passed — hope it was the right thing to do. At City Lights, Mark Phillips just opened “What the Butler Saw“, a fine Brit farce straight out of the sexual-revolution 60s. I couldn’t take the part of Dr. Prentice due to a time conflict, so I recommended Charles, who kicked major ass as Prentice and opened to excellent reviews. I also introduced Taylor to the director — Taylor ended up as the bellboy and he did extremely well.

I had hoped to do a staged read of “Bishop’s 18 Wives” at City Lights in June, but after the ‘Barn read I’m taking the patient back in for major surgery. I’m replotting the thing to be leaner, funnier and more consistent in tone. I’ll try for a read at City Lights in the fall — actor friends, please watch this space for casting info. I just finished my third play, a one-act entitled “The Knitting Circle”. There’s a troupe of actresses in Chicago that loves to do plays with large fight scenes. As you might guess, they’re having trouble finding said women-only chop-socky plays — we’ll see if they appreciate mine.

It’s time to put on makeup, it’s time to dress up right

The staged read of “The Bishop’s Eighteen Wives” that went down last night was actually a full-on production — lights, costumes, blocking, the whole bit. Ann Kuchins did a brilliant job in getting my play on its feet. About sixty people showed up — who the hell were they?

The final result, in terms of the acting and the direction and the blocking, was shockingly good. People laughed where they were supposed to. People paid attention. They “got it.”

But parts didn’t work, and the director and writer types in the audience were plenty blunt with their criticisms.

And what’s more: most of the criticisms were well deserved.

I sat patiently taking notes after the show, thinking, “Yes, that’s right… yes, that’s true… but how the fucking hell am I going to incorporate that into the script?”

But while tossing sleeplessly at four in the a.m., from between my ears, yet again I can hear the quiet voice, the voice that never sleeps, recombinating, reconstructing, rewriting.

Ah, well. Stephen King: “Only God gets it right the first time.”

And I’m sorry that you’re still reminded

Shocked silence throughout the room. A dozen people: no one breathes.

Noel says, “Dissatisfied.”

Silence.

Lance says, “Interrupted.”

Silence.

Anthony says, “I feel like… no… he can’t end like that.”

Silence.

Alex says, “Largely I didn’t get what I wanted. It’s like I got to do some of what I wanted, but I didn’t get it all.”

Silence.

Sean says, “I’m having a tough time with myself. I’m Frank N Furter’s evil twin that just can’t seem to make it with girls. I mean, if he’s going to end up pervy in the end…”

Silence.

Sheri says, “I had a bunch of sex and got away with it.”

Viva la resolution!

I received this e-mail from George Sanger today, aka The Fat Man. He called it his “Daily Dedication for Artists and Workers.” I’m not big into republishing other people’s art here on johnbyrd.org, but in this case his words resonated with my current life. Here’s hoping they help you as well.

If it serves Creator, may my day be dedicated to bringing happiness to others.

May my consciousness be focused on work that will bring this about.

May the positive results of my work radiate to the Universe and help elevate all Beings.

I pray to have faith that work done earnestly and from the heart will have these positive effects. I pray to have faith that work done in this way is as good as any activity in which a living person can engage.

I do not pray that this work will result in praises for myself. I do not pray for material gain. I do not pray for a final product that I can hold in my hand, or that will last forever. I do not pray to know that I have progressed in my skill or wisdom.

I do not pray for reassurance that I have been wise in how I have spent my time.

I only ask for the blessing of a day of work, focused on bringing good to all Beings.

If the focus does not come, may I have the faith to know that the Universe has brought me to a better path than the one I had planned.

If, on the other hand, the day seems at its end to have vanished into nothingness, if it seems to have come up missing, to have been taken away from me, to have disappeared irretrievably into work, and that work seems to have disappeared with less effect than I had planned, with less seeming result, with less praise than I had hoped, and with very little reassurance that I have achieved something,

Then I pray for the faith to take these as signs that this prayer may have been answered, and rejoice in that!

Amen.