Gerry Zyfers remembers his friend Marty

Marty Levin was my best friend. Marty Levin fought multipe myeloma for about 18 months before he finally succumbed in the Spring of 2005.

As I witnessed Marty's struggle I realized that everyone touched by cancer has to become their own research analyst.

The people I met in the Arkansas Cancer Research Center or at Swedish Hospital in Seattle had travelled through some amazing journeys and their experiences could light the path for those following them on those trips.

Getting smart about cancer has a unique urgency -- it's a matter of life and death. I realized that there's a lot of knowledge accumulating in the minds of those touched by cancer that would be very valuable to others also touched by cancer. Hence the inspiration for this website, wikiCancer.

Early work on this site was done by Heather Fanning, George Lange, Greg Bennick, and Mike Howell. But Marty was the inspiration, and his wife Debra gave some great feedback here too.

Marty was a beautiful and inspirational force in the world. I delivered his eulogy in March of 2005, the day before setting off on the first business trip for this venture with my friend Ben Elowitz. Much of the story of the last part of his life can be found in a collection of eulogies dedicated to Marty.

The only storyteller qualified to do justice to the story of Marty Levin was Marty Levin. With so many of us speaking you’ll probably get a fairly accurate picture if you subtract 20% from the total. This is always the right way to read those Marty stories.

Marty was a salesman, an ad man, a flim flam man. Marty could sell shoes to snakes, ice cubes to Eskimos, cereal to housewives, business plans to venture capitalists.He could paint a picture with words and images that would have us all lining up and wanting to believe him, and he seemed sure that if he could convince us then he could believe it himself and it would become true.

He was a radically optimistic existentialist who created himself and created many worlds around him through his dreams. Often his dreams did come true, and therefore he can be called a successful artist and entrepreneur.

I was told that I should say something about his transition from the old world of Chicago big-agency advertising to the West Coast technology world. I should say that while he was ultimately quite successful it wasn’t a completely smooth transition.

Let me tell you a story of Marty’s first big meeting at Microsoft. I wasn’t there, but I’d heard this story twice from other people before I asked Marty to confirm it for me, and he did.

Marty was brought into Microsoft to create the advertising sales model and sales team for MSN. When he arrived he wasn’t completely proficient with computers, in fact, I believe that he walked into that conference room armed with overhead transparencies and was dismayed to see no overhead projector.

Thinking quickly, he turned to the pretty young woman who was alone in the room when he arrived, handed her his transparencies and said, ‘Ah, you’re the girl who makes the copies. Will you please run out and make eight sets of copies for handout during this meeting? Thank you.” She looked at him, nodded, took the transparencies and left the room.

Steve Ballmer walked in. Boom boom. Big guy, Steve. Presence. Bill Gates walked in. Not so big. But Presence with a capital P. Bill says, “What are we waiting for?” Marty says, “The copygirl.” Bill frowns. In she walks with a set of handouts as instructed. She says, “Hi Bill.” Bill says, “Hi Melinda.”

Marty liked that story. He certainly didn’t mind having a laugh at his own expense, it was part of his charm. He also liked a story that put him in the room with Bill and Steve and Melinda.

Marty was an incredible connector, charming politician and consummate schmoozer. To hear him talk about it would make you skeptical, but to look at his scrapbooks was amazing. There’s Marty with Ringo Starr, there’s Marty with Colonel Sanders, there’s Marty with some or another supermodel. There’s fishing Marty, bungee-jumping Marty, bike-racing Marty, sailing Marty, powerboating Marty, downhill and cross-country skiing Marty, dirtbike Marty, mountain-climbing Marty, dune buggy Marty. Marty setting a guitar on fire. Marty conducting the symphony.

Larger than life, the embodiment of life, life force incarnate -- Super Action Figure Marty. On one particular Friday, I saw this myself. There appears in Marty’s inbox an e-mail from Lance Armstrong telling Marty to get well soon and come out for a ride.

Marty was an entertainer. He was on stage from the time he was three until the time he died. He was charming because he wasn’t bragging -- he was entertaining YOU. The big names were just in the stories for your entertainment. It was for your benefit that he’d tell these stories. He wanted to make you smile and laugh.

In his storytelling he wasn’t taking anything from you, he was giving very very generously of himself. He would suck you in like a co-conspirator and let you know that you were sharing the great adventure of life with him.

You knew that you were part of the dramatic and exciting adventure in which he was taking part. The drama felt contagious and everyone wanted to get close enough to catch it. (I still hope that Lance might come up and visit).

Folks sometimes mistook Marty's reluctance to say "no" as indecision. It is indeed true that Marty said yes to everyone and everything. What they don't realize is that Marty said "yes" to all of life itself, and that this embrace of life was a very conscious decision.

Marty embraced whatever life threw at him with passion. Funnily enough, the only time Marty said "no" was when he was told to slow down in the face of his cancer. He did drive us batty in the end by pretending he was fine, and we undoubtedly drove him batty as well by insisting that he wasn’t.

Not long before he died, I had lunch with Marty. I’d like to quote from the e-mail Marty sent me setting up that lunch. He said, “.....this is not a bad life at all. I would be very happy to have years of this life right here.......no better, no worse...just this life. Besides, my new convertible comes at the end of this week! Signed, The happy and busy Marty”

When we had that lunch I told Marty how much I was enjoying getting to know his friends Merrill and Mike Brown. He said with characteristic optimism, “If you guys all come together, that wouldn’t be a bad outcome to this at all. That’s a good thing to hope for.”

Marty fought to the end, he did everything he could to put more time into his life. Throughout the time he had, there was nothing he could have done additionally to put more life into his time.

Marty sang a beautiful song for us. I don’t know what music he’s listening to now, but wherever he may be, you can be sure he’s either on stage or he's got the best seats in the joint -- and he can't wait to tell us about it.

See also

• The memory wall
• Facing end of life issues
• Giving back
• Supporting someone with cancer