March 5, 2024 • 31 mins
In "Buying A Used Wheelchair," breaking my wheelchair and buying a new one on Craigslist, more record shopping, cooking borscht and getting accepted for publication.
Every week we order pizza from the place in town. On the day after, for lunch I eat cold pizza with Hoppin Hot Sauce on it.(Hoppin Hot Sauce jingle)
Those who say don't know & who know don't say
Buying a used wheelchair selfie
Subscribers get the selfie and the show notes e mailed to them, and I don't know what they do with them
Record shopping
I went record shopping at Amoeba and it turned out to be a pretty good score:
Something Is Wrong (Vintage Recordings From East Africa)
Fiona Apple, "Tidal"
Black Top Blues-a-rama, Volume 2 Live at Tipitina's, New Orleans
J Dilla, "Donuts"
The record store person gave me "the nod"
Terminal Event
I broke the arm off of my wheelchair, with a bang. The manufacturer was out of stock, but I needed to find a replacement. I got on my computer and I searched eBay and sfbay.craigslist.org. craigslist came through for me
Cooking While Disabled
We made borscht. For the second year in a row, we used this Serious Eats recipe for Hot Ukrainian Borscht (With Beets, Beef, Pork, and More)
Accepted
After an uninterrupted months-long streak of many rejections, a few different editors wrote me to let me know that my writing was accepted. All in all, a piece of microfiction (in this case, a story of exactly 50 words) and two poems. It's very exciting to turn the corner on this project and move from submission to publication.
Chapter List
00:00:00 - Intro
00:05:04 - Subscribers get the selfie
00:06:01 - Record shopping
00:13:36 - Terminal event
00:21:08 - Borscht
00:27:58 - P.T.
00:29:30 - Outro
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
- Yeah, what's up?
What's the matter with me in the building?
I can tell it's going to be a good one.
It's going to be a goodday. Everything is cool.
I was telling my wife wewere having some issue,
couldn't find some pill
and it was like, dude, where did they go?
Did we lose them?
(00:21):
And I remember I was talking to my wife
and I was like, whichever wayit is, it's going to be fine.
And that's how it is on what'sthe matter with me podcast?
Whichever way it is, it's gonna be fine.
I had a big, big kind of
(00:41):
event in my life.
Tons of big events last week.
You are tuned into the, what'sthe Matter with Me podcast.
The podcast, the dad podcast,
the fish fishing broadcast.
My name is John. I'm 44 years old.
(01:03):
Husband, father, small business owner,
radio DJ, podcaster.
I have multiple sclerosisand trigeminal neuralgia
and I made this podcast toshare what I'm going through.
Thank you for tuning in.
Check it out at what'sthe matter with me.org.
(01:26):
I didn't record.
Usually I record on Fridayand it comes out on Tuesday.
But last week I didn't record
because on Friday I began a
physical therapy session that'll continue
for like eight weeks.
I'm supposed, I'm supposedto call them and schedule.
(01:50):
They were supposed to call meand schedule, but no one did.
So it's Monday.
I had the meeting on Friday,I'll call today in healthcare,
the squeaky wheel gets degrees.
I had a huge week last week.
I had the physical therapysession begin on Friday.
(02:14):
I broke my wheelchair andI got a new wheelchair.
We'll get into that overthe weekend. I made borscht.
I do that once a year.My wife hates doing that.
But it wasn't too bad.
This year we're starting onyear two of making Borst.
(02:38):
The Boche is better
and it was easier to make
and we made like 40 servings of borscht
that's cooking while disabled.
Also, if you've beenfollowing, I had my writing
accepted this week, you know,
(03:00):
that was something I read.
I read something about a writer dealing
with rejection andtalking to their therapist
and saying like, I feel likemy writing isn't good enough.
And the therapist drilled it down
to the main question,
(03:21):
which is I feel like I amnot good enough inside that
my writing isn't good enough.
Enough inside that isI am not good enough.
And you know I am good enough.
Seriously, every week we order pizza from
(03:41):
the place in town.
It's pretty good in San Leandro.
And then the day after, I eat cold pizza
because we have leftoverpizza for the four of us.
So my son is 10 and my daughter is seven.
And my wife and myself, forthe four of us, we order one
(04:05):
large pizza and a medium pizza.
And so we have a coupleslices left over the day
after I eat cold pizza
with hopping hot sauce on it.
That's a classic use
eating lunch in less than aminute just put the hopping hot
(04:29):
sauce on the cold pizza play the jangle
- Hopping hot sauce.
It's the best hot sauce hopping hot sauce.
It's the best sauce in the world.
The world, I'm telling
- You.
That's right. That was the best jangle
that anyone's ever heardand anyone will hear.
(04:53):
Check out Hopping hotsauce@hoppinghotsauce.com.
H-O-P-P-I-N-H-O-T-S-A-U-C-E
hopping hot sauce.com.
We're also on Amazon. Check it out.
It is the best hot sauce in the world.
(05:13):
I'm telling yousubscribers get this selfie
write in their email box every time I have
a new episode
and they get this selfiethat reminds me how
to take the selfie.
Yeah, topping hot sauce,taking the selfie,
(05:36):
you know, I'm just in here.
All right, selfie time over.
Every week I take the selfie, I email it
to the people who are signedup to the mailing list.
Just go to what's the matter with me.org
and hit subscribe
(05:57):
and get this selfie emailedto you in your email box
subscribers, get this selfie.
And the show notes emailed to them.
And I don't know what theydo with them after that.
I'm kind of on a roll.
I went shopping at Amoeba, I went record
(06:18):
shopping at Amoeba.
It was a pretty good score.
I'm always like, every week Iwanna go to the record store.
That's like my scene I guess.
Um, the radio station, the record store.
You have enthusiasts
that are just hangingout there all the time.
(06:40):
It was pretty good.
Well, I got one CD andtwo records and my wife
and my daughter got a cd.
Something is wrong that record
Something is wrong.
Vintage recordings fromEast Africa came out on
Honest John's record.
(07:02):
Record came out on Honest John's Records.
So it's like recordings fromthe twenties in East Africa
out on Honest Johns.
I had to kind of pick it up.
I thought this'll bean interesting record.
(07:22):
And that's kinda where I'm at with that.
It's interesting, I've listened to it.
You know, it's drums, there'ssome string instrument
and some chanting and singing.
My daughter got that Taylor Swift 1989
(07:43):
rerecording of her own songs for
myriad reasons, sound reasons, you know,
when you have soundreasons in a crazy world.
So they got my, my daughter,you know, she's seven,
she doesn't know any music.
She wanted some like, shewanted more Taylor Swift.
(08:08):
And my wife was like, hold on,
what if you get like the TaylorSwift from when I was a kid?
So that was Fiona Apple's title record
cd, Fiona Apple's title cd.
And they got that.
We listened to it on the ride home
(08:30):
and I was like, I could cover
what's the Fiona Apple tune that I can do.
I could cover Shadow Boxer obviously.
And with pathos
and originality also I found, you know,
I'm, I'm always rollingaround in a wheelchair
(08:52):
at the record store.
And this time I kind ofwent exploring a little.
And at Amoeba I rememberalways being like,
there's all this stuff below here.
So as a able-bodied person,
I would only shop the tall stacks,
(09:14):
but now I'm disabled
and the tall stacks arenot as accessible to me.
But what is is like the discount
dollar records that they
merchandise down on the floor?
Well that's in the perfectplace for me to shop it.
(09:36):
So that, that's kind of the upside here.
And I was going to the back of the store
because I was like,what, what's back here?
And I, I saw Blues record,they had a compilation,
the Black Blacktop Blues Orama Volume two
live at Tipitina's New Orleans.
(09:57):
So I would do often theBlues Collective at KFJC
and Jack Tar would bemy partner, my co-host.
And he liked stuff on blacktop.
He, he had spent time in New Orleans
and we would discuss Tip Patinas.
So I was like, no problem.
(10:19):
And so for 4 99 on the ground,
they had a pretty cleancopy of Blacktop Blues
or Ram Up volume two.
So I picked that up on LP
and I was like, cool,I'm shopping under here.
I always wanted to,
'cause I like looking through stuff
(10:40):
and there's lots of stuff down there
and it's the stuff thatthey said, oh this is like
the unpopular stuff.
Well that's my stuff.
And I picked up in therap section, you know,
I don't really shop in there.
My son was giving me a lot of problems.
(11:00):
He wanted Jay-Z's album,
reasonable Doubt.
And that stuff is Adult themes.
And that's what I told them.That's really adult themes.
And they had up merchandise,they had the De La Soul
(11:20):
album, what's the first album?
Three Feet High Is and Rising.
And they have this J Dilla instrumental
CD donuts.
And, and I wanted
that J Dilla CD whenit came out first off.
So I was like, oh thereit is. It was on sale.
(11:45):
Deep Discount, J Dilladonut cd, brand new.
So I grabbed that. My sonwas like, I want this Jay-Z.
And I'm like, adult themes,
what about three feet high and rising?
Like so you can know your history.
So you could, he'salways asking me, what's
(12:06):
that rapping Duke to haw to haw.
And I'm like, yo, I have that record.
It's a novelty record.
And notorious BIG is com commenting
on the hip hop was seenas a fab that would pass.
And anyway, my son's crying
(12:26):
and yelling at me while I'mtrying to be like de lost soul.
So then shopping meanwhile,right in the same aisle
is the dude who workedat Amoeba who sold me
Eminem last time.
And he was like, what'd you get?
(12:47):
You know, on the way out, you know.
So I told him something iswrong on on John's feeding the
Apple block Top BlueOrama volume two Jake Dill
donut cd.
And he gave me the nod,you know what it is.
So I, I was like, felt very fulfilled.
I was like, I went to the record store.
(13:09):
I, I had good enough choices
to have the guy begrudginglyacknowledge my existence
and what I've done.
And that's enough for me.
I don't need a co-host on this podcast.
I just need a recordguy to be like ugh, or
(13:33):
or a record lady.
But they don't exist really.
But I would be happyI'd be over the moon if,
if a woman would be like,those are good choices.
I'd be over the moon if awoman thought I made good
choices about anything.
I think I'm okay.
(13:54):
I told my wife, no matterwhat happens we're good.
And that's how I feel like got this ms,
we got all this trial and tribulation.
That's all it is. Trial
and tribulation thatends at a certain point.
It's not going to be foreveronly while you're here.
(14:16):
So it's like life is hell
but it's the only thing going, you guys,
I broke the arm off my wheelchair, I had a
catastrophic injury to the wheelchair.
I was trying to get up
and I was using the arm to steady myself
and the arm is already unstead steady
(14:40):
and had I had broken some tubes like
inside the chair so the arm wasn't steady
and then I just brokethe arm off my wheelchair
and it was like bang,like it was with a bang,
it was because I broke aluminum
(15:03):
welded arm off
and then the wheelchair was inmy office for a few days just
with the arm broken off,like looking like sad
destruction wheelchair.
So I was like what am I going to do?
That was a really a moment
(15:23):
because I'm like I can'tgo to the market now.
I can't do anything
because I've been usingthis wheelchair a lot
and more on that later butI've been using it a lot.
So I called the guy who flipped around
(15:43):
my wheelchair lift for mefor, remember that guy came
by here, he just did it for free
and he did some work on my old wheelchair
and I was like, I need another one.
I broke the arm off.
So we called up the manufacturer sales rep
(16:03):
and they're out of stock on it.
They only had in carbon this new model
that's like even smallerthan my wheelchair,
which is too small for me.
So the manufacturer out ofstock, it's manufactured
by Pride Mobility, it's a jazzy
(16:28):
passport wheelchair.
They go for like between two
and $3,000 depending on theoptions you get on them.
So we were on the phonethat they didn't have it,
it was too small, they'regonna have more in some months
and there's no guaranteethat they'll about anything
(16:50):
that it'll work for me and whatever.
So I'm in a tough spot.
I broke the arm off mywheelchair, it's inoperable
the manufacturer's outta stock.
I searched eBay And eBay was hard
because everyone was like,it's only for local pickup.
(17:11):
So, and they were selling itall over America, you know,
they're, and like they'relike the wheelchairs in Nova
Scotia come pick it up.
And I'm like that is toofar from the Bay area.
So that was my first lookaround manufacturer outta stock.
(17:31):
eBay, it's, they have it butit's all for local pickup
because it's really heavy.
It's 60 pounds so they can't like ship it.
So, okay, that makes sense.
So I went to the old classic Craigslist
and I remembered when Iused to search Craigslist
(17:55):
for bike parts, how I used to do it.
So you search the wholewebsite is the most effective
and quickest way.
So you don't actually,you do it via Google.
So you type in whatever you want.
Like in this case it was ajazzy passport wheelchair.
(18:16):
And then if you wantGoogle to search a specific
website for your search query, you,
you write site SITE, colon,
whatever the site is.
So in this case I wanted
to search San Francisco Craigslist only
(18:39):
'cause I figured they'd belike, we're not shipping it
and that's fine.
So it's SF Bay.
So I searched jazzypassport, wheelchair site,
SITE, choline, SF Bay
S-F-B-A-Y do
craigslist do org.
(19:02):
And what do you know, itcame up, there were a couple
wheelchairs, jazzy passport wheelchairs.
They were both newer than my wheelchair.
So they got 'em in the last five years
'cause minus five years old.
So they were newer, newer model
(19:24):
and they were like 75 or more percent off
and they were used butit was like cash, right?
And I, I told my wife, I'mlike, as long I can get in it,
change the speed
and ride around, I'llknow if the thing works.
(19:45):
And lo and behold it was all fine.
I figured they might have ashot battery, I might have
to acquire a new battery,but it'll make sense
because it's so much off
the retail price.
So I went, I, this guy, I,
(20:07):
I emailed two people, I found two chairs.
One was 700, the other was 600.
And I emailed them bothusing the Craig, I just went
to their listing on Craigslist org
and emailed them and it camethrough this guy in Union City.
(20:30):
Turns out his mom was using the chair
but is not using it anymore.
So it was like a deal for all of us.
And they gave it, he gaveit to me for 500 bucks.
Manufacturer outtastock too heavy on eBay.
I used a Google site search technique
(20:55):
to get Craigslist
and it came through,Craigslist came through for me.
So that's how I broke my wheelchair.
Without having any insuranceget involved, I went,
I luckily I had 500 bucks.
So I could do this word to the Ys.
(21:17):
Consider Craigslistanother word to the Ys.
We make borsch every spring we make borst.
And I think that is likeword to the wise, make borst.
'cause the one thing aboutborscht is when you make it,
you make like 40 servings of it.
(21:40):
'cause you need a big old stock pot,
bigger than the water pot for pasta.
You need like a big stock pot,
five gallon stock pot.
Maybe you could do a threegallon. My wife helped me a lot.
We roasted the beetsbefore dicing them up.
(22:03):
We use this Serious Eats recipe.
I'll try and include that.
Um, on my show notes it's like, it's kind
of an ordeal.
It's a two day cook.
But like I said, you make alot and you can freeze it.
It refrigerates for five days.
(22:24):
I told my wife next year when we do this,
we're having a borst eating party
and we have to somehow notstay in the entire house with,
it's probably a badge of honor to be like,
I destroyed my houseserving my friend's borscht.
They might remember thatfor the, the epitaph
(22:48):
or the obituary.
He would, he would ruinevery, every fine couch.
He had to serve his friends borscht.
And I would, you know me,
the borscht is reallylike a vegetable soup
with a ton of meat in it.
(23:09):
A ton of meat.
We have like beef chuck,short rib, pork, shoulder
marrow, bones, hawk, just a ton
of meat, A ton.
I'll put a link to the recipe we used.
But you know, we used alot of disabled hacks like
(23:32):
it, it has you dice everything,be real serious about it.
And we, I tried to relaxthose requirements.
My wife was the dicer, I cut up the meat.
So on day one you make a beef stock
and then you clarify that.
(23:52):
And on day two you add um, mii
and some of the fat.
When you refrigerate the beef stock,
it makes a fat cap that'sreally easy to remove
and you just take a like quarter cup of it
(24:12):
and saute the newmiracle and all the beads
and add the beef stock back
and all the cut up meat,everything is cut up so nicely.
That's what borsch is all about.
Cutting and cutting isa way you show the diner
(24:33):
that you care about them bycutting their food up nicely,
by trimming out what they don't want
and cutting everything into cubes.
Try borscht. We'll havea borsch party to hell
with our couch, you guys over the weekend.
(24:54):
Something else like this was a big week.
And over the weekend
I had an like Thursday, Fridayand then more in the weekend.
Suddenly after like 50 50
straight rejections andlike form letter rejections,
(25:17):
I started getting someinterest in my writing.
Uh, a short story called micro fiction.
This is like a thing people do
and I, I thought it was fascinating.
So I did it is people write like 50
word stories
(25:38):
and some, some, uh,are very hard about it.
And some are like will accept
around 50 other people are like 50.
So I wrote a 50 wordstory. It's a true story.
It's about my grandfather
and it like intersects with disability.
(25:59):
It was accepted
and then an hour later it was accepted
again by someone else.
And I was like, I can't offer this to you.
I've already, it's beenaccepted by this other place.
So immediately I was,my writing was accepted
(26:21):
and I had the experience of being accepted
and being like, I can't give it to you.
But then also another publication
accepted a couple poems I wrote.
And then another editor,a couple editors wrote me
(26:43):
like emails to say, wecan't publish you right now,
but I want to read more.
So all of a sudden thewriting took on some glow
and then people took it seriously.
Editors, I'm gonna have to reconsider
(27:04):
all the editor, all theeditors took my work.
Seriously. I was writing thispoem. Satan is the top editor.
Satan is the top editor who reads
for many publishers including this one.
So I'm gonna have towork on that, that one.
(27:24):
And that did not get accepted,but I was feeling that way.
I was getting so rejected.But now it's flipped around.
So I feel like validated.
I feel like I wrote some stuff
and it was accepted by a few publications.
(27:46):
That was cool. What an interesting
and I'm going to keep it going.
Yes, of course I'll keep it going.
And when, when the work is published,
I will send you a link to it.
I'll send you the proof.
(28:07):
Another thing, all the wayabout proof, about proof,
nothing but proof physical therapy.
You know it's hard to do physical therapy
'cause they just have you dowhat's hard and uncomfortable.
They're like, can you dothis? They know you can't.
(28:29):
And so they make you do it.
They're like, let me seeyou walk around and jump
and shoot a hook shot.
Let me see your low post move.
And I'm like, my low postmove is back in the nineties.
pt, my PT session has begun.
The therapist is Emily, she's gonna,
(28:52):
we're gonna meet seven times minimum.
I got a call and schedule it in Palo Alto.
She had me walk around a little bit
where I think we're gonna have this thing
where they connect you to theceiling so you can't fall.
They, you wear a harnesswhile you walk around.
(29:15):
So I think we'll be doing that.
I told her I wanna beable to stand up better.
I kind of double clutch a lot
of the time when I'm standing up.
I don't want that. Iwant to clean, stand up,
engage my abs.
I need to work on walkingaround, getting up.
(29:37):
So we'll see. We have theintake on Friday every week.
Pizza subscribers. Get this selfie.
I went record chopping again. So what?
I broke the arm off thewheelchair. Disaster.
Disastrous fatal maneuver.
(29:58):
We made borscht, we made borscht again
and we froze A lot of it.
I think we'll get breadand cheese and borscht.
Maybe just rolls. We'lldo rolls in the borscht.
The writing was accepted.
Some poems, a micro story.
(30:21):
50 words long. I'm backin physical therapy.
I want to stand, I wanna walk around more.
So we'll see how it goes.I gotta schedule it.
Thank you for tuning intothe what's the Matter
with me podcast.
Want to give a shout out toeveryone who is listening?
(30:41):
Send me an email, JOHN,
at H-O-P-P-I-N-W-O-R-L d.com.
It's john@hopinworld.com.
Send me an email, I'llgive you a shout out that
destroys all other shout outs.
Forget them. They don't even exist.
(31:05):
So what's the matter with mepodcast? Catch you next time.
- Yeah, what's up?
What's the matter with me in the building?
I can tell it's going to be a good one.
It's going to be a goodday. Everything is cool.
I was telling my wife wewere having some issue,
couldn't find some pill
and it was like, dude, where did they go?
Did we lose them?
(00:21):
And I remember I was talking to my wife
and I was like, whichever wayit is, it's going to be fine.
And that's how it is on what'sthe matter with me podcast?
Whichever way it is, it's gonna be fine.
I had a big, big kind of
(00:41):
event in my life.
Tons of big events last week.
You are tuned into the, what'sthe Matter with Me podcast.
The podcast, the dad podcast,
the fish fishing broadcast.
My name is John. I'm 44 years old.
(01:03):
Husband, father, small business owner,
radio DJ, podcaster.
I have multiple sclerosisand trigeminal neuralgia
and I made this podcast toshare what I'm going through.
Thank you for tuning in.
Check it out at what'sthe matter with me.org.
(01:26):
I didn't record.
Usually I record on Fridayand it comes out on Tuesday.
But last week I didn't record
because on Friday I began a
physical therapy session that'll continue
for like eight weeks.
I'm supposed, I'm supposedto call them and schedule.
(01:50):
They were supposed to call meand schedule, but no one did.
So it's Monday.
I had the meeting on Friday,I'll call today in healthcare,
the squeaky wheel gets degrees.
I had a huge week last week.
I had the physical therapysession begin on Friday.
(02:14):
I broke my wheelchair andI got a new wheelchair.
We'll get into that overthe weekend. I made borscht.
I do that once a year.My wife hates doing that.
But it wasn't too bad.
This year we're starting onyear two of making Borst.
(02:38):
The Boche is better
and it was easier to make
and we made like 40 servings of borscht
that's cooking while disabled.
Also, if you've beenfollowing, I had my writing
accepted this week, you know,
(03:00):
that was something I read.
I read something about a writer dealing
with rejection andtalking to their therapist
and saying like, I feel likemy writing isn't good enough.
And the therapist drilled it down
to the main question,
(03:21):
which is I feel like I amnot good enough inside that
my writing isn't good enough.
Enough inside that isI am not good enough.
And you know I am good enough.
Seriously, every week we order pizza from
(03:41):
the place in town.
It's pretty good in San Leandro.
And then the day after, I eat cold pizza
because we have leftoverpizza for the four of us.
So my son is 10 and my daughter is seven.
And my wife and myself, forthe four of us, we order one
(04:05):
large pizza and a medium pizza.
And so we have a coupleslices left over the day
after I eat cold pizza
with hopping hot sauce on it.
That's a classic use
eating lunch in less than aminute just put the hopping hot
(04:29):
sauce on the cold pizza play the jangle
- Hopping hot sauce.
It's the best hot sauce hopping hot sauce.
It's the best sauce in the world.
The world, I'm telling
- You.
That's right. That was the best jangle
that anyone's ever heardand anyone will hear.
(04:53):
Check out Hopping hotsauce@hoppinghotsauce.com.
H-O-P-P-I-N-H-O-T-S-A-U-C-E
hopping hot sauce.com.
We're also on Amazon. Check it out.
It is the best hot sauce in the world.
(05:13):
I'm telling yousubscribers get this selfie
write in their email box every time I have
a new episode
and they get this selfiethat reminds me how
to take the selfie.
Yeah, topping hot sauce,taking the selfie,
(05:36):
you know, I'm just in here.
All right, selfie time over.
Every week I take the selfie, I email it
to the people who are signedup to the mailing list.
Just go to what's the matter with me.org
and hit subscribe
(05:57):
and get this selfie emailedto you in your email box
subscribers, get this selfie.
And the show notes emailed to them.
And I don't know what theydo with them after that.
I'm kind of on a roll.
I went shopping at Amoeba, I went record
(06:18):
shopping at Amoeba.
It was a pretty good score.
I'm always like, every week Iwanna go to the record store.
That's like my scene I guess.
Um, the radio station, the record store.
You have enthusiasts
that are just hangingout there all the time.
(06:40):
It was pretty good.
Well, I got one CD andtwo records and my wife
and my daughter got a cd.
Something is wrong that record
Something is wrong.
Vintage recordings fromEast Africa came out on
Honest John's record.
(07:02):
Record came out on Honest John's Records.
So it's like recordings fromthe twenties in East Africa
out on Honest Johns.
I had to kind of pick it up.
I thought this'll bean interesting record.
(07:22):
And that's kinda where I'm at with that.
It's interesting, I've listened to it.
You know, it's drums, there'ssome string instrument
and some chanting and singing.
My daughter got that Taylor Swift 1989
(07:43):
rerecording of her own songs for
myriad reasons, sound reasons, you know,
when you have soundreasons in a crazy world.
So they got my, my daughter,you know, she's seven,
she doesn't know any music.
She wanted some like, shewanted more Taylor Swift.
(08:08):
And my wife was like, hold on,
what if you get like the TaylorSwift from when I was a kid?
So that was Fiona Apple's title record
cd, Fiona Apple's title cd.
And they got that.
We listened to it on the ride home
(08:30):
and I was like, I could cover
what's the Fiona Apple tune that I can do.
I could cover Shadow Boxer obviously.
And with pathos
and originality also I found, you know,
I'm, I'm always rollingaround in a wheelchair
(08:52):
at the record store.
And this time I kind ofwent exploring a little.
And at Amoeba I rememberalways being like,
there's all this stuff below here.
So as a able-bodied person,
I would only shop the tall stacks,
(09:14):
but now I'm disabled
and the tall stacks arenot as accessible to me.
But what is is like the discount
dollar records that they
merchandise down on the floor?
Well that's in the perfectplace for me to shop it.
(09:36):
So that, that's kind of the upside here.
And I was going to the back of the store
because I was like,what, what's back here?
And I, I saw Blues record,they had a compilation,
the Black Blacktop Blues Orama Volume two
live at Tipitina's New Orleans.
(09:57):
So I would do often theBlues Collective at KFJC
and Jack Tar would bemy partner, my co-host.
And he liked stuff on blacktop.
He, he had spent time in New Orleans
and we would discuss Tip Patinas.
So I was like, no problem.
(10:19):
And so for 4 99 on the ground,
they had a pretty cleancopy of Blacktop Blues
or Ram Up volume two.
So I picked that up on LP
and I was like, cool,I'm shopping under here.
I always wanted to,
'cause I like looking through stuff
(10:40):
and there's lots of stuff down there
and it's the stuff thatthey said, oh this is like
the unpopular stuff.
Well that's my stuff.
And I picked up in therap section, you know,
I don't really shop in there.
My son was giving me a lot of problems.
(11:00):
He wanted Jay-Z's album,
reasonable Doubt.
And that stuff is Adult themes.
And that's what I told them.That's really adult themes.
And they had up merchandise,they had the De La Soul
(11:20):
album, what's the first album?
Three Feet High Is and Rising.
And they have this J Dilla instrumental
CD donuts.
And, and I wanted
that J Dilla CD whenit came out first off.
So I was like, oh thereit is. It was on sale.
(11:45):
Deep Discount, J Dilladonut cd, brand new.
So I grabbed that. My sonwas like, I want this Jay-Z.
And I'm like, adult themes,
what about three feet high and rising?
Like so you can know your history.
So you could, he'salways asking me, what's
(12:06):
that rapping Duke to haw to haw.
And I'm like, yo, I have that record.
It's a novelty record.
And notorious BIG is com commenting
on the hip hop was seenas a fab that would pass.
And anyway, my son's crying
(12:26):
and yelling at me while I'mtrying to be like de lost soul.
So then shopping meanwhile,right in the same aisle
is the dude who workedat Amoeba who sold me
Eminem last time.
And he was like, what'd you get?
(12:47):
You know, on the way out, you know.
So I told him something iswrong on on John's feeding the
Apple block Top BlueOrama volume two Jake Dill
donut cd.
And he gave me the nod,you know what it is.
So I, I was like, felt very fulfilled.
I was like, I went to the record store.
(13:09):
I, I had good enough choices
to have the guy begrudginglyacknowledge my existence
and what I've done.
And that's enough for me.
I don't need a co-host on this podcast.
I just need a recordguy to be like ugh, or
(13:33):
or a record lady.
But they don't exist really.
But I would be happyI'd be over the moon if,
if a woman would be like,those are good choices.
I'd be over the moon if awoman thought I made good
choices about anything.
I think I'm okay.
(13:54):
I told my wife, no matterwhat happens we're good.
And that's how I feel like got this ms,
we got all this trial and tribulation.
That's all it is. Trial
and tribulation thatends at a certain point.
It's not going to be foreveronly while you're here.
(14:16):
So it's like life is hell
but it's the only thing going, you guys,
I broke the arm off my wheelchair, I had a
catastrophic injury to the wheelchair.
I was trying to get up
and I was using the arm to steady myself
and the arm is already unstead steady
(14:40):
and had I had broken some tubes like
inside the chair so the arm wasn't steady
and then I just brokethe arm off my wheelchair
and it was like bang,like it was with a bang,
it was because I broke aluminum
(15:03):
welded arm off
and then the wheelchair was inmy office for a few days just
with the arm broken off,like looking like sad
destruction wheelchair.
So I was like what am I going to do?
That was a really a moment
(15:23):
because I'm like I can'tgo to the market now.
I can't do anything
because I've been usingthis wheelchair a lot
and more on that later butI've been using it a lot.
So I called the guy who flipped around
(15:43):
my wheelchair lift for mefor, remember that guy came
by here, he just did it for free
and he did some work on my old wheelchair
and I was like, I need another one.
I broke the arm off.
So we called up the manufacturer sales rep
(16:03):
and they're out of stock on it.
They only had in carbon this new model
that's like even smallerthan my wheelchair,
which is too small for me.
So the manufacturer out ofstock, it's manufactured
by Pride Mobility, it's a jazzy
(16:28):
passport wheelchair.
They go for like between two
and $3,000 depending on theoptions you get on them.
So we were on the phonethat they didn't have it,
it was too small, they'regonna have more in some months
and there's no guaranteethat they'll about anything
(16:50):
that it'll work for me and whatever.
So I'm in a tough spot.
I broke the arm off mywheelchair, it's inoperable
the manufacturer's outta stock.
I searched eBay And eBay was hard
because everyone was like,it's only for local pickup.
(17:11):
So, and they were selling itall over America, you know,
they're, and like they'relike the wheelchairs in Nova
Scotia come pick it up.
And I'm like that is toofar from the Bay area.
So that was my first lookaround manufacturer outta stock.
(17:31):
eBay, it's, they have it butit's all for local pickup
because it's really heavy.
It's 60 pounds so they can't like ship it.
So, okay, that makes sense.
So I went to the old classic Craigslist
and I remembered when Iused to search Craigslist
(17:55):
for bike parts, how I used to do it.
So you search the wholewebsite is the most effective
and quickest way.
So you don't actually,you do it via Google.
So you type in whatever you want.
Like in this case it was ajazzy passport wheelchair.
(18:16):
And then if you wantGoogle to search a specific
website for your search query, you,
you write site SITE, colon,
whatever the site is.
So in this case I wanted
to search San Francisco Craigslist only
(18:39):
'cause I figured they'd belike, we're not shipping it
and that's fine.
So it's SF Bay.
So I searched jazzypassport, wheelchair site,
SITE, choline, SF Bay
S-F-B-A-Y do
craigslist do org.
(19:02):
And what do you know, itcame up, there were a couple
wheelchairs, jazzy passport wheelchairs.
They were both newer than my wheelchair.
So they got 'em in the last five years
'cause minus five years old.
So they were newer, newer model
(19:24):
and they were like 75 or more percent off
and they were used butit was like cash, right?
And I, I told my wife, I'mlike, as long I can get in it,
change the speed
and ride around, I'llknow if the thing works.
(19:45):
And lo and behold it was all fine.
I figured they might have ashot battery, I might have
to acquire a new battery,but it'll make sense
because it's so much off
the retail price.
So I went, I, this guy, I,
(20:07):
I emailed two people, I found two chairs.
One was 700, the other was 600.
And I emailed them bothusing the Craig, I just went
to their listing on Craigslist org
and emailed them and it camethrough this guy in Union City.
(20:30):
Turns out his mom was using the chair
but is not using it anymore.
So it was like a deal for all of us.
And they gave it, he gaveit to me for 500 bucks.
Manufacturer outtastock too heavy on eBay.
I used a Google site search technique
(20:55):
to get Craigslist
and it came through,Craigslist came through for me.
So that's how I broke my wheelchair.
Without having any insuranceget involved, I went,
I luckily I had 500 bucks.
So I could do this word to the Ys.
(21:17):
Consider Craigslistanother word to the Ys.
We make borsch every spring we make borst.
And I think that is likeword to the wise, make borst.
'cause the one thing aboutborscht is when you make it,
you make like 40 servings of it.
(21:40):
'cause you need a big old stock pot,
bigger than the water pot for pasta.
You need like a big stock pot,
five gallon stock pot.
Maybe you could do a threegallon. My wife helped me a lot.
We roasted the beetsbefore dicing them up.
(22:03):
We use this Serious Eats recipe.
I'll try and include that.
Um, on my show notes it's like, it's kind
of an ordeal.
It's a two day cook.
But like I said, you make alot and you can freeze it.
It refrigerates for five days.
(22:24):
I told my wife next year when we do this,
we're having a borst eating party
and we have to somehow notstay in the entire house with,
it's probably a badge of honor to be like,
I destroyed my houseserving my friend's borscht.
They might remember thatfor the, the epitaph
(22:48):
or the obituary.
He would, he would ruinevery, every fine couch.
He had to serve his friends borscht.
And I would, you know me,
the borscht is reallylike a vegetable soup
with a ton of meat in it.
(23:09):
A ton of meat.
We have like beef chuck,short rib, pork, shoulder
marrow, bones, hawk, just a ton
of meat, A ton.
I'll put a link to the recipe we used.
But you know, we used alot of disabled hacks like
(23:32):
it, it has you dice everything,be real serious about it.
And we, I tried to relaxthose requirements.
My wife was the dicer, I cut up the meat.
So on day one you make a beef stock
and then you clarify that.
(23:52):
And on day two you add um, mii
and some of the fat.
When you refrigerate the beef stock,
it makes a fat cap that'sreally easy to remove
and you just take a like quarter cup of it
(24:12):
and saute the newmiracle and all the beads
and add the beef stock back
and all the cut up meat,everything is cut up so nicely.
That's what borsch is all about.
Cutting and cutting isa way you show the diner
(24:33):
that you care about them bycutting their food up nicely,
by trimming out what they don't want
and cutting everything into cubes.
Try borscht. We'll havea borsch party to hell
with our couch, you guys over the weekend.
(24:54):
Something else like this was a big week.
And over the weekend
I had an like Thursday, Fridayand then more in the weekend.
Suddenly after like 50 50
straight rejections andlike form letter rejections,
(25:17):
I started getting someinterest in my writing.
Uh, a short story called micro fiction.
This is like a thing people do
and I, I thought it was fascinating.
So I did it is people write like 50
word stories
(25:38):
and some, some, uh,are very hard about it.
And some are like will accept
around 50 other people are like 50.
So I wrote a 50 wordstory. It's a true story.
It's about my grandfather
and it like intersects with disability.
(25:59):
It was accepted
and then an hour later it was accepted
again by someone else.
And I was like, I can't offer this to you.
I've already, it's beenaccepted by this other place.
So immediately I was,my writing was accepted
(26:21):
and I had the experience of being accepted
and being like, I can't give it to you.
But then also another publication
accepted a couple poems I wrote.
And then another editor,a couple editors wrote me
(26:43):
like emails to say, wecan't publish you right now,
but I want to read more.
So all of a sudden thewriting took on some glow
and then people took it seriously.
Editors, I'm gonna have to reconsider
(27:04):
all the editor, all theeditors took my work.
Seriously. I was writing thispoem. Satan is the top editor.
Satan is the top editor who reads
for many publishers including this one.
So I'm gonna have towork on that, that one.
(27:24):
And that did not get accepted,but I was feeling that way.
I was getting so rejected.But now it's flipped around.
So I feel like validated.
I feel like I wrote some stuff
and it was accepted by a few publications.
(27:46):
That was cool. What an interesting
and I'm going to keep it going.
Yes, of course I'll keep it going.
And when, when the work is published,
I will send you a link to it.
I'll send you the proof.
(28:07):
Another thing, all the wayabout proof, about proof,
nothing but proof physical therapy.
You know it's hard to do physical therapy
'cause they just have you dowhat's hard and uncomfortable.
They're like, can you dothis? They know you can't.
(28:29):
And so they make you do it.
They're like, let me seeyou walk around and jump
and shoot a hook shot.
Let me see your low post move.
And I'm like, my low postmove is back in the nineties.
pt, my PT session has begun.
The therapist is Emily, she's gonna,
(28:52):
we're gonna meet seven times minimum.
I got a call and schedule it in Palo Alto.
She had me walk around a little bit
where I think we're gonna have this thing
where they connect you to theceiling so you can't fall.
They, you wear a harnesswhile you walk around.
(29:15):
So I think we'll be doing that.
I told her I wanna beable to stand up better.
I kind of double clutch a lot
of the time when I'm standing up.
I don't want that. Iwant to clean, stand up,
engage my abs.
I need to work on walkingaround, getting up.
(29:37):
So we'll see. We have theintake on Friday every week.
Pizza subscribers. Get this selfie.
I went record chopping again. So what?
I broke the arm off thewheelchair. Disaster.
Disastrous fatal maneuver.
(29:58):
We made borscht, we made borscht again
and we froze A lot of it.
I think we'll get breadand cheese and borscht.
Maybe just rolls. We'lldo rolls in the borscht.
The writing was accepted.
Some poems, a micro story.
(30:21):
50 words long. I'm backin physical therapy.
I want to stand, I wanna walk around more.
So we'll see how it goes.I gotta schedule it.
Thank you for tuning intothe what's the Matter
with me podcast.
Want to give a shout out toeveryone who is listening?
(30:41):
Send me an email, JOHN,
at H-O-P-P-I-N-W-O-R-L d.com.
It's john@hopinworld.com.
Send me an email, I'llgive you a shout out that
destroys all other shout outs.
Forget them. They don't even exist.
(31:05):
So what's the matter with mepodcast? Catch you next time.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com