My name is John,

I’m 43 years old, husband, father, small business owner, radio DJ, podcaster, and I have Multiple Sclerosis.

I created the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast to share what I’m going through.

Portrait

I believe in using the transformational power of creativity to achieve social justice. Joseph Beuys once famously claimed that, “Each person is an artist.” In the words of the Spanish poet Antonio Machado, “Wanderer, your footprints are/ the path, and nothing else;/ wanderer, there is no path,/ the path is made by walking.” My work consists of public interactions that create new conditions in the community.

I have multiple sclerosis and that affects my life and work in many ways. I am the host of What’s The Matter With Me?, a podcast where I share my experiences, challenges and triumphs as a patient with MS. The podcast develops my Disability Consciousness and bridges me with my caregivers, doctors, the disabled community, and community-at-large.

If each person is an artist, and we create the road by walking, then it is up to us to create the world we want to see.

White Elephant Sale

white elephant sale cover
Only Happens Once A Year

Welcome to “White Elephant Sale” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

In this episode, I went to the annual White Elephant Sale in my wheelchair and thought about my identity, identity politics and representation.

Fishy Yellow Mess

  • Turmeric supplement broken bottle
  • Nami said getting an apology from a chatbot is unsatisfying. She said it’s because you don’t feel magnanimous accepting the apology of a robot.

Weird junk

  • white elephant sale was accessible in my wheelchair. Some parts were very tight, but I made it work. That place is full of great junk

Still toothless

  • I thought I was gonna have my teeth, and I don’t have my teeth (yet)

Fluid Identity

  • I have changed my identity and become a disabled person and in that way I understand something about intersectional identity
  • There are People that change their identity on purpose. I feel some kinship with them because my identity has changed, even though I didn’t do it on my own.
  • Viewing others with unmarked male gaze is no longer possible
  • I used to think that identity art was silly, because I questioned its relevance to art.
  • My thinking about the importance of identity, identity art, and identity politics has grown and changed just as my identity has grown and changed through maturation and enduring chronic disability

Mayhem Special

An aerial view of a field. A road runs through the upper right corner.
An aerial view of waves crashing against a shore.
Dax Pierson
  • I’m dreaming up a Mayhem special for KFJC about disabled musicians. Something featuring disabled artists like Cedell Davis, Beethoven, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Stevie Wonder, Blind Uncle Gaspard, Israel Vibration, Ian Drury, Dax Pierson, and more.

This Week’s Selfie

White Elephant Sale selfie
White Elephant Sale Selfie

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Subscribe

Happy New Yeast

happy new yeast cover
Auto-correct keeps messing with me

Welcome to “Happy New Yeast” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

In this episode, autocorrect keeps messing with me. After almost two years, I’ll get new teeth on Friday. I drove myself to KFJC and did a lot of cooking.

Buck Wild

  • I lost my buck teeth in the Spring of 2021 and, at long last, I’m getting them back on Friday

Live on KFJC

  • I drove to KFJC and hung out with Jack tar during the Blues Collective and also picked up some records to review
  • They had this year’s new years card and a past new years card up in the lobby
  • I got assigned a couple records to review and brought them home, fulfilling the original reason to be a member at kfjc: to get free records

Misadventures In Autocorrect

  • “Happy new yeast,” my phone is always autocorrecting me, when I try to write happy new years. And I’m like “No, man- that makes me sound weird.”

Plastic Tones

Cedell Davis
  • Cedell Davis was a disabled blues man with limited use of his hands

Doin’ drop off and pickup

  • I took the kids to school- Nami was working in San Diego,
  • End of day pickup & took them out to Taco Bell, because they see the ads on TV

Cooking While Disabled Jan 2023

  • Need a TED talk about making PBJ that addresses the importance of spreading the peanut butter and jelly to the edge of the bread
  • Made mojo sauce, its hard for me bc it had some tricky things like using the microplane, blender & a lotta juicing i extended the marinating time to break out the work over 2 days
  • Made soup again, the kale was a bit difficult to strip off the stems but i did it anyway bc it’s good to do things within reason. Part of cooking is prep, and it’s the work

Artist at the Grocer

Hold It Right There

  • The Amazon page holder device– I can read again. It’s called “Bookmark/Weight-Page Holder-Holds Books Open and in Place-Clear-by Superior Essentials” and it was Amazons choice. Using it is easy and I can read much easier without having to grapple with the book.
  • Currently, I’m reading The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2021 and Saxophone Colossus, Aidan Levy’s new Sonny Rollins biography and the page holder is doing exactly what they said it would- a useful product.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Subscribe

Gum Scrape

gum scrape cover
Body Horror, Part Two

Welcome to “Gum Scrape” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

In “Gum Scrape,” I’m finally on the verge of completing my dental implants. I went to the dentist and he got after me with an X-acto knife.

Tube-Tying

  • I cut the cord in 2012 And now I have cable in 2023 and I don’t ever want to be without live sports. Probably I don’t really feel that way but my son does and my wife certainly disagrees
  • rafa lost to mackenzie mcdonald
  • rafa had rf procedure on his foot for nerve pain
  • mcdonald trained at the Claremont Resort & Spa
  • I used to sneak into the Claremont to employee dining room
  • Sharks came back from a 3 Goal deficit for the 1st time since 2009

Periodontist is a 17th century job

  • Dentist used x acto knife on my gums

Easy Soup

  • Cooking while disabled- easy white beans, kale and sausage soup, kinda like this one, but with sausage.
  • Smoky from Goulart’s choriço

Take the deadly nightshade

  • Modern love is a romantic comedy and my wife doesn’t think it’s funny
  • My wife says opt for the deadly nightshade

One-handed piano player

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Subscribe

Disabled Business Owner

disabled business owner cover
Disabled Owned & Operated

Welcome to “Disabled Business Owner” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

In this episode, I’m going through the books and wrapping up 2022 for my business when I discover that I’ve totally spaced and forgot to bill for the biggest order of the year. It happened last year, right around when I was about to go into surgery.

Shout Outs

  • Shout outs to KFJC’s Klaud hopper who was on the air on kfjc filling in for lucky j Sunday morning 6-9

Kid’s Game

On The Flipside

  • I got a fully automatic turntable: AT-LP-3

Big Tunes

Wierdo Stuff

Handling Business

  • During acute periods it is hard to manage things. Case in point: I forgot to invoice my customer for the biggest purchase of Hoppin Hot Sauce this year.

Hey Dear

  • What’s up with Spam that begins, Hey dear
  • The scam of the 1890s. Is a Hoppin Hot Sauce Association
  • If you can’t steal from your friends

Cooking While Disabled

  • I made pulled pork with mojo &chiles
  • last night we had meatloaf, and that was not an easy recipe

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Subscribe

Cooking While Disabled 2023

NEW YEAR’S MIRACLE: A rotisserie chicken

Welcome to “Cooking While Disabled 2023” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

In this episode, I find myself doing a lot of cooking while disabled which involves adaptation and interpretation of recipes that generally aren’t written with disabled people in mind. We’ve got to eat, regardless.

There’s an influx of produce at the house because we sized up our weekly vegetable box in the new year.

The kids are home from school which compresses the day, as they come home from camp in the afternoon and from then on it can be pretty difficult to concentrate.

Shout Outs

  • Shout outs to Eric & Traci
  • Shout outs to the people listening through to the past episodes- I know they are there when the number of episodes streamed increases appreciably while the number of individual listeners doesn’t increase

Art of jokes

  • Gary Cannone, Jeff Dunham & modernism
  • Usually art jokes are not funny, but Gary’s are pretty good
  • Don’t sleep on the Gary Cannone Interview Special from Season Six.

Bouncing Off The Walls

  • The kids are back in school- it was very hard to concentrate with them around, it compresses everything
  • I made chili
  • thought about how cooking while disabled is all about Adapting the recipe to your ability
  • Adaptations that make the recipe easier to execute while maintaining the spirit and making high quality food

The Iron Curtain Has Fallen

  • I went to the dentist and had my teeth cleaned by a cat

Shop ’til U Drop

What We’re Watching

With supply chain shortages, prices skyrocketing and more shoplifting than ever before, positive customer relations are nearly impossible. 

aetv.com/shows/customer-wars

Port Protection is home to the few who have left behind normal society and chosen a different life in a remote Alaskan community, where survival of the individuals and community cannot sustain without the other. The stakes are high. The land is rugged and unforgiving and the seas which surround Port Protection are cold and merciless.

imdb.com

Keeping Up With The Joneses

  • We’re waitlisted for basketball

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Subscribe

New Year’s Epiphanies

Welcome to “New Year’s Epiphanies,” Episode 1 of What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast Season Seven

This episode marks the transition to a new year, new theme song, and hopefully some new ways of thinking.

  • The Season Seven theme song is “Beast”
  • Listeners grew 144% from 2021 to 2022
  • I advised my son not to brag on his presents and I think he heard me
  • Weird Al = Weird AI? Maybe Weird Al should play Superman
  • I made pot roast and ate it the same day, Christmas eve. burnt some cookies
  • Christmas wars
  • New sleep apnea iron lung equipment- need to order new braces bc the ol;d ones are falling apart
  • New Year’s Epiphanies: there isn’t enough wine in a bottle of wine – shut up sound effect
  • Getting tagged in my family holiday photos. I’m not a straightforward photography subject and it gets worse when things are candid
  • In a severe mental crisis situation, I’m very charming
  • If we’re remembered at all we’ll be remembered solely in the context of the turn of the millennium
  • I’m a product of y2k
  • Dad butt-dials me
  • Last night for dinner we had tuna pasta

This Week’s Selfie

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Subscribe

Year In Review

year in review cover
Taking a look back at the year on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

Welcome to the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast “Year In Review”

Season Seven will begin in the new year. Tune in for the year end wrap-up of Season Six, the biggest season we’ve ever had.

Listen for a year-end run down of all the things that crossed the bow of WTMWM? in 2022. It was a big year, a good year. Let’s get into it.

Holiday In Cambodia

Essential coming-of-age

Fork Yeah

  • The rotisserie forks came and we made a chicken and it was pretty good
  • I think I can do better But the new forks are the ticket because before the meat kept falling and it wasn’t working And maybe we just burn one side and get the other 1 raw

Journeys By Myself

  • I tried to go Christmas shopping by myself and that was ridiculous
  • The Internet is such an easier place to go Christmas shopping and the only thing that will help you right now is the robots
  • I circled 3 times and parked right in front of the store- I lucked out and my plan worked. What was I doing there? I had to make a showing of some sort.
  • I went to the teenager shop and had the dude put together a little kit.
  • There was a family with a 15-year-old girl who was getting a nose piercing

Tossing & Turning

  • Definitely having anxiety and trouble sleeping
  • I think I always get this way at Christmas

Season Six Rundown

  • I wear the same shoes- Tune in for the big rundown of the top stories from Season Six.

This Week’s Selfie

Year In Review

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Subscribe

San Diego Trip

cover
On the road again

Welcome to What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast S6, Ep. 45 “San Diego Trip”

In this episode, I’m on the road again for the first time in what feels like a long time. My wife and I flew to San Diego to attend her company’s year-end holiday party. For the first time, I flew with my wheelchair.

I got frisked and swabbed lot, but I didn’t miss my flights, so it evened out and I made it home in one piece. It was not without hiccups, but we managed to have a pretty good trip overall, and I’m looking forward to traveling again in tyhe future.

Booze Only Yankee Swap IV

It’s Swap Time

We came back to town and had the Booze Only Yankee Swap. The next day, we took the kids to see the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra’s holiday concert.

There’s some sound effects in this episode, like a plane taking off and some other stuff, but I tried to keep it to an absolute minimum, I swear.

Shout-outs

  • Shout-outs to Empress Nami who wrote in to say, “I listened to WTMWM on my commute in. The ending….so many sound effects! I was laughing so much.”
  • Sometimes I’m just communing with Roy, who taught me how to do audio production. Roy always encouraged me to use more sound effects.
  • Hey MOMA, do you have the what’s the matter with me? Podcast?

Forking Hell

  • They think I only ordered one fork

Descended From Royalty

  • I took the kids to eat at Taco Bell and we met a stranger

San Diego Trip

  • We flew to San Diego
  • I made a recording just outside the airport terminal

At The Company Holiday Party

  • I sat down at the table for the holiday party and it turned out to be the adult table because the CSO sat across the table and the CEO sat down next to me. Which was kind of *gulp*-inducing but they were nice people and they listened to me when I told them how great my wife was.
  • The people at the company have an impressive track record of creating medicines.
  • I saw the lab and it was a big glassed in structure at the core of a long rectangular one story building in San Diego
  • I flew back, and they swabbed and frisked me again. The TSA guy said to clean my brace with rubbing alcohol next time.

Our Holiday Party

ABV 30%+

Booze Only Yankee Swap

1980s STYLE

Someone brought Peach Brandy to the Booze Only Yankee Swap and that created a minor kerfuffle. It was the fourth time we’ve had this party.

GARBLED FLYER

The graphic design program spat out this garbled flyer and we can post it here because it doesn’t list our address, or anything at all, really- it just says, “in” over and over.

alternate flyer
spiced roasted pretzels and pecans
Trading Up

I put in a bottle of Beefeater gin and I ended up with a bottle of Don Julio tequila. My wife traded a bottle of Cazadores for a bottle of Glenfiddich so it was a pretty good exchange for both of us and we very nearly felt bad about it.

  • Someone brought peach Brandy to the booze only Yankee swap and that created a minor kerfluffle
  • Lebovitz spiced nuts & pretzels were a hit. Next time, spicier
  • The hot dogs

San Francisco SymphonyYouth Orchestra Holiday Concert

  • We took the kids to see the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra at Davies Symphony Hall. I used my chair and it was totally lucky that we got a handicap space just two blocks away. But, we hadn’t charged the chair.
  • We were there to see Kaito play the violin and we had pretty good seats in the first balcony at stage right. We had a good view looking down over the orchestra, and from our seats you look the conductor in the face as they played.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Subscribe

Pot Roast and Polenta

cover
Working in the kitchen, making dinner, simple syrup, roast beets, and more.

Welcome to What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast S6, Ep. 44 “Pot Roast and Polenta”

In this episode, I cook pot roast and polenta. Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the kitchen, laying low and taking care of my self. I’m having some anxiety but I’m trying to work with it. I’m taking a plane trip to SoCal and having a holiday party at my house later this week, so it makes sense that I am a little stressed.

There’s a lot of killer sound effects ion this weeks episode including people booing, laughing and cracking whips among many other cool sound effects like boing boxes and xylophones.

In the Kitchen

  • last night we had pot roast and polenta. the pot roast braised at a low temp in the oven with the lid cracked
  • Pot roast guidance came from The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.
  • Tincanfish.com is free shipping for the month of December

What’s going on in the world

Feelings

  • I am feeling some anxiety
  • I don’t have a therapist any longer because mine retired and moved to arizona
  • I think it is connected to reinventing myself now that i am pain free and off anticonvulsed medication
  • Handsome selfie from Thanksgiving autopsy made everything better?

Kitchen yoga

  • I cleaned the drip tray on the grill and there was a lot of sour Smelling coagulated turkey fat

At the station

  • I drove to KFJC and I filed Some record reviews

Cooking while disabled

  • I made beef pot roast
  • Simple syrup with a teeny bit of corn syrup
  • And roast beets
  • I made a drink with absinthe, gin, meyer lemon, and syrup

There’s that

  • I told my wife at least we didn’t have to pay for tattoo removal
  • Peeps r a big trip

This week’s selfie

selfie
Gilfoyle shirt

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Subscribe

Podcast (hotmops): Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

Thanksgiving Autopsy

Thanksgiving Autopsy cover
Thanksgiving is over, happened and done but BBQ parts are still in the mail. We smoked the turkey.

Welcome to What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast S6, Ep. 43 “Thanksgiving Autopsy”

In this episode, it finally happened. Thanksgiving is over and it went fairly well after all, even though the rotisserie parts never arrived. We adjusted more or less successfully by smoking the turkeys. It took a little longer because of the slower cooking method, but it was tasty, and we had enough appetizers to tide everyone over until the food was ready. Let’s conduct the Thanksgiving Autopsy in order to find out what really happened.

It Happened

  • “Hello, and welcome to What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast-Phone! Dial 1 for the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast.”

Shout Outs

dad bod rap pod logo

Soylent Green Is People

cannabis cannibals film poster
A film by Vampa
  • My son was confused about the difference between cannabis and cannibalism. He was terrified when he saw a pot club called Have A Heart

“Frosty’s So Saucy“

  • FOMO the Snowman is something that I have sung about when I was stressed out, in the run up toThanksgiving for example

Let’s conduct a Thanksgiving Autopsy

  • Thanksgiving is happening, in fact it happened. We made a lot of stuff.
  • We smoked the Turkey because we didn’t get parts in time, and it took quite a while, because smoking is a slow method of cooking. It tasted okay but it wasn’t quite what I was going for. Next year, I want to get the bird on thte table around 1 P.M.

IRL

  • I applied for a job.

Are You Gonna Go My Way?

Pepper Show Thanksgiving Episodes

I made a couple of Thanksgiving episodes over the break and I pinned the audio to the end of this week’s episode. Here’s the video from the Hoppin Hot Sauce YouTube channel.

What are you doing for Thanksgiving?
How is your Thanksgiving going?

This Week’s Selfie

thanksgiving autopsy selfie
Selfie

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Subscribe