Tag Archive for: music

stream of consciousness narrative cover

Potty Mouth DJ

Delving deeper into what AI says I already do, I present to you, “Stream Of Consciousness Narrative.”


The “What’s The Matter With Me?” podcast is a stream-of-consciousness narrative where the host, John, shares updates and thoughts on various topics that are currently on his mind. In this episode, John talks about a range of subjects, including his recent visit to urgent care, his experience with physical limitations due to multiple sclerosis, and his creative work on fundraising ads for a local radio station. He also mentions listening to the “Iowa’s Newsworthy Past” podcast, gives a shoutout to his friend George Chen, who runs a music distribution platform, and reflects on the nature of his podcast as a support mechanism. Throughout the episode, John’s narrative style is reflective and personal, touching on both humorous and serious topics.

Artificial intelligence

I like that, “reflective and personal.” I’m starting to think that AI really gets me. Enough claptrap, let’s dive right in.

Is it a population thing

Oklahoma and North Dakota have the fewest listeners to this podcast. California and New York have the most.

Quit/Nah

I am thinking about ending the podcast, what do you think? Use the contact form on whatsthematterwithme.org. Scratch that, if things seem bad, I’m going to think they’re worse. I’ll take no action.

Funky Worm

From Beyond The Grave

essential vonnegut caedmon

Listening to the Kurt Vonnegut interview cd from the back of my wife’s old crashed car, he discusses how making a play is like getting yourself a new family. Listening to it, I felt that it related to how volunteering at KFJC provided support at a time when I had changed my lifestyle. I had moved from Brooklyn, to East San Jose, and I was looking for a new scene.

Thee Song Candidate

Shout out to Rocky who wrote in saying she dug the new theme song candidate from last episode, “Goru.” I admit that it was heavily influenced by if not completely derivative of The Body & OAA, but maybe that isn’t a bad thing.

In Between The Lines Of Age

Having my doctors tell me that my leg is useless or that my hand is paralyzed reminds me of when my kids used to say, “You can’t use your hand”, and then I would put a piece of paper in it. And say, “what about this?”

Listening without intention

Iowa’s Newsworthy Past is a podcast with about 200 episodes consisting of readings from pretty old Iowa newspapers. You can listen to it really hard or you can zone out and let time and space melt away.

Acquiring Legitimacy

George Chen’s Zum Audio Vol 5 compilation was on bandcamp radio last week and that’s a pretty big deal even for an accomplished polymath gadfly like George.

last day of summer at the jelly belly factory cover

Welcome to “Last day of summer at the Jelly Belly factory” on What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast. I asked my artificial intelligence tool what this episode was about, and it summarized it thusly:

The main idea of this episode is a stream of consciousness narrative where you share updates on various topics, including your experiences visiting a Jelly Belly factory, your interest in music, your thoughts on different sayings and maxims, an accident where you hit your head and had to get staples, and some personal reflections and anecdotes. The episode covers a range of topics and thoughts that are currently on your mind.

Without further ado…

Reggae bible study

Have you been studying your reggae bible? I haven’t, but on Dj Robert Rankin’s Solid Foundation reggae show I heard the lyric, “The race is not for the swift, but who can endure.” I googled it, and it’s from the Bible, a riff on Ecclesiastes chapter 9, verse 11.

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Ecclesiastes 9.11

This could relate to people in wheelchairs, who aren’t very fast, but who have the strength to endure what is happening to them.

Hotter than rats in a sack

The family went to Fairfield and Suisun City for the kids’ last day of summer break. It was 98 degrees in Fairfield, but the Jelly Belly factory was climate-controlled.

Afterwards, we went to Retroactive Records and Games in Suisun City.

More Maxims

Mean what you say and say what you mean.
Those who say don’t know, and those who know don’t say.
Smile now, cry later.

Pile it up high

They put me on a medication that causes drowsiness and I’m like add it to the pile. Thankfuilly, that was last week and now I’m off it. Meanwhile, I am working on reordering the shoes in my correct size, but its not exactly going smoothly.

To top it off, my AFO brace is still broken and tough to walk in. Trying to get up, I fell and hit my head and cut myself. After some cajoling, I went to the ER and got four staples. I admit that I’m glad I did. Next week, I’ll go in to the office and get them removed.

New music adds

Looking over the list, I can see that this week’s music run-down is guaranteed to freak out the squares. Nine Inch Nails do soundtracks, Portishead stepped on a Lego, Gravy Train go up-market, and extreme hardcore vocal interplay – this week’s music adds have a little bit of something for everybody. Don’t let your life go silent.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Original Score) by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

Enemy of Love by The Body & OAA

No Jack Swing by Brontez Purnell

CHOKE! SPLIT by XGRIFOX

This Week’s Selfie

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COVER

Welcome to “Chew On That”, an episode about new music, barbecues, and the cultural differences between cafes and diners

Best Sauce

Hoppin Hot Sauce Original Flavor

Check it out:
Hoppin Hot Sauce is on Amazon

News flash:
It’s the best sauce In the world

Big Up Listener

  • Shoutouts to Rocky
  • Shout outs to the people who listen to every episode

Boom Roasted

  • We needed to order another Filter for the ice Maker and bang i did it

Trip to the Cathedral

Tom's restaurant
Right around the corner
  • This is a podcast about nothing because i’m from the Seinfeld era

Ritual Hazing Absent Father

  • I had Dad drink cucumber skin juice
  • He grimaced. and we laughed and pointed at him

First Detroit Based Art Gallery And Studio For Disabled Artists

Progressive Art Studio Collective (PASC), a program of Services to Enhance Potential,  is seeking funding to complete the build out of our future Detroit Gallery and Studio in LANTERN. If PASC raises $50,000 by August 5, we will win a matching grant through MEDC’s Public Spaces Community Places initiative.

Sausages On Display

  • We hosted BBQs on July 4th & 5th
  • I’m an extrovert and my wife is an introvert
  • For the 4th we had sausages and ssteak
  • On the fifth, we ate hamburgers

MUSIC RUNDOWN

Sonny Rollins & Leonard Cohen
Ghast “O Akhea Rheon”

Kids are into this

Purchased the catalogue

$0.15/release

This Week’s Selfie

chew on that selfie
Chew on that selfie

GET THE SELFIE

Every time we release an episode

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Welcome to “Disability and Obscenity” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

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Is disability obscene? Coverage of Michael J. Fox and Sen. Dianne Feinstein has me examining implicit connections between disability and obscenity.

People with advanced degrees can stomach the summary

  • Shout outs to Doctor Kathryn- she appreciates the summaries because they’re quick to read
  • Because she’s a doctor and they only get 15 minutes to do everything

Hah!

  • Finding humor in adversity makes it easier

Not Sick Anymore

  • Temperature report

24 Hour Meth Rave

  • Sonny Rollins met up with Sartre on his 1966 European tour
  • When he came back to New York City he could often be found at the jazz loft on the fifth floor at 89 East Broadway

The Emperor And The Caveman

  • I grilled a boneless ribeye, it came out perfect and it was a relief to eat it without the kids, who eat in opposing styles that are less than ideal in different ways

Navigating disability in public

Roosevelt remained paralyzed from the waist down and relied on a wheelchair and leg braces for mobility, which he took efforts to conceal in public.

From the Wikipedia entry “Paralytic illness of Franklin D. Roosevelt”

This Week’s Selfie

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disability and obscenity selfie
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Welcome to “Five Nights of Sweating” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

A fever that doesn’t seem to want to go away; new music around the house; some terrible food. Maybe we can make the time pass quicker if we go to a grind core festival.

Is not wanted

  • I’ve got a fever that kept coming back

Word

  • What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast is sponsored by Hoppin Hot Sauce— it’s the best sauce in the world! hoppin hot sauce is on amazon so anyone can eat it with hash browns and and English muffin-egg sandwiches with or without cheese but definitely with Hoppin Hot Sauce

Feeling feverish

  • For the first 3 nights it was up around 102-103 F
  • In addition to Tylenol, I started taking Advil as a fever reducer, then I woke up covered in sweat with a normal temperature
  • Then the next day it would began again
  • I had an epiphany to drink Gatorade

Catching up with Sonny

  • Sonny Rollins has got a mohawk, where i’m at in Saxophone Colossus
  • At his shows, he came out with the cowboy hat, then he would take that off and had the mohawk underneath

Burnin’ Up

  • I sweat through the sheets for the 4th night in a row
  • Disgusting: I smelled like a case of unwashed grapefruit with a sour whiff of spoilage or maybe more than that
  • As if someone left me in the back hall, not in the fridge. by the dumpster near some unnamed liquid.
  • I need a clean up

New Music

On the fifth night

  • I sweat through the bed on the fifth night and woke up drenched yet again

Grim

  • In frustration at not being able to cook for myself, I took the reins at dinner
  • I ended up making fried gnocchi with spinach, Garlic, tomato, cream, a can of sardines
  • It could have used acid like lemon juice or vinegar to offset the tinned fish. There was a lot of cream though
  • It was terrible. the kids wouldn’t eat it.
  • I thought to myself, “It is making your nails stronger and increasing your hair’s tensile ability”

Made it through

  • On the sixth night the fever evaporated and I woke up mostly dry

Grind core for the whole family

  • Gilman is hosting the Fast, Wierd and Freaky Festival this weekend
  • It’s all ages
  • I might still be a little too tired plus John John is maybe not ready
  • Maybe he’s not even ready to hear the band lineup read aloud

Dad Butt Dials Me

  • Dad is butt dialing me again
  • We watched John Voight & Jane Fonda in Coming Home

This Week’s Selfie

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After Five Nights Of Sweating
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Welcome to “Burnin’” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

In this episode, I’m still recovering from my last rhizotomy procedure, managing to get to get new footwear, and get out to a show in my wheelchair

Burn Victim

  • Chemical Burns melt your flesh.
  • I have 5 Burns about as big as a dime each.
  • I am using Medihoney, and I was initially confused by the name

They Look Like Sneakers

  • I got new shoes to wear when I’m on my wheelchair. For the past couple of years I’ve been using Minnetonka
  • I’m switching to white Vans slip-ons

Tiitration Blues

  • I am scared that if I reduce medication that the pain will come back.
  • But I need to reduce the medication so I can enjoy my life.

William Parker’s New Heart Trio

  • I rode my wheelchair to see the bassist William Parker (71) at the chapel
  • In the New Heart tTio with William Hooker (76) and Isaiah Collier (23)
  • My buddy Joe was the driver

Titration Blues, Pt. 2

  • I reduced my medication and the pain came back in the night

Parting Shots

  • I need a new butt cushion for my wheelchair
  • My son is at home because he has Covid
  • Max Headroom was a guy wearing a mask

This week’s selfie

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Burnin’
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Welcome to “Rolling Around The TL” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

Lots of people use wheelchairs in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, a pretty rough area between Union Square and Civic Center

Shout outs

  • Shout outs to rocky
    • she’s listened to every episode
  • Shout outs to the people listening through the past episodes
  • Send me a n email via the contact form and I will give you a shout out that is quite possibly the best one you’ve ever received and the maybe best that you ever WILL receive

Dad Butt

  • Dad butt-dialed me again

Travels by wheelchair

RF Rhizotomy Number 2

  • Had trigeminal neuralgia face pain 5am Wednesday morning & had more drugs,, surgery one day away
  • I had surgery and have been clear from major pain since then. But I am still on pain drugs.
  • My nose has triggered some zaps but they are lesser in intensity than they had been, with the caveat I’m still on some medication

I Can Go Down

  • My AFO brace is broken and it’s very hard to walk.
  • I have to walk all on my heel, and if I put my weight on the outside of my foot or on the front Of my foot I can go down.

Rolling Around The TL

ride in rotary park
  • I went to the deerhoof show in my wheelchair
  • Rolling in the TL, I saw a lot of wheelchairs, but mine was the only one that was electric
  • We ate at Osha Thai which was accessible, a blast from the past, and sadly due for an upgrade
  • We got into the car after midnite- Rock & Roll!
  • I called ahead to the Great American to let them know I’d be coming in my chair, they reserved me a table behind a pillar against the wall. It had poor visibility, but decent sound
  • I started focusing on the audience. Nowadays people wear their pants wider and hemmed higher

This Week’s Selfie

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Rolling Around The TL Selfie

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Welcome to “Multiplex and Talent Show” on the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast

This week, I used my wheelchair to go to the multiplex in Dublin and the talent show in the auditorium at my children’s elementary school. The movie we saw was “Inside” with Willem Dafoe and the elementary school talent show had a few truly bizarre, fun memorable moments.. Using my wheelchair made it possible.

Spicy Nut and Pretzel Mix

  • Whipped up the David Lebovitz snack mix because our dinner guest brought an extra pie. I think you could say it was burnt, but it’s still so addictive that it didn’t matter – it all gets eaten every time

Welcome in

Big Blood

At the Multiplex

  • I went to the Regal Hacienda Crossing Spaceport in Dublin. It is a multiplex at an outdoor mall
  • Shout out to Anjela the hair-cutter who told me she went to movies there when she was in high school
  • I went with Nami to the movie in my wheelchair. I like going to the multiplex in a wheelchair because multiplexes are big and huge and I don’t know if I’d be able to make it otherwise
  • We saw the movie Inside with William Defoe
  • It’s about an art burglar who gets trapped inside a smart house which more-or-less tortures him and features the destruction of millions of dollars worth of of art and furniture.

Kids Got Talent

  • I went to the children’s talent show in my wheelchair, but beforehand i emailed ahead of time to ask if they would save a space for me, which was no problem. they saved a space for me at the front of the room and a really sweet girl wearing a tap outfit helped me to get settled
  • There were great embarrassing song and dance routines, solo Hamilton, martial arts, gymnastic cartwheels I & II, Water Under The Bridge interpretive dances and SO much more. It was more interesting than I thought it would be.
  • My son told me he had a crush on a girl who did a gymnastic routine. When his mom asked why, he said it was because she “ran really fast”
  • “A pint is a pound the world around”
Indie rockers weigh in

Only one thing left

  • subscribe to the whatsthematterwithme podcast and you’ll get a very fancy nice email version of the podcast every time a new episode comes out its very handsome be sure to click subscribe right at the top of the page, just a name and your email is all we need to get goin and then youll always get the selfie

This Week’s Selfie

selfie
In the studio
car accident cover

I got in a car accident where I got rear ended, wasn’t injured and the insurers agreed that I was not at fault. This is a blender episode, with lots of little segments that all go in there.

Blender Episode

This episode contains lots of different segments, all going into the blender like fruit goes into the smoothie.. Stay tuned for lurid stories of rampaging young adults and their dangerous car accidents, but let’s start our blender episode back in the 1990s at Jamba Juice.

Juicy Tale

  • Do you go to Jamba Juice? My first thought was that I went there in the nineties, and that I don’t go there anymore.
  • Kind of like Noah’s Bagels, I feel like Jamba Juice belongs to the 90s the way Orange Julius belongs to the 80s
  • But I go there all the time because like El Pollo Loco, you can trust it, if you don’t trust anything, Jamba juice will feed me I get the peanut butter smoothie
  • Jamba Juice was originally called juice club
  • Began in San luis obispo in 1990
  • It was renamed in 1995.
  • In 1995, founder Kirk Perron swapped out Juice Club for Jamba Juice, which is a play on the African word, jama, which means “to celebrate.”

Music & Culture Festival

  • Like Carijama, the dormant Caribbean music and culture festival in Oakland’s Mosswood Park
  • Ended in violence every year 2001-4 after existing since 86

Making The Scends

  •  I have been using lent as an excuse to go to the fried fish place in San Leandro on 14th street Scends

Crate Digging Expedition

Session In Paris

  • Masahiko Togashi was a jazz drummer who sustained a spinal injury in 1970.
  • After his injury, Togashi had a custom drum set adapted so he could play drums using only his hands
  • At Stacks, I found a copy of 1979s Togashi / Cherry / Haden “Session in Paris – Song of Soil” with a picture of Togashi in his wheelchair on the back, something I haven’t seen very often on a record, so I bought it right away.
  • If you’re looking for a copy, they’re on Bandcamp

Pole Cane Stick

  • Got a new walking stick made of carbon fiber, the old one was aluminum.
  • The weight difference is like picking up a twig vs. blade of grass

Creative Destruction

I was on vacation in Palm Springs, Calif., on Nov. 7, 2021, when I awoke with the cacophony of a dozen dial-up modems blaring inside my head. Confused and alarmed, I called out to a friend staying in the room next door and could hardly hear my own voice. When he responded, I heard almost nothing at all.

The reason for my sudden hearing loss and the persistent ringing in my ears wasn’t immediately obvious, to me or to the emergency room doctor who examined me that morning. I hadn’t stood too close to the speaker at a concert or hit my head in some traumatic accident. I simply had gone to sleep with my hearing intact and, come morning, it was gone.

My life since that day has been difficult to describe, though the words I return to most often are “disorienting” and “humbling.” I spent months shuffling from one medical specialist to the next for a battery of tests and treatments. I eventually started wearing hearing aids and learning American Sign Language. And, perhaps most challenging of all, I confronted a new identity — disabled — that often leaves me feeling vulnerable.

At first, I also felt very alone. No one hands you a guidebook when one of the fundamental senses on which you innately rely is revoked without warning. Even the most attentive physicians are primed to focus on your physical symptoms, not the upheaval that a sudden impairment brings to your personal and professional life, nor the erosion it causes to your sense of self.

Steven Overley, “I had decades to make peace with my sexuality. My disability is a different story.” NY Times Subscriber-only newsletter (EXCERPT)
  • Acquiring a disability feels like forced creative destruction
  • Steven Ozerkey was guest writer for Frank Bruni’s newsletter last week and shared his perspective on acquiring a disability

‘Eyesight Compromised. Could Go Blind’

There is virtue in stoicism, but there is also danger in what strong people can hide. His own situation has made him even more keen to understand the other whose public face contradicts a private suffering. He proposes that each person should have a sandwich board listing her pain and how she adapts: “Imagine that our hardships, our hurdles, our demons, our pain were spelled out for everyone around us to see.” Bruni’s sandwich board would read: “Eyesight compromised, could go blind.”

You ask, why announce your troubles? Doesn’t everyone have something? “Well, yes. Tell us anyway,” I think Bruni would reply. Maybe if we knew, we might slow down, turn and fumble toward each other. Perhaps, then I could say that you’re not alone, and I’m rooting for you, because I am.

Min Jin Lee
  • Reading Min Jin Lee’s review of The Beauty Of Dusk by Frank Bruni, his account of impaired vision after suffering a stroke

AI Still Not Perfect

  • I asked openAI to summarize my podcast, and it said @johnleeclark hosted it, which isn’t true I host it. I appreciated the compartisom, and I’ll keep my eye on Clark, a DeafBlind poet.
Approach
By JOHN LEE CLARK

I spin around in the middle of the corridor. My cane taps against four elevator doors. I have pressed both the up and down buttons because there is a fifth elevator door. If I tried to tap all five I would come to closing doors too late. Let the fifth door open to a ghost. Let it be confused and close again.

Source: Poetry (December 2021)

RIP Judy Heumann

  • RIP Judy Heumann, who passed away on Saturday March 4, 2023 at 75 years old
  • She changed the way we think about disability, or the better. What an inspiration

Chimpanzeeing it

  • Since I got my teeth back I’m having to learn to use them to pull things into my mouth and not my lips. For the moment i’m kinda chimpanzeeing it

Shout outs

  • Shoutouts to Claude Hopper – congratulations on being awarded the Sal 9000 spot, Saturday mornings 6-9AM PST on 89.7FM kfjc.org. To get the ball rolling, I request Tapper Zukie

In the kitchen

  • Made a simplified meatloaf & cheesy polenta

Disabled Japan

  •  In Japan for example, it isn’t said that, “I am hot.” Instead you might say “Heat, there is.” It’s a group culture, which ios different from the West, where we live in an individually-oriented culture. In light of this, I have to reorient myself and figure out for myself.
  • How to exist as a disabled person in Japan? Rather than saying, “I am a disabled person, and they will accommodate me.”

Youth Gone Wild

  • I got rear ended and although it wasn’t my fault (the guy in front showed down, then I showed down, then I got rear ended) by a 20 year old driving his parents BMW which sustained a lot of front end damage
  • The kid jumped out of the car, cursing, yelling. At himself, not me, but it’s freaky when people start doing that, because it feels like they could turn it on you att any moment. But it was cool. I was bigger than him and an adult.
  • I am always afraid when I get in a car accident that somehow it’s going to lead to me having my driver’s license taken away, because I’m disabled.
  • I thought back to the Positive experience I had in the Hayward DMV, And I thought to myself, “I am totally allowed to be here,” and it got me through

Youth Gone Wild Pt. 2

You made it this far

  • Subscribe to the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast and you’ll get a very fancy nice email version of the podcast every time a new episode comes out, it’s very handsome, be sure to click subscribe right at the top of the page, just a name and your email is all we need to get goin and then you’ll always get the selfie

This Week’s Selfie

selfie
Accident Survivor
Smooth Like Lotion

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

In this mini-episode, we check out a new candidate for the theme song for Season 8, a song called “Lotion”, because it’s a smooth song, smooth like lotion is. Kind of G-funk, smoothed out 90s thing. Maybe it will be the theme song for next season.